Kids on the Grow

Food for Thought

2010-12-02T13:14:00.005-06:00

Did you know that the word educate comes from the Latin word "educare". This word means to draw out something that is within. Mmmmmm..... So in educating our children we should remember we are drawing out their gifts and intelligences in teaching them. Instead of pounding something in:)

Elsie

Daily Devotionals for Kids

2010-04-12T22:05:00.004-05:00

Last night my daughter and I were reading out of her new book:

We love this book!! I bought it for her because my sweet friend Leslie over at The Campbells Make Soup blogged about it and so we ordered the one for my daughter above and the one for boys:

This book is set up so nicely. It has a bible verse on the top of the page, then a real world story about the topic. At the bottom of the page is a prayer and then an activity. Last night my daughter and I read the story about being humble. It told a story about a child who was bragging and how no one wanted to play with that person. We talked about it and then we were done. Today after co op my daughter said, "Mommy, I need to tell you something." She told me that a child in her classes came into the room bragging about how her shoes were prettier than my daughters. I asked my daughter how she responded. She told me that she just walked away from the girl and acted like she didn't hear her. I was so proud of her. I am so glad that this book has us talking about all these real life situations and help her to prepare how to deal with it. By the way, my son and daughter can't wait for me and my husband to read out of these books every night!!:)

Breastfeeding

2010-04-05T22:44:00.002-05:00

Yes, I'm a homeschooler, a breastfeeder and an all around "granola" person. I am pro health instead of pro medicine. In raising my little ones I have discovered the benefits of the "right" vitamins and diet in keeping them healthy. It seems like in doing the right things up front we don't have all the fires to put out on the back end. Doctors offices are filled with people that they are putting out fires for. Maybe if they educated themselves and others on prevention their offices wouldn't be so full. Maybe we would have an epidemic of health:) Wouldn't that be wonderful. Today, I read this article and it sounded like, maybe, medical professionals might be trying to head people in the right direction. It is a little sad though, God and our bodies have known this was the right way to give our babies the best nutrition, but for some reason society has turned away from it. I pray that it comes back.

Breastfeeding would save lives and money

God Boxes

2010-03-17T20:53:00.004-05:00

We visit my Mom's house on a weekly basis and when we went this week she had a project waiting for us:) She had purchased some unfinished bird houses, paint, and other items to stick on or glue on. She explained to me that these are for the kids to put their worries that they want to give to God. Whenever they have a concern or worry they can write it down(with assistance) and "give it to God". I just love this!!! What a great scrapbook of their thoughts!

Here's some other great pic's of them working on their masterpieces.

Daddy helps out too!!

Chore Charts

2010-03-03T22:20:00.004-06:00

I have been having my kids do chores every morning and night for a long time. Lately, I have noticed the same argument morning and night. "Did you make your bed?, Did you clean your room", etc. I decided to take pictures of the kids doing their jobs and then paste the pictures on poster board. Next to the picture I have typed the chore and then placed a velcro piece where they place their graphic after they have completed it. Wow!! It has been working amazing:) They love the pictures of themselves and they take such pride in completing it. It has also given them independence. They no longer need Mommy nagging... Whew!! Thank Goodness!!

I also did the same thing for our school lessons. I made one for both kids, but here is Halle's.

Homeade Valentine Treats

2010-02-16T22:51:00.006-06:00

Here is my sweet little girl working on her Valentine's flowers. We got this idea from Family Fun magazine, but changed it up a little. We just cut out flower and leaf shapes. Then Halle signed her name on all the leafs and taped them to the flowers. I had pre poked holes through the flowers so she could push through the lollipop. She was very proud of her work. That was a great thing about the kids creating their own Valentine's. They were so proud of themselves!!

As far as homeade adult treats the kids and I made truffles, chocolate dipped strawberries and cherries. We gave these out to friends and family:) If you could have only seen my kitchen!!! We did enjoy ourselves... The truffles were strawberry shortcake and were sooo easy!! The truffles first step was making the inside mix. It was pound cake, strawberry puree, orange zest, and melting chocolate. (Make sure and click on the link for the exact recipe)

Then we had to chill the mix until it got doughy so we could make little balls out of it.

Then we put the little balls in the freezer to harden so they could be dipped in the melting chocolate. And here's what we made....

We also dipped cherries in chocolate, but we used real cherries (not canned). The only trick was getting it back together after taking out the seed. I figured out if used a toothpick to hold them back together and then dipped them in the chocolate it came out beautifully!!

One thing we have decided is that next year the kids are not giving out food for valentines to their friends. There are too many sweets being passed around and with all the Valentine's parties that we had that week there was way too much!!!! I am on the look out for cute non food ideas. We did get some homeade playdoh from one friend and that was sweet:)

Valentine's Crafts

2010-02-05T23:39:00.010-06:00

We spent today making our Valentine's boxes with some friends for our Valentine's party that is coming up next week. Didn't they come out sooo cute!! The boxes on the outside with the bears came from DLTK and the orange monster on the inside came from the February Family Fun issue. The big flower was my daughter's own idea. Of course, we were all prepared to make a cat that was also in the Family Fun magazine next to the monster, but as we began she changed her mind. Halle told me that cats were for Halloween so she was going to make a flower. Here's a better look at her box:)

And a close up of the others:

Carter and I also worked on his Valentine's that he will be giving out to his preschool friends. We decided to make monster trucks out of candy!!! What do you think?

We just hot glued 2 mini candy bars together and then one in the opposite direction on top. Then we added four rolos to the bottom for the "monster truck wheels"! Carter loved them, but he did ask if we were going to make a steering wheel too! As you can tell from the pics we did not... I explained to him that our view was of the outside of the truck. We are still going to add a catchy little tag with one of the following phrases: I never "tire" of your friendship or Have a "smashing" Valentine's day! Neither of these are my ideas, a friend of mine found them on the internet:) Here they are all wrapped up waiting for the tag..

BTW (by the way) I got inspired to make something out of the candy from the Family Fun Magazine. There was a picture sent in from a Mom who made tractors out of candy for her sons birthday. I thought the idea was really creative, but too much candy for Valentine's. After playing with the candy for a little while we came up with our Monster Truck creation!!

I will be posting Halle's Valentine's soon!! She is making flowers!! Of course, to match her box:)

Word Search

2010-02-02T09:05:00.003-06:00

I am currently teaching a social studies class for our homeschool co op. It is a K-2 class. I have been "loosely" using the Galloping the Globe curriculum. We are still in the geography part and not to the country studies yet. I have been using a fun new website to get the kids familiar with the new vocabulary. I go to puzzle maker
and create word searches for the kids with a couple of new words. I like how I get to choose the amount of rows and which direction the words are going to be hidden. I then cut and paste it into a word document and change the font size to be appropriate for the age group. I have really seen improvement in my daughter's retention of the new vocabulary and it gives her a fun practice in finding letters and noticing the letters that come together to make the word. Too often at this age we have kids just memorizing words without being able to use any phonics skills. A balanced approach is extremely important so they don't start to fumble when the "real" decoding comes along in second or third grade. Here is an example of one of the word searches I created for our studies of the oceans.

Oceans Word Search

Science Experiments

2010-01-14T08:17:00.008-06:00

We started getting back on our regular routine after the holidays last week and we decided to kick off our day with science. It really motivated the kids and got them excited about getting back to school!

We had received this kit as a gift for my daughter's birthday and have used it several times to make the colored crystals. This kit comes with a book that gives all sorts of different experiments. The one we tried the first morning was with milk, colored tablets, and soap. We first poured enough milk into a plate to just cover it without it spilling over. Then we added colored tablets in different sections of the plate and allowed it to dissolve. The longer it dissolves the better the experiment works.

After we watched it dissolve (as long as we possibly could), we took a toothpick and put liquid soap all over the tip and dipped it in the center of the plate.

The colors start dancing and blending together rapidly making a pretty cool experiment to watch. The kids enjoyed it and it started our day off great!

Our new school room

2010-01-04T14:38:00.007-06:00

We have been working on making our fourth bedroom in our house into a study and playroom/schoolroom for the kids. The first step was cleaning out all the toys and storing all the school stuff in the closet. I posted all of that earlier and now I am going to post pics of the rest of the room. I was going to post it all perfect and clean but I decided to show it to you how it really looks:) Kids working and all!!

I still have to hem the curtains, as you can tell in the picture:) And there is a box next to the desk that is not put together yet. It is a small file cabinet that matches the desk. Either way, we love the new space and the kids enjoy all the fun projects and messes we are constantly working on in there. We decided to put a sleeper sofa in there also for use as a guest room when needed.

Fireproof

2009-12-27T19:40:00.003-06:00

My husband and I were lucky enough to get a great book recently. It is the Love Dare book. We are doing it together as a book study. This book is really insightful and has so many benefits for all stages of marriage. We watched the movie that involves this book, Fireproof, and it was heart wrenching to me. I cried my eyes out....It is important to always guard all the aspects of our family and by constantly nurturing our marriage we are becoming better parents and teachers for our children. I know that my children are watching us to learn how to develop healthy life-long relationships and I want to give them a great example to follow:)

Socialized

2009-12-16T16:21:00.004-06:00

Check out this article from The Washington Times on Sunday, December 13, 2009.

Homeschooling: Socialization Not a Problem

It's funny, but I actually homeschool so that my kids are socialized. I think they are learning and acquiring more social skills now than they are in an institutionalized setting. My kids interact with more children and their families at all age levels and get to learn from all the great experiences we enjoy in our homeschool group. If I had to go back to work tomorrow and put my kids in public school that would be fine, but I know that for the time being, I am able to give them something better. For that, I am very grateful:)

Story Problems

2009-12-08T16:03:00.007-06:00

My daughter is working on the Horizons curriculum for math and while we like it, I am always finding ways to make it more hands on and meaningful to my little learner.

Here is what we were looking at for our daily lesson. Of course, in the teacher book it gives you explicit instructions on how to teach/review this concept before giving them this sheet for assessment. But I knew I had something better in my teacher stuff:) Why do we teach our children to add? Because we want them to know this concept in the real world. The best way to do this in math is through story problems. It allows it to become meaningful to them. And we are exercising those reading and writing skills when we have them create their own little math story problems. Here is what I used since our theme that week was insects:

Story Mats!! This one is a picnic blanket with a picnic basket on it. Notice the "compare, take away, and put together" symbols at the top. I have a little plastic spider that she is putting on the correct type of problem it is. We are only working on addition thus far, but since she is being made aware of what it is called and that there are different types of problems she will be better prepared for how to do them when we get there.

I have little laminated ants in red and brown that I give her also. I would prefer to have plastic ants instead of paper, but that's what I had on hand. So now she began acting out the problems and then writing the answer in her workbook. She also began creating some of her own story problems and guess what? They weren't all addition:) It's funny how we think they are too young for some things and they always seem to surprise us in being able to do it.

Carter saw all the fun and didn't want to miss out:) He was creating his own story problems too!

Magic Nuudles- Preschool

2009-11-30T15:51:00.006-06:00

My kids and I have found many fun learning activities for these and so today I used them in my lesson with our preschool co op.

The kids can make letter, shapes, buildings, etc. The nuudles stick to each other and to paper.

The best part about these is that they are mess free!! No glue! The only thing required is a wet sponge, or baby wipe (as I learned today). At home, I normally put a wet sponge in a bowl and let the kids dip the tip of their magic nuudle in and begin their creation. Today, at co op, I decided to just give each kid a baby wipe and this worked great too:) It doesn't require much water at all for it to stick.

I buy mine at Hobby Lobby in a big box for $4.99. There is usually some sort of coupon on line and I use that too:) Most of the time it is 40% off.

Preschool- rectangles

2009-11-12T20:14:00.008-06:00

I recently purchased a used copy of the Sing, Spell, Read and Write program for my three year old. We are really having a fun time with it! He has already made his way through all the colors and now we are on shapes. Everyday starts with collecting items that represent that shape.

I make the shape on the floor with tape and have him put the objects inside of it. Then we march around the shape to the shape song of the day. The kit came with a CD that has songs on it for every shape.

Then he begins to work on some activity sheets from the curriculum for our rectangle day. I really like how all the activity sheets are in color and they are thicker than regular printer paper. This works great for preschoolers since they can be a little tougher on the paper:) In this picture I asked him to color the rectangle.

In this activity I asked him to trace the dotted lines to make a rectangle and then color the rest of the picture like our house. I was very impressed with his ability to trace on the dotted lines. We had never done an activity like that before.

This final activity came from the teacher resource book that came in the kit. It gives more ideas for each theme and lesson. In this one that I chose he glued a cardstock rectangle on a piece of paper and traced around it.

Carter is really enjoying this curriculum and looks forward to our lessons everyday:) He likes to listen to the CD over and over and over again!

Natural Bug Repellent

2009-11-11T20:08:00.003-06:00

I am very protective of the types of mosquito repellent that I use on my family and so I thought I would share with you one recently that I have found and love. My mom got free samples of it at a conference somewhere and I had been keeping them in my "mom bag" for emergencies. Well, that happened last week at soccer practice. Both kids had practice and since it has been getting darker earlier it seems like the mosquitos are coming out sooner:( I had nothing!! Then I remembered the stored away samples and found them immediately. (Well, maybe not immediately...in fact if you know me you know that nothing turns up out of my bag that fast) I ripped open the little wipes and smeared them all over the kids. They had a very fragrant smell. I read the ingredients to discover it was the essential oils used that were giving off the smell. And did I mention it was Deet Free! My kids and I came home without any bites that night. This is really a miracle because we are usually the first to get bit. The name of the repellent is Bug Band.

Have a great week and keep the mosquito's away:)

Kindergarten Bags

2009-10-28T21:35:00.004-05:00

I like to have activities ready in bags for Halle to work on while I am working with Carter. I also want Halle to be able to have a lot of hands on experience with all of the Math concepts. It seems like she is able to grasp the concept so much faster and better when she is allowed "play time" with it. Here is one of our bags:

She has to match the picture cards above with their correct number sentence.

I used sentence strips to write these on and mine are laminated. I also want you to know that we did lots of playing with real objects to create story problems before doing an activity like this. It is important for them to first collect and count their own objects. Then begin to add their objects together and make their own number sentences. In these pictures we have moved to the next stage.

Closet Space-Works for me Wednesday

2009-10-14T15:12:00.006-05:00

BEFORE

Recently, our family had decided to renovate our office/playroom/schoolroom. This has been exciting and a lot of hard work. One of the first tasks was where to put all of our school stuff. (Do not be intimidated by the picture, I was a teacher for 5 years so I have a lot of stuff) As you can see in the picture above it was originally in bookcases in the room. It was making the room a little claustrophobic! My first job was to clean off the bookcases and sell them on craigs list and find a new home for the "stuff". We have a very nice double door closet in that room so my sweet hubby built shelves for me!! I was so excited when I saw the empty shelves in the closet. I couldn't wait to fill them up:) You can probably tell by the picture below it did not take long!

AFTER

I do want you to know that this closet was not all nice and empty before I started:) It was completely stuffed with some of the plastic bins you can see in the AFTER picture. But it seemed full... so building the shelves allowed me to get more space out of the closet. Now, I can fit all of my plastic drawers and all the stuff on the bookshelves! So, do you have any closets that need to be maximized?

Get more great Works for me Wednesday ideas from Kristin at We are that Family.

Science Museum Classes

2009-10-09T11:53:00.009-05:00

I have Halle signed up to take homeschool classes at the science museum in our area. One of the best parts is that Carter and I can wander around and look at all the exhibits while she is in class. These classes are once a month and she takes about 2 to 3 classes each time. The pictures I have are from her first day of classes. The first class was on the Terra Cotta Warriors. This was really great because I had taken my kids to see the exhibit this summer and they were both enthralled!

Her teacher actually talked to the class about digs she had been on. I thought that it was so great for her to get to learn from someone who had experienced it first hand.

The kids were each given a little cloth bag with a terra cotta warrior broken into pieces. Then they were asked to bury all the pieces in their box and trade boxes with someone else.

Next, they were given string to map off quadrons on the box just like the archaeologist does on a dig.

All of their findings in each quadron were recorded on this data sheet.

Her next class was called "Storm Science" and I did not get to see much of this class because Halle let me know that Carter and I could go if we wanted:) I took this as a hint to leave and Carter and I went off to explore the dinosaurs. This picture is the only picture I was able to take and the kids are making a water cycle wheel. It really turned out neat!

Halle's final class was animal science and I have no pictures of anything because the pick up and drop off was so fast! She was really ready to take off without me and Carter:) When I came back all the kids in the class had their hands all over different types of animals. In addition to that, the room was filled with live animals. (of course, in cages)

Preschool Co op

2009-09-28T22:00:00.002-05:00

Lately, I have been a little busier than usual:) Have you noticed I haven't blogged in almost 3 weeks!!? I have volunteered to teach a preschool co op in our homeschool group.

What is Co op? I am only telling you, my readers, as long as no one else finds out that home schoolers are SOCIAL!! Our kids go to school once a week with all of the kids their age in our group. Our group is about 160 families:) We hosted a sign up night where parents came with their kids to sign them up for classes being offered that interested them. The classes are taught by volunteers in our group. We are lucky enough to have a local church donate their student ministry building to us for this day:) My daughter participates in this for kindergarten classes. The classes being taught go all the way to high school level... pretty amazing!! Two of the high school classes I saw being offered were Newspaper and a college prep class. The newspaper class is actually going to be responsible for a couple of our monthly newsletters:) All in all, my daughter loves it!! Today was our third time in co op and for the third time when I asked her what her favorite part of the day was she replied, "All of it!".

My son is equally loving his preschool class. I am also having a lot of fun teaching them:) The following is my lesson plan from today. The PE lesson is courtesy of Felicia over at My Family Life.

Birds

Preschool Activities

2009-09-09T14:32:00.004-05:00

Carter is still participating with me and Halle in the My Father's World Activities but I recently came across a resale copy of Sing, Spell, Read, and Write. I really love all of the activities for the preschoolers and the cute little trolley that they travel through as they learn different things. For each theme there is an activity sheet:

While I work with Carter, Halle is doing independent work. She has a folder that she gets after her morning chores and it has activities she can do by herself. Also, her book bag is in there with the books she is able to read. I encourage her to practice those daily.

After Carter and I finish I work with Halle while Carter does his independent work. Here are some of the activities he works on during this time:)

Cutting has quickly become one of his favorite activities:)

This is called an ABC arc. I used to use it with my first graders in public school. It comes from reading strategies that show the reader experiences higher reading success from completing this activity. The faster they get, the more familiar they are becoming with the letters. I just thought I would try it with Carter and he surprised me by being able to sit with it for quite awhile and was able to complete most of it:) The next level of the arc looks just like the one above but with missing letters.

Nest activities

2009-08-29T14:59:00.010-05:00

Theme: Nests, animal habitats
Bible connection: God takes good care of me
Verses: Psalm 91:1-4a, Psalm 17:8-9, 2 Thessalonians 3:3

We read A House is a House for Me by Mary Ann Hoberman which is a fun little book about where lots of different animals live. Both kids really loved the sing song sound of the words.

I had my 3 year old first match the animal pictures with pictures of their habitats. Then he glued them in a flap book.

We also made a house book. I let the children tell me which sentences they wanted on each page and I wrote them. Then they drew the pictures.

The children decorated the cover of their flapbook with a sequencing activity. I just printed out different pictures (a bird building a nest, a bird keeping eggs warm in a nest, bird feeds baby birds, and finally an empty nest) and they put them in order.

Here is a picture they made of a tree with a nest in it and a baby bird in the nest. The tree leaves were done with green paper that they tore and glued on the tree. They made the nest from yarn. Then we practiced writing "n" on dry erase boards and then wrote it on the picture. The cotton balls at the top are the clouds that both my kids love adding to their pictures:) I have to guide them into not turning the whole picture into clouds.

I am still hoping we get to make a bird's nest with twigs and mud, but we are waiting for Daddy's help:) I'm not that great with mud. MMmm... maybe I will just lay out the supply's and let the kids have a go at it. I'm sure they will have a lot of fun!

Homeade Granola Bars

2009-08-26T16:00:00.007-05:00

I love inviting my kids to help me in the kitchen and when I came across this recipe I knew they would love it! We consume granola bars frequently in our house and it is always such a challenge to find good ones:) Now, we can make our own and know what is in them. I found this recipe in my April 2009 issue of Parents magazine. The ingredients are:
1 cup granola
1 cup rolled oats
1 cup dried apricots and cranberries
1/2 cup whole wheat flour
1 egg
1/4 cup honey
1/4 canola oil
1/4 tsp cinnamon

Of course, I made a few changes:) I used 1/2 cup dried cherries and 1/2 chocolate morsels in exchange for the full cup of dried fruit. Cherries and chocolate sounded to delicious to us (and we had the ingredients in our house already). I never use canola oil, in fact, the only oil I ever have is extra virgin olive oil. So that's what we used.

Now the directions:
Line an 8x8 baking pan with foil and spritz w/ oil. In a large mixing bowl, mix granola, rolled oats, dried fruit, and flour. In another bowl whisk together egg, honey, oil, and cinnamon. Stir into granola mix and then pat batter down into pan. Bake at 325 for 30 minutes. When cool, use foil to lift from pan. Cut into bars. Store at room temperature for 3 days or freeze for up to 3 months.

Here they are freshly cut!

Then I wrapped the leftovers individually in foil so we could pack them with us on the go!!!

The granola bars were devoured in our house:) Enjoy!

"NOT" Back to school party!

2009-08-24T14:56:00.004-05:00

Today is the day that all the public schools in our area go back to school. So, our Homeschool group hosts it's annual "Not" back to school pool party! We had a blast! The kids had fun seeing all the new kids that will be in their co ops this year and the Mommy's had fun talking about all of our fun events for the year:) 2 really fun events I heard that we are having this year are : Hoe Down (country and western bbq and dance), and a Camping Trip. I am so excited about this year!!

Flashcards

2009-08-21T15:35:00.004-05:00

I have just recently made some flash cards for my children's reading binder. The My Father's world curriculum comes with the big (hang on the wall) flash cards and we are not going for that look (yet) in our dining room. So, I created these smaller ones that go along with the curriculum, but fit in a 3 ring binder. I have my kids organized by binders so I do not have tubs all over the house:) I will take a picture of the binder and post it later. These cards can also be used to make an abc book. The child glues the letter flashcard on each page and can glue other pictures that start with that same letter on the page. Or, if they are writing, they can write other words that start with that letter on the page. I'm sure there are a ton of other things that can be done with them and I look forward to hearing some ideas:)

A few notes:

The J is for jewel
The U is for us so it is blank so your child can add a picture of their family, or friends.
The X is a picture of a fox instead of the traditional xylophone. This is because fox (ks) is a more appropriate practice of the x sound (ks) in the way it will be encountered in most words.

Flashcards

lesson plans

2009-08-19T22:29:00.004-05:00

I have re worked this at least a dozen times and this is finally the format that works for our family!!! There are no time slots listed on purpose:) I tried that ...many times, but it would just stress me out when it didn't occur at that time and most of the times it didn't. So, I finally figured out we would get it done in our time, sometime throughout the day. I have been at home with my children for 3 years and we keep a pretty routine, but busy schedule. We are almost always up to something:), story hour, field trips, play dates and now we have more to add to the list. My kids will be in a co op with our homeschool group weekly and museum science classes once a month. I am basically using the My Father's World kindergarten for both kids, but modifying down for my 3 year old. I like this because we are all using the same theme!

Nest

Nest literature

2009-08-19T15:29:00.008-05:00

Here is our book list for this week:

Animal Homes by Ann O. Squire

Pepito the Brave by Scott Beck

A House is a House for Me by Mary Ann Hoberman

Whose House is this? by Elizabeth Gregoire

Wildlife Atlas a guide to animals and their habitats by John Farndon

Animal Habitats

2009-08-17T22:24:00.002-05:00

We are learning all about nests and animal habitats this week so I made this for us to use. For my 3 year old I layed out all of the animal pictures and had him put the pictures of where they live next to them. With my 5 year old we played a memory game:) It was fun for both of them. I am also going to have them make a book with the pictures. My five year old will write the animal name and habitat, but my 3 year old will paste the pictures into a book and glue the pre-printed sentences on the same page.

Animal Habitats

Organization

2009-08-12T15:14:00.008-05:00

I am using the Blue Book in the Learning Language Arts Through Literature for my 5 year old. This book is rated by the publisher as a 1st grade book, but I feel like it is appropriate for her. I am a compulsive organizer and I also change my organizing frequently as I figure out better ways. This has worked out the best for us so far:)

I am using a 3 ring binder with the clear slots in the front and back. I prefer these because they can make them personal:) The cover on ours that you see is her reading chart. As she learns to read a new book she glues a picture of the book on the chart.

The inside of the notebook is filled with dividers that have pockets. I plan my lessons a week ahead and organize everything for the week in the one pocket. Each pocket will then have a copy of the lesson (from the blue book), and all of the materials that go with each lesson attached to it with a paper clip or binder clip. On the outside of the pocket are the sight words for that week.

I do also have a large ziploc bag for Halle's book bag. This is something I learned from teaching first grade. As she adds another book to her "I can read" list she puts it in this book bag. This is something she constantly has access to. It is very important for her to practice reading the books that she is successful at over and over. It keeps her newly acquired skills fresh:) Today we brought our book bag to grandma's and had Halle pick some favorite books to read to her.

My daughter and I are really enjoying this curriculum and I feel like it really uses all the research based activities on how kids learn best:) Learning has to be meaningful, therefore literature has to be your main component when teaching your child how to read.

Handwriting Paper

2009-08-11T14:41:00.004-05:00

So... I started off this blog thinking I was going to post all these different types of handwriting paper I had found going through my old teacher stuff. Instead I decided to google "handwriting paper" and I found this awesome website with free handwriting paper, homeschool planners, calendars, household organizers, etc... Everything is FREE!!! There is so much stuff!! If you click on the handwriting tab and then preschool it has a huge amount of preschool printables for working on early handwriting skills.

Apples

2009-08-07T21:19:00.017-05:00

"If I stay in Jesus I will have much fruit" (My Father's World, kindergarten curriculum)

I started this week with letting my lil's explore all the apple books we would be reading this week:) Literature is usually always my focus everyday. (focus meaning how I bring us together and start our lesson)

Then we went on a field trip to the grocery store to buy apples. I came home with so many apples, but I knew we were going to make so many things with them!

I printed off some beautiful pictures of fruits and veggies from Homeschool Creations and had the children sort them in the pocket chart. Carter just picked out which ones were fruit like apples. Halle made patterned sentences in the pocket chart, I like ________ . (apples, cherries, etc.)

Carter sorted the apples by color and counted them. Halle told story problems with the apples. (ex. Mommy had one apple and then Halle gave her another one. How many in all?)

Finally to the cooking!!! We made apple juice with my juicer.

Then we made apple sauce. It was so simple.. saute apples, water and cinnamon. Then mash with a fork. It tasted like we were eating pie filling:)

check out what everyone else did this week at weird, unsocialized homeschoolers

Busy Boxes

2009-08-04T21:26:00.003-05:00

I have recently decided to incorporate some structure into transition times during our day. (ex. cleaning up from breakfast, lunch, mommy talking on the phone, etc.) I have bookshelves in our playroom that have baskets on them. Each basket is a home to different toys. We have a puzzle basket, crayon basket, marker basket, color wonder basket (those cool markers that only color on special paper), etc. Looking at these Sunday night inspired me to make a few baskets (or boxes) for busy box time. I started it on Monday and it went sooo well! After we ate breakfast, I set down a basket with all our new books for the week (all about apples) for the kids to look at. They did this while I cleaned up the kitchen and got ready for our lessons. Then after lunch, I put out a box with puzzles for them to work on before quiet time while I cleaned up. So what are busy boxes?? They are boxes filled with activities that you know your children can do independently and will WANT to do. This will vary for each family. I know my kids love to look at books so I knew that a box of our books for the week would be a great idea. I also think it is important that these be filled with things they do not have access to all the time. I am hoping this will be a great alternative to watching TV! This way the kids are actively engaged:) It has worked really well in our house for the past 2 days. I think they were too BUSY to even ask to watch any shows:)

Recycling-A 5 year olds perspective

2009-08-02T22:28:00.007-05:00

My kids and I have been talking about recycling a lot lately and Halle has come up with some really great ways to reuse items around our house. One example she gave me yesterday was to use the animal crackers container to hold our cookie cutters. I was impressed with her wanting to reuse things:) I couldn't wait to hear more of her ideas and how to reuse our household items.

Her most recent idea was quite innovative and had my husband and I doubled over in giggles so I had to share:) I attended a movie night with my girl friends last night and so I was not around for clean up and bedtime. When I did get home and I went to the fridge to get some water I noticed an open beer container in the fridge...mmmmmm. A little strange, I know we are on a budget and all but really?? I didn't say anything to my husband and quickly forgot. Today we came home from church and brunch exhausted and tired. Halle offered to get Daddy some ice cold water. I was sitting there folding laundry and telling her how sweet that was to get some water for Daddy. I'm in the middle of praising her when I see her come around the corner with a beer in her hand???? My husband and I both do a double take at this sight and are completely lost for words. Before I start to lecture her on touching adult drinks she begins explaining. Daddy had a beer last night and after he finished it Halle washed it out and filled it with water from the sink. She then put it in the fridge to recycle the beer container into a water bottle!!! Such innocent creativeness!!! The even funnier part was watching my husband pretend to drink it:)

Leaf unit

2009-07-31T15:24:00.013-05:00

Theme: Leaves
Letter: L
Color: Green
Bible connection: I will live and grow in Jesus
Verses-Psalm 1:1-3, Jeremiah 17:7-8, 1 John 5:12

We started our exploration by reading A Tree is Nice by Janice May Udry:)

This led us to a leaf exploration in our neighborhood.

We then made our own books about how a tree is nice.
I pre made a 3 page book and each child told me one thing
they liked about a tree on each page. I wrote their words
and they drew the picture. Then they went back and colored
after we were done drawing.

The children enjoyed counting and sizing the leaves. We figured out which ones were the biggest and smallest and we talked about which trees they came from. Then we began making leaf prints from this fun Mommy's blog, Ramblings of a Crazy Woman.

GREEN!!! Of course, this was our color for the week:) Carter made a green
book and I've decided I have got to figure out a way to make a mini green coloring book for him. The pictures that are already colored are great for sorting and matching, but I would like to make one that is for him to color. Even though this book was already colored he had a great time finger painting it green again:) Then, he (yes...on his own) found a green basket and collected green toys from his toy box. Lot's of fun!!!

Our next creation was leaf rubbings. I found it was better to tape the leaf to the back of the page so it would not move while they were coloring!

Stained Glass Leaf Pictures
This is done by having each child choose a certain amount of leaves and arrange on wax paper. Then cover with crayon shavings. Place another piece of wax paper on top and some newspaper. Iron on with low heat. Uncover and view your masterpiece!

Leaf Book
I helped them trace each leaf in a pre made book. Then I wrote the type of
leaf on each page.

Something Yummy!!
We finished it off with some of Susana's delicious homeade chocolate cupcakes at her fun blog Our Homeschool Fun!

Why Homeschool?

2009-07-28T13:27:00.004-05:00

A couple of weeks ago my husband and I were at a homeschool conference and I heard a speaker say something that really struck a cord with me. He was a retired teacher, superintendent, etc... He asked the public school teachers in the audience if they had ever finished a curriculum in a school year. I started to laugh ( I taught in public school for 5 years) and thought, of course not. He then asked the homeschool families if they finished the curriculum's they use. Of course, they all did. For starters, they paid for it and therefore were going to utilize every bit of it:) Not only once, but usually several times throughout the siblings:) Everyone in the audience was laughing by this time and I started to understand his point. At home, when we don't finish in the allotted time I continue into another week until we do finish. Life happens and things usually don't work out the way you plan them. I discovered that this is one big similarity between homeschool and public school. Except, in public school, you have to move on.. Many, many, (testing) schedules depend on it. I am so grateful that my kids are not getting caught in those gaps. We worked on leaves and "L" last week and we didn't finish. So, this week, we are still having fun with leaves!!!!!
Happy teaching and learning:)

Leaf Literature-curriculum

2009-07-23T21:33:00.004-05:00

Here are the books we are using this week for our leaf unit.

I am a Leaf by Jean Marzollo

The Usborne Complete first book of Nature

Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert

A Tree is Nice by Janice May Udry

The Giving Tree by Shel Silverstein

I am using the My Father's World Kindergarten Curriculum for my 5 year old. My three year old is following the same themes but I am finding different activities for him. I really like having the same theme for both because it makes the lessons more cohesive even though they are doing different activities. Here is my lesson plan from this week. I hope this is helpful to understand how we are doing things. (right now...subject to change frequently:)

lessononthegrow7.20-7.24

counting leaves

2009-07-20T23:48:00.003-05:00

This week we are studying leaves:) I created a little counting book for my son's lapbook and thought someone else might like it.

leaf book height="500" width="100%" > value="http://d.scribd.com/ScribdViewer.swf?document_id=17519803&access_key=key-2kx42qazn4yl7mfn52s0&page=1&version=1&viewMode=">

Preschool Corner-Moon

2009-07-18T14:22:00.013-05:00

Letter: M

Shape: Triangle, Star (review circle)

Color: Gray

Bible Connection: I am the light of the world

Matthew 5:14-16, Corinthians 3:18

Our week began with reading factual information about the moon in Space by Judy Nayer. We also read Little Bear Goes to the Moon by Else Homeland. After reading this story we used some of Mommy's fancy scrapbook punches to make circles and stars. These shapes helped us to decorate our space helmets:)

We had a lot of fun exploring the letter "M".

"Paper mosaic Mm"-write the letter with glue and have child go over it with paper pieces.

practice writing "m" on dry erase and match pictures of things that begin with "m"

Finding Gray:)

Matching pictures that are gray with a gray crayon and then coloring with the gray crayon.

Making Moon Cake

While the cake cools the marshmallows go into the cake and look just like moon craters! We also used this activity to let our light shine on others and took some cake to our neighbors:)

We re created the relative distance between the Sun, Moon and Earth. (The data on this was given to us in the My Father's World kindergarten book)

The moon is the little spec of white on the left and the earth is the green circle on the right.

Together they rotate around the Sun:)

oh yes... it took all of our yellow paper to make this(and 2 sheets of white colored yellow). The kids were very much a part of measuring with a ruler the sun, moon, and earth to make sure we followed the dimensions given to us. I even had them measure a couple of other things around the house to feel more comfortable using the ruler.

The next part is quite funny. I had the kids stand on one side of the street with the earth, and moon. I stood on the other side (we measured how far I had to stand) with the sun. This was so the kids would get a good idea of far everything is in space and the size relationships.

Moon Lapbook

The inside of our lapbook had the moon phase drawings with labels glued on, paper mosaic "M", m pocket with our m words, and our moon badge that says "I am the light of the world".

The back cover has a blank moon calendar

This is something we are still working on. We will continue to draw pictures of the moon as we see it and identify the phase it is in.

My favorite discovery: I really love how My Father's World instructed me to teach the connection between the moon and sun and Jesus and us. The moon reflects the light of the sun on the earth and we reflect the light of Jesus onto others:) Now, we are constantly asking ourselves.. How are we shining our light today?

I really hope I am shining Jesus' light onto you by sharing our adventures!

Moon Phases

2009-07-14T12:48:00.006-05:00

The kids were really able to grasp a lot after viewing these clips..... many, many times! They love the music in the first one and the second one does a great job of showing the sun, moon, and earth all together. You could also have the kids draw the moon phases (full moon, crescent moon, half moon, and new moon) with a white crayon on black paper and hold them up to match the phase in the video as it occurs. For younger ones, you could draw and have them match. (We pressed pause when it reached a phase we knew) Double click on each clip so you can get the big screen:)

Moon Books

2009-07-13T14:14:00.011-05:00

This week we are exploring the moon! Here are the books we are reading throughout the week. Please feel free to suggest any new ones:)

Happy Birthday, Moon by Frank Asch

What the Moon Saw

by Brian Wildsmith

Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown

Moongame by Frank Asch

Space at your fingertips by Judy Nayer

2009-07-11T14:19:00.013-05:00

Wow.. this has been an amazing week!! I know that I have taught other people's children to read and it was awesome, but my little girl decoded her first book this week and it was a miracle. Kinda like when they first start walking or say mommy:) I use the word "decoded" because she read it, it was not memorized:) You can tell the difference when you hear them read. Memorizing books and retelling them is also an amazing milestone that is wonderful and one of the first steps to reading, but decoding is what would come next. Yeah!!!!!! I am using the Learning Language Arts through Literature lessons with her and they are a lot of fun:) We use the blue book.

The first thing we did was paint a sun. I had them trace a circle on the page and then paint. Then they used yellow and orange to make a pattern all the way around.

We went outside and made a sundial. This is done by putting a pencil in playdoh in the middle of a piece of cardboard. Then mark where the shadow is at every hour. Just don't forget to pick it up before you back up the car:) Don't worry, the kids reminded me!!

Then we went into the bathroom with the lights off:) and just played with the flashlight for a little while... :) Eventually, I was able to guide them into seeing that only a portion of the earth can be in the sun at the same time.

Everyday, we checked the weather and charted it in our weather book. Each page had the day of the week and a picture of what the weather was that day. (ex. sunny, cloudy, rainy)

Ta Da!!!! Here we have our completed lapbook for all of our sun lessons!!!! The cover is a piece of cardboard where we wrote the letter S with glue and then covered with yarn.

The inside consists of an S book from lapbook lessons, weather book, sun pattern painting and an s pocket with pictures of things that begin with s.

We also made a sun badge that had our bible connection for the week "Jesus is the light of the world".

On the back of the book we attached a weather graph to fill in after making our weather book.

My kids and I are really enjoying having a finished product after each theme. It is a really great way to go back and reflect and remember what we discovered in our journey of the sun:) I also love that it is kid created. We are keeping them in our living room to talk with Daddy about the things we are exploring throughout the day.

2009-07-06T22:52:00.006-05:00

Well.....I have been out of town for almost a week so our unit is not done, but here are a few things we did:) It seems very fitting that our theme is the sun since we are extremely HOT down here in Texas!!!

We started off reading Bear Shadow by Frank Asch. This is a really cute book about a bear that tries to get rid of his shadow, but can't. (of course..smile) So, me and the kids headed outside (in the 110 degree weather) to see if we could get rid of our shadows! It was a lot of fun to run around and act out the things Bear did in the book trying to get rid of his shadow. Finally, we traced each others shadows with chalk and then ran inside for lots of cold water!!!

The next day we read the book again (it's important to re read the same book many times) and then made suns with yellow playdoh. We talked about the shape and thought of other things that are a circle and printed out pictures of them to put in our circle pocket of our sun lapbook.

On day three we traced circles from shape puzzles and created pictures out of the circles. This was a lot of fun and really gave the kids a chance to be creative in their masterpieces!

On day four we packed for our trip and left!! We did play a little game of "I spy" in the car looking for circles:)

To be continued.......

2009-06-30T15:34:00.003-05:00

Carter is working on his colors and since our theme this week in My Father's World is the Sun, I thought yellow would be the perfect choice:) I was making a yellow pocket for his lapbook for this week and I realized I needed to gather pictures of yellow things to put in it. So now I'm sharing it with you!!

picture of yellow

2009-06-26T21:00:00.030-05:00

We start everyday cutting out our creation number for the day.

The kids then explore with our creation number for the day. In this picture they created the number with playdoh. We also count and make groups with our number.

Now:), they get to make a picture showing what was created on that day.

The Lapbook that was our finished product at the end of the two weeks

A book we got from lapbook lessons that cut and paste the day with the picture.

A stamp and sticker number book 1-7.

The kids divided the animals up by sky, land, and ocean.

The last thing we did with the lapbook was to paste a sponge paint earth we made.

Other activities from our Highlights magazines that we used for our study of creation:

Making butter: Pour heavy cream into jars and shake until the butter forms. Pour off the liquid and spread your butter on some crackers:)

Making clay: Pour 2 cups baking soda, 1 cup corn starch, and 1 and 1/4 cups of water into a pot. Heat over medium heat until it looks like mashed potatoes. Let the clay cool and divide into pieces and color with food coloring.

A picture of God's creation made from clay:) My daughter told me the brown was the ocean... , I guess we need to take her to another beach besides Galveston.

2009-06-24T22:05:00.002-05:00

I have recently created some flashcards for using with my 5 year old. (Although, my 2 year old is sometimes listening to us... smile) One thing that I have said before is that I know kids need to be a part of making things so it will be more meaningful to them. Therefore, these flashcards are more interactive. The shapes flashcards require the children to add the shape to the card. You can have them trace (which is good fine motor practice) or use stamps or stickers. Also, I'm including spanish words on there too!! They are such sponges right now so take advantage of it:) The next set is the colors flashcards and they do not have anything on them except the words. Again, I think it's important for the kids to have a part. They can either color on it or glue a picture of something in that color. (Yes.. the words are in english and spanish too!) My daughter loved getting to decorate them and cut them out herself!! She felt like such a big girl:)

2009-06-23T14:59:00.005-05:00

On Tuesdays we go to story hour at the library. My kids are both looking forward to this day every week and so it has inspired them to learn where Tuesday is on the calendar:) Every week our librarian has a theme and 3 books she has picked out to read with fingerplays, and music in between so there is a lot of movement. Then at the end they make a craft. Today the theme was beach and the kids all had an ice cream treat at the end instead of making something. It was really fun! While I was there, I realized how important singing songs and doing fingerplays is to all aspects of our little ones learning. So I have decided to start posting fingerplays in correspondance with the themes for you to enjoy at home. Our librarian is so wonderful and makes sure that we all leave with a handout of all the songs... So I'm going to share!

Five little seashells

you can print out seashell pictures or use real seashells and act this out

Holding up a seashell

Playing in the sand

Waves at the beach

Yummy ice cream!!

The kids love to play on the computers after checking out books!

2009-06-21T16:30:00.005-05:00

Our Homeschool Fun is hosting a funky paint set giveaway so make sure you visit her site before 6/26/09 and comment on her blog for a chance to win! Just think of all the fun messes you can make at your house with these:)

2009-06-19T21:19:00.013-05:00

Today our homeschool group had an American Indian expert come in and do a lesson with our kids. The information he shared was fascinating and it made me realize how this is just one more thing I love about homeschool. As a classroom teacher, I was unable to take my students to see all the "experts" in the different realms we studied, but as a homeschool mom I am able to broaden my children's learning in ways that make the knowledge much more meaningful to them. If you are a homeschool mommy I'm sure you will not be surprised by the other children in the photos, but if you aren't, it might shock you to know that we really do socialize:) In fact, a lot!! Last night, we had our monthly Mom's night out and it was a pool party!! We enjoyed a lot of good food and fun:) I also enjoy getting to have time to learn from the other Mom's and see what they are doing that is working for them. One new thing I recently learned is that the museum's offer science programs for our children during the year. How cool is it that my kids get to take their science classes from the experts at the museum surrounded with all their amazing resources!! And guess what else?? The classes at the museum are very affordable..

2009-06-18T08:30:00.005-05:00

I have posted an ABC chart on the right under Prints for you. It is a great tool for using in learning and reviewing letters. I have Halle practice singing the ABC's while pointing at the chart so there is no blending of letters. (L,M,N) I also play a review game after our lesson of the letters we have worked on up to this point. I give her some sort of manipulative (buttons, frog counters, etc.) and then I challenge her to find the letters. This kind of chart is important because it moves them to start recognizing the letters without the pictures (of course, only when it is developmentally appropriate). Knowing and recognizing the letters in all contexts is a very important predictor of early reading success:) Another reading strategy that is very powerful in letter recognition is using magnetic letters or letters that are printed out and cut and have them match them up on the abc chart.

Preschool Corner-Creation week 1

2009-06-16T21:12:00.009-05:00

This is a Melissa and Doug jumbo knob puzzle that we are using every day to review shapes. I try to only focus on a few a day.

My daughter has gymnastics on Mondays so Carter and I worked on our Highlights Magazine in the waiting area. We use the High five which is age appropriate for preschool. In the back was a matching game with sea shell pictures. Since this is the first time for me to introduce a game like this I chose to first turn over all the pieces and have him match them up where he could see them. Then we tried to play with them turned over:) It was really fun! He also helped with the cutting. He really has it down if I hold the paper and keep repeating open.. close..open..close (it was really cute)

The next activity we worked on was a find the bugs puzzle. It had a poem with 5 different bugs and we had to find them in the big picture. Then read about them on the right. I learned something new.. Did you know doodle bugs or rolly polly's (that's what we called them growing up) are called pill bugs?

Our theme for the next two weeks is Creation. I have chosen to use the same theme with my preschooler and my kindergartner. Here is one of Carter's works of art for his creation book. He colored and cut out the one and then cut the black paper (with assistance) to place on the white paper to make day and night. See my lesson plans under Prints for you on the side bar for more details.

I have also added 3 more pieces of literature to our theme this week with activities in addition to the Bible.

The Earth and I by Frank Asch

1. Read the story and then talk about how we can take care of our planet.

2. Go on a walk around the neighborhood or a local park and pick up any trash.

Space At Your Fingertips by Judy Nayer

1. Read and enjoy the great pictures in this book!

2. Draw stars with the kids on white paper with white crayons

3. Let them paint over it with black tempura paint for a surprise

Me and My Place in Space by Joan Sweeney

1. Read book

2. Look at pictures of what earth looks like from space

3. Sponge paint the earth on a white paper plate or white circular paper

ABC's

This 2 week theme focuses on two letters a day so we are finding objects that start with that letter in his room and taking a picture of him with it to make an ABC book for him. I can't wait to post pictures of it at the end:)

Children's Museum- part 2

2009-06-16T14:22:00.006-05:00

There was also an outdoor play section that had a huge waterworks activity station. This included building boats, re routing water lines and just plain splashing fun!!

Here they are controlling the water flow by changing the pipes.

Making boats!! Sink or float

Good old fashioned dirt and water mixing! This is always a good time:)

Children's Museum-part 1

2009-06-16T13:48:00.009-05:00

I love to plan fun outings every Friday for me and my kids! We actually have a little circle of friends (playgroup) that joins us for our outings. This last Friday we visited the Children's Museum in our area and had a blast. It has been redone this year and the improvements were awesome! I'm actually thinking about getting a membership because there were lots more things to do and see that we did not have time for.

Here they are in a discovery room where there are tons of critical thinking activities. This particular one was a favorite. The challenge was to build a bridge with the wooden pieces and have it supported enough to go from one side to the other.

This was a vet clinic. Behind them were stuffed animals in cages and they were able to conduct all sorts of check ups on them with all the authentic looking equipment in the room. Of course, they even thought to put in a microscope for the kids to see dog hair, cat hair and fleas!

My little scientists! They put on their lab coats and goggles to get to work. Once inside they were able to explore many science concepts through play. One that they particularly enjoyed was building atoms.

Father's Day

2009-06-14T14:13:00.005-05:00

My kids and I made this plate for Dad to have whenever he's done grilling the food. It never fails, he always asks me for a plate when everything is ready.. so this will be his new grill plate:) The two hamburgers are the kids handprints with each finger painted in a different color.(thumb and pinkie in yellow for the bread, first finger in green for lettuce, middle finger in red for tomato, and ring finger in brown for the meat) Then I took black paint and outlined to make the burger. The french fries are their finger prints with me outlining in black for the shape. The kids had a fun time making it. We frequent a ceramic store by our house and it is a great field trip for those of us that live in the south in the summer time. That's when we do all our indoor field trips:) Oh yes... I think it was 106 yesterday.. Our other favorite thing to do is make shutterfly cards and a little craft from the kids.

crafts for dad

Have fun!!

Creation: Exploring Space

2009-06-13T22:36:00.005-05:00

On Monday we will be starting our first week of "Our Father's World" kindergarten curriculum and the theme for the first two weeks is Creation. I have chosen 3 books for the first week and they are on my bookshelf at the bottom of my blog page. I have chosen books about our planet and space. I felt like these went along well with the studying of creation. Here are the activities we will do with each book:

The Earth and I by Frank Asch

1. Read the story and then talk about how we can take care of our planet.

2. Go on a walk around the neighborhood or a local park and pick up any trash.

Space At Your Fingertips by Judy Nayer

1. Read and enjoy the great pictures in this book!

2. Draw stars with the kids on white paper with white crayons

3. Let them paint over it with black tempura paint for a surprise

Me and My Place in Space by Joan Sweeney

1. Read book

2. Look at pictures of what earth looks like from space

3. Sponge paint the earth on a white paper plate or white circular paper

1-10 Flashcards

2009-06-11T14:55:00.002-05:00

I have recently decided to incorporate Spanish into my children's lessons. Every study I have read shows that kids have an easier time learning a second language now as opposed to when they are older. Since we will be studying the days of creation next week I created some flashcards with the number written in Spanish and English with the numeral. Here's the fun part.. have the kids put stickers or stamps on each card to represent the number. Or, if you are feeling really motivated don't print it out and teach your child how to insert pictures on the document on the computer:) Have fun!!

english/spanish flashcards 1-10

My Father's World

2009-06-10T22:27:00.003-05:00

Ok.. so, my husband and I attended a homeschool conference recently and I came across the Kindergarten Curriculum for My Father's World. It completely inspired me and really brought together a lot of thoughts I was having about lesson planning. I must have visited the booth at least a dozen times before I finally purchased the curriculum. Then I attended some extremely motivating and helpful workshops that really helped me put my ideas together in a more cohesive way:) I do not have to plan 2 separate themes for my two kids. I could have one theme and the same literature in most cases, because they are so close in age, but just vary the activities according to each child's learning curve. I LOVED THIS IDEA!! I completely re did my lesson plan format. I also renamed them lessons on the grow since they change as I grow and learn:) The first two weeks of My Father's World is a Creation theme and then after that it is 26 weeks of focusing on a different letter of the alphabet and science themed activities that incorporate math, bible, reading, social studies, art and music. I adore thematic units.. I'm sure most of you can tell I was an early childhood person when I taught public school:) So here is my first creation of lessons on the grow!! Enjoy and maybe they will inspire you into something else...

lessons on the grow format

lessons on the grow filled in

Itsy Bitsy Yoga for Toddlers and Preschoolers by Helen Garabedian

2009-06-07T13:52:00.005-05:00

I found an article about this book in my April 2009 Parents magazine and ripped it out. I finally decided to pull it out of my "things I like" pile and try it last week. It was a wonderful thing. Yoga is different because it manages to get a large amount of quality exercise from a shorter amount of reps. And guess what?(smile) It was not just for my lil's... it definitely challenged me as well. In this article it denotes which poses are great for tantrum tamers, energy burners and bedtime soothers. I have already put this book in my cart at Amazon:) The first picture is a donkey pose and it is a tantrum tamer. The goal is to raise the leg and hold for 3 counts then switch legs. The second picture is called a Star pose and it is an energy burner:) You rock from side to side with legs rocking and arms outstretched while palms are facing down. You do this while singing twinkle twinkle little star 3 times.

Itty Bitty Bookworm

2009-06-03T14:35:00.006-05:00

Carter had a lot of fun making his foot prints on paper. I put paint in one tub and water in the other tub to clean off his feet when he was done. This idea came from the Itty Bitty Bookworm in May. Halle saw Carter having such a great time that she had to join in. I created an extension for the activity by having her come up with words to describe the footprints that began with the same letter as the persons name (Ex. Halle's happy feet, Carter's cute feet) and wrote them on their masterpieces!

lesson plans

2009-05-31T23:24:00.002-05:00

Here is my first attempt at planning for homeschool:) During the school year it will be different because my homeschool group has co op groups we will meet with during the week for art, music, PE, science and social studies. For right now, I am experimenting to figure out what works best for our family. I do not have time slots on the lesson plans because I'm pretty sure that would never work for us. I do however know we will do our school time in the morning. I remember as a public school teacher my lesson plans were just plans, nothing in stone. And I rarely ever remember sticking to my plans exactly. It seems like the best teachers are able to respond to the learners needs and change accordingly. I will blog what actually happens as we progress through the week.

Tot school plan

Kindergarten plan

Planning pages

2009-05-28T22:34:00.003-05:00

I am still trying to figure out how to go about organizing everything and keeping myself on track:) I read something recently on one of my fave blogs, homeschoolcreations, about having something staring me in the face to keep me on track. So I decided to create some planners for myself and put them on here for you to use as is or modify to make better for you. The first one is for my 2year old. We are going to start Tot School and so I needed something very basic that just reminded me of the essentials. Here is the tot school plan page. The other plan page is for my 5 year old and so it has a lot more:) Here is the kindergarten plan page. I am hoping to have them filled in before the end of the week for next week so you can follow what we are going to do:) Notice how I put theme labels on the bottom of both pages. I know it is extremely important for the kids to grasp the information in a way that has lots of connections for them and using a theme allows their brain to do that. Even though there are separate subjects detailed on each day for the planning page, I'm hoping that they all come together to make one lesson, rather than 7 different lessons in a day... And each day will probably focus more on certain subjects so all the boxes won't need to be filled in on every day. Am I making sense?? It will probably make more sense when I post one I have filled in:)

Making books

2009-05-23T15:40:00.005-05:00

I know that for things to be meaningful to our kids they have to have a hand in its creation. Therefore, I have been making books with my 5 year old and using them as her readers. Every week we do some sort of modeled writing in the pocket chart and it is done in a patterned, predictable way. Last week we did insects and we made a sentence for each insect picture. A butterfly is an insect, A bee is an insect.. etc. At the end of the week I have each sentence printed out on paper for her to match to the picture. I folded over copy paper and stapled it together for her book. She then colored the pictures and glued the correct sentence across from it. Now she can read it to me over and over again:) This makes her feel great and it encourages her early recognition of sight words.

Another way we have used book making is to encourage a skill. This week we were working on rhyming and so we decided to make a rhyme book. I wrote a word and drew a picture on one side and she dictated a word to me that rhymed and drew a picture on the other side. I will have her go back and color it but I wanted to post the picture not colored because I'm thinking about it right now and might forget later:) This is another book in her book bag that she practices reading.

High Five magazine

2009-05-19T21:40:00.006-05:00

I am loving the Highlights magazine. My Mom was awesome enough to get us a subscription to High Five (especially for the little ones) for the last two years and I save them. I decided to have a highlights day with the kids on Monday and it was a lot of fun. The magazine is set up into 4 sections. Let's read together, Let's Puzzle it out, Let's do it, and Bonus Pages. ( I am including a picture of the table of contents) The reading section is great because it is a combination of poetry, stories and early readers that can be cut out and used for reading over and over. The puzzle it out sections has a great page called My first Hidden pictures. (I've included a picture) Both my kids love the investigative nature of it. On one side are small pictures of items for the kids to look for and on the other side is a whole picture where the kids try to find the small items. At first, this can be challenging but as you continue exposing them, it will really foster their critical thinking skills. Next, the Let's Do it section has at least 4 to 5 things for them to make, cook and build. The cooking one we did for snack time on Monday and this kids had a blast making their own smoothie's. Finally, the Bonus pages are usually some kind of game pull out or puppets, etc. This magazine we did on Monday had puppets and the kids really enjoyed acting it out. That is a really important skill in fostering their learning. In fact, when their Dad came home they sat him down and did the puppet show for him:) I really love how this is all layed out ready for me to just grab and do. It really helps me out!!

number recognition

2009-05-15T09:46:00.005-05:00

Yesterday we worked with number recognition . I am a big believer in learner generated assignments. I have seen that research shows it is more meaningful to them and therefore, sticks in their long term memory. With my 2 year old we made mirrors of numbers. I drew dots on one side of the page and then he mirrored me with stamps. I let him choose one of two stamps because I know it is important for him to have some choices and feel like he is active in his learning experiences. At the end of each row I counted with him by guiding his finger to each stamp on his side and the dots on my side to make sure they were the same. Then I wrote the number and he traced with his cute little finger:)

My 5 year olds activity was a little different because I wrote the number word then guided her through stamping. We still did it line by line together. I then had her count and affirm it was correct then I wrote the number. I'm pretty sure this activity will be used again to make her own number book. This time she will write the numbers. After I finished, I wished I would have let her write the numbers originally.

Ideas

2009-05-14T08:41:00.000-05:00

I have just put up the curriculum I am starting to use with my 5 year old. My son is using itty bitty bookworm for preschool. I am still trying to find a good science curriculum that uses mostly literature. I am also still looking for a bible story book that will serve as a good jump off for stories and teachings and even have lessons at the end of each story. If anyone has some good suggestions please leave a post. I really like the kids talking about God website because it has an entire printable coloring bible for them. Each story has a picture that they color along with the story and little lessons. My daughter and I will be experimenting all summer since technically we will officially be starting in the fall with the co ops in our homeschool group (I will blog about that another time). I think I will have a better time with them if her and I play and experiment with everything all summer long.

Itty Bitty Bookworm

2009-05-13T16:12:00.001-05:00

I have just recently started the Itty Bitty Bookworm curriculum with my 2 year old and I am really hooked. Anything that uses literature to teach always captures my attention. Right now we have been reading Good Dog, Carl (see my bookshelf) and following along with creative hands on learning experiences. Today we charted things a baby can do and cannot do. Notice the pictures I drew next to the sentences. I did this so the sentences would be more meaningful to him. Then we worked on our color of the month, Purple. He mixed together red and blue playdoh to make purple.

My daughter is 5 so I have planned activities for her that follow the itty bitty bookworm theme but are tailored to the Texas Essential Knowledge and skills for kindergarten. I will cite the numbers in parenthesis behind the activity for anyone who wants to know. Today we made patterned sentences in a pocket chart about different pets we could have. (15A) She also clipped clothespins with letters to pictures to represent the inital sound. (6D)