Plans for 2011

First hopefully I can keep up with this blog but I need to spend time with my kids so if my choice is blogging or my darling children...well my children win.  So I have high hopes but we shall see lol.

So on to the school year starting in Sept 2011.
Angel Girl (age 4) will be attending a SpEd. pre-k program in the mornings so I will be afterschooling her.
So we will be using:
Before Five In a Row and Homeschoolshare for reading aloud, basically we will read a book for 5 days and do 1 activity a day.
Montessori at Home I will be introducing 1 activity a week from Montessori at Home which she can then have on her shelf to work on when she wants.
Cuisainare Workbook we will be alternating free play with activities from this little workbook.
The Complete Daily Curriculum for Preschool we will do 1 theme a week from this book as we did last year.
More Mudpies to Magnets I will be introducing these fun science activities 1 a week.
Slow and Steady Get Me Ready we will do the activity that is planned for her age at that time.

Sweet Boy (age 2)
Hands on Homeschool I got this for Angel Girl when she was 2 and am going to adapt some of the activities for Sweet Boy this year doing 2 a week instead of the whole program.
Slow and Steady Get Me Ready we will do an activity each week for his age.
Montessori at Home I want to start getting Sweet Boy ready for doing Montessori officially at 3 so I will be working on some Practical Life activities adding ideas from Montessori Mom.
Story Stretchers for Infants and Toddlers we will be doing 1 activity a week so  most books will take about 3 weeks to get through.

As a family we are working through the Read Alouds listed in the Great Books Academy, right now we are doing the Nursery books.

Weekly Book List

So my biggest focus for Angel Girl has been reading. Lots and lots of stories being read. Here are the books we have read this week:
Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear by Nancy White Carlstrom
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by James Marshall
Yummy by Lucy Cousins
Goldilocks and the Three Bears by Jan Brett
The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall
Along with many board books.

For Goldilocks and the Three Bears we made a puppet that we used to tell the story. By the end of the week Angel Girl was asking to "read" the story and would tell me what was happening on each page. This is a valuable early literacy skill that I love see emerging. She is starting to understand story structure and remember what she heard.

For Sweet Boy we were reading:
The Velveteen Rabbit by Margery Williams
We read about 10 pages at every nap and bedtime and repeated the book for a week.

3 Yr Old Learning Goals

Goals for my Angel Girl in her 3 yr old year.

Colors
Shapes
Nursery Rhymes
Lots of read alouds
Beginning retelling and sequencing
Letter Names
Lots of playing outside
Counting to 20 (she already goes to 13)
Identify numbers to 5
Lots of sensory activities
Lots of crafts
Lots of cooking
Lots of pretending

Nursery Rhyme Stuff

Great Nursery Rhyme stuff especially sequencing cards. Check it out here.

Circle Time Day 5

Memory Work: Had Angel Girl sing the first 2 vs of Twinkle Twinkle. We will need to continue to practice this song at other times but I am impressed with how quickly she has picked it up.
Story: Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear
Activity: From Before Five In A Row
Letter Work: Starfall!

Circle Time Day 4

Memory Work: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star vs. 1 and 2
Story: Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Activity: Make paper bag puppets and retell the story.
Letter Work: Trace the letter in a salt tray.

Circle Time Day 3

Memory Work: Continued with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star vs 1 and 2 with the pictures.
Story: Yellow (a board book I got in a set about colors)
Activity: Yellow Hunt, finding items around the house that were yellow.
Letter Work: Coloring sheet.

Circle Time Day 2

Memory Work: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star I made little puppets of parts of the song for Angel Girl to hold as she sang. I also introduced the 2nd verse using the puppets. HERE is a copy of all the verses of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
Story: Goldilocks and The Three Bears by Jan Brett
Activity: We retold the story using finger puppets. I mostly did the retell and had her hold up the different parts.
Letter Work: We did letter A in her letter book (which she was able to do immediately she loves that it is her name).

Circle Time Day 1

Yesterday was my first day of doing circle time with my Angel Girl. This is what we did.

Memory Work: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (this is a known song but I would like to do more with this this week...did you know there was more than 1 verse.)
Story: The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall (this book is for introducing the letter A)
Letter Work: Using sandpaper letter introduced (ok so A is known but this will be how I introduce the other letters) letter A and had her attempt tracing...she does not have to be able to trace it correctly merely adding a tactile component to the learning of letters.
Religious: Sing I Am a Child of God

Week of June 21st - 25th

There are some changes in our life so for this summer I am planning on doing activities for Sweet Boy based on the week. Then for Angel Girl I plan to just focus on developing a "circle time" which I will post about daily (I hope). So for this week:

Sweet Boy
Story: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Game: Peek-a-boo (yes the game where you cover your eyes and say peek-a-boo, I like to do it with blankets)
Nursery Rhyme: There was a Crooked Man

Angel Girl
Letter Aa
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Goldilocks and the 3 Bears
Color Yellow

Week of May 31 - June 4

Angel Girl (toddler)

Monday

Read "Spring is Here" (theme, pre-reading)

Have Angel Girl glue green leaves onto a brown tree (theme, art)

Tuesday

Read a yellow book. Sort out yellow items from a bag of toys. (color)

Sing "Spring is Here" (theme, music)

Wednesday

Kumon tracing book (pre-writing)

Talk about Spring, baby animals, flowers, bugs, trees (theme)

Thursday

Glue alumninum foil over star outline to make a shiny star (shape)

Use tissue paper to make a tulip (theme, art)

Friday

Matching game using bird outline, variation 1 with dots, variation 2 with shapes, variation 3 with colors, variation 4 with letters (theme, math, color, pre-reading, shapes)

Shaving Cream Art (J4F)

Sweet Boy (baby)

Book: Good night moon (read before naps and bed)

Game: Different Textures - touch and feel different textures of material

Nursery Rhyme: Baa, Baa, Black Sheep

May Week 3

Angel Girl (Toddler)

(So I kinda skipped week 2...daddy was away on a business trip and it was enough just to be together).

Monday

Thumprint Ants (activity from week 1 left over) (theme, art)

Letter A trace and letter book (theme, prereading)

Tuesday

Isty Bitsy Spider (music, movement)

Sort out blue items from a basket (color)

Wednesday

Sing the Ants Go Marching with different movements like jumping, skipping, hopping (theme, movement)

Talk about ants. Write down one of the sentences that Angel Girl says, add this to a nature journal. (theme, prewriting, science)

Thursday

Counting raisins for ants on a log up to 5 (theme, math)

Use body to make different types of circles (shape, movement)

Friday

Moving like and ant to music (theme, movement, music)

Make magnetic maze for "ant" to get to a cookie. (theme, just 4 fun)

Sweet Boy (Baby)

Reading I Love You Forever by Robert Musch

Playing Pop Goes the Weasel.

Hearing I Had a Little Nut.

May Week 1

Monday

Read book about ants (I read The Life and Times of an Ant, but there are many many good fiction and nonfiction books). (reading, theme)

Sing song about Ant/insect parts. Here are some cute ones. (music, theme)

Tuesday

We went to a local museum that has a collection of leaf cutter ants and just observed and talked about it. If you don't have a local museum like this you can always just go outside and find an ant hill and sit and watch it for a while. (science, theme)

Read a blue book, then hand over some different types of blue paper and tissue squares and let Angel Girl cut and glue them on a paper to make a blue collage. (color of the month, art, reading)

Wednesday

Crawl like an ant around the room, so extentensions of this are to have a piece of food (real or play) that they can pick up and move like an ant. (movement, theme)

Kumon tracing book. (pre-writing)

Thursday

Thumbprint Ants. (theme, art)

Read a circle book. Tape a circle on the floor and do different movements around it like running, tip toeing, marching, jumping, hopping. (shape of the month, movement, reading)

Friday

Counting to 5 on finger. (math)

Mothers Day - we read a book about moms (What Mom's Can't Do), and then she got to color a card for me. (Just 4 Fun, holiday)

Month of May

I have decided to start doing themed units so this month we are working on:

Ants!

Many of my activities are ant based.

We are also working on:

Color: Blue

Shape: Circle

Letter: A

Nursery Rhyme/Song: Itsy Bitsy Spider

Math: Counting to 5

Tuesday: Squares

We started this activity by reading about squares in one of our shape books. Then we had an exemplar and sang a square song
This is a square, this is a square.
How can you tell? How can you tell?
It has four sides, All the same size.
It’s a square, It’s a square.
(found HERE).
Then we went on a square hunt using the exemplar.

Weekly Plan

Monday
Ee name sound
Clapping to music

Tuesday
Squares
Practice hopping (this is her new trick so we might as well practice)

Wednesday
Throwing 10 “snowballs”
Ee letter book

Thursday
Animal sounds
Make pink playdough

Friday
Bus driver
Ride the bus

More Changes

So I want to start a monthly topic share. This will be outside of what I "normally" do but rather an opportunity to explore an idea more in depth and hopefully get lots of ideas to use in our mommy schooling endeavors. This topic can be used as a jumping off point for activities this month or just a way to gather a lot of ideas on the topic to use through out the year. Comments are a great place to add your ideas.

This month's topic SQUARE!

What are some ideas to learn about squares?


Here are some of our posts already written about squares.

Easter Activities

I am focusing on Easter Activities this week so that the kids get more familiar with it.

FHE tonight will be the Easter Story from the Behold Your Little Ones Nursery Manual (Lesson 29)

Throughout the week we will be doing some of these activites:

Bunny Hats

Egg Mosaics

Bunny Hop

Egg Hunter Mask

Peek A Boo Chick

Bunny in the Grass

Basket and Egg Matching

We will also be reading books about Easter.

For our Easter Egg Hunt the kids were assigned a color. Thing 1 had green, Thing 2 had Blue, Little Princess had Yellow. The boys (thing 1 and thing 2) were given a paper egg of their assigned color. Thing 2 really enjoyed putting his paper egg next to the eggs he found to see if they matched. He was even more excited when they did match and he could put the egg in his basket. I think this really helped the kids be able to know which color was theirs and work on matching. It helped their egg searching be successful.

Got any ideas for teaching the meaning of Easter, traditions, or activities for your children?

Easter Crafts

DLTK's Site is a favorite resource for fun crafty activities to do with my kids. They have a ton of great ideas. This weekend we are having an early Easter Celebration with the grandparents and some of the cousins (wish you were here....). I decided to find some fun easterish activities to do with the boys to get them introduced to the idea of Easter Bunnies and egg hunting. I found templates on the DLTK site for an Easter Egg Mosaic and a bunny hat. So, I got out the craft supplies and we made some Easter crafts!!

We first did the Easter Hats. I printed out the ears template and let the boys color them. Then they helped me cut them out and I let the one waiting continue to color their ears. They did a much better job with coloring when they were cut. Then I taped two halves of a piece of white card stock together and let them color that. Then I taped the ears onto the hat, and taped the hat around their head. They love their bunny ears.

Next we did the Easter Egg Mosaics. First I cut the egg template out. Then, I pre cut strips of colored card stock for the boys to cut from. We took turns choosing a color and then cutting 'squares' out of it (reinforcing yesterday's learning). Of course not all were squares but this is only their third time using scissors. I helped them and said open, close, open, close.

(forgive the clothes, hair and makeup less face...., oh and the mostly naked children....)
Thing 1 opened his mouth along with the scissors each time I said open :)

Thing 2 got a very concentrated look on his face.

I let him try to open and close the scissors by himself and was a little afraid of loosing some fingers....thus the look of fear on my face. No worries, no one was harmed while using the scissors ;)

After cutting their 'squares' out I covered the egg with glue stick. Then they could just stick their 'squares' on. It was nice to have one gluing while the other cut, keeping them both happy and occupied. After they were all finished I put three strips of clear packing tape over their egg to keep the pieces on.

Here are the proud boys with their completed projects!!

(Thing 1 was a little concerned that his 'squares' kept falling off, but some packing tape solved the problem and now I don't have to worry about their little sister finding a bunch of 'squares' to put in her mouth....)

I think this was a very fun, successful project. I will be reading them some stories about Easter, and Christ and talking more about the Easter Bunny this next week.

Squares

Today we learned about squares. I checked out a video from the library that taught shapes (along with colors, and some numbers but my focus was for the shapes). I also checked out a book on each of the shapes- triangle, square, circle. We have previously talked about shapes and they know a heart and star, and Thing 2 can sometimes identify triangles, squares and circles. During an hour and a half drive we watched the shapes video twice. The boys seemed to enjoy it (although for an adult it can get a little annoying ;). After we got home we read the square book -'Squares: seeing squares all around us' by Sarah L. Schuette. The boys enjoyed finding the squares in the book and I think it helped them to be able to find the squares in everyday objects. After the story we got out our special finder glasses (found in the dollar bins at Michaels) and we went on a square hunt! We went to every different room in the house to find squares.



I was really impressed by some of the things they found. Thing 1 found the squares on our tile floor, Thing 2 found the squares on the washer and dryer. It was a lot of fun. After our square hunt I printed out a square picture found on this website. I also tried to get them to trace an outline of a square but we aren't there yet. I plan to continue to help the boys identify squares all around. I am not sure if I will introduce circles tomorrow, or if we will just continue with learning about squares until we hit mastery.