Week 28: Time to Be Thankful!

Week 28: Time to Be Thankful! Wow, week 28 is already here! This year has been fun, but has gone by so quickly. Focusing on being thankful, I asked the kids what they were thankful for. We talked about the importance of being thankful for simple things like a warm house, food, and family that loves us. Noah was thankful for birthday gifts, Jack was thankful for toys, and sweet Addison was very thankful for chocolate. So we made chocolate cupcakes! They each got the help purring, mixing, and tasting!

Thanks to my good friend Lizz, a preschool teacher, she showed me this fun idea and all you need is a box, gold balls, and paint! The kids chose their color and got to decorate their hearts with the paint and golf balls. If I did this again, I would probably use lighter color paint so that we can see the writing on the heart, but the kids have fun decorating. It was a CLEAN activity, which I like best! 

Time to Be Thankful! The kids got to color their watches, and we talked about time. Different times during the day when we can share what we are thankful for. 

The Bible Story was about Naaman, a man covered with sores and bruises all over his body. Elisha, who prayed to God, told him to go wash in a river seven times. We learned about the importance of praying to God and asking Him for help. 

It is fun that the kids are interested in spelling. This was a challenge though. The letter this week is U, so we focused on rhyming words with the letter U, like sun, run, fun, bun, etc. We talked about how every word needs a vowel, A, E, I, O, U……and I lost them! Ha! 

Journal Time: This has become one of my favorite times with Jack, Addison, and Noah. We ask them a question: What are they thankful for? Then they get to draw a picture. Jack and Addison really enjoy using different colors and adding lots of detail to their picture. Noah enjoys writing his name! 

Day 2: Show and Tell, another favorite! Look at these cute kids! They are really doing a great job sharing their favorites toys, and then listening to each other as well. I am so proud of them! 

We read this great book, Images of God. The pictures are stunning. The kids really enjoyed looking at all the different ways we can see God. We had a journal entry where I asked them God is…. It is great to just let them dream, imagine, and create!

 

The book of the week: Gregory, The Terrible Eater. We talked about the importance of eating every type of food. Jack mentioned how he takes a "no thank you" bite at every meal. So we cut out pictures of different types of food and glued them on our place mat.

Ironically Blue Jello is NOT one of the main food groups! Ha, oh well. They each got to choose a shape and cut it out of the jello. I think they had more fun eating their shapes! 

Lastly we worked on letters. They each chose a letter and had to say what letter it was, the sound, and a word beginning with that letter. Some letters are easier than others, but they are really doing well at sounding the letters out! Good job kids! 

Week 23: Fun with Letter and Number Review

Review weeks tend to pose a bit of a challenge for me especially since we share teaching responsibilities between three moms. I am never 100% sure what was taught at the weeks away from my home...so I decided to add some activities I found over at Confessions of a Homeschooler to our review week. The activities you see here are part of her K4 curriculum which I have been using for a couple weeks with Addison (in conjunction to our ABC Jesus Loves me Co-op).

 

Below is a game to work on matching upper and lowercase letters. The lowercase letters still give these guys some trouble, so it was good to spend some time on this.

 

Next we journaled for a bit. The topic today was to draw some place you'd really like to go.

Addison drew the ferris wheel at Disneyland...

Jack drew the bottom of the ocean (complete with a shark!)

And Noah drew some things that come from Mexico. (His mom just got back from a trip there :)

Next we had a letter hunt. I put these giant floor mats all over the house and the kids had to run around and find the letters I called out. This was such a hit we played again on Thursday.

 

We also played this number matching game. Each student got a few cards with specific numbers of items printed on them. I put the number tiles in the center of the table and they had to match the correct numeral with the amount of items pictured on each card.

The journal assignment for Thursday was to draw a picture of something that is scary.

Addison drew the haunted house from an episode of the Magic School Bus...

Noah drew the T-rex at the dinosaur museum...

Jack drew "beetle bugs" and a spider.

Then we played a number matching game. I handed out clothespins with numbers written on them and the kids had to place each clothespin on the correct part of the wheel.

 

And we played with these AWESOME letter builders I got from Learning Resources. The set comes with cards that tell the kids how to build every upper and lowercase letter. We had FUN with these...

 

It was a great week! Nice work guys!