Letter S and Number 11 Here we come!

We began today with the story of Zaccheus and the kids really enjoyed the music. We also read some silly books like The Gruffalo and The Dot, both winners!

The kids worked on writing their names, all letters, capital and lower case. Just look at that concentration from Addison and Annabelle. They like writing in pencils, but I noticed that they are a bit more difficult for the kids than a fat marker or crayons.

I filled bags full of hair gel and toothpaste, and the kids practiced tracing the letter S and the number 11 on the bags. Easy tactile lesson and no mess!

I think Eisley wanted to eat the toothpaste!

I read The Dot, by Peter H. Reynolds, which is a darling book about being creative. The kids got to use water colors and paint anything they wanted.....I hope for their imaginations to run wild, but all they painted were DOTS! Go figure!

Jack and Noah really enjoy mixing all the colors.

For the Letter S, I made spiders with donuts and pretzels. The kids ate them all up....even the toddlers, of course. I also added some strawberries on the side. 

We ended the day with Capital and Lower Case Letter matching. The kids had to match the letters, that I placed all over the room with post its. I didn't take any pictures of that, but they did a great job!

Back to Basics: ABCs and 1,2,3s

It's review week in the curriculum, so I decided to spend some time going over the basics this week. 

All of us have been dealing with various degrees of illness, kids and moms alike. So instead of my usual sugar-laced snack the kids ate fruit and veggies while we read a book. Apple slices and carrot sticks DO NOT incite the same level of joy as hot chocolate and candy do, but the kids didn't complain. 

Serving ourselves from the snack plate 

Politely reaching for more...

We read a great book called "I Did It, I'm Sorry" by Caralyn and Mark Buehner. On each page is a scenario with a series of multiple choice answers, e.g. Rudy Racoon came across a radio while riding his bike. Should he a) run it over with his bike tires? b) sell it on the black market? c) Return it to lost and found? The kids had fun hearing some of the crazy options. It also inspired some admissions of wrong-doing: one kid had lied that day; another had pushed his baby brother over (JACK!). 

The kids all wrote their names this week. What an accomplishment. When we started this in the fall I don't think anyone could write their names. Now they can identify their names among other words and pick out individual sounds in their names. I'm starting to see how reading will be coming soon...

After we wrote our names I showed the kids flash cards and asked them to name the letter, the sound, and a word that starts with the letter. Then I asked them to write the letter on their paper. The free-style letter writing was tough, but it was interesting to see how their brains are working. In terms of the letter identification, the kids are all spot-on. So cool to watch.

Next we did a upper-case and lower-case letter matching game with old Easter eggs. Each egg half had either an upper or lower case letter and the kids had to find the pairs. This was tricky for most of the kids, but I think it was a good challenge. I've brought the activity out a few times this week for Jack to play with and he's getting much better. 

The kids always love some free drawing time, so this week we drew pictures of our families. It will be fun to do this again at the end of the year to see how much more detailed pictures become...and of course to see the new additions! (See the bottom of this post for the finished products.)

The kids were pretty well done with sitting, but I tried a team activity this week that involved working in pairs to put the correct number of items into the corresponding buckets. FYI: working together is not something three- and four-year olds do naturally. Eisley and Jack were pretty into it, but the backyard was calling by this time, so we kind of rushed through it and headed outside. This could be one to bring back in a few months. 

On day two, the weather was beautiful and the teacher had run out of ideas. So we went (faux) camping! I set up the old tent in the grassy area outside our house (it's really a dog pooping station...quite disgusting, but in Vegas you take what you can get when it comes to green grass). Before we headed out we talked about what we needed to pack (blankets, food, water, candy) and then hit the road. 

The kids were having a great time. And then the sprinklers came on and ruined our fun. It was all very Pacific Northwest to have an outdoor activity interrupted by showers. 

"sleeping..."

Poor Gus doesn't realize he's NOT one of the big kids

Doc is officially one of the big kids :)

Sweet Jules and her "pretty"

We took the party inside for some Gak playing, Valentine making, and beading fun. 

Look and them all so focused!

It was wonderful to be outside so much this week and was a good sign for things to come. Here we go summer!!

Family portraits:

Addison's family

Jack's family 

Eisley's family

Noah's family 

Can't Catch a Break

Sickness hit us again last weekend, so my plans of hosting school were a bit thwarted. Thankfully, Ev lives 2 houses away, so I was able to get her all my plans and supplies on Monday morning. We stayed home and the others participated in school down at her house. This winter has been a DOOZY for us in the sickness department. Here's to hoping for spring's early arrival!

By Thursday, we were on the mend over here so I asked everyone to come to our house for part 2 of week 23. I just felt like it had been AGES since we hosted school, and I had already done all the prep work. It turned out to be a really fun morning. Take a look...

After our normal calendar time, Bible story, and song, I decided to take the Bible story a step further. I assigned "roles" and the kids took turns acting out the story of Jesus calming the storm.

Here you can see our "boat". Noah is playing Jesus taking a nap, and Jack and Eisley are disciples.

 

In comes Addison as the waves and Annabelle as the rain (she has maracas).

 

We switched it up a few times so everyone could have a turn playing the different parts. And the kids did great following my directions. I think we should try to incorporate more role playing in the future.

 

For snack we went fishing like Jesus' disciples. We used a piece of celery with peanut butter on the tip as a fishing pole and tried to catch goldfish. While the kids ate, I read My Q Book, My 10 Book, and Ten Little Sleepyheads.

 

 

 

Doc especially enjoyed eating everyone's leftover peanut butter :)

 

 

Next we worked on a coloring sheet. The girls are especially interested in coloring. They are using multiple colors now, and they are getting quite good at staying in the lines. Coloring is definitely not the boys' favorite activity. They willingly participate, but they typically only use one color and they are "finished" in a few minutes. I find it fascinating to see the differences between the boys and girls play out as they get older.

 

Next was a counting activity. We've got 1-5 down pat, so I wanted to spend some time working on numbers 5-10 today. Each child chose a chunk of playdough and 5 pipe cleaners. I instructed the kids to stick their pipe cleaners into the playdough so they were straight up in the air and in a row (this took a minute). I put a bowl of cheerios in the center of the table and asked each child to count out 5 cheerios (this also took a minute...they each wanted me to watch them count). Then they put all 5 cheerios on the first pipe cleaner in a stack. Next, they counted 6 cheerios. The idea was to put them on the next pipe cleaner in line so we could see how much taller 6 was than 5. In my mind, they would create a graph of sorts to show the difference between the numbers. Yeah...not so much. The girls got the idea after the first few stacks, and the boys gave up counting and tried to make as tall a stack of cheerios as they could. After a couple attempts to redirect the activity, I finally just let them stack the cheerios however they wanted...hey, it was good fine motor practice anyway, right? ;)

 

 

 

Eisley did a GREAT job on this activity. She sat there long after the other kids went out to play and finished all 5 stacks of cheerios. She showed excellent concentration, and she put the right number of cheerios on each pipe cleaner. Great work Eisley!