Easter Fun!

 

 

I have been searching around the internet for ideas on what to do for Easter crafts this year, and while we haven’t been doing many Easter crafts there is still plenty of Easter learning going on.  We have been reading many Easter books and learning about the resurrection and that Jesus died for our sins.  How amazing all this is. 

 

We made Rabbit Racers from Family Fun and had fun racing them. 

 

We have been reading Easter stories each night.

 

Along with our regular studies, our future plans are:

 

Today we decorated Easter Eggs.  Played some Easter games.  And watched The Miracle Maker on Netflix. 

 

Friday:  We will read an Earth Day Book, make Easter basket cupcakes, and make Easter Egg sun catchers from recycled crayons. 

 

Saturday:  We are going to an Easter egg hunt.  We are going to do family style house cleaning as well.  Then we will do what ever comes to my mind.

 

Sunday:  We will  be celebrating Easter by going to church and creating a family dinner together.  We will welcome daddy home as well.  (He has been gone for 2 weeks.).

Kids creating what they want.

This week we spent some time painting which is rare in our house.  I’ll admit, I am afraid of the hassle of painting.  The mess scares me.   I bought some Crayola washable paints and some inexpensive paint brushes.  I laid out paper on across our kitchen table.  This unprinted newspaper comes in handy so often. 




I read them a few poems out of Where the Sidewalk Ends, by Shel Silverstein.




I explained some rules to them such as paint only on the paper, and ask me if you need more paint, mind your own space.  Then I let them paint while I continued to read.  

I wasn’t able to take many pictures as I was regulating and reading. 

The little ones loved this.  Katey told me it was the best school day ever!  They loved having the ability to be able to create whatever they wanted with no rules as to that.    Katey’s started out as grass and progressed into a flower garden. It ended up as a mixture of paint colors
 

I now feel much more confident in letting the kids create with paint.  So be sure to stay tuned for some more painting projects in the future. 

I am linking this up to StART! 

5K- The Letter experience!

My Kindergartner, who just turned 6, still struggles with learning her letters.  She knows the sounds most of them make.  So she is able to read simple books with help.  I can give her spelling tests with words like us, mom, we, and vet.  She does well on those.  It’s when I ask her to write a specific letter she draws a blank.  So we have really been focusing on that.

I had her make some letters out of cereal one day.  She does pretty well if she can say the sound the letter makes. 

She also did a matching game with some homemade flashcards.  She had to match the capital letter with the lowercase.  She did well at this.  We need to practice more with q, g, p, d, b. 
 
I am having her go through the Explode The Code Primers at her own pace, which has been rather quickly.  I feel that this is a great review for her. 

We are also using Hooked On Phonics for reading.  She is loving this program more than any other phonics program we have used.  She asks to do Hooked On Phonics often. 

We use the Leapfrog The Letter Factory.  Did you know that there are many Leap Frog videos available on Netflix?  Some are even instant download.  We use Math Adventures to the Moon, The Amazing Alphabet and Numbers Ahoy.    I have both Katey and Tyler watch one of these while I am in the shower.  It has been working out wonderfully.   

We are now going to add in quite a bit more math.  We have been doing number recognition and simple addition and subtraction.  She already knows how to count.  So we will be working on more addition. 


I was really feeling like she is coming along very well.   I am so proud of her.

Tot School 21.5 months

This week we have been so busy.
We baked sugar cookies to go along with a book that we are reviewing (coming May 6th). 

We installed a chicken coop. 

The window is at the perfect height for Tyler.  He goes out side every day and checks on them. 

He spent lots of time playing with his cars.  When he noticed I was taking pictures he couldn’t help but pose. 

I feel like it’s really time to kick it up a notch with Tyler.  I have noticed he has been paying attention more now when I am working with Katey.  He is wanting to do the things she is doing during school time.

I am going to start planning some Montessori inspired age appropriate activities to let him choose from.  I am going to start slowly as to not overwhelm him, or me really.   I made him an Easter/Spring sensory bin.  I just used stuff I could find around the house.  

• macaroni noodles (2 bags)
• fake flowers
• the shapes from the Candy Land matching game
• 2 My Little Ponies
• Some Pictures that I printed on card stock and printed out.  (Our Temple, Jesus on the Cross, and Easter Eggs)

I am not so sure how the macaroni will work out.  He did get a little wild and spilled more than I had originally pictured.   Oh well, it really wasn’t hard to clean up.

I also made some playdoh for a money project I was doing with Katey, and I gave Tyler some along with the pieces to the Candy Land Match Game to put in the playdoh.  He loved it!

We also did plenty of reading together, he loves to be read too.  Sometimes it seems hard to fit it in as often as he wants it, I try to, I love this time together.  He loves it when anyone reads to him, so when I am busy with other children, I have someone that is not busy read to him. 

It’s so cute how he is picking things up.  He doesn’t say many words yet, but occasionally I will hear him say a new word.  Just today in the bath tub he said, “up” and then stood up.   That was the first time I heard him say that word.

Other words/phrases that I can think of that he says right now are:

• Shoes
• Socks
• Look at this
• Mom
• Dad
• Ommy (Tommy or Emily)
• Atey (Katey)
• Cookie
• Poop
• un two tree (one, two, three)
• Whoa
• Owie
• Kauck  (when something is dirty, such as his hands he will walk around saying Ka Ka Kauck holding his hands out until you wash them)

I also often hear him singing songs, although I cannot understand him. 
He does understand many more words than he can actually say. 

To see how other Tots are learning check out Tot School over at 1+1+1=1. 

Learning about money

 

I am trying to teach Katey about money, just the basics right now.  A Penny is worth 1 cent, Nickel, 5 cents, etc.  I tried just flashcard style.  Holding one up, telling her, then seeing if she would remember.  That wasn’t really working.  

We also have the make the date with money on our morning board.  That works better. 

We tried some interactive activities this week.

I hid some change in some playdoh I made.  As she would uncover them, she had to tell me what each one was, and then we would count them up together. 

 

She really thought that this was so neat.  She really loved this game.  Then she hid them for me to dig.  It was alot of fun.

A little later in the day, I showed her this game that I had made.  (It is my first shot at making my own printables)

It’s basically 4 pictures and 4 price tags.  She had to price each item, then show the coin that would buy it.

Sometimes I would switch up the prices and sometimes she would. 

 

It’s such an eye opener for me to see how much different she learns in different environments.  She caught on so quickly with these simple games, whereas she was struggling with just talking about them. 

 

I have also realized that homeschooling doesn’t have to be over the top.  Just simple time with your children is all it really takes. 

Oh the things a quick brownie can do for you.

 

After having visitors for the weekend staying with us, I fell behind on my house cleaning.  Sunday afternoon my kitchen looked like this. 

YIKES!  I was so not wanting to tackle it. 

 

I learned about this brownie you can make in about 1 min from my dear friends at TOS Crew. 

 

I quickly whipped me up one.

 

Then I felt ready to clean, and two hours later my kitchen looked like this!

That brownie really gave me the strength I needed to do it!

 

Now I will just have to remember to only use this newfound brownie power for good.  :)

All About Reading

Have you heard about All About Spelling?  Well they now have a new reading program called All About Reading.  They have Pre-Level 1 out NOW!  We have had it for about 6 weeks now.  Level Pre-1 is for preschoolers and kindergartners.  It focuses on what they call the Big 5 Skills. 
They are

1. Letter Knowledge
2. Phonological Awareness
3. Print Awareness
4. Listening Comprehension
5. Motivation to Read

 

I have struggled in the past getting Katey to remember her letter names, she did pretty well with sounds, but I was beginning to feel the pressure of her not being where a typical Kindergartner her age was.  So I was grateful and so excited to receive the Pre-Level 1 Deluxe package from All About Reading.
Sure I tried using letter craft and activities I found on the internet, but I noticed that I would get “lost on the internet” searching for ideas to use, and they were all so cute, I would get overwhelmed by which one to do.  I think that having a creative curriculum to help me teach reading that I don’t have to do a lot of prep work was just what I need, and just what I got!   This curriculum is designed to go at your child’s pace.  You can do a letter a day, a letter a week, or a letter whenever you feel like it.   Although consistency is key.   We learned letters as often as she would master them.  Some she already knew, some she didn’t.   

The teachers manual is divided into 4 parts.

Part 1 is the capital letter recognition.  Which is the one we have been currently working on.
Part 2 is the lowercase letter recognition.
Part 3 is the sounds.
Part 4 is the appendices.


Each part has pretty much the same layout, but my description below is pretty focused on Part 1.
Let me tell you about the lessons.  Each lesson is based on a letter.  You learn uppercase letters first and lowercase next.  Every day you begin by singing the alphabet, while pointing to letters on the alphabet poster.  Then you have the child find the specific letter they will be learning that day.  Next you read a poem out of the cute book The ZigZag Zebra.  They locate the current letter on the pages.  And they do a craft sheet for the letters.   Each craft sheet is already made and ready for your child to color and add simple ideas to it, such as googly eyes, thumb print art, or construction paper grass, etc.  There is then a list of activities that you can choose from to have even more letter practice.  There is a game that goes along with each lesson as well.  They are fun games, that Katey absolutely loved.  She loved that ZigZag Zebra (the puppet) played some with her.  You finish the lesson by reading aloud to your child for 20 minutes.


There are samples of the Teachers Manual, My Book Of Letters Activity Book and both the read aloud books at the bottom of the order page here.     

The teachers manual  has all of the lessons in easy to read format.  It is full of tips, hints and ideas, that are super easy to incorporate into the lessons, and your everyday teaching life. 

There is also a letter sound CD-Rom.  It is a very simple click the lowercase letter, and it makes the sound.  I wished it had the uppercase letters as well.

Katey has been averaging mastery of a new letter about once a week.  Each day I also incorporate a review of the letters previously learned.  We also read all the poems for previous letters learned each day.  She really loves the poems, and has some of them memorized.   

The book does have you teach the letters in ABC order.  I chose not to do that.  We started that way, and then I decided to do the letter in a random order.  I kept the lessons in order though.  For example, letter A is lesson 1, B-2 etc.  When I taught her letter M, we were on lesson 4, which would have been D, I just did lesson 4 with her which was play a rhyming card game.  The lessons are progressive, so I felt it important to keep those in order.  With Tyler, I will teach the letters in order.

I also added in handwriting practice every day, for Katey, but again I will start this program with Tyler most likely before he can really write, and therefore the handwriting part will come later. 

So I was going to tell you about why I love this program, it became one big run on sentence.  So here is a list.

• It is so organized
• It is pretty much prep free, just grab the bag and learn
• It is so organized
• It really appeals to children
• It is so fun, for both of us
• Everything is planned out and right there for you
• It is so organized
• It is designed to go at your child’s pace.  I never felt rushed to get through a lesson, or like a lesson took longer than needed.

My favorite thing is the organization.  Everything fits in the tote bag.  The box, with the lesson cards are divided into lesson numbers.  The books are easy to read and find your way around in.   I struggle with organizing things on my own.  So this is such a breath of fresh air.  Katey never had to wait for me to get stuff ready to do these lessons (while she was coloring the letters, I got the basic art supplies that were needed that day). 

 

Level Pre-1 is offered in Basic and Deluxe packages

The Basic package $79.95 includes:

• Teacher's Manual (208 pages)
• Student Material Packet
  • My Book of Letters and Sounds Activity Book (192 pages)
  • Picture Cards
  • Letter Sound Cards
  • Capital Letter Alphabet Chart
  • Lowercase Letter Alphabet Chart
• The Zigzag Zebra: a rhyming alphabet hardcover book
• Lizard Lou: rhymes old and new hardcover book
• Divider Cards (keeps your Picture Cards and Letter Sound Cards organized
• "Letter Sounds A to Z" CD-ROM. 

With the Basic package, you will need to add your own puppet and your own index card box.
The Deluxe package $119.95 includes the same items as the Basic package (Teacher's Manual, Student Material Packet, Divider Cards, "Letter Sounds A to Z" CD-ROM). It also includes

• Ziggy the Zebra puppet
• a charming Activity Box to hold your student's learning cards
• All About Reading tote bag to keep your components organized

You can also buy all of these items individually, which is great if you have two children doing this, then just purchase an extra activity book for $24.95.

Right now they are giving away TWO FREE E-books.  In the Kitchen with the Zigzag Zebra and Safari Stories with the ZigZag Zebra to get those go HERE!

All About Reading is now a staple curriculum in our house. 

Other crew members reviewed this as well, to see what they had to say check out that post here.

{I received this product for free in order to write this honest review.  No other compensation was received.  All opinions herein this blog are my own, and your experience may differ.}