Alphabet

G is for glitter

Literature

I don’t suggest this book for use in a curriculum.  I didn’t like it for a couple of reasons.  The use of the word *puke*, and the fact that I had to explain to Ada what a pipe was.  We’re very anti smoking around in our home, and well, I just wouldn’t have used it. II bought the book off of Amazon, and didn’t read it before we started the lesson. That was a lesson learned. In library school we we had several discussions on how to deal with parents who challenge books in school, and the balance of the freedom of speech, etc… so I do, on some level, feel like a traitor to my trade, but in the end, one of the perks of homeschooling is being able to appropriately shelter your children.

Crafts

Coffee filter snowflakes

I had every intention of doing an entire curtain filled with snowflakes, but the cutting turned out to be too hard for Tater, and the hodge podgeing was a nightmare. So, we stuck with just 4.

Since Tater was already in her painting shirt… she wanted to paint.

Last but not least, my fashionista.

Tater and Cheezer have been watching lots of educational TV.  Spud was born on the 11th, I spent the entire week in the hospital.  My parents stayed the next week with me, and this past week, I was all alone with all three of my children for the first time.  When I brought Tater home, I distinctly remember crying to a friend that the only goal I had that week was to mop the kitchen, and didn’t get that done.  She laughed until 2 months later- she had her first child and understood completely.  I am super woman in comparison that that first time mom.  Super woman sporting kryptonite.  My mama left the house spotless, and it has been upkeep at this point.  I’m still tired, but ready to come out of hiding and get some stuff done!

Merry Christmas Promotion

As a holiday “Thank You”, we are offering you a Buy One Get One Free Promotion from now until noon EST on December 24.  To take advantage ~ purchase a CD (or download) as you normally would.  Then, at checkout, enter the title of the CD (or download) that you would like for free in the “comments” section.

*Please note:  The CDs  (or downloads) that you receive for free must be the same cost as the one for
which you paid. You may use the promotion to purchase as many CDs as you wish.  For example:  You could purchase 6 and receive 6 for free ( a year of curriculum at half price).

This week we looked at IBB’s unit on The Gingerbread Man.

But first, we had to finish our M collage. I settled on doing money. I found a great printable from moneyinstructor.com. You do have to create an account to print the worksheets. Tater cut the money and glued it to her collage.

Before changing into our day clothes, we put on paint clothes and painted some great gingerbread paper mache boxes I got at Michael’s for 50 cents.

For the letter K- we did kisses. Tater wanted no part of the lipstick, but Cheezer was game, so monkey see- monkey do.

Hey Cheezer, you have lipstick on your teeth!

Cheezer- with a little help from Tater, colors our letter K clipart:

During Cheezer’s naptime, Tater made a gingerbread tree. I have not inherited my mother’s sewing or cooking abilities. Sadly to say- I did the ugly stuff with the bag decorator.

She’s getting pretty good at using a mixer. I made a mental note today to look into home ec programs for when she’s a little older.

Tater icing cookies:

Finished tree:

Back to our gingerbread men:

Yay!

And one last photo of Cheezer getting her tot school on:

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a Happy New Year!

To see what other preschoolers did, please visit Homeschool Creations:

To check on other Tot Schoolers- visit Tot School.

The Christmas slowdown has begun for us.  I had every intention of doing our letter collage this past week, and by week’s end, we still hadn’t done it.  Oh well.  We did a lapbook on If you Give a Moose a Muffin and If You Give a Mouse a Cookie.  While I don’t think I got a picture of the completed book, we did have fun doing the activities.

Muffin Math:

Cookie Math:

Cheezer helps tater with the “M” mini book:

Cookie Story Wheel:

Moose Story Sequence (this one took a while)

Cookie Story Shadow Match (Tater’s Favorite):

In the very beginning of the week, we did make red and green tissue flowers. We also made brownies that mornin. She actually saw this craft on TV and insisted that we make them. She has tried to replicate the process by herself several times and does a pretty impressive job.

We’re going to be really slowing down over the next several weeks.  Baby Spud is set to come in the  middle of January.  Tater will be doing some tracer sheets, and I’ll use the CLP activity book that I bought at the beginning of the school year.  I’ve also thought about breaking out our Explode the Code series and working through those.  Looking at them now, they are too simple for Tater, but the repetition and the review will be nice.  Keep us in your prayers.  Have a wonderful Christmas holiday!

To see what other preschoolers have done this week, visit the preschool corner:

We had a really rough start to the week. The trip home from Alabama really took it out of us- well- me. However, looking back on our pictures, we really did get a lot done.

We are proud to be Official Itty Bitty Bookworms. You can follow us, and the other official bookworms, at the IBB blog. Each of us uses it differently. We use it as he foundation of our program. Each month when I get the kit, I choose which three books we’d like to cover that month. Each month has four. Three of the four weeks introduces a letter of the alphabet, ending the month with a review.    Since we only plan for three weeks, we omit the review week.. I use the alphabet activities provided in the kit- a clip art page we use for our letter chart, and also a letter itty bitty book. It’s how we always start our week. The kit provides a template for each letter, but I prefer to use the templates available at DLTK. It takes a little digging to get to them, but they include both the upper and lowercase letters.

Additionally, I use the following blogs in order to supplement our activities:

Confessions of a Homeschooler- this mama has some awesome activities on her blog. I am heartbroken when we’re covering a letter she hasn’t done yet. She has GREAT printables. You’ll want to have a laminator, so you might resist the urge to check her out until you do.

Homeschool Creations- Jolanthe also provides a great deal of inspiration. Scroll all the way down to the bottom to “alphabet time” to see each letter’s respective activities.

Refined Metals Academy- is another site that I find myself surfing to get idea for letter activities.

This is not by any means the end of our inspiration, just the sites I seem to visit weekly. I have been more than pleased with our IBB curriculum. We were set to do a unit on a title called Mmm, Cookies this week.  However, after reading the book, I decided not to use it.  The activities in the kit were wonderful, so I decided to substitute one of our favorites- If You Give a Mouse a Cookie . We’d been invited to a Kid’s Cookie Party this week, and what else says Christmas like cookies!

As I said, I’d planned on taking it easy this week, but we really did get a lot done- naturally. We’re going to continue our study of If You Give a Mouse a Cookie next week, and may even get motivated enough to do a lapbook from Homeschool Share. I’ve already printed, cut, and laminated these wonderful activities from Suite 101.com. It was the first time I had used the site. It’s loaded with advertisements and difficult to navigate due to the fact, but the activities are cute.

The first thing we did this week was to start and finish the craft for our Kid’s Craft Exchange at There’s No Place Like Home Homeschooling Board. We took it all the way to Alabama and back without completing it. I was very proud of how they turned out, and the girls really do most of the work.  Our gift was a modified version of this ABC fishing game from First Palette.

I was disappointed to miss our monthly MOPS meeting Tuesday morning. To get our Christmas activities started on time, we did a Santa Beard Calendar and a Christmas Garland.

On Wednesday Daddy took Tater to co-op while I went to an OB appointment. There’s no missing co-op.

Thursday we missed another MOPS activitity but did make our Kids Cookie Party at my girlfriend’s house. Mainly, I sat and let my kids run a muck.

Friday- we managed to get down to “school”. These wonderful M&M activities came from Confessions of a Homeschooler (I didn’t even use half of them).

Language Arts

Pre-writing skills:

Letter Mm alphabet sort:

Letter Mm Chart:

I let Tater do this completely independently this week. She did a great job and was quite proud.

Math – Tater has been getting much better her letter recognition. Once we get 6, 9, and 10 out of the way she’ll know 1-10. She can count, she understands one to one correspondence, just the visual recognition isn’t there quite yet. We introduced the number zero. I remember struggling with the idea in the first grade, so she’s already smarter than her mama!

This activity was a HUGE hit. Who doesn’t love eating M&M’s in school!

Literature

We read for 30 minutes before bed every night, however, something about reading during “school” is so calming. We stuck to the series for our school books. I picked up two more at Kohl’s this afternoon that we’ll include next week.

Life School- I can’t believe I’ve never thought to get Daddy to take a picture, but one a month they trudge out to Home Depot or Lowes for one of their Kids How-To clinics. Home Depot hosts a Kids Workshop on the first Saturday of every month. It is designed for children aged 5-12, but Tater has no problem completing the project. Home Depot seems to have less- commercial, more useful projects than Lowes. I was kind of surprised when I saw the pictures that they used no goggles, but I’ll give them the benefit of the doubt and assume they were out. For completing the project, each child gets a pin and a certificate of completion. Both stores offer a kid’s sized apron to keep and take home.

Lowes has their Build and Grow Clinics more often- so far every Saturday this week. You sign up on line in order to participate. Each child gets an apron, a patch to commemorate that activity, and a pair of safety goggles. Again, Tater has no problem participating in the activities. She loves to go “build” with Daddy. Mama enjoys the Saturday morning break.

To see what other preschoolers did this week, please visit Preschool Corner

Cheezer had a slow Tot School week.  She made a gift for a gift exchange in which we participated over at There’s No Place Like Home Homeschooling Board.  Honestly, Tater did the bulk of the work, but Cheezer was really pleased with herself and would give a quick “Yay!” with ever sticker placed.  (For those interested, we made our own version of this ABC fishing game over at First Palette).

This week we went to a Kid’s Cookie Party in which a table full of 3 year old’s (and Cheezer) attempted to make cookies.

I am amazed at little things she’s picked up by watching Tater do preschool. She “counts” to three and can do a few of her ABC’s. It’s nothing I’ve ever tried to teach her. I caught her playing with her shape sorter today. I’d gotten it out in an attempt to play with her for a few minutes, but she had more important things to do. However, she is always involved in Tater’s “school”. She went through several letters on Starfall.com today. There’s no telling her that she isn’t a “big kid”.

She helped Tater glue noodles to her Letter Nn collage:

She also colored some turkeys:

She made handprint turkeys with daddy.  She wasn’t overly cooperative with having her hands painted, and it took us two tries- on two different days- to get two sets.  She was more than happy to give Daddy some pointers on the placement of feet.

She was mainly uncooperative at our family portrait session.

But she did manage to put on a smile for her Cousin D’s first birthday party. Cheezer is exactly 10 months older than 10. They are exactly the same height, and D has more hair!

To see what other tots learned this Thanksgiving, visit Tot School.

Be sure to see what Tater did this week during preschool

It has been a while since I updated. We got little done in the way of school the week on the 16th because my grandfather passed away. We had already planned to be in Alabama for the holiday, but we left earlier than anticipated. We used the week to participate in our normal activities. We went to MOPS and Playgroup. We did start our discussion on the Letter Nn, and we finally got around to Hodge Podgeing some leaves we’d collected.

We packed and left for Alabama on Friday- which is usually our busy school day. We did do a lot of school in Alabama. There isn’t much to do in the thriving Metropolis of Marion, Alabama. Once again, Itty Bitty Bookworm proved it’s worth. It took me minutes to prepare for our study of Ten Fat Turkeys.

But First

Alphabet:

We didn’t get around to our typical alphabet activities, but we did do our collage. For the letter N- we chose noodles.

Math:

After reading Ten Fat Turkeys we worked on a clothespin counting game from the IBB kit.  I even took my laminator all the way to Alabama.  To say that I am addicted to it is an understatement.  I’m so glad I chose to get the cheapy version, but once it has melted its last, I am going to get the Xyron so that I’ll have the ability to make stickers and stuff.  Not that I’ll actually get into it, but I’ll have the ability.

The game came in handy all week long. Tater even put some imagination into it, used the clothes pins to give the turkeys legs, and made her own little turkey army. Clothespin game in action:

On Tuesday we got up early, got all dolled up and drove an hour to the nearest Portrait Innovation. Did I mention lack of stuff in Marion? I wasn’t pleased- at all- with any of the photos, so we’ll be doing them again. There are 2 of us missing in this one, but we’ll never manage to get all of us in one. Funny thing though- the ones IN Alabama- absent.

Life School:

More IBB:

Wednesday, we were back to school. Daddy read Ten Fat Turkeys again. It was so cute because Tater knew the nonsense words that Daddy didn’t know.

My favorite activity of the week was the hand print turkeys. We made 2 sets, one to keep and one to leave for Manini (Tater’s word for my mama). The poem came from the IBB kit.

More Talkin’ Turkey:

We talked about being thankful and completed this Give Thanks Turkey Craft from DLTK- Kids. I had Daddy start to help her with it, but, well, he’d be the parent doing the science project for his kid. We were just thankful to have the time with Daddy, and that he was interested- if even for a little while- in joining us.

Then! Tater made a red velvet cake with Manini. I love this picture!

On Thursday, Daddy helped Ada do an itty book on the First Thanksgiving, and then we called it a week. I’m sorry that I don’t remember where the booklet came from.

The R says rrrr, the R says Rrrr, every letter makes a sound, the R says rrrr.  If you don’t have Letter Factory from Leap Frog get it.  It’s amazing at teaching phonics to youngins.  If you have a Costco card, they have it there cheap right now.

Letter Rr

This week we studied the Letter Rr, and since we read Hush! A Thai Lullaby with its rice barn, and since when talking about the letter Rr, you must, simply MUST do a day on rainbows (be sure to scroll down [or click] to see the our first lapbook- on rainbows). We just absolutely HAD to dye some rice.  I’ve been planning to do this for- well, ever, and was excited to finally have the motivation to do it. For whatever reason, Tater squished each of the plastic bags over her head. It really brought to mind those old ziploc commercials.

The finished product was great.  We used the opportunity- again- to talk about primary and secondary colors.  Incidentally, our yellow and blue makes green color turned out better than the out of the box green.

With our rice, we made a rice rainbow.

When we discussed the Letter Rr, we did our “Little R” booklet and our R chart.

Math

Since I got my laminator, I was finally able to complete the clothespin counting cards that I downloaded free from CurrClick.

Itty Bitty Bookworm

Tater had a great time reading the book Hush! A Thai Lullaby.  So, we did a bit of child led study this week and adapted the activities to what caught her eye.

We talked about ladders.  Daddy used one to paint our foyer this week, and well, its residence has been the foyer for some time.  She built a ladder from craftsticks.

We colored the character cards from the IBB kit. Tater made a “rice house” for her elephant.

Who came next? We used the character cards to talk about “who came next” in the book.  We love sequencing.

Life School

On the swings with Daddy.  Not sure why she wanted on the baby swing.

First time playing the Wii.  She’ll be a better gamer than me by the weekend.

To see what other preschoolers have done this week, click here.

See our previous post for more information about our picks for this week.