Week 5 Review

What a crazy week. This week I was feeling a little gloomy. It might have been something to do with the 88 degree house we were sitting in or it could've been something completely different altogether. I'm still not sure, but the world has decided to cool off for a couple days....and my mood is slowly coming around (although some would beg to differ lol). Anyway, the kids and I hit a different second hand shop everyday which produced some exciting new manipulatives for the kids and quite a few good ideas for me to work on. The next few weeks my free time will be spent working on those!

Ok, onto the pictures, and what we did this week. Well, first lets talk about what we didn't do. Despite Annabelle's apparent enthusiasm about the shoe closet it still looks the same as when I posted it earlier this week. We also didn't get our lapbook finished. We did work on it and had fun with it. It will be finished in week 6.

We have boats. With this craft we worked on folding. We talked about how fisherman work on boats, and a few of Jesus' friends were fishermen. Which led us into a conversation of what it means exactly to be a 'fisher of men'. Then we made collages of friends. They had fun with this. Then we have our letter A buddy. Asa's is the Picasso-esque one. :) I like how Annabelle made her pigeon toed (she does this with all her buddies). We did much more, but it wouldn't fit on our board. Annabelle also wrote (well, dictated) her first ever letter to a pen-pal. Her name is Jasmine (Annabelle calls her Princess Jasmine lol).

Annabelle and Asa both really enjoyed these dot pics. They had to put a dot in each circle. Poor Asa looks like he's about to melt in this pic. :/
Working on hand eye coordination. We ruined the table because mommy didn't have the foresight to put something underneath the styrofoam before the hammering started. Bummed out about that one (so was daddy). :/
These cool, cheap things were Silas' favorite of the week. Although the other two littles enjoyed it a lot too. The plastic containers I already had and the pom poms and colored popsicle sticks I found at my new favorite store....the Dollar Tree!
Here is is working to get that popsicle stick into the hole. This literally kept him entertained for 45 min. straight for 3 days!
Asa sorting the popsicle sticks by colors into cups.
Another favorite the last couple weeks has been these play-doh mats that I found here:
http://homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com/2010/03/preschool-corner-playdough-mats.html

Another hand eye coordination/maneuvering activity. Putting spaghetti into a parmesan cheese shaker (also found at the Dollar Tree). SIDENOTE: In these last few pictures the kids are in their pajamas. This is because they are literally so excited when they wake up that 'school' is the second thing that they want to do (after breakfast). :)
Ok. I'm so excited about this next picture. lol I made play-doh!! It was so easy. I was really nervous, because I'm not a craftsy person. I was so proud of myself that it turned out that Zak was making fun of me. lol It feels and smells much better than that nasty store bought stuff. I left it the plain color, but added cinnamon (which made it smell fantastic). This gave it the wonderful look of apple pie crust. Which the kids had fun pretending to make.....well actually they made cookies. :) So this is the beautiful dough recipe link: http://mymontessorijourney.typepad.com/my_montessori_journey/2008/10/homemade-playdo.html





Annabelle and Asa have both been constantly asking me, "What's next?" these past couple of weeks. I only planned on doing so many activites a day and when we're done, we're done. The littles were not happy with that approach. So this week with the help of my thrift store shopping I've been able to make up some 'busy trays' that they can play with and work on all by themselves any time they want to. A lot of these ideas came from one of my new favorite sites: http://www.countingcoconuts.blogspot.com/

This is a 'busy workbook'. Annabelle can use it any time she wants as many times as she wants. It is just worksheets that I printed off or took out of workbooks and put in page protectors. I put in some dry erase markers and viola....she has reusable worksheets that keep her entertained! This week she has the letters ABCD, some same and different worksheets, mazes, and circles. The really cute alphabet worksheets that I used can be found here: http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/2010_08_01_archive.html

These are the trays I was talking about. These activities will be rotated a couple times a week, and these are the things that I really need to work on the next couple of weeks. There will always be blank paper and drawing utensils, and puzzles available for the kids. There are also lacing cards in there at the moment.....
here is what is in the rest of them. Pattern cards and cylinders to match the pattern with. The silver tray with two different animal erasers to sort. The infamous hammering activity (which is now forever engraved on our table). And lastly a game that I found at Goodwill. It's like a tipsy game, but we just use it for stacking purposes (ex: roll the dice and stack the number that it says).


Holy cow that was a lot to post. I probably should've left the trays and book for next weeks post, but it took up a lot of time this week and so I thought I should include it. Hopefully my need for retail therapy is over....especially since I've been put on a spending freeze after all the money I donated to various charitable organizations this week via thrift stores. lol I should have enough to keep me busy. Looking forward to sharing with you what next week holds. Have a great holiday! Happy blogging.

jess_hak