Week in Review: Elijah and the Ravens, Kings and Queens, Kk

Oh my goodness that was a lot of pictures to upload! So beware as you enter this post is picture happy. I'm going to have to learn how to make them go side by side so I can do more than one picture in a row! Well, I will make my talking as brief as possible (which is hard for me because I like to ramble). :)

This week was a short week for us. Zak had a snow day! How cool is it that grown-ups get a snow day? So he was home for a day. Then we had a little friend over to play another day so not much got done those days, but we had fun! To top that all off we moved Silas and Asa into the same room and transformed Silas' old room into a school room!!!!! I'm so very excited to have our own space! :)

For our Bible lessons this week we talked about Elijah and the Ravens that brought him food. This led to discussion about how we do not need to worry about things like food, water, clothing, or shelter. God will supply all of our needs. We had some very fun lessons....including a bird puppet that came to tell us the story of his great, great, great, great etc. grandpa who helped bring food to Elijah.

Here Annabelle is making a Giving Raven (forgot to take finished pictures). It is just a black bird made out of paper plates with a pocket in the front of it. This little guy delivered her snacks in his pocket this week. She really enjoyed that.
This is a little booklet/poem that I got off of Danielle's Place. To access the printables you have to have a membership, but there are some sample lessons with great ideas. I use this site quite a bit to enhance our Bible activities. I set out the pages to this book in random order and Annabelle put them in order. We stapled it together and read the poem it made. She liked this more than I thought that she would. Guess I'll have to find more little printable books.
Finishing up her letter Jj work. This cut and paste sheet can be found here.
Introducing the letter Kk with her file folder game. This one proved a bit difficult because K and k look a lot alike. She thought it was funny how K and C made the same sound. We talked a lot this week about words that start with both letters.
Play-doh time. Annabelle is working on her Kk play-doh mat from here.

I was really excited to try this new pin pushing activity with the kids. I finally found push pins that were big enough. A little smaller than what I would've liked, but big enough for them to be able to use. They really loved doing this. I got the Kk printouts from here. Such cute pictures of them concentrating so hard. :)

I didn't get pictures of them working on these but our secondary theme this week was Kings, Queens, and Castles. They had a great time working on all of the stuff involved in that. It just so happened that our K letter buddy is a King. :) We made some keys for his kingdom.
Here are some really cute sand castles that the made using crushed up yellow and orange fruit loops! I got the fruit loop idea from the Hart 2 Hart blog.
Annabelle and Asa were happy to embellish Burger King crowns with glitter glue and gems.

We also made Jam Tarts (Pillsbury biscuits halved and jelly), and because I cannot cook/bake worth a lick we ruined a cookie sheet. When the recipe says to pinch the sides shut it wasn't kidding. lol
Putting the jelly between the halves.
And of course we had to get out our castles and play with them....a lot! Both Little Tykes and Fisher Price respectfully (both found at garage sales for a bargain price).
Asa surprised me this week when I discovered that he can identify every single letter of the alphabet! Don't tell her I said it, but not even Annabelle can do that! It is amazing to see how kids develop differently right before your eyes. When they say every child is different and learns at a different pace, they aren't joking.

Because I was so amazed at this new found talent, Asa and I did a lot of alphabet activities this week during 'his time'. This is an alphabet puzzle that we have. I would put out a group of letters and ask him to find a specific letter. He would find it and then place it in the puzzle. Yes, I did it in alphabetical order, but he doesn't get that yet. :)

We also played a lot with our Leap Frog fridge phonics (yes, we have two...I bought one at a garage sale so that I would have back up letters when some get misplaced). Here he is going through the lines that he sorted by color and is reciting to me what each letter is.
I made these poster games. I'm really excited about them. I'm sure other people have done this. I bought two copies of a poster (at the Dollar Tree you get two different posters in a package for a dollar), cut one up and laminated the pieces, and then applied velcro to the poster and the pieces. Ta-da....a fun matching game. I had some contact paper laying around so I put that on the posters for extra durability (before the velcro was put on). The kids love these! I have an alphabet, shapes, colors, and number 1-10. I think that I will probably get a numbers 1-20 for Annabelle to work with.
Even little guy loves these. I love the stretching that he is doing here all to match the pictures!
I didn't have many pictures of Silas this week again. Sad! I need to remember to take more pictures of him when we are playing. He is just a little high maintenance and easily distracted by things that flash (the camera) so I don't like to get it out that often during 'his time'.

He did have a great time cleaning the chalkboard for me with water and a paintbrush. :) He felt like such a big boy.
Cute little squat.

Without further delay, I present to you the school room! Zak and I worked on this for a couple days this week (and the rest of the house is still in disarray from this transition lol). This is the view from the door and moving clockwise. Our fantastic art easel and school table.
Tot shelves and Annabelle's work boxes.
Entertainment center....lol, it's not hooked up. :) The blue containers I'm using for my storage at the moment. They will eventually be Asa's work boxes. There are books stuffed in all of those cupboards.
Poster center. I will rotate the posters frequently.
Our new calendar area! Hurray!! I have some big plans for the pocket chart hanging next to it. That will come to fruition hopefully soon.
Bookcase with more supplies that we use daily on it.
Well, that's it for last week. This week we are wrapping up the letter K and moving on to the letter L. We are still behind, but making good progress on catching up. Have a great week! Happy blogging.
jess_hak

P.S. Go and check out what others are doing....tons of fabulous ideas floating around out there!