African Savannah: Lions

We actually started out this week about talking about tree shapes. Acacia trees that are found on the Savannah are umbrella shaped. We went outside and walked around to see if we could find any umbrella shaped trees.....we didn't. We found that trees with a distinguishable shape tend to be triangles in our neck of the woods. :)

This is her observation page that she did. She found the trees and took pictures, and I printed them out for her to cut and paste into her book.
Working on her lion craft. She has a lot of fun with these.
She even let Asa help!
The finished masterpiece. :) Right now him and the giraffe are having tea. lol
Here is some work that we did on her Animal Notebook this week. I love the multi-colored animals that she has been coloring. They make me smile. :)
Bad picture....sorry. I made this "Where do lions live?" interactive. I just put velcro on it so that she can do this again and again. There is also some copy work attached that she did.
We learned a lot about the jobs of each lion. The boys protect the pride from predators, invading lions etc., the girls hunt and raise the babies, the babies learn how to be lions.
All of these great lap book components can be found at Homeschool Share. Annabelle really likes her notebook, and it is something she looks over almost daily. It is also something she loves to show other people. It is so good to see her be proud and take ownership of her work. :)

The letter that we reviewed this week was the letter N. One of the activities we did was creating the letter Nn out of pipe cleaners. She also made quite a few other letters.
Making a newt.
Newts like to sun themselves on rocks, so of course Annabelle had to find a nice rock for her little newt.
She also made a noodle name. I wrote her name on paper (I tried to have her write it, but she wasn't understanding that it needed to be big, but not so big that it wouldn't fit on the paper), she outlined it in glue, and then stuck on the noodles.
She did this while I was reading to her from Born Free (one of the chapter books she has a really hard time focusing on). This type of work really helps her engage more in the reading.
My kids really enjoy their school space. I find them playing in there often. It is such a blessing to be able to have an area for there things (and to be able to close the door when I don't want them playing in their manipulatives).

This is a little peek of what I find during the day when my kids are actually playing quietly and nicely (without doing something naughty or making a huge mess lol). Annabelle is 'reading' to Asa and Jude.
Waking up in the morning and playing with everything on the shelves all at once. We had a fun cleaning/sorting lesson after this. :)
That was our week. Next up we will be learning about cheetahs (with a little side glance at hippos). Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Linking up to Preschool Corner. :)

Themeless Tot Trays

So I have one more week before I officially start Tot School again with Asa and Silas, but they were really in need of some trays this week. They have both been asking me for 'school'. I started Annabelle's K and I have been trying to work out a schedule that will benefit everyone (myself included). It is actually proving to be harder than I thought it would. You will notice only one picture of Asa in this post. That is because I have been slacking the most with him (poor guy). I plan on making sure that he gets some great mommy time this week and think that I finally have a plan put together to make sure that no one is left out. Asa did play with these trays this week, there was just no specific one on one time with him like there should be....still feeling some mommy guilt. Anyway, here is our week. :)

I just bought this game during one of our recent garage saling adventures. Stuck it on a tray and the kids had a great time playing with it this week.
This tray was the least played with tray. My intentions were for the kids to string the beads on the pipe cleaners. To get even more fancy they could string them onto the matching color pipe cleaner.
We have these great wooden spools that were given to us by a friend (thanks Miss Beth!). We have used them off and on throughout the year for building things.
Being very careful!
I bought these letter beads recently off of Amazon with some of Silas' birthday money. I plopped them in a basket and just sat them out. lol Later I added some cups for sorting and pouring.
These were the most played with this week. The first day he poured.....
Another day he was lining them up. So I decided to take the opportunity to play a little game with him. I would set out a few different letters and then say, "Where is the T?" He would find it and then put it in his line. He really liked this and we played for a good 20 min.! (Don't mind his face.....he was recently attacked by mosquitoes).
As I mentioned I started Annabelle's K. She is learning all about animals this year. Right now we are learning about animals that live in the African grasslands. There is a really cool website Africam.com that lets you see a few different African watering holes live. We've had it up on our laptop pretty consistently over the last couple weeks. This particular morning we were seeing a whole lot of elephants. Silas was really enjoying watching them and then asked for an elephant to color.
Having fun watching the elephants and coloring them.
Finished.
I also have a little 'play' area with African animals set there for some imaginative play. The kids LOVE this and have played with it every day.
Lining up some of our plastic 'safari' animals in the play area. He was grouping the animals together with their pair.
Just a fun cute picture.
And just so you don't think that the other kids were completely neglected (or just so I stop feeling so much guilt about neglecting them lol), here is a picture of what the school room looked like a lot of times this week. I peeked in one day to see what was going on. Annabelle is 'reading' to Asa and Jude while they were playing with the letter beads.
A fun week! Looking forward to beginning a new schedule here soon and getting back to a routine where no sweet child is left out. Happy blogging! :)

jess_hak

I'm linking up to 1+1+1=1. Check it out....there are some great ideas over there! :)

Garage Sale Treasures: Week 9

It was cold and rainy, but I'm a crazy person and still went out. :) I'm really glad that I did because I was able to cross quite a few things off of my list. I'm going to start out with clothes and then end with the fun stuff. I don't know if people like looking at clothes, but I know that I like looking at other people's good clothing finds so I will keep posting mine.

Annabelle (and Me!) So it was slim pickings for Annabelle's size this week, but not a big deal. Got her a pair of jammies, a couple shirts, and some hair ties. Funny that I found these hair ties. I almost bought the exact same ones the other day. I also found a nice short sleeve sweater (that will look great with the belt I just got at Goodwill). $4.00
Hooray for jammies!! I've been looking and looking and looking for jammies for Asa since the beginning of garage sale season. Today I hit the jackpot. They are pretty much the only clothing item I bought for Asa. Besides the unders pictured to the left (.50) and the shirt there too (.75). 5 pair of summer jammies for $4.50, and 5 pair of winter jammies for $3.75! Unbelievable.
This is Silas' booty....lol not much there. Summer shirt (.50), jammies (1.00)
These are for my sweet nephew. :) Dress shirt, hoodie, 2 long sleeve t's, t-shirt, 2 pair summer jammies, and 2 pair winter jammies. $6.50
A fun basket to put all the clothes in for $1.00.....my arms were getting full. lol
Of course no garage sale venture is complete without buying some books. I crossed 4 books off of our book list (The Snowy Day, White Snow Bright Snow, Commotion in the Ocean, The Pumpkin Patch Parable). I also really like The Pledge of Allegiance book.....it includes the phrase Under God. That could very well not be there in future books printed of the pledge.....$5.25
LOL......I found a Ken today. I've been looking for a while, I paid a $1 for him. I also found him a car for .25.....so he can pick up the ladies in style. :) 2 new pairs of flip flops and a pair of crocs for Asa (yes, I did get him some a few weeks ago, but you can never have too many pairs of crocs). $4.25
So this game was going to be a Christmas present. It was brand new and I paid $3 for it. Then Silas got a hold of it and ripped the title/cover of it. I taped it back together (it's taped in this pic), but I just don't feel good about giving it as a present now. It's just 'used' looking. What say you? Consider also the person who ripped it was the person it was going to be for.....

Anyway, it's a really cute match/memory game. You hide the animals (they break in half) under the haystacks and then find the matches.
Found an little abacus. Also, a Learning Resources cash register (that works and looks great). I was excited about both of these because they will be used this next year a great deal. $2
This next picture is of my favorite finds of the day. They were also all 3 on my list! I like to cross things off....it helps me know (and my sweet Zak know too) that I am actually garage saling with a purpose, and not just filling my house with useless stuff (as the aforementioned sweet one would say). :)

Melissa and Doug World Map floor puzzle - $2, U.S. puzzle - $2. I really like it because the states all come in their shapes (minus the little eastern states they're grouped together in 3 pieces).
I was so excited about this beautiful globe. I've seen a couple for $8, and $10.....I paid $2! Sure it is a little out of date (how long ago did the USSR dissolve?), but it is just fantastic. Annabelle LOVES it and keeps asking about where is this and what people live there.....amazing what ball with countries on it can do to spark a child's interest.
GRAND TOTAL: $43

Hope everyone else had a great time and found some good deals. I'm linking up to My Life on a Taffy Pull. If you went garage saling and have some fun finds to share head over there and share away! :) Happy blogging!

Animal Notebook

One of the reasons I like the Winter Promise curriculum so much (besides the fact that I just love it!) is the notebooking element it has added in. I love the idea that Annabelle will have something to look back and and remember this year by. It is a little book of memories that we are going to make together throughout our learning this year.

(Sorry for the pictures in advance. They are dark. Oh how I wish that I was a talented photographer and had something nicer than a point and click camera. But alas, I am not.)

Cover of the binder (as provided by WP). The binder is a white 2".
This is the page that is also provided by WP. If you click and enlarge it you can see the questions. I read them and she dictated her answers. I especially love that she said giraffes have polka dots. :) It is scheduled to do this all on one day, but we split it up and did a couple questions a day. So this would be it for the notebooking portion if I could leave well enough alone. BUT.....I can't. lol
There is an INCREDIBLE site called Homeschool Share. They have wonderful lapbook components. We are not going to do a lapbook on every animal (she is just too young for that). We are going to be using the fun elements that you see in our notebook from there. I encourage you to check out the site (especially if you are using Animal Worlds and looking to add components to your notebook).

Her giraffe art is included. She did such a nice job on this picture that she colored. It took her 2 days. :) Then the picture that she drew.
I halved a file folder and matted a couple pictures I printed out to some scrapbook paper. We will probably only keep her giraffe that she made for the remainder of the Savannah unit (6 weeks), but I do want her to remember the hard work that she put into it.
These are the Predator and On the Map components opened up.
Then we have the back of the file folder. We did a diet component. In it is asks what they eat and how they drink. I thought the drinking part was better/easier described in pictures. One of a real giraffe drinking and the other of Annabelle trying it out. :) The just a couple fun questions that Annabelle dictated the answers to for me.
This is the inside of the diet component (lol....is there a less official word to describe that?). She actually wrote/copied the answer.

Overall, I really think that she will enjoy looking back on this. It will also provide a great review. We are into our lions week and having fun. Happy blogging.
jess_hak

Linking up to Preschool Corner