Wednesday, February 29, 2012

These Moments......

I have been down for the count with a cold this week....Wednesday was my low point. I actually had a fever and couldn't taste any food (so very sad!). I had to take a sick day. There was no way my 50lb head (that's how heavy it feels) was going to be able to do anything productive.

Asa had a different thought. This boy must be so school deprived since I haven't been doing as much with him lately while I'm trying to get Annabelle's routine down. I am getting him an actual curriculum next year cause he DESPERATELY wants to do school......every day. all day.

So when I told Asa there wasn't going to be any school today he promptly went to work developing his very own activity. Annabelle and Asa both really enjoyed it.
The object is to put a bead in every spot.....this kept these 2 busy for nearly an hour. They had so much fun and worked hard together.
After they were done playing it as a game they made a beautiful picture together and colored it all in. I really love all the colors.
I also went through a whole box of tissue (and yes, my nose looks like Rudolph's). Annabelle thought it was such a shame that I had no pretty tissues. She made a special one just for me....but not to use, just to look at....so I will always remember the wonderful day that I used an entire box of tissue.
These things made me smile on a day that I thought my head was going to explode. lol Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Tot School: Dental Health

We had fun the past week learning all about teeth and how to take care of them. If you missed the Dentist Trays post you can view it here for more details on what was on the trays.

Flossing. Asa only did this once.....he was more interested in just playing with the play dough. lol
He did great on this sorting activity. He actually figured out all the things that he really likes to eat are not so great for your teeth....especially if you eat them all the time. AND that it is really important to make sure you brush after you eat foods like that.
"It's a circle!"
Matching the circle toothbrush to the kid wearing the circle shirt (cause it's gross to share toothbrushes....).
This was the roll and cover activity. Asa opted for the smaller dice this time because the bigger one was 'too much work'.
Silas mainly had fun covering. He did roll the dice for the fun of it though.
Love these sweet hands.
Working on the art activity.
Silas likes to use LOTS of 'toothpaste'.

We did a really fun experiment from Luv Pre-K. It was to demonstrate how foods can stain our teeth and make them weaker. Also to show how important it is to brush so that foods don't sit in our mouths.

We poured a dark soda over 2 hard boiled eggs, and coffee over 2 hard boiled eggs.
We also poured vinegar over a raw egg. (Ours was a white wine vinegar so that may explain the difference in appearance between ours and Luv Pre-K's blog).
They set in their liquids overnight and this is what they looked like the next day. Soda is on the left, coffee is on the right.
The vinegar soaked egg was squishy and soft....kind of weird. I used this to explain how food and bacteria can weaken our teeth and cause cavities.
After that I set up trays so that they could brush the eggs clean with toothpaste.
They actually came out pretty clean.
Good times with dental health. :) Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Linking up to 1+1+1=1 :)
Tot School

Friday, February 24, 2012

Dr. Seuss Link Re-Post

We won't be doing any special activities to be celebrating Dr. Seuss' birthday this year (at least nothing on the books right now), but it was one of my FAVORITE weeks last year and I wanted to share what we did....just in case anyone was interested! :)

You can view our activities here.

Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Linking up to Preschool Corner, Living Life Intentionally, and 1+1+1=1

Schooling Consistently

I have a confession....it might shock some of you or maybe it's more normal than I think in the homeschool world.... I have a serious problem with schooling consistently (or doing anything consistently for that matter....except garage saling). I started chalking it up to having 3 kids ages 5, 4 (in 2 weeks!), and 2.5 (3 in June). By consistently I mean every single day, at the same time, getting everything done. Anyway, what do all you awesome ladies do to stay on track and focused...especially if you have little ones planning a mutiny while you're trying to get something done with another one. I would LOVE my days to be a little more ordered and routine....more predictable. Maybe I'll get there someday, maybe it's just the phase of life we are at right now, maybe my kids are just little monsters and no one else has this problem....lol :)

We started a new unit this week in Animals and Their Worlds. We have trekked to the desert (a cactus desert to be exact). We didn't do the animal of the week this week because it was a chameleon (and they live in the rainforest so I didn't want Annabelle to be confused). We actually had a lot of fun reading and discussing this week. I finally gave myself permission to let go of the fact that there are just some activities we are not going to be able to accomplish this time around....that it's ok, I'll be able to do them the next time! :) The bad picture above is of some of the animals/plants we'll be taking a closer look at in this unit. Annabelle saw the tarantula and said, "I will NEVER live in a desert!"

We had a good friend move back from New Mexico and she brought the kids cactus seeds. We planted them this week to see if we could actually grow some....
It says the ideal climate would be 75F. Zak won't let me turn up the heat...his logical idea was to wait and plant them until summer. I said that it doesn't fit with our school unit then.... our thinking is so different sometimes! lol
For some reason I took a lot of Math pictures this week. We are moving right along, and we will be done with Saxon K before the end of March. After that we will continue with the Horizons K that I had originally planned on at the beginning of the year. We will do that through out the summer to keep her thinking! :)

This week we worked with buying things with pennies and dimes.
Recognizing/counting/ordering numbers 0-20
AND we played some with our pattern blocks. I really like Saxon's pace. I do believe that K is more of a preschool math level, but I really like that they don't push such high ideals on her age level. I think because of this she looks forward to math everyday instead of fighting it (like her reading at times).
Ready2Read unit 6 word family sorting activity.
In spite of my first paragraph we actually were able to do school pretty consistently this week. The boys were slightly neglected during our school time, but I think if I can get a routine down for Annabelle I will better know what to do with the boys during that time. I am a perfectionist in some areas and this happens to be one of them. I think if I get one routine perfect (or what I would view as perfect...definitely not perfect by many standards) it will be easier for me to add something else into the routine. Just trying to add a little peace and order to our self proclaimed chaos (that I really LOVE for the most part). Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Linking up to Preschool Corner

Thursday, February 16, 2012

Kindergarten Catch-up Post

Wow! It's really been a while since I updated what Annabelle was doing in school. We are still having a lot of fun. We did have to slow down in Dec/Jan due to me not feeling well. We pretty much stayed on track with all her important things (math, phonics, reading). We slacked off on the Animal Worlds. It was just too overwhelming for me during that time. We really just needed to get the bare minimum done. We pushed through and we are on the other side. We FINALLY finished up our woods unit. Unfortunately due to lost time we will be skipping the Arctic Tundra unit and head right into the Desert Unit, followed by the Rainforest, and if we have time we will wrap it up with the Ocean.

Anyway, onto what we have been doing the last month and a half.....

Our last Woods week was based on owls.

The highlight of this week was probably dissecting the owl pellet. I was thoroughly grossed out (I don't know why, I loved dissecting things when I was younger). Annabelle thought it was so cool. I really love that she is girly, but not afraid to get dirty and play hard.
Pulling a bone out.
Annabelle and Asa examining all the bones that we found.
Their favorite was the full skull. I was pretty impressed with that myself. We came to the conclusion that these bones were most likely from a mouse.
She really enjoys making these little animal crafts. She's been playing with this owl since she made it.

We had a fun activity that we did for Animal worlds. We fed the squirrels...and they got a gourmet feast....peanuts (with a few almonds, pecans, and hazelnuts mixed in). Zak's reaction to this activity..."You're going to set this project up in our neighbor's yard right?" Nope, we did it in our yard. :)
This was our first of many visitors. He was so fun to watch. He would grab a nut, go bury it, and then come back for more. Annabelle named him Squirrely (quite original right?).

Plugging away at Ready2Read and still loving it. There are 8 units in level 1 and we've been doing one unit and stretching it over 2 weeks. She gets overwhelmed with reading quickly so I thought it was important just to take our time with it. Here she is pin poking her sight words. This activity was requested by her when she saw Asa working on his letter of the week.
Word family sort.
She is also starting to read her little beginner readers. She thinks it's pretty cool that she is reading 'real' books.
She really, really likes her Explode the Code 1 book. I really like that it is giving her a TON of confidence with her reading skills.
Patterning work in math.
Snow play dough. I made this for the little guys theme, but she enjoyed it just as much. Her favorite Toob figures were the Eskimos and the igloo.
We had snow for about 2 weeks here in MI (it's low 40s now and the snow is gone!). They were outside quite a bit while it was here though. This is one of the days that they played with their colored water spray bottles. So much fun!
I hope everyone else is having a great winter! Even though my posts were absent I've been still keeping up with others and enjoying what everyone else is doing! Happy blogging.

jess_hak

Linking up to Preschool Corner.

Monday, February 13, 2012

Tot School: Dental Health

So I received this little activity book in the mail from our dental insurance provider. According to them February is children's dental health awareness month. I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon....not this week, or next week...but the week after that. lol I did throw my trays together a little early. I used some of them last year and made a couple new ones. All of them are originally inspired by one of my favorite blogs From the Hive.
This is just a little craft/tray activity. Glue on some yellow teeth and brush them white using a toothbrush and white paint.
This is from 2 Teaching Mommies. Match the toothbrush with the correct person (cause nobody wants to share toothbrushes). Sidenote to my wonderful husband: If you're reading this notice that these pictures are taken on the cedar chest which means that I came through on my vow to de-clutter it this week....AND it's only Monday. :)
Roll and cover game.
Flossing practice. I really think that they boys will enjoy this one.
Last but not least is a food sort. Good foods vs. bad foods. Last year Asa put all the 'bad foods' on the smiley tooth with the logic 'these foods are yummy', and all the 'good foods' on the sad tooth with the logic 'these foods are yucky'. lol We'll see if we can switch his logic this year. :)
I am also planning on doing a couple of experiments that can be found at Luv Pre-K. Super easy and totally worth checking out if you have a minute! Happy blogging.

jess_hak

Linking up to 1+1+1=1 and Montessori Monday
Tot School