Kindergarten Wrap-up

In the last couple weeks we finished our desert. This was the best unit so far (even though we did LOVE the Savannah). I think it was a culmination of Annabelle just getting older and me being able to let go of doing it all. I focused on things that I thought we would really enjoy and did those....and guess what.....we really enjoyed them! (Imagine that...lol)

We did plant cactus seeds, but they were destroyed by another person living in this house (whether maliciously or not we never determined lol). We went to the store and to our surprise the cacti were in bloom. Of course we bought this one with the pretty pink flower.
Annabelle observed and drew a picture of her cactus....
....she named the cactus Pink Sparkles....the cactus is obviously a girl. :)
We made a model of Pink Sparkles out of play dough and toothpicks. Annabelle wanted to put on the pink beads to resemble flowers.
....she is definitely pink...and sparkly. (That Annabelle cracks me up!).
We also learned about snakes. We chose to make our paper chain snake the poisonous Coral Snake. 'Red on black venom lack.....Red on yellow kills a fellow.' She then proceeded to chase her brothers around the rest of the afternoon trying to poison them. She even put it across the doorway to her room and threatened that if they tried to come in her poisonous snake would bite them. However, Silas the snake slayer ripped it to shreds later that evening.
Annabelle also made an armadillo.....
Zak thought it was a hippo.....it does greatly resemble a hippo....however, the corrugated, cardboard clearly makes it look like an armadillo.
Our notebook animal for the past couple weeks was the camel/camel family. We had a lot of fun learning about camels.
Finished animal notebook. I asked Annabelle what her favorite thing about a camel was....she said, "Riding it." (We've never ridden a camel...lol).


I take so many math pictures! Annabelle really enjoys math. She is usually most cooperative during this time.

We do an estimation jar every day where she estimates how many objects are in the jar. After that she sorts the item into piles of 10 to figure out how much she has. Then she finds that number on a 100s chart (that is a new addition...she's just starting to get the hang of it).
I also have her fill in missing numbers 1-20 every day (soon 1-30...and eventually work our way up to 1-100).
Math this week was SO much fun. She learned her very first card game. WAR. We had a lot of fun playing. It is a great way to begin to understand values and greater than/less than. She gets a goofy grin and says, "Yes." every time she wins a card. She does try to say it quietly so she doesn't make the 'loser' feel too bad. :) Fortunately, she is not super competitive so she doesn't get a bad attitude when she loses.
So fun!
I'm really geeked about our next unit. We are moving onto the rainforests.....so many cool animals in the rainforest to discover. Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Linking up to Preschool Corner

Tot School: If you Give a Mouse a Cookie

We spent the last week and a half going through the book If you Give a Mouse a Cookie. If you want to see the trays in more detail that we used for this visit this post.
Matching alphabet stickers to the correct cookie. Asa LOVED this activity and worked on it a throughout the week.....
This boy is a sticker maniac. lol
I would say that the Oreo cookie game was Silas' favorite activity.
He had so much fun putting them together and then building towers. One big tower.....
... Three little towers. He was so cute I couldn't resist posting all these pictures. I can never get him to look at the camera and smile.
He also really liked the sorting cookies by colors.

He was pretty excited he could move the cookies with the spatula all by himself.
Feeding the mouse cookies was a hit! I think it was because they used real cookies....then they got to eat them after the activity was done.
Silas patiently (yeah right) waiting his turn in the background.
Finally his turn. He was really cute. He would name the number and then put in one cookie and move onto the next number.
Felt board cookie match.
This was a simple fun art activity. Mix brown paint and glue together on a paper plate and paint the plate.....
....Put on sprinkles (3 hole punched construction paper).....
Finished product. Cookie with sprinkles.
Asa used the story cards to find the matching objects in the pictures of the story.
He also drew a sweet picture of his family just like the little mouse did in the book. Although originally he just wanted his family to be Mommy, Asa, and Silas....he eventually decided that Daddy and Annabelle should be in the picture too..... wonder if I'm supposed to read into that at all.....

I wanted to make cookies with them, but it is warm (not that I'm complaining!), we have no AC....I'd rather keep the house as cool as possible. I really want to do a laundry theme next.....so we'll see if I can figure out a book to go with it.... Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Linked up to Love Books at The Educators' Spin On It and 1+1+1=1.

Good, Clean, Fun.....

Gorgeous weather we're having! I have never (or cannot remember) experienced a winter in the 70s....winter...in Michigan....absurd! Needless to say my littles have been playing outdoors every . single . day. and loving it.

I don't have many rules while they are playing outside. One of them happens to be: Don't touch the water spigot. I looked outside this morning and what did I see....children playing with the water....with lots of mud.
My first impulse was to run out there, yell like a crazy person, turn off the water, and make all my kids come in the house for a bath.
Then I heard all their little giggles......
.....and I watched them playing together....nicely, no fighting, no discord.....
....and I thought, "Why can't they play in the mud?" What would it really hurt? Don't I want them to have wonderful, carefree, sunny day memories of playing outside with their siblings just like I do.
So I grabbed my camera....because the days of playing in the mud only last so long (yes, that is a white shirt lol)......
For 2hrs. and 40min. they enjoyed each other, the water, and the mud.....
My house stayed clean all morning....and I got to listen to a whole lot of happiness. :) I'm so glad I took a moment to just THINK about a rule that was broken instead of just acting on impulse. We of course had a talk about disobedience....and they can't go outside this afternoon because of it, but these pictures will make me smile for a long time....and they will make me realize that sometimes rules can be broken and the world won't come to a screeching halt. Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Linking up to Moments To Remember

Forgotten Curriculum.....

So in my excitement about my curriculum I forgot the most important piece that we will be using this year!! Our Bible curriculum! I cannot believe I forgot to include it considering this is one of the major reasons we are homeschooling.

I chose to go with Bible Study Guide for All Ages. This is an amazing guide that is part of a 4 unit curriculum (at what I think is a decent price). Each unit could easily take a year or more depending on how fast you want to move through it. My favorite part of this curriculum is that once you go through it you can repeat the entire curriculum at a completely different level.

This is the colorful Beginner Time Line that we purchased to go along with the curriculum.



There are 3 different levels of student activity pages that you can purchase. Beginner, Intermediate, and Advanced. This is a picture of one of the beginner pages.
I am very impressed with this curriculum and really look forward to starting. It is something that I would even just recommend to a family who isn't homeschooling but looking to study the Bible together. Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Tot Trays: If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

This week we will be diving into If you Give a Mouse a Cookie and working on the letter C...and we get to have Famous Amos cookies in the house (I thought that was worthy enough to take a picture of them right next to the book....yum).
I found this image from google, made it as big as I could and then cut out his mouth.....so that we could feed him cookies. The cookie numbers are made from construction paper....
....and just in case you were wondering what a mouse's stomach looks like....
I made construction paper ABC cookies as well. I thought Asa might enjoy matching the stickers to the right cookie. I was right....he has been asking constantly about this tray since he saw me putting it together.
I Spy Circles. I thought we would go through the book with a cookie and see if we could spot all the circles.
This is a shadow match game (found here)....this is good for Silas. For Asa I thought it would be more fun/challenging to look through the book and find the actual pictures.....so....
I made it a tray activity.
I made cookies out of cardboard and their chips are either red, blue, or green. The object is to pick up the cookie with the spatula and put it on the correct plate. This is more for Silas, but I think that Asa will like it too.
Cookie match. These are just a whole bunch of clip art cookie pictures.
AND of course we have to play with our Oreo cookie shape match game. This is always a favorite when it's out.
My inspiration came from Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas. She has some really fun ideas that got me thinking about these trays. Looking forward to a fun week! Happy blogging.

jess_hak

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