Sneak Peek Week 14/15: Moses, Gg

So you might notice that I have no picture of the date this week. I seem to have misplaced the November/December crayon.....kind of bummed. So I'm going to have to go look for it in a little bit.

So Moses is a whole lot to be covering in one week, so we started a little last week and we will finish up/review some this week. Such a mighty man in the Bible. Many great things to learn from his life, and some really cool happenings such as the parting of the Red Sea, the Ten Plagues, the Ten Commandments, the burning bush, and just the fact that God set him apart for the deliverance of His people out of Egypt. So our week is packed with fun activities.

On top of all the Moses fun we will be having. I am introducing the letter Gg this week. There are a couple of fun crafts to do with this involving glitter (oh man). We always have the file folder game that I use to introduce the letters. These are really too easy for Annabelle. I do have her do them once just so she is able to recognize a capital G and a lowercase g, and so that she is able to identify the phonic sound...in this case g gift (hard G). Asa, on the other hand, loves these little games. He will do them over and over through out the week. So I'm glad all my hard work was not done in vain! I purchased a whole down loadable set of almost 300 file folder games and these alphabet ones were included in that package. I cannot for the life of me remember where I got them. I should find the site again though.

Gg is for garbage. lol I thought that this would be a fun game to play to help the letter stick in Annabelle's head a little better. So I bought a garbage can and made it look pretty (no, it has never been used for real garbage!). I find that Annabelle and Asa both react well to these little goofy games and helps them recall what they learned better (Annabelle in particular). Bonus: It makes learning super fun!
This last week and a half I underwent yet another transformation in our school area. I really like the workboxes and they are working very well for Annabelle and for the most part for Asa too. However, there are some bigger manipulatives that I want Asa to do that just don't fit in a workbox, and I wanted something great for Silas too. I have been reading this blog for quite a while: http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/ and absolutely LOVE the idea of Tot School. So I've taken the plunge and bought a shelf and trays and these last couple of days have really been focusing some time in the morning with Silas (who is eating up the attention). Then a little later in the morning, I focus some time completely on Asa. Plus, the shelf adds a needed distraction for Silas when I'm schooling with Annabelle. I also use the shelves to put Asa's bigger manipulatives/busy-work with a purpose on top of. So without further delay here is what is on the shelf this week:

Sorting buttons. This is on the top for Asa, but Silas has played with them some too. I likes the basket.

Cutting fun (this one is on a tray, an entire activity on the tray makes it easy for him to get it himself). Asa loves to cut. He will cut and cut and cut and cut some more. These papers are left over from a paper chain we were making. The little box is what he is to cut his paper into. It is his responsibility to clean up when he's finished. He likes getting his paper into the box, and I really enjoy the lack of a mess on the floor! :)

Tonging/Color Sort. Sorry for the horrible picture. This is just to practice dexterity by picking up the pom poms with the tweezers (they are red, yellow, and brown), and placing them in the correct place. This is more difficult. I was going to see if Annabelle enjoyed it first, and if it is too easy for her it will get sent to Asa's eager hands.

Here is a better picture of the shelf. There are 3 more cubes up above these 6 and then the top (where Asa's things sit). Can I just take a brief moment and say that the Target Dollar Spot has some super cute things right now. I just spent $30 dollars there the other day. Their collection of books and puzzles (plus a couple other random little things) is just wonderful right now. You will see a few of those items on the shelves, and in pictures in the Week in Review post.

Alright, onto what is on the shelves starting at the top left: Coloring book and a couple crayons (this is one of Silas' favorite activities), Stacking cups (which have since been destroyed by the dog), buttons and string (Silas doesn't string the buttons, but his older siblings and cousin love too....he just really loves playing with them), books from Target Dollar Spot, puzzle from Target Dollar Spot, and always fun MegaBlocks.
Here is a closer picture of the books. They are little finger puppets! Silas is loving these.

That is our week. I will be posting tomorrow on what we are doing. Happy blogging.

jess_hak

Catch-up....

So I was going through some of the pictures on my camera this morning and realized that I missed posting a batch of them! How this happened I don't know. But I thought that I would share them. They are some from the last couple weeks in October. Weird that I missed them!

Here is Annabelle playing the Chicken and egg count game that I posted in the Farm Week post. She had fun with this.
Pasting a puzzle together. The link to this can also be found in the Farm Week post. She really liked doing this. She really loves puzzles so this was right up her alley.

Working hard on the Candy Corn Math activities. This link is shown a couple posts ago too. If you can't find the link and want it let me know and I'll get it for you. Asa liked the sorting part.

Here is a fun shot of Annabelle graphing her candies, and all the yummy candy she sorted.

Just a fun shot of Silas and mommy.

A post or two ago I had a picture of lily pads with frogs on them. Also I posted a frog/bug color matching game. Well, we kind of mixed those two games up since we can! :) I had Annabelle and Asa pretend to be frogs, I would scatter the bugs around and they had to hop to them like frogs and bring them back to the lily pads. They still ask to play this. "Lets be frogs mommy." I tried my frog jumping skills (or lack thereof) out too...let me just say, jumping like that is NOT easy. I was pretty tired. And daddy just pretended to be an old bullfrog that couldn't jump anymore lol (daddy's idea is all thanks to a WonderPets episode). Anyway, we had a lot of fun this night.

Annabelle wanted to bring the bugs back in her mouth.

Little froggy in action.

There. All caught up with a few random photos that got overlooked. I still have prepping to do for this week yet, so no Sneak Peek post today. Tomorrow you will have it. I guess schooling Tues.-Sat. just works better for us. Monday is for recuperating. :) Happy blogging.

jess_hak

Blogging Break

Just posting to say that we have soooooo much going on this week. We are going into a huge family transition at the end of this week so there isn't going to be too much time for any picture worthy preschool, let alone blogging for it. I will be back next week (hopefully posting Sunday afternoon with the Sneak Peek). Have a wonderful week. Sorry that I didn't have the time to post this sooner! Happy blogging.

jess_hak

Week 13 in Review

We had such a fun week! Lots of pictures to go through so lets get started!

We painted pumpkins this week. I realized that next year I'm going to have to get bigger pumpkins for them to paint. So yeah, naturally I took a picture of the paint. I think it looks so pretty all separated and colorful. (I'm a dork. lol)

Annabelle took her time at first, but then got tired of that and just covered her entire pumpkin with paint (mixed together, because she loves to mix the colors).
Asa just went to work painting the whole thing from the start.

The finished pumpkins. Asa's is the one on the left, Annabelle's is on the right.

Putting glue on her their Ff's. We put feathers on them. We also did the Ee this week too. We glued clipart eggs on those.

He was saying, "I paink with gue!"

Hard at work doing a worksheet.

Asa still loves to play with the vegetable gardens that I posted about a couple weeks ago so I still get it out for him to do.

I went to a church rummage sale and found these incredible stringing beads for only $1.00! This is only half of them pictured. The kids LOVE these and we spent quite a bit of time playing with them on Saturday. By quite a bit I mean well over 2.5 hours (Split up between two different sittings)!

Annabelle is making a purple necklace.

Asa did such a fantastic job at stringing beads. I was pretty impressed that he could do it at all.

Silas didn't string them, but he had a good time 'cooking' with them. Wish I knew what he was making. I bet it was tasty. :)

Displaying our finished necklaces.

Here are a couple pictures of what Silas did this week. He entertained himself all of 5min. with putting these colored zip ties into a container. I was hoping that he would like this a little more and play with it longer. He was really quite frustrated that he couldn't put the top on by himself.

He practiced eating yogurt with a spoon all by himself. That's a pretty intense skill. lol

Yeah! The spoon made it to his mouth.

Then I put him to work mopping the floors. Gotta teach them young! For some reason he is obsessed with following me around while I'm mopping. I had to pick some toys that were on the floor before I mopped the next room and he took advantage of me setting down the mop. I hope he likes to mop when he's 10.....here's to hoping. :)

That was our week. I'm excited about this next week. I bought some things that will hopefully help with Silas' activities during the week. I'm excited to post about it. Waiting for a couple of things to come in the mail still. Have a wonderful day! Happy blogging.

jess_hak

What We're Doing Wednesday

Another Wednesday. It seems this past week and a half Annabelle has lost some interest in schooling, because of this I have been taking it slow and trying to only do activities that are of interest at the moment. I do not want to force school on her this year (for preK). I want it to be fun and full of good memories. So yes, I do let her determine a lot of what we do. However, I do make her finish the things that she has started, and I do stick to an order. If she doesn't want to do what is next in her box order than she is done until she feels like completing it. Some may not agree with this method, but I think that it will help her when we get into more formal schooling next year (when she won't get the option of doing school whenever she feels like it). Alright, onto the pictures....

Annabelle and Asa both seem to love hanging things on the windows, and we just happened to be doing it on Wednesday again. Here they are hanging frogs on the fence.



The highlight of the day was learning that red and yellow make orange. Annabelle thought it was really neat to see this.

Both my kids dislike getting their hands too dirty....so the dainty one finger painting was all I got. lol Not to mention they both asked for something to wipe on!

We did our dot painting. They both love this (however, Asa was throwing a tantrum at this particular moment in time....yes, we have tons of those right now). These are just bingo markers. I'm really excited because I ordered these for their stockings. They are going to love having more than 3 colors to choose from! For Annabelle: http://www.amazon.com/Do---Dot-Art-Brilliant-set/dp/B00004W3Y5/ref=sr_1_2?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1288200948&sr=1-2

For Asa: http://www.amazon.com/Do---Dot-Rainbow-Art-Set/dp/B00004W3Y4/ref=sr_1_7?s=toys-and-games&ie=UTF8&qid=1288200948&sr=1-7

This is Silas' new favorite activity. He loves to color! This is the first time that he was in his booster seat to do it. He didn't like that and was confused and suddenly thought that he should be eating the crayons (and the fingerpaint). lol :) So I removed him from the chair and placed him back on the floor. He was much happier with that.

Asa really wanted to color this fish worksheet. I didn't plan on doing this until tomorrow, but he wanted to do it so badly and his whole morning seemed to be so rough for him I just wanted to see him smile....and this did it for him. If only it was always that easy!

So just so you don't think that my days run smoothly or that we are perfect here is what Asa did the most this morning.....and it was loud and irritating! Still haven't figured out what his issue is today. Needless to say I put him down for a nap early. Plus, I don't have to watch him tonight...he is going to a good friend's house while I go and teach at church. He always appreciates his one on one time with these great people!

And just because I can't leave off on that sad picture he did manage a few good smiles this morning....this is when I told him he could color the fish picture.

So that was our day. Didn't get everything that I wanted to done, but just going with the flow. Praying tomorrow will go better as today was truly frustrating. Happy blogging.

jess_hak

Sneak Peek Week 13: Pumpkins, Fish/Frogs, Jesus Loves Me

This is the perfect week to be able to make up for last week. Although we have a great week planned it is basically reviewing a lot of what was already done through the month. I'm also hoping to be able to do more organizing in my 'school storage' area in the basement. Right now it just looks like someone threw a whole bunch of random preschool items, arts and crafts paraphernalia, baskets and papers in a big pile (mostly that's because someone did throw all of those things in a big pile). lol

I'm excited this week to present the Jesus Loves Me lesson. This phrase is said in our house almost daily (Jesus loves you very much). So we will be talking about that, and also how to pray. We've been talking a lot during discipline lately how we can pray and ask God to help us be good even before we do something naughty and how He can change our attitudes if we ask Him too. I think that these lessons will help her put that into practice. This last week I have really seen an improvement in her behavior and that is truly exciting!

Ok. So pumpkins and fall are the theme of our week. Lots of great things to do with this theme. I hope to do a couple nature walks and collect some leaves. We will also be painting pumpkins, and doing a fun color mixing activity with red and yellow fingerpaint. The picture below is full of fun games that I still need to cut and laminate today/tonight. From the top left going clockwise: Leaf patterning activity, Roll a Fall Tree (just like last week's roll a barn game....which was a big hit, especially since they got to play with the big dice), and measuring pumpkin vines. These printables can be found here: http://www.2teachingmommies.com/p/unit-studies.html
underneath the unit studies of Pumpkins and Fall.

I saw these Candy Corn games on a blog and knew that I had to print them out and do them. We've already done a couple (there is a graphing one too not pictured) and they were a huge hit with Annabelle and Asa. Silas really enjoyed the candy as well. :) There is a Candy Corn sort, Grid game, Patterning, and Graphing activity. They can all be printed from here: http://prncsstefy.blogspot.com/p/my-printables.html Scroll down the page until you see the Misc. heading and it is the link called Candy Corn Math Games. Also explore her blog. Tons of fun things on there!

Learning more about the letter Ff this week. We've been having a lot of fun with all of the farm things. Time to move on to some other Ff words. These are the fish games that I still have to cut out and laminate. The top one is a fish shadow match game, then the fish builders game (you have to use fish to make the same design as the fish in the picture), and fish measuring (we will be measuring them with goldfish crackers). These printables can be found here: http://lovemylifex4.blogspot.com/p/printables.html

and here: http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com/2009/11/prek-letter-f.html

Lastly something that I created using posterboard, glue sticks, a sharpie, and graphics from Microsoft Word (and apparently an ink cartridge that was running low...). Just a little movement game where the kids pretend to hop like frogs from lilypad to lilypad. We played this last night and they really had a blast, especially when mommy and daddy joined in! It's amazing how much more my kids enjoy an activity when parental participation

happens. So don't be afraid to look silly and play with your kids! I guarantee that I was the coolest frog on the block. Well, I will be back tomorrow with the What We're Doing Wednesday post. If your in the Michigan region like I am enjoy the gloomy fall rain we're having. Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Week 12 in Review

So I was looking back at the pictures taken this week and realized that the most of the ones that I had I already posted on Wednesday! Then I thought, "Why is this?" -- Yes, I do talk to myself quite often... :) Then I remembered that Wednesday was the only day this week that I had 3 healthy children and a healthy mommy! One of us was sick on Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday this week!! Crazy little bug going around must be. Well, all that aside today we are healthy and ready to seize this next week and accomplish everything that we weren't able to this last week.

We didn't do much of the planned activities because of the previously mentioned sickness. So we improvised most of the week with whoever was feeling good at the time.

This is the same Melissa and Doug farm magnet that Silas is pictured playing with on Wednesday. This was by far the favorite activity of his for the week. Then he figured out that you can stick them on the fridge too....oh man, he had a ball with them! Here he is with Annabelle showing him where the animals should go.

Annabelle had a good time building 'pony houses'. This house had a kitchen, living room, and bedroom....I really hope they're all housebroken. lol Daddy had a good time helping too. He was supposed to build exactly what Annabelle was building. She ended up having to build both sides because he wasn't meeting her standards. However, he did come up with a couple good ideas (at least that's what she let him believe). :)
Enjoying the fruits of their labor. All the ponies are nestled into their house. I'm sure they will be completely comfortable.

Sadly, that is all I have! I will be posting either tomorrow or Tuesday. I hope to catch up on a few things that we missed this last week tomorrow before we dive into this weeks theme. My hubby is making me a wonderful grilled club sandwich....so I'm off to enjoy that and a wonderful glass of diet Pepsi and relaxing this wonderful Sunday afternoon before heading back to church tonight. Enjoy the rest of your hopefully relaxing day as well! Happy blogging.

jess_hak