The End of The Beginning!

Three weeks worth of the Creation.....yikes! This was really only supposed to take two weeks (6 days), but with trying to fit everything in some of these activities just kind of took a back seat. Not that Bible lessons in and of themselves took a backseat (we read/discuss it almost daily), just the extra stuff I wanted to do to go along with it and help make it memorable for them took longer. I don't think that they minded....at least they didn't complain at all on the way. :)

This is the felt board. I printed these graphics off such a long time ago I don't even remember where they are from (unfortunate because I am now missing the Fourth Day piece), but you could easily make your own. My felt board is made of a big piece of wood/board, fleece, and staples. Thanks Zak! :)
They got used in the pocket chart too. Silas loved to play with them and 'teach' the lesson.
These are the creation circles. A couple times a week I would have the kids pull numbers from a bag and place them on the correct circle.
Annabelle showing Silas where to put a number.
Asa and Silas enjoyed the Creation Clothespin games the most.
Working on pinching it open.
This was probably Silas' favorite creation activity. He did a great job and even decided to put the clothespins on upside down instead of figuring out how to open them.
I made these creation blocks with some decorative blocks I found on sale at Meijer in February (they had XOXOXO on them). Glued the decals right on and 'shellacked' them. :) We put these in order after dinner one night. Plus the kids have played with them a lot in the school room.
DAY 1 - Day and Night
Asa made a black and white collage

We all played the Day and Night game (played again during Day 4 activities). I ended up making this a pocket chart activity instead of a tray activity.
Do you eat breakfast in the day or at night?
Do you wear pjs during the day or at night?

Silas thought he was so big doing this. I love being able to include him!

DAY 3 - Plants (we didn't really do anything for Day 2 except read a couple cloud books).
Asa made a plant/nature collage.

DAY 4 - Sun, Moon, and Stars
Annabelle and Asa made really simple suns out of paper plates.
Should have thrown on some glitter....oh well.
DAY 5 - Things that fly and things that swim
Asa worked on this fly or swim sort.
He did a good job!
Silas did it too. He was pretty convinced that bats should be in the water. :)
We also made some birds with our feathers. This one is Annabelle's.
Asa working on his.
We also used Hubbard's Cupboard suggestions with working on their Bible 'notebook' pages. I think that we're going to keep this going throughout the year so that they have something fun to look through and remember lessons by.
Day 2
Day 3
Day 4
Day 6
Day 7 - We made a world using markers and coffee filters (still need to get some white filters lol).
The finished days. Asa's are on the top, Annabelle's are on the bottom.

That wraps up their study of creation. I still had a couple things that didn't get done....but we need to move on. We'll have to do the other things the next time around. :) Happy blogging.

jess_hak
Linking up to Homeschool Creations and 1+1+1=1

Garage Sale Treasures: Week 14

I was really, very excited about garage sales this weekend for a couple reasons. 1) I got to go kid free thanks to my wonderful hubby that really doesn't like to go garage saling, but doesn't mind watching the kids for me when I go, and 2) My brother and sister in law just had sweet twin girls (as in a week ago today!). We get to go see them this weekend and I was so excited to be able to look at cute little girl things. I haven't done that in a few years. :) My grand total at the end will not reflect the clothes that I bought for them. I do not know if they read the blog or not, but I do not want to reveal how much I spent on them....lol Plus, the money for gifts like this does not come out of the garage sale budget.

I found a sale that must have had a little girl in the summer. I was really excited as they had NB sizes in summer clothing. 8 cute little rompers, a whole bunch of almost brand new girly onsies, and a lot of socks.
I also found some little footed rompers/jammies cause summers in MI can get chilly at night (or in AC houses). So, thank you Josh and Sarah for having twin girls so that I could have so much fun buying little girly things. :) (Can you tell that I have the baby bug in a BAAADDDD way?) lol
I found this DKNY dress coat for Annabelle. Brand new with tags still! It's fully lined so it will be a great church coat this winter. $5.00, and a random shirt for me .75
Found some more animals for our habitat studies. I was happy to find some more woodlands creatures (fox, skunk, deer).....I really like the camel too. $2.50 for this picture.
Found more good books. I found a sale that was selling them for .10 a piece but there weren't many good ones there. Most of these were only a .25 though. I was excited about the Alaska ABC Book and the Little House Christmas book. I have all the Little House books, but it will be nice to just read the Christmas excerpts and not have to look at them in the book (plus it has fun pictures). Apprx. $4.50
A couple puzzles at .25, a few random clothes for the boys $1.00, a couple of Native American legends books (these will come in handy in a couple years when we do American history) .50, and a couple of American Girl books....love these books .50 :)
Ok, last picture is kind of crazy random. The Christmas tray (.10) and tin (.25) will be used in Tot School this year. The rest of the items are just little things that I found to go into our phonics drawers. I found a couple long A items (anchor, acorn), a couple S items (sun, snowman), a L item (lemon, a P item (paddle), and a W item (walnut) $1.75
That was it. Kind of a weak week for me.....oh well. The season usually picks up again in late August for a few weeks so I have that to look forward to. Can't wait to see what everyone else found this weekend. I'm linking up to My Life on a Taffy Pull. :) Also linking up for the first time to Yard Sale Mommy, her blog makes me think differently about garage saling..... :)

Giveaway Winnings!!

A few weeks ago I won a giveaway that was hosted by Mari-Ann at Counting Coconuts. Her blog is a fantastic source of inspiration for me. Her ideas are incredible and always help me when brainstorming, and most of my tray activities branch off of hers. If you have a minute go and check her out. You won't be disappointed! :)

I was so excited about my win that I wanted to take a minute to share the bounty.

Vegetable and Fruits cards. These can be used for sorting, matching our play food too, making vocab cards to match to the correct one, etc. If you have any other ideas feel free to comment. :)
Pretty excited about these color cards. I plan on doing something similar to what Mari-Ann did in this post. It will be a fun way for Silas to continue learning his colors, and for Asa to review them.
South American animals. These will come in handy when we do our rainforest unit. The butterflies will be used sometime....not sure when yet. :)
I love these coins! All 3 of the littles will use these this year. They are so big. The quarter in the picture is for size comparison. I also really like how there is an image of the front and the back of the coins.
Assortment of stickers and some sand dollar die cuts (which will come in handy our next time around in the ocean/beach theme). I know that these will prove useful as well.

So thank you Mari-Ann for your generosity! One of the reasons why I enjoy blogging so much is because of all the wonderful people you meet. It truly is a community of giving, whether tangible or inspirational. Happy blogging.

jess_hak

Tot School: Ocean finale

Done with the ocean theme! We had a lot of fun. So much fun that I haven't even given a second thought to what we're going to be doing next week. Oops! It will be some finishing of the Creation lessons. After that we'll see. I may do an aside of Mouse Paint, Little Blue and Little Yellow, and White Rabbit's Color Book. Anyway, this post isn't for getting out what's jumbling around in my head. It's for wrapping up this week! :)

Asa enjoyed playing in his Aa sensory bin.
We also worked on numbers 1-5 (which he had no problems whatsoever with).
I had a bag of ocean stickers and used them for several different trays this week. The first one was patterning/copying. I pre-made several pattern pieces and he used the blank pieces to copy the pattern on.
Working hard.
After he was done with them he cut up the strips in between the stickers.
I put together a matching game using some of the shells that we had. He didn't enjoy this tray and it only got played with once. Oh well, at least it wasn't difficult to make. :)

We also painted shells.
His are the top four. Silas did the bottom four.
Kind of a dull picture. This is a little snack that I put together. The point was to dip the pretzel into the peanut butter and use it to 'catch' a fish.
For as dull as that picture looks the kids thought that this was the coolest snack ever.
This was a sorting basket of things that you would take to the beach and things that you wouldn't take to the beach. A couple things have gotten stolen out of it before I could take this picture (like the beach towels and the beach ball....hmmm where could they be).
They really got into this game..... of course you wouldn't take a can of soup to the beach...silly mommy.
Silas enjoyed stacking our wooden spools for most of his mommy time one day.
He even pulled out these blue and red beads and worked on stringing them onto the pipe cleaner.
He also really enjoyed the Aa sensory bin.
We worked on the numbers 1-3. We will probably stay with these numbers for a while. He did great at matching. I love listening to him 'count'.
Sweet little face. :)
Working on his #3 book from Hart 2 Hart.
This is a shell washing station that was set up in the room for the first few days of the week. All 3 kids really, really enjoyed this.

Sorting big/little octopus. He did this with no problem. Guess I should see how he does with big, medium, little....
Shell painting.
Using the same stickers (it was a really big package....I still have a ton left), we worked on one to one correspondence. He was a little confused the first couple of strips and tried to match pictures or colors, but it clicked near the end. (I need new trays! lol)

Finally today we finished up before lunchtime by painting a beach towel (grocery bag). For as much as this little guy likes to color, he surprisingly doesn't appreciate painting that much.
Finished towel (the ends are fringed).
That was our week! Time to go get next weeks out of my jumbled brain and onto paper. Happy blogging.

jess_hak

Linking up to 1+1+1=1......good times. :)