Our Learning Space

It it is time for "Not" Back to School blog hop. This is the first year that I've participated. Last week was curriculum themed. This week is all about sharing our learning spaces. I've shared the area once before, but never in its own special post. Also there have been some minor changes. I really, really love having our own school room to learn in. I must say that the main reason I love it is because I can shut the door on everything when we are done and not worry about picking up tray items all over the house for the rest of the day. :) Without further delay...here it is.

Calendar/Pocket Chart Wall. We do our calendar routine probably 3 times a week. I am still working out the scheduling for our mornings. Trying to fit it in is tough sometimes. The pocket chart is used for various activities. You can see the most recent example in this post. The tall thing on the left is our Animal Height Chart that Annabelle is using to chart the height (redundant much?) of the animals we are studying this year. On the floor is our themed book bin and our Bible basket.
Our (mostly) current curriculum bookshelves. The top shelf is Sonlight that we aren't using at the moment...but will sometime in the next year. Also, Asa and Silas' tot school plans as well as our Bible notebooks are on the right of the top shelf. Second shelf is all Annabelle's current curriculum and all of her LA curriculum. Third shelf is her Math and some flashcards as well as additional books to add to her habitat themes. Bottom shelf Asa and Silas' themed books and the GeoSafari Phonics Pad and pasta letter sensory boxes. Sorry that was all boring....I just enjoy knowing what is on other people's shelves so I thought maybe there is someone out there like me! :)
Art easel....also doubles as our felt board stand. Table where some of the learning takes place.
This is a messy corner at the moment. I had grand plans to organize it a bit better this week, but that didn't happen. So here it is in all it's glory. Annabelle's workboxes are on the left. On top of the shelves are where I store some of our workbooks, various teaching items, and our letter box things. The top cubes are for books (and currently Annabelle's Savannah diorama). The bottom cubes are for Tot Trays. This is also the 'imaginative play area' (hence the lily pad).
There used to be a big entertainment center here with a TV on it. I was able to convince Zak that it needed to be moved out to the garage. I now have this great wall for displaying artwork and room for our imaginative play area (this pic was took when it was still set up with Savannah animals). On the closet door you can see our mini pocket chart (Target dollar spot). Silas uses this one quite a bit.
And now to show you the scary unorganized part of the classroom. In my defense all the books are categorized together nicely. The 3 drawer cart is full of books and it rolls out so I can get to books behind it nicely. The princess backpack is Annabelle's nature walk bag. The top shelf hold paints, stamps, construction paper, playdoh stuffs, and dot markers. (These things we use weekly....sometimes daily). Eventually I would like this to look much nicer. Time, finances, and space are all roadblocks that get in the way at the moment. :) And I know for the homeschooler it isn't hard to believe, but to the other wonderful people that read this blog and may not believe it due to the sheer volume of books: Yes, yes we do read all of them! :)
Really looking forward to seeing everyone's rooms on the blog hop! Happy blogging.

jess_hak

Bible Basket: Adam and Eve

I've been wanting to put together a little basket of activities that corresponds with our Bible lessons each week. The idea is that everything in the basket can be played with independently. Eventually I would love to do a Bible box for every lesson like over at Our Country Road (amazing!!). It is really important to me that the Word becomes real to my littles. I'm hoping that this basket will help encourage that and that the lessons that we are learning enter their hearts.
Coloring pages that correspond with the lesson.
Books and other various reading materials. Bible Time was a little insert that Annabelle got from Sunday School. I kept them to use for this purpose. They are nice because they have a little practical application story in them. The Story of Adam and Eve CD book is one that I found at the Dollar Tree!
Felt board manipulatives. There are a couple different ones here. One set is just a bunch of things that can be found in a garden (like the Garden of Eden). The other is a story sequence set that I found from Christian Preschool Printables.
Lastly, is my favorite (and what I think is the most important) aspect of the Bible basket. These are little props to do some storytelling. Annabelle loves playing with little 'sets' like this and will sit in the school room for a long time making up stories with little toys. I have begun to see the same interest emerge in Asa. I would eventually like to collect some smaller items, but these will have to do for now. Sorry Barbie and Ken....your clothes are staying on. :)
It is so fun for me to see what Annabelle's interpretation of our lessons are, and to hear the little stories that she makes up. It is also a great tool to see if she is really understanding it. I will actually have Annabelle present the lesson to me using these props. I'm hoping to change the basket every 1-2 weeks. I'm looking forward to showing this to them on Monday. Happy blogging!

jess_hak

I'm linking this to 1+1+1=1. :)

Garage Sale Treasures: Week 15

Alright, I haven't been to an 'I love everything here and I'm going to break the bank' garage sale in a long time. Starting to get a little disappointed driving around every week and not finding much....but for some reason I still go. lol I'm really hoping that they will pick up again for the next couple weeks. If not I will sadly have to wait until next spring. :)

Here is the rundown of what I found today. Even though I just ranted I did find some great stuff today that I am excited to share. :)

A good friend of mine was having a sale today and I stopped by her place. Thank you dear friend for wearing cute, fashionable clothes....and then selling them to me at a fantastic price! :) There are 5 maxi dresses in this pic (so comfortable to wear to the beach and around the house), 2 really cute summery dresses, a white cardigan (to wear over said dresses), a pretty lavender shirt, an incredibly cute black shirt that I will wear with flats and leggings, a pretty necklace, and two more fantastic shirts that will go great with my skinnies. All for $15, thanks friend!!
I was able to find some things for Asa and Silas. AND one shirt for Annabelle. lol I could've found more for her at my friends sale. I was just too preoccupied finding stuff for me and my kids were ready to be done. $5.75 for the clothes. I also found another crib sheet/toddler bed sheet for .25. :)
I didn't find much in terms of books this week. Did happen upon a hardcover copy of Brown Bear, Brown Bear though. We only own the board book (what's left of it). Millions of Cats is one that I remember from my childhood. Also found 3 American Girl books! I liked the Kids Learn America book too. It has a page or two for each state that tells a little about it. It will come in handy when we're learning about that in a couple years. $4.00 for all of them.
Kind of a lame picture. lol As you can see my littles were excited about playing with the new merchandise. :) I found this little weaving loom kit with lots of extra bands for $1.00. The bands will be nice for the geoboards too. These little blocks were .50. I didn't notice that some had pictures on the shapes and some didn't. I think I will just end up taking them all off....I kind of like them blank better.
Another lame picture. :) Found some beanies for .25 a piece. These are the mini ones from the McDonald's happy meals. They were all still packaged. I found a lion and elephant. I was pretty excited about those. Too bad we won't need them again any time soon....we just finished our Savannah unit. The ones still in the packages will be stocking stuffers for Annabelle (she loves little mini toys). The snake was bought to appease the troops....it worked for a while. :) $2.50
P.S. Was excited to find a whole tote of beanies to dig through at a garage sale. I was sure there was a fantastic variety in it. Totally bummed to see the price marked at $3.00 a piece!! Seriously?! You can buy them cheaper off of Ebay (including shipping). I wanted to say something to her, but didn't. She is going to be stuck with a tote full of beanies at the end of her sale. I may stop by there tomorrow to see if she's marked them down at all since she is right around the corner from our house.

This is a hand painted lily pad tray (that still needs to be cleaned). I can just hear Zak saying, "Why do you need that?" :) We are starting a swamp unit soon and I thought it would be fun to have in the little stuffed animal play area, plus it will be fun to have for any future pond themes. $1.00 (a little pricey....but I really liked it and couldn't set it down).
A fun kitchen rug for in front of the sink. $1.50
I was really excited about this area rug. It is 8x5. I've been saying that I wanted a rug for our school room so we didn't have to sit on the wood floor for tot school (I'm getting sore in my old age!). This is a beautiful rug. Dark gray and beige, very calming. Looks brand new, no wear at all. $15
And my final purchase of the day was this really fun mini trampoline for $10. I've seen a couple of them and thought they would be fun, but people were asking $30-$40 for them! The kids are enjoying it....a lot. I might enjoy it tonight after they're in bed.....no pictures will be taken of me though. :)
GRAND TOTAL: $56.50 (the most I've spent in a while!)

Looking forward to seeing what everyone else found this weekend. If you have something to share head on over to My Life on a Taffy Pull and link up. I really enjoy seeing how everyone else did. Happy blogging!

jess_hak

They make more than one sound?!?!

So the last couple weeks in our phonics lessons we are learning that some letters make more than one sound....some even make three! This concept totally rocked Annabelle's world and I realized that we are going to spend some time on this. I don't know why I was thinking that she would be all accepting of this. She's a little wary of change and had slight OCD tendencies (I mean the girl has a specific order for her blankets....and will let me know at 3am if they are out of order). So I scrambled around online and came up with a few trays to hopefully begin helping us with this concept. I started with the vowels A and E.

This one is sorting objects by sound. There are long A, short A, long E, and short E objects in the box. The objects all BEGIN with the sound she is listening for.
While reading another blog, I stumbled upon this really cool website called Super Teacher Worksheets. This site has some really great worksheets AND they're free. :) The couple that I printed have to do with short vs. long E and .....
....short vs. long A. These objects don't necessarily begin with the letter, but just have the sound in it. Eventually these will get mixed together.
The next thing that we will be dealing with in the next couple of weeks is the silent E. Why.....why do we have silent letters in this language? Knife.....seriously? Once she starts sounding out CVC words this will make more sense to her. This great worksheet is from one of the Ready2Read units from The Moffatt Girls. These are great units and are also FREE. Go check them out. I plan on using a whole lot of their resources.
These flashcards will be helpful for the long A sound and reinforcing the silent E. These are printed from one of my very first original resources Latternfish. We will also be using various worksheets from there too.
In addition to these trays we will also use Starfall.com (we have a membership), and our GeoSafari Phonics Pad (and heavens no we didn't pay that much for it). Happy blogging.

jess_hak

Linking up to Homeschool Creations and for the first time Sunday Showcase, Montessori Monday and ABC and 123 head on over to check out what others are doing. :)

GOTCHA!!

I posted the other day about how we bought a birdbath. I was feeling like it was a big waste of $30 dollars since no birds wanted to bathe in it. Then it happened. This morning around 8am I noticed some fluttering outside our window.....this little lady just hopped right up there and took a drink.

I grabbed my camera (while moving at a snail's pace) and hoped that no child would come yelling into the room asking for breakfast. I was able to snap this picture. :)

Obviously there has been more than one bird there...I thought only toddlers pooped in the bath. :) I have also spotted a male and female cardinal bathing today. Now that it has been used and enjoyed they'll spread the word to all their peeps and we'll have a nice community bird bath in our front yard. :) Happy blogging.

jess_hak

Color Mixing

Last week I worked some with Asa on color mixing. We did a little 'experiment' that I've wanted to do for a while. Mixing ice cubes. Drop of food coloring, some water, and a freezer....voila! Pretty little ice cubes (and a stained ice cube tray lol). We put the different color combinations in the glasses and made predictions on the color outcome. (Don't you just LOVE our 50s wallpaper??)
Purple, orange, and green. Asa got one right....green. :)
So that was it, the experiment was over. I wasn't satisfied with his knowledge of secondary colors. Enter a lovely little book called Mouse Paint by Ellen Stoll Walsh (I'm sure most of us have read this cute little book 12 times or more). I had Asa paint a mouse for every color while we were reading (coloring page found online). I only gave him red, yellow, and blue paint so he had to mix the secondary colors just like in the book.
I then cut out, laminated, and velcroized (oh yeah....it's a word) the mice. Set them out with the book by our felt board and presto (I must be into magic today....) a felt board/book activity.
This is how I've found him a couple times last week. I love that he can be really independent with this AND he's hopefully learning something. I really like putting activities with books like this. It's what helps the book come to life and be memorable. I also love the story telling possibilities. I also like how he helped make it.
He has enjoyed this so much that I plan on doing it with White Rabbit's color book (another one we've probably all read a dozen plus times). Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Linking up to Red Ted Art's Blog

A Post For the Birds

I wanted to add a bird bath to our yard this year (and several other bird friendly features). Coincidentally, during Annabelle's last week of the Savannah habitat it suggested that we build a 'watering hole' in our own yard. That settled it....off to Menard's we went.

We bought some suet, and a couple suet feeders.
Here was our bath decision....Annabelle was convinced she was going to fill it with that little cup.
I also printed out some bird identification card and laminated them. So when a bird does actually decide to take a bath or eat (we've been unsuccessful so far) we will be able to observe and identify what kinds of birds visit our yard.
I'm hoping that they will start to come soon. I don't know if it's our placement or if it just takes longer for birds to get used to the bath, or if there is just enough food to go around right now since it's summer. I guess we'll see as time goes on. Happy blogging!

jess_hak