Week in Review: Umbrellas and Weather (and Watermelon too)

We had a good time talking about weather this week and learning about the letters U and W. We are really, really close to completing the alphabet. I'm looking forward to starting our new kindergarten curriculum! :)

Umbrella Fun
Fill in the missing number. Annabelle is getting more and more consistent with recognizing numbers 11-15 (thank you Starfall!). This cute printable can be found at Musings of Me.

Annabelle made umbrellas for the letter wall. She colored on coffee filters then squirted them with water (note to self...buy white coffee filters!). Then she dotted on some glue and glittered them to make raindrops. It turned out pretty cute (would've been cuter if we had white coffee filters lol).
On Friday we talked about how umbrellas aren't just used when it's raining. Annabelle looked at me funny. Then I told her you could use them at the beach to stay out of the sun. I made playdoh, left it the natural color and added some vanilla (yummm). She enjoyed playing with it and making a beach scene with shells and little paper umbrellas.
Looks pretty relaxing to me!
Fun with weather
On Tuesday we had fun talking about clouds. We read It Looked Like Spilt Milk. I got inspiration for these ideas at a wonderful blog that I read recently....and now have no idea who it was (I really need to organize those ideas a little better!). If it was you let me know so I can link back to you. :)

We made 'spilt milk' creations using white paint and blue construction paper folded in half. I told Annabelle to only paint on one side of the fold. Then she would fold it in half, open it back up and figure out what it looked like. This was fun. We did quite a few of them. We only got a couple of distinct pictures though.
She said this one is a castle....but I think it looks similar to the Parthenon. :)
This one was a fence.
Then we talked about why it rains. We went briefly over the cycle of water (there is a great Blue's Clues episode for that too), and then did a fun experiment from 2 Teaching Mommies. She was thrilled that she predicted the experiment correctly. lol
We talked about how the wind moves the clouds. We had fun having a cloud race using straws and cotton balls. Asa kept blowing his backwards, so Annabelle finished first.

This is also from 2 Teaching Mommies. I set this out for Annabelle to review her letters A-Z. She did great. Not one mistake!

These cute little cards are from the Musings of Me link. I set out some pony beads to represent raindrops and Annabelle put the correct amount of drops on each number.

We went off on a rabbit trail at the end of the week to do some watermelon activities. Annabelle made a Ww watermelon for her letter wall.
The finished piece. I really like it!
I made a quick cut out of a watermelon and laminated it. Then I set out some number cards (from the Musings of Me link) and some beans. Annabelle put the correct number of 'seeds' on the melon slice. She had fun with this (more than the rain drops).
We had some crazy Michigan weather this week. Upper 40s one day and upper 60s the next (supposed to be 80 tomorrow!). I thought I would include a couple fun pictures of the different things that we did during different types of weather.

In cold weather they all enjoyed the Hungry Hippos game (this is a very, very loud game).
During our warmer day they enjoyed playing outside and picking a beautiful bouquet for mommy. (I think dandelions are one of the most cheery flowers...and I don't have to take care of them).
I hope that everyone else had a great week! Happy blogging.

jess_hak

Pop on in to Homeschool Creations to see what other preschoolers did this week.

Bucket List for Summer 2011

I am a little late joining this party link, but it was so much fun and I've been seeing soooo many fun lists out there that I wanted to add mine. I am hoping that these activities will help us in our mostly unplugged venture that will be starting on Monday. :) I encourage you all to head on over to Little Wonders' Days and check out other people's lists for this summer.

Anytime Ventures
1. Bubble prints
2. Sidewalk chalk paints
3. Paper tube sculpture (if anyone wants to send me their paper tubes I will gladly take them!)
4. Make ice cream
5. Bake and decorate a cake
6. Glue and bead sun catchers
7. Nature collage w/ contact paper
8. Run through the sprinkler (often!)
9. Feet painting
10. Rock painting
11. Make lemonade from real lemons
12. Have a no TV day (hopefully more than once)
13. Splatter painting
14. Water balloon/squirt gun fight
15. Ice cream sundaes for lunch
16. Root beer floats

Family Adventures
1. Visit a Zoo (or two) :)
2. Visit the beach
3. U-pick berries
4. Children's Museum
5. Weekend camping trip
6. See Cars 2
7. Lightening bug hunt
8. Eat every meal outside in one day
9. Chuck E. Cheese
10. Go to an outdoor concert
11. Visit a farmer's market

Adult Adventure's (yes, it's G rated)
1. Cedar Point
2. Make strawberry freezer jam
3. Drive-ins
4. Build fire-pit in the backyard
5. Make 10 new recipes
6. Make cakeballs (I have been wanting to do this FOREVER!!)
7. Host ice cream sundae party (we supply the ice cream, guests bring favorite topping)
8. Make iced coffee
9. Put a birdbath (and other bird friendly items) in the yard

I am looking forward to a fantastic, eventful, productive summer! Happy blogging! :)

jess_hak

P.S. I got some of these lovely ideas from other blogs on the party. I had no intention of actually joining the party so I didn't write down my sources. I apologize to anyone whose idea's I used without giving you credit. Please let me know if this idea was unique to your bucket list and I will definitely link back to you!!

Kindergarten Curriculum

Here it is! Annabelle's K curriculum. After much thought and prayer we decided to go with Winter Promise Animals and Their Worlds. I am stoked about starting this program. Winter Promise is a Charlotte Mason based curriculum provider similar to Sonlight, but with a more hands on approach. This type of curriculum uses 'living books' to present material to make it more memorable for the student.

One of the other reasons I am going to love this curriculum is that it is already fully scheduled for me. That's right, no intensive planning for me to do this year. But knowing me, and knowing I can't leave well enough alone I know that I will be adding things to it. lol I've already changed the order of the units to fit better with the seasons here in MI and to help stretch it out to go year round in order to just go for a normal school year.

I have decided that we will try to school year round. Especially in the early years. You have to keep 3 kids occupied during the summer anyway, might as well make it educational too. Doing this will help not waste time on review in the fall, and will also give us much more leeway during the actual school year to take breaks and do other things.

This is a picture of our core material. A core is the base of the program. This core happens to be science based. Most are history based. This year we will be looking closely at an animal a week as we travel through different environments. We will be passing through the Savannah, swamp, woods, frozen tundra, rainforest, ocean, and desert. Along our journey we will be doing lots of fun experiments and projects.

Language Arts (Reading)
We also decided to go with Winter Promise Language Arts. Again everything is scheduled for me, which is fantastic! I loved looking through the Explode the Codes. We did these books when my mom home schooled us.
Also scheduled in with Language Arts is the use of the GeoSafari Phonics Pad.

I also bought some more readers that go along with the Animal Worlds core.

MATH
I am really quite nervous about teaching Annabelle math. Mostly because Annabelle really wants nothing to do with numbers (I don't want anything to do with numbers either). Because of this we both get very frustrated. I have been doing much better at not getting all worked up which in turn gives her a much better attitude. I just have to give her a pep talk several times during our math lessons about how smart she is and then she perks right up.
I chose Horizons K. It was one that Winter Promise suggested. It is a spiral based curriculum which I like (like Saxon). It is very colorful and covers the subjects nicely. The only thing that I was bummed about is that the Teacher's Manual doesn't really explain how to teach the lesson. But I think I will be ok, I have a lot of fun manipulatives to help teach some concepts. We may start this in July just so we can take our time. It does move quickly.

SONLIGHT
We have been absolutely blessed to receive from a friend Sonlight Cores that would take us through 8th grade! We will be using this right alongside our Winter Promise Curriculum. In our effort to become more of an unplugged family we will have a lot of spare time to fill up (believe me...we watch more TV than I care to admit). Because of all this spare time we will need something more to fill it up. What better to fill it up with than reading and fun? I have yet to go through this curriculum, but will be doing so in the next couple of weeks and plucking it to line up with the Animal Worlds curriculum. This core is a brief one year overview of world history. Should be fun!

BIBLE
We will certainly be doing Bible lessons each day like we have been. We are going to mainly be using Hubbard's Cupboard 3's Bible and Rhyme curriculum. It is free and all 3 of the kids will be doing this together. We will be going through the Bible in a year and I think it is going to be great!

So that is Annabelle's K year. I am really, truly excited to get started and am praying that this enthusiasm will last me all year. I have some really fun things planned and think it is going to be a memorable, growing year for all of us! Happy blogging.

jess_hak

Linking up to the 'Not' Back to School Blog Hop at Heart of the Matter

Garage Sale Treasures: Week 3

Ok, so I finally have a few minutes to blog! It was a busy week/weekend for us with Zak coming home from Italy. I am ecstatic to say that he no longer has to travel for his job, and after 15 loooonnnggg months we can finally be a 'normal' family again! On to the good finds.

A friend of mine was having a sale on Thursday. Her kids are just above mine in clothing size so I knew that this was a do not miss sale for me. I am so glad that I went! I also went to an overpriced neighborhood sale (fantastic neighborhood). I found a few gems there but mostly it seemed like people were trying to make money rather than get rid of things, which is unfortunate for me. lol :)

I've mentioned before my obsession with floor puzzles. I got these two for $1.50. They've already been put together and taken apart several times.
I got all of these clothes for Annabelle.....I got these most at my friends sale and I wrote her a check for $18 total (Isn't that pink swimming suit just so cute!). However, the brown Old Navy coat upper middle I got at a different sale for $4.00
These were also from my friends sale. These are some great finds for Asa. I am a big fan of dress shirts can you tell?
The cute shorts Annabelle is wearing are from my friends sale too. The tee and bats were a really fun find at the overpriced neighborhood sale (at one of the houses that had great prices). I paid a total of $2.50 for them and know they will get a lot of use this summer! We do have different balls to hit off of it rather than this football though. lol
Two Brain Quest packs (one preschool and one kindergarten), dinosaur lacing cards, and Hungry Hippos game. Everything in this picture was $1.00 a piece. I have never seen BQ packs at that good of a price anywhere!
11 books at a $.25 a piece and one with magnets (never opened) for $1.00! I was really happy to find the Baby Bear, Baby Bear book (it's hardcover!), and White Rabbits color book.
This is my pride and joy this week. I did not get it at a garage sale, but it was purchased used on a curriculum forum. It is the GeoSafari Phonics Pad. It is scheduled into Annabelle's K curriculum for next year. I was just going to bypass it because to buy it new it could cost anywhere between $130-$150!! I must admit it was really annoying me that it was scheduled everyday and I didn't own it. lol I found it for $75 (including shipping)! It is in fantastic conditions and it came with batteries. I'm pretty pumped! :))

GRAND TOTAL = $32.25 (without the GeoSafari)

Seeing that GeoSafari reminds me that I wanted to write a post about the K curriculum that I'm going to be starting in June. I should start taking pics for it! If you are interested in seeing what deals other people got this week....or if you want to share your fantastic finds head on over to My Life on a Taffy Pull and check it out! Happy blogging.

jess_hak

Garage Sale Treasures: Week 2

I didn't really plan on going to any garage sales this last week. I did have to run out on Friday morning however and on my way back home had enough time to stop at a couple I saw on the way. So I didn't get much. One I stopped at one that I feel was incredibly overpriced. I'm sorry but I don't go to garage sales to spend $7 on a pair of 4T shorts.....I don't care what brand they are (especially if I can get a pair brand new at a store for the same price). Anyway, onto the goods.

Swim suit for Asa .50
I must admit. I cannot pass up a floor puzzle. My kids LOVE them! Floor puzzle: .50!!! ABC chunky wooden puzzle (think Melissa and Doug only different brand) 2.25 ....kind of a random price. lol
Really nice set of Eboo stacking blocks. Silas already loves these! 1.50

3 books at .25 a piece. The Polar Bear, Polar Bear book looks like it's never even been read! It's Silas' new favorite. I've been slowly picking up Magic School Bus books. I loved these when I was younger. The Human Body one just happened to be my favorite. :)
GRAND TOTAL: $5.50! (And Zak says, "Praise the Lord.")

Well if you're interested in seeing what other treasures people found (or if you're interested in sharing yours) head on over to My Life on a Taffy Pull. Happy blogging!

jess_hak

What A Light Week!

So not let the title of the post fool you....it should read, "What a Ridiculously Light Week." We had some major technical difficulties here this week. My printer wasn't working and by the time I got it fixed (Wednesday) I promptly ran out of ink and haven't had time to run to the store. So we skipped our planned school and just did a couple crafts instead. I'll be running to the store sometime tomorrow for ink so we will continue next week with Uu and Ww.

I got a couple of lovely bouquets for my birthday. Unfortunately the kids got a hold of one and 'loved' on my flowers. They thought that they were just beautiful. I salvaged what I could and then turned the rest into a painting medium.

I thought that they might have fun with this since they really liked the truck painting we did last week, but they were not impressed with this at all. Silas gave up and used a paintbrush instead. Annabelle and Asa were done after 10 minutes. I was hoping for at least 40 minutes total. lol
The leaves and flowers that contributed to the art.
Asa's finished painting (Annabelle refused to allow her art to be photographed).
Since that didn't take very long we moved onto something that I've been waiting to do for a while. Straw painting. Our forsythia bushes finally bloomed so we created art based around that.
Annabelle and Asa used straws to blow the body of the bush with brown paint (with some help from me).
Then they crumpled up yellow tissue paper and stuck it on where I put dots of glue. These are the finished products. They are really quite lovely in person.
Asa's
A beautiful picture of the inspiration in our backyard. Forsythia's always look so scraggly to me (probably because I don't know how to trim them), but in the spring I remember why I love them so much. Nothing beats looking outside and seeing a cheery yellow bush.
Happy blogging.

jess_hak

I am linking up to Preschool Corner and 1+1+1=1 Stop on over if you have a minute. :)