Scavenger Hunt - Easy and Fun

This scavenger hunt idea came after K's getting tired of being inside working and us needing a change.  I was also getting frustrated because he was doing more whining and complaining at learning time.  So I thought and prayed and after an episode of Calliou where he went on a scavenger hunt, I decided we could do a scavenger hunt around the neighborhood. 

I gave the K and G a list of things to look for as we walked around the neighborhood.  For these two scavenger hunts (one group of which I have shown below), we focused on colors, letters, numbers, shapes, and K's favorite, car types.  the first time we went out, I simply gave them pencils with which they wrote directly on the paper; the second time around I put these cards in sheet protectors and let them use dry erase crayons as they found their items, which worked out great.  For M, I just gave him a piece of cardstock with shapes and numbers on them for him to look at while we were walking if he so desired, and most of the time, he didn't, but he had fun nonetheless.  K and G also have some cameras they got for their birthday, so they also took pictures.  At times, this proved to be more of a hassle, so we ended up taking a few pictures here and there on our second walk. 

For K

For G

Out on the scavenger hunt

Some great things about this was that it was easy, fun, and got us out of the house!

Easter/Spring Activities

Once again, I have taken some time off from blogging.  Even though there hasn't been any posting, we have still been having fun with our learning. 

Here are some of the activities we did surrounding Easter/Resurrection Sunday:

Like last year, we used the Resurrection Eggs to talk about Christ's death and resurrection and the surrounding events.  The kids really enjoy this.  For more details on this, please click here.

We also used sound eggs.  In our basket, we had ten eggs.  I used rice, beads, beans, salt, and another item which is escaping my memory right now in two eggs each, and the children matched the eggs that sounded the same. 

K and G deciphering which eggs go together

We also had a sensory tub, which included yellow and green glass gems, some Easter eggs that were in the shape of animals, green and yellow poms, and a small set of yellow and orange buttons (which I must say are pretty small, so be careful if you have little ones who like to put things in their mouths) I picked up on clearance from Michael's along couple of other miscellaneous items.  I should also mention this tub was sometimes a hassle to clean up afterwards because of the amount of smaller items. 

 

M enjoying the sensory tub

 

It was a fun time, and the kids enjoyed the activities

February highlights

 

It's been a while since I've posted a blog.  I have been under the weather a bit, but now that I am back, I thought I would just show some of the things the children did in February. 

Scripture

As far as scripture memory goes, K has been working on his verse for church, which is Psalm 46:10.  The kids and I have revisited Exodus 20:12, and I believe we will stay there for a bit.  In conjunction with that, we play a game called the "Obey Right Away" game, where I ask the children to perform a task, and they say yes ma'am and do it right away.  It has been helping with greater first time obedience because I was definitely slacking on enforcing that while I wasn't at 100%. 

The Mag Lab

We took the kids to what is like a science open house, which is designed to show kids of all ages fun things about science.  Here are the kids holding bubbles made using dry ice and dish soap.  They had a blast!  They loved it even  more because some of our best friends joined us.

K with his bubble

G with hers

 

 Valentine's Activities

We also made valentine's cards for their Dad, but I didn't take any pictures of those.  Additionally, we used the hearts in the photo below to work on addition and subtraction with K's ten frame. 

Counting activity using foam hearts, cupcke tins and numbers

Red sensory tub

 

M having fun with sensory tub



M and G having fun together

Other Activities

K and G building with blocks

 

K's writing work
 

 K has been doing a lot more writing and also writes one or two letters a month to his friend or family members.  Of course, we are always reading and visiting the library, which the children thoroughly enjoy.

Week in Review (Jan. 7)

It has been a while since I have done a post like this, so I thought I'd write about what everyone is doing here at our little academy.  During this week, our memory verse was Luke 6:31, which encourages us to treat others the way we would like to be treated.  M has even started joining us for memory verse time; he runs over and sits on my lap while the other two sit on their mats.  I love that!

This week K and I have done a couple of lessons from The Parent's Guide.  We have been working with letter combinations for the long o sound.  We also do reading from various books, like the Forg and Toad series and Calliou.  Usually, he reads a page and then I read a page. 

We have also been working on addition with our ten frame.  This is not his favorite activity, so I have been trying to find ways  to make it more interesting for him.  I started out using simple counters, then counting bears, and now we are back to his favorite, cars. The goal is his working on his math skills, so I will take it (just have to use a bigger ten frame). 

Ten frame addition with the counting bears

He and G have both enjoyed coloring and working in the jumbo activity/coloring books they received from their aunt and uncle for Christmas.

G has been working with her counting bears, where she sorts and counts.  She has also enjoyed her new sandpaper letters; she is my tactile learner, so these letters are great for her.  We use the Didax sandpaper letters, which have we have really enjoyed; one drawback, for us, is the numbers that tell you which stroke to do first.  Even M tries to get his hand on the letters because they are on a nice bright orange background. 

G working with the bears

Sandpaper letters

We also began to work on her operation of the mouse on our laptop.  She ws so excited to be able to operate the computer game on her own, and I was excited for her.

M has continued working on his colors.  He notices colors everywhere and in many things.  This week, he has taken the shape sorter pieces and bean to identify them by color.  He's also started to stack the blocks on his Melissa and Doug train from time to time, whereas before he was content to simply putting it together and riding it around empty. 

Choo choo!

 

We did lots more, including some painting and soccer time with Poppy.  All in all, it was a great week.

Practical writing

Since K oftentimes does not want to write, I decided I would try to find some practical ways for him to work on his writing.  After his birthday, I decided we would write thank you letters to those who gave him gifts.  I wrote the letters and he would copy them.  At first, it took about 4-5 days for us to complete one letter (we worked on them for about 15 minutes a day).  By the time he finished the last letter, he could write a letter in about a day and a half.  And, since he was writing the same letters and words repeatedly, his writing of the letters themselves improved.  His letter writing also gave us a chance to talk about parts of a letter (greeting, body, and closing).

He really enjoyed mailing some and hand delivering others.  It was also great for him to see the joy on the face of people like his Grandparents and to hear the encouragement they gave him.  Though writing is not his favorite thing, he is becoming more receptive to the task.  I am proud of how he is growing in that area. 

 

Hard at work

A trip to the Junior Museum

We were so fortunate to see most of our extended family over the past month and a half.  While my sister-in-law, mother-in-law and niece were in town, we took a field trip to the Junior Museum.  The kids had a blast and the opportunity to see many different animals and even saw a tiger (the visiting exhibit)!  One great thing about this place is that they have tried to place the animals in their natural habitats, so the kids are out on what is, in effect, a nature trail. 

Checking out the otters in the water

I think the kids were looking at the black bear here

Hello Mr. Crocodile

Looking at the tiger (I believe Siberian) through the window

The Siberian tiger

 

Fun, fun, fun!

Country Living

I have been gone for a while; life has gotten busy with the holidays, and quite frankly, I am also trying to decided what direction we will go into with our learning, but that does not mean the learning has stopped :).  The kids enjoyed some time with my parents in November and in December.  It's great when they get to go visit them because my parents have some open land with tractors, a four wheeler, and a couple of horses (Knight and Dreamer), something we don't have here at home. 

K riding the tractor with Paw Paw
 

K and G get to learn about feeding and taking care of animals and, occassionally, they have the opportunity to ride the horses.  Right now, they simply ride while my Dad leads the horse, but before we know it, they will be riding on their own.  K, G, and M also have lots of open space to run around and explore.

 

Enjoying Dreamer

K helps Grammy feed Knight

Riding Dreamer

M in the leaves

 It is awesome.  Thank God for grandparents!

M's learning colors

Sometimes I feel badly for my little M because I spend most of our "learning time" with the older two while he just runs and plays in the living area (though most of the time, he is content doing that).  I know he is learning too, but I decided to find something new for us to work on together and decided to start with color identification.  I found this great book at the library when G was learning her colors entitled Go! Go! BoBo: Colors.  It's bright and vibrant and G loved it, and now, M does too.  It focuses on 6 colors: red, yellow, blue, green, orange, and pink.

At first, I just identified the color of on the page.  After a few days, he stared identifying the colors in the book, saying the colors (from the repetition).  Then, I found legos in the corresponding colors, and as we turned the pages, I would say the color and hold up the corresponding lego.  Recently, he started picking up the corresponding lego in addition to saying the colors. 

Our little M

As I said before, he really enjoys the book, and if I am not near, he will turn to a page, find me and tell me the color.  It is so cute! 

Statue painting

K's aunt bought him a Lightening McQueen and Mater statue for him to paint.  I must admit, at first, I didn't know if I wanted to deal with the mess of painting, but I knew it would be something great for him to do being that it was art related, an area I am not as strong in.  This ended up being a great project.  It was something K and I got to work on together, and it provided us with some one on one time together, which is hard to get with two other little ones running around.  Additionally, K absolutely loved doing this!  He asked everyday if we could work on it.  Here are some photos of the fun we had. 

What the statues look like before painting

Early work - painting Mater

Almost done - painting Lightning

Finished product - Yay!

Note: These statues can be purchased at Walgreen's.  They are a part of the toys that are buy 2, get 1 free at 6.98 each, and some weeks over the holidays, you can get them buy 1 get 1 free at 6.98 each, making it a pretty nice deal.  Walgreen's also has toy story and princess statues for painting.  The instructions, paint, and paint brushes are included. 

Happy Birthday K!

I am a little late with this post =).  Our big boy turned 5 at the end of October, and he had a blast on his birthday.  Mommy and K had a date, took a trip to Toys R Us and had a little fun at the park before returning home to his "cake" and birthday gift from the family.  We love our champion!

Enjoying the park

K's "cake."  He does not like cupcakes, cookies, etc. So we made something out of things he does like -- chips, lollipops and soda (interesting bottle, I know; it's an all natural soda, free of refined sugar and high fructose corn syrup)

Poppy and K playing with his new soccer goal and ball

Adding with beads

I created a new addition activity for K using beads and index cards cut into pieces.  The index cards have number sentences, and then there are answer cards for him to place in the blank.  The beads are color coordinated with the numbers and he counts the beads in order to see how many there are all together.  At first, I had him use an adding straw (pipe cleaner) to put the beads on (an incorporation of fine motor skills).  Now, he only uses it some of the time, but that is ok.  After he determines the correct answer and places it on the card, I have him read me the number sentence.

 

 

K is not yet to the point of determining totals in his head outside of adding one or two objects, so he counts them.  Right now, I only have sums for 5 and under, but soon plan to move up to 10.  I also would like to come up with a little song so that he can memorize these math facts.  K enjoys this activity.  If you have any additional ideas, please send them our way. 

Week in Review (October 8th)

Last week was a good one at the academy.  We have continued to work on Colossians 3:23 and apply it to our work. 

K has been doing a great deal of writing work.  We used flour this week to write in (I discuss this more here).  We also worked on drawing.  Once we started our workbook, I realized that he doesn't really draw much, so I created some homemade stencils using old file folders, shapes from our Melissa and Doug shape sorter, and a box cutter/pair of scissors.  K and I drew some people and a house and wrote captions for them.  He has enjoyed doing this on his own for the past week. 

While we were drawing at the table, M was drew on some paper as he sat in his high chair.  He loves drawing.

K and G also did a fun sunscreen activity with construction paper.  After watching an episode of Sid the Science Kid where they talk about the sun and why we need to wear sunscreen, we put sunscreen on our construction paper and set it out in the sun for a while to see if how the sunscreen "protected" the paper and briefly talked about how sunscreen does this for our skin (just like the characters did in the episode).  It was quick and easy, and we got a little science in (yay!).

K, G, and M enjoyed  some time outside at our book picnic (I talk more about this here).

We spent some time at the park, some time with friends, and enjoyed the library too.  All in all, a great week with the chickadees!

A Book Picnic

Last week, I took the kids on a book picnic.  I was inspired by my friend Jenni.  The kids and I went out to a local parks and read books together on a blanket.  K and G both chose three books, and I chose three for M.  We didn't get to them all, but it was nice to be outside and read together while it lasted. Another benefit is that M had space to run around when he was done with the blanket. 

Some of the books we brought

Reading time

 

M  on the move

 

We also did some acorn colleccting and even counted a few and talked about fall/autumn.  It was fun!