Week in Review (July 30th)

Last week was a good week.  We continued working on our scripture from the past couple of weeks about not being afraid.  We were a bit more relaxed with our learning time this week, but learning took place nonetheless.  We also enjoyed a surprise visit from Grammy, too.  How fun is that!

Thanks to my parents, we have gotten a bit of items from a former day care building they are transforming into their new church building.  The former owners left everything behind.  One of the items we used this week are these wonderful write on, wipe off letter boards.  I got these mostly for K at this point, but got two because I knew G would want to work on them as well.  K has enjoyed working on the letter board, and his writing is progressing.  We are continuing to work using the lines as our guide; that's definitely a work in progress =). 

K's letter work =)

The back of the board

We also received this wonderful letter mat.  We have used it to work on letter sounds and beginning word sounds for G, and beginning sounds, vowel sounds in cvc words, and ending sounds with K.  The kids really like this because they get to move around going from letter to letter.  M also enjoys this mat, he is learning his letter sounds (with a great deal of reinforcement from his teacheres K and G), and he will go to the letters, try to pull them out and make the appropriate sound for the letter.

We were glad to spend some time outside and had some fun with sidewalk chalk (new chalk also provided by my parents).  G worked on some of her sight words while we were out there, and K worked on his writing. M likes to draw with the chalk as well, and now, we have a lot less eating of the chalk, something for which I am grateful.

K's photography

Sight words

We enjoyed some fun at the park and reading as well.  All in all, a wonderful week!

Week in Review (July 23rd)

We spent this week out of town - a little getaway for the family. We had a fantastic time.  We had the opporunity to visit with family the weekend we left - Grandma, Aunts, Uncle and cousin - and celebrate our neice's birthday. From there, we headed to Orlando (my husband had to work there for a week, and we tagged along this time).

We took our travel boxes with us, which had activities for the K, G, and M to do while we were hanging out at the hotel. K's box had his Sesame street books, crayons (dry erase and traditional), letter magnets, a hot wheel eraser set (which is like a puzzle; you can put the 2 different cars together and take them apart); I also brought his phonics book.  G's box had a Pooh Number Match Cars, a Melissa and Doug 4 puzzle set (this was a hit with both K and G), lacing beads, and a her counting stars actvity from this post.  M's box had his shape stacker, a couple of zoomer cars and some items from our sensory tub I thought he might like.  I brought a couple of books for all of the kids, which came in handy, particularyly during the car ride. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but some of the items are the same ones from this post. 

I also printed out the rain packet from here, mostly for G. She liked it a lot asking for them almost everyday, but went through the activities pretty quickly. Here are a few pictures.

Shadow matching

Counting

K and G's aunt bought them some flashcards - alpahbet and addition/subtraction. K, once again, was eager to use the cards and was the most engaged with addition (without cars involved) as I've ever seen him. Score for Auntie Betty!

K used bottle tops as counters

G also loved the letter cards, said the sounds, and put them in alphabetical order.

M played with his leap frog letter drum and his melissa and doug shape stacker.  We spent time at the pool, a nearby playground, and got to visit with some friends we don't see often. It was a wonderful week!

G and M at the park

Week in Review (July 16th)

Another week at our little academy has passed. It was a little different than it normally is because I spent a great deal of time was packing for our upcoming travels.

We continued reciting and talking about 2 Timothy 1:7 (For God has not given us a spirit of fear...).  We also had fun with our sidewalk chalk numbers on the deck, which I talk more about in this post. 

The kids had a great time making letters with playdoh.  I hadseen this mentioned by various other bloggers but had never tried it with the kids.  They really enjoyed it and got creative with making other things out of the playdoh.  Of course, K wanted to build something on wheels, in this case a van. 

Our van =)

M has learned something new.  He has started sorting his stacker shapes by color according to the peg, so that is really cool. 

Go M!

We also enjoyed some time with some friends we hadn't visited in a while.  K helped with the packing a little bit, so that was fun for him.  He is such a good little helper most of the time.  All in all, it was a good week. 

Sidewalk Chalk numbers

I was feeling a bit stuck in what we were doing.  So a God-inspired idea came to me to use sidewalk chalk on the deck.  I wrote the numbers 1 through 10 on our deck, gave the kids different items to use as counters (checker pieces, bottle tops, felt stars, and the ever famous cars), and sent them to count away.  The kids really enjoyed it, with the exception of the heat, and G even look out the window whenever the Leap Frog music CD played songs with counting or numbers in them to look at our deck numbers. 

K and G working together

G working on her own

We also attempted to do some basic addition, subtraction with K like we've done with the cars and numbers I addressed in this post.  K was not really into going from number to number because he does not like the heat at all.  So I stood on the numbers giving him addition word problems, and I had him tell me what number I needed to move to.  He watched me out of the window.  That way I did all the sweating ;).

Week in Reivew (July 9th)

We've had a fun week at our little academy.  We were out a lot more than we were in, so there wasn't as much formal learning, but there was still lots of fun to be had.  I took a little extra time this week to work with the kids on staying disciplined and staying on their mats during verse time and prayer. They did much better, and I was proud of them for that. 

G got in on the action in The Ordinary Parents Guide.  She has come in while K and I are working on his lesson, and so of course, she wants to do her "blessing" as she calls it.  It was so cute when K tried to tell her that blessing was what their Poppy says over them at night, but she still calls it her blessing.  She knows the letters of the alphabet and their sounds, but I started at the beginningof the book with her, and we've worked on the vowels.  We play a little game where I say the vowels sound, and she picks up the corresponding letter.  She could do that all day.  There is also a little poem/song that goes with the vowels that we sing. 

Using the Sandpaper letters

K pulled out some cupcake baking cups from Valentine's day while I was sorting through things/cleaning, and so those came back into the rotation for two activities.  Both K and G enjoyed counting with beans, and then they brought out the muffin tin and pretended to fill the baking cups in the tin.  Good pouring practice. 

K working on cups with multiples of five in them

G working on cups with 1 to 10 on the bottom

Still working on keeping the beans in the tin ;)

We also got a second shelf!  K helped, and even G helped out this time.  They really enjoyed participating in the shelf building.  My husband was so patient with them; it was great watching them work together to build the shelf. 

K hammering a nail in

G hammering a nail in

M is learning his letters and letter sounds, and really enjoys playing with these letter magnets.

His favorite letter at the moment is O

The highlight of the week for the kids was the trip to Chick-Fil-A as it was Cow Appreciation Day on Friday.  Time to dress up like a cow!  I cut pieces of felt using the template from Chick-Fil-A's website, and I taped them to their shirts/bottoms.  I started sewing the spots on initially, but it was too time consuming.  I will have to start out a little earlier next year! 

We enjoyed time with friends, time at the park, and time at the library (we really enjoy story time and checking out books to read at home!) as well. 

Week in Review (July 2nd)

I love celebrating holidays!  There seems to be so much more excitement and anticipation leading up to them, and of course, we can't forget about the festivities.  We did a lot of 4th of July themed activities this week, many of which I address in this post.  This week, we focused on learning /beginning to memorize the pledge of allegiance, which is a work in progress.  We also counted the stars and stripes on our flag daily and talked about what they stood for. 
 The kids had fun with the new activities that were out. K didn't really want to be photographed this week, so I mostly have pictures of G with our activities. 

Water bead transfer

Do A Dot Flag

Red, white, and blue sensory tub - G counts the stars

A counting activity with homemade felt stars and number cards

 
We also spent some time reading a book we checked out from the library entitled A is for America: An American Alphabet.  I plan to continue to read this book throughout the month since it offers many opportunities to discuss our country's history with the kids. 

by Devin Scillian

K enjoyed the activities too along with some reading and a new Clifford book with a read along CD.  He's still excited about his reading "lessons" as well. 

Here is M enjoying his Melissa and Doug wooden trains.

We also had fun with hopscotch for the first time.  It was interesting, fun, and funny.  We've had a good week here at our home and out enjoying the 4th (although my husband, M and I may have been the only ones to really appreciate the fireworks)!

Week in Review (June 25th)

Last week was a great, but challenging, week.  We have a two year old, who is wonderful, but is still two years old.  Nonetheless, much was accomplished.  We did a kind of verse review during the week, reciting Psalm 23, Titus 2:12, and Exodus 20:12, the scriptures we have memorized thus far. 

Since Debby came to visit us, the kids also enjoyed some time on the deck splashing in their rain boots.

K and G in the rain

K did a good bit of math work. For a while, I've wanted to work with K on adding and subtracting, but he just has not been interested.  After praying and some trial and error, we've finally found something to interest K.  We call it the garage game.  We take all his little cars/trucks and put them out; we use our window sill as a garage and add and take away cars from the "garage" with him counting and telling me how many cars we have all together or how many cars we have left.  He asks to play this "game" virtually everyday.  We also use the big numbers that I made some time ago, which I accessed from here. 

K excited to add

K also continued working on his reading with the Ordinary Parents Guide book and his phonics CD and booklet.  G is still enjoying working on her oversized number and alphabet puzzle, "reading" her books from the library, and doing whatever big brother is doing.  M has really taken to stacking things (like the spices in our lazy susan) and trying to place the tops on things. 

K, G and M got to have some more water fun this week with a storage tub, some stacking cups with holes in them, and other bowls and transferring items.  This evolved into a "swimming pool" for G's little people and so much more.  The kids really enjoyed playing with our homemade water table.  My husband has since taken down the old baby bathtub, an idea I read about on another blog, and the kids now use that along with the other clear storage tub. 

My chickadees having fun together

I am grateful for another week with my little ones!