Learning the Letter X ~

Last week, during our strep week, we spent a few days learning about the letter X.   I am very thankful that it was an easy letter week because the strep made it a short week too.  Even though we only spent a few days on the letter, Sunshine Girl has it down! 

Here are a few of our activities from last week:

Playing music on a xylophone

I have been borrowing a xylophone from our church to help me prepare for teaching children’s choir.  Sunshine Girl and Baby Boy had fun playing on it.  By the end of the week, Sunshine Girl was playing her C scales and attempting to play “Chopsticks”.

 

 

We used the letter X activities from the Raising Rock Stars Preschool at 1+1+1=1.  {We are really enjoying these lessons and powerpoint shows!}  (No pictures.  Sorry!)

 

Activities for our preschool scrapbook found at Homeschoolshare.  (We did not finish these and will do so this week.  However, the link will take you to the printables.)

 

Activities from Confessions of a Homeschooler  ~ Letter X.

Sunshine Girl was so proud that she completed this color by number all by herself.  She decided on a whim to cut it out later too!

 

Map of backyard ~ X marks the spot!

 

After she drew the map, I  hid a treasure in the backyard.  ( I saw this idea here.)

Sunshine Girl used her map and found the “treasure”!

I just love this picture of how hard she is working on her treasure map.  {smile}

A Little Bit Extra…

We love starfall!

Baby Boy wanted to help me fold socks.

Sunshine Girl was playing her “piano” to the ragtime music that we heard on starfall.  (Have I mentioned how much we love starfall?)

 

Circus fun activities ~

A few weeks ago, we took a trip to the circus. 

My little ones loved it so much that I thought it would be fun to do a few circus themed activities. 

Of course, I have to tie a book into most of our activities and I knew of the perfect one sitting on our shelves.

 

 

 

 

We started our circus fun week by reading the book Circus by Lois Ehlert.  {Our book actually has a clown face and not a tiger on the cover.}

The illustrations in this book are great.  They are colorful and use shapes to make pictures. 

For our activities we made:

Clown Hats

 

We used empty oatmeal containers, freezer paper, packing tape, glue, poster board, and felt shapes.

We wrapped the containers with the freezer paper, 

{older kids helped the little ones}

discussed and decorated with the shapes,

 

used packing tape & cardboard to make a brim,

and stapled a little bit of elastic to the brim {so it could be worn on the head}.

 

Another activity was:

Shape & Pattern Tigers

{not a very creative name,is it?}

We began with a rectangle for the body. 

We tore orange and black paper to make stripes and placed them on the rectangle in a black/orange pattern.

Then using various shapes, we made the head and other features of the tiger.

We had fun with our circus activities…almost as much fun as we had at the circus!

 

 

 

 

 

Apple Fun ~

One of our autumn themes has been

Apples!

Here are some of our apple fun activities ~

Apple Songs (click here for link)

 

a is for apple (click here for link)

Apple pie play dough (click here for link)

{Just make sure that you can find your food coloring so your play dough is actually apple colored!  Notice the color of our play dough…}

Apple prints

{to make an apple banner}

 

Some great apple themed books to read:

 

Apple Picking Time  by Michele Benoit Slawson

An Apple a Day by Melvin Berger

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Homeschooling with preschoolers and toddlers~

If there were one thing I would say is difficult as a homeschooling family it would most definitely be occupying a preschooler and toddler while trying to teach my other children.

Do you see that picture above?  Don’t let it fool you.  It only looks like that during our homeschool days…oh, about 10 percent of the time! 

So what is a homeschool mom to do?

After struggling with this during our last school year, I determined that we would find something that helped to occupy the younger crowd but allowed me to teach at the same time.  And since I have a very active two-year-old boy, I knew that it would mean that an older person would need to be there to engage him and keep him happy.  :)  Since I am expected to teach at the time, I asked my older children to help.  And they gladly obliged.  (Who wouldn’t want a 30 minute break from his/her schoolwork?)

Here is how we have our days scheduled:

 

Time	With Mom	With Little Ones
8:30	Emma (2nd grade)	Grant
9:00	Preschool Time	Mom
9:30	Emma (2nd)	Bryce
11:00 – 12:00	Older Boys	Emma (30 minutes) and free play until lunch

A few notes:

• While one child is with me and another is with the little ones or when I am teaching preschool, the other child (children) is/are doing independent seat work.
• We take an outside break from 10:30 – 11:00.  Trust me, we all need it by then!
• Usually Bryce is needed to entertain the little ones a little longer than 30 minutes but he is usually a head of the game with the completion of his school work.
• If it appears that I don’t spend much time with the older two boys, you must remember that (1) they are more independent with their school work and (2) they spend time with me after lunch when the little ones are resting. (And Emma gets more time with me too!)

 Before the week begins, I take four empty, plastic shoeboxes and fill them with different things such as dominoes, pom pons, small containers, foam letters, things to scoop with, etc.  I give the older children some ideas as to how they can be used but they also have come up with ideas of their own.

 Scooping & counting  pom pons and painting H with Big Brother

We also have a folder full of worksheets about preschool topics – letters, shapes, colors, numbers, etc.  The older children have really enjoyed teaching the little ones using these worksheets.

If they happen to finish all of these activities and it is not time to switch, there are games and blocks to pull out too.

Finding letters with Big Sister

  Listening to Big Brother read Hop on Pop 

So far, this has been the best way for us to keep the younger ones occupied and having fun without spending too much time in front of a TV.  Of course, this works for us because we have older children in our family.  If they were all young, I would have to take another route.  (Which I’ve done before but I honestly don’t remember what I did!)

We have found that happy, occupied toddlers & preschoolers = a happy homeschool (and a happy homeschool mom).