Preschool Wrap Up- Letter Aa

Bella loves to sing and dance.  Here she is on our front lawn giving a performance of a lifetime.

Preschool Weekly Wrap up

Letter Aa

Having fun with a friend in our sandbox with kitchen supplies from the Dollar Tree.

Making an apple tree with fingerprints.  She loves the inkpad.

Played a game outside that matched up apple numbers on circle cutouts to sidewalk chalk numbers.

"Baking" apple pie with our apple pie playdough.  

We brought out our apple cookie cutters and mini silicone cake pan for a place to put the pie. :)

Inspired by Counting Coconuts to do a monthly or seasonal playdough.

Here's a great recipe/directions..

Just add apple pie spices to your basic playdough recipe.  

I also used whole wheat flour to get the apple pie crust color.

Sorting Aa's

I got the apples from Hubbard's Cupboard curriculum, 

and the cool Aa letters from Mrs. Meachams Webpage.

Another find from Hubbard's Cupboard.  Counting apples on the apple tree.  

We used green marbles (the kind that is flat on one side) for our apple manipulatives. 

This tied in with our bible theme of "fruit of the Spirit"...

The placemat is filled with "big" pictures of fruit.  

In the baggie are cards with the teeny tiny versions of the same pictures.

The child uses the magnifying glass to identify and then match the fruit.

 James actually like this one too and they worked on this together!
I can't remember where I found this...sorry!

Apple prints.  I love the stars...horizontal cuts.

Fingerprint Tree

This is our Hubbard's Cupboard song craft page.  

I cut out the pieces, and Bella glued them together.

We had so many small pieces that I decided to make an Aa lapbook for her.  

We put the letter crafts on the front.  Again, here I cut out the pieces, 

and she assembled and glued them together.

This is inside the folder.  

Silly alligator poem found at Homeschool Share

Aa apple shape book

Coloring Shape of Apple

Apple Pie Opposite Cards Game

Aa Songs for Saplings Flashcard

Aa Art Book

Apple Tree Counting Book

She counted and glued the correct number of apples onto the page.  

We found this at Childcareland

We covered the Aa art book letters with apple stickers.

 

Linking up to these great memes. 

Check them out for great ideas for your children!

Pumpkin Fun

Matching Shapes of Jack-o-lanterns

Ordering Pumpkins from Small to Big

Pumpkin Symmetry

Bellaisms

 I love the way my  daughter talks...but sometimes things get lost in translation when she is talking with others.  Here's a cheat sheet to get you started in understanding her "Bellaisms"

• "Lalas"-Music
• "Macareens"-Mac-n-Cheese
• "Lasterday"-Yesterday (or any point in the past)
• "I don't have any words"-when she doesn't want to talk anymore or doesn't know the answer
• "fork"- fort
• "light-light"-nightlight
• "formers"-Transformers
• "Kids Milk"- Kidmo (our church's preschool program)
• "Soon"- Spoon
• "What's your number?"-How old are you?
• "Ober"- Over

He started a fire!

Mark took the kids camping last night.  He is so patient as he teaches James some manly skills.

Fall Workbox Fun

James loves looking for Hidden Pictures.  This is from the magazine Highlights that I saved from 2006! 

I threw this in one of his workboxes this week for a fun break in the schoolwork.

Fall Activity Table

We have a table in the center of our school room where we have started to feature seasonal activities that stay there all month/season.  We took a trip to the dollar tree and came out with $4.00 worth of fun.

 

We mixed together a bag of fabric leaves, acorns, pumpkins, gold curly ribbon [our dollar tree finds] with stuff we already had at home:  noodles, Pumpkin Cookie Cutters, Fall Ribbon, Red Yarn, and fall colored felt scraps.  I covered the table with some white newsprint off a roll added our box of crayons, and voila!  

Our Fall Themed Activity Table.

 

They can lace the noodles.

 

Or have fun sorting.

 

We can make practice patterns too.  And with the cookie cutters we can draw all over the papered table.  Bella also uses these for our playdoh fun times.

Mommy Date Night

What is more wonderful than date night with your children?

(and not having to cook/serve!)

Dancing shamelessly at the table along with the lively Mexican music?

Yup!

I love my Wiggle Worms!

Afterschool Special...

Boys...

Nighttime Frog Hunting with the neighbors.

 Mom, can we keep them?

Ummm...

NO!

How 'bout I just take a picture...

Now free the frogs.

Don't worry...the dog didn't get them.

Living Waters Academy

 

History Lessons are fun and interactive with Heart of Dakota.  We have been following the lives of several (fictional) children as their families experience hardship in Europe trying to worship in freedom...future pilgrims.  Here he was mapping out the route one character took in our lesson that day.  It combined history, with listening comprehension and art.  Bella, who wants to do everything big brother does, is doing her own sticker version. 

  I was worried about whether the math program included with the Heart of Dakota curriculum would keep James' short attention span...but the teachers manual has a hands on activity to go with the math workbook pages practically everyday.  I really am impressed with the fun/learning ratio.  This one was particularly fun...Roll the dice.  Take the highest number and subtract the lower number...write the number sentence down on paper.  We found these jumbo foam dice at the Dollar Tree.

We are still using the My Father's World Reading Lessons as they match up exactly to the Emerging Reader's lessons in Heart of Dakota in the first 9 units!  

Bella usually joins us for his Bible Reader workbox.  Here, he is using the Bible Reader from My Father's World, however we do alternate using the Beginner's Bible (Heart of Dakota's Reader) which is at a more difficult reading level.   Once the MFW Reading lessons end, we will switch over to the HOD Reader exclusively.  This will probably happen around the time that we get to the New Testament.

We also use the MFW Bible Notebook, illustrating and writing a summary sentence about the Bible Lesson he just read.

 Taking a quick break to enjoy one of Bella's workboxes.

 This is one of my favorite parts of homeschooling!  The cuddle time that comes with read alouds.  This book is a biography, Benjamin West and his cat Grimilkin.  James loves this book!  He asks to read it at night too.

 

 RECESS!