Mc TOT

Advent ~ Weeks 2 & 3

2011-12-16T16:16:00.000-08:00

Our weeks this December have really been focused on the Christmas spirit. As part of our advent calendar, we are doing a different holiday activity every day. We also added in plenty of other fun play, learning activities, baking and cooking :)

I finally made my own Play Dough and it turned out great. It is so easy to make that I plan on only making home-made play dough from now on. I added green food coloring and glitter to it to make it a little more Christmasy...

We made little snowman and reindeer bells... This was a little craft kit that I got from JoAnn's...

We celebrated St. Nikolaus on December 6th. We cleaned out boots and put them in front of our door and St. Nikolaus was so kind to bring a little treat. Mandarin oranges, chocolate reindeers and a gift to share.

On a different day, we decorated our gingerbread house. The kids absolutely LOVE this every year :)

We made beeswax candles, which was also a big hit!

We also made yummy granola, some of which we will give away as Christmas gifts...

We made big Christmas stars to decorate our windows....

Advent Activities ~ Week 1

2011-12-02T16:06:00.000-08:00

We started our advent activities on December 1st. Click here to see our activity advent calendar. We did something similar last year and it was a big hit with the kids. Every day, the kids pick a special activity that we will do on that day.

My mom sent us this super cute reindeer calendar. I wrote little cards that have the special surprise for the day written on them and Smiley gets to find the correct number each day (Lovebug helps).

On Day 1, the kids were surprised with out Little People nativity scene that they got to set up... (excuse love bug's bed hair, this was right after she got up).

Now that it is getting dark so soon and has cooled down quite a bit, much time in the late afternoons is spent with activities inside. Smiley's continues to love cars and especially enjoys it if mama or daddy play with him. Daddy plays cars with him for at least 30 minutes every day, which Smiley absolutely loves... (and there usually is some wrestling involved too).

Lovebug particularly enjoys puzzles and other fine motor activities, in addition to playing with her stuffed animals and playing dress up ;) Here she is working with connectors that we got from Lakeshore when Smiley was a little one.

Mommy got her Christmas present a little bit early. A juicer!!! I am so thrilled. I got the one that Carisa recommends on her blog. It's a bit pricey, but oh so worth it! While I put it together, the kids had fun coloring the box and pretending it was their house (the box is still in Smiley's room with a bunch of blankets and pillows).

The kids help me wash the veggies and fruit for our juice and Smiley puts everything in the juicer. He loves to be a helper in the kitchen! And I love that my kids drink a juice made from kale, cucumber, celery, and apples. We call it Green Power Drink ;)

We have a juice every afternoon and the kids always ask for seconds.

It is a great way to use up all the organic produce from our CSA box every week :)

Smiley also likes to help me bake bread. Sometimes we do it by hand and sometimes, like this week, we use our bread machine.

For one of our sensory activities this week, I gave the kids a baking pan filled with beans or popcorn kernels and a few trucks. The kids had fun playing with this for quite a while :)

Our Advent Activity Calendar

2011-11-27T16:15:00.000-08:00

Wow, things have been so busy around here lately and I just haven't had any time to post. However, I hope things will change and I will be able to post more during the advent season :)

We started the tradition of an advent activity calendar last year. I like to include as many activities as possible and steer away from too much materialism. The kids enjoy these activities so much and I am sure the will be lots of fun for mom and dad too :) In the future, I would like to include more community service activities, but love bug is still a bit young this year.

Take a peek into the activities we will do this year. I will try to post pics frequently as well, capturing these moments...

December 1: Set up the nativity scene

2: Get Christmas books from the library

3: Play Mary and Joseph and reenact their long journey

4: Make a Christmas box for kids in need (Smiley and Lovebug will each pick things and wrap their individual Christmas boxes)

5: Bake Graettimaenner (a Swiss tradition of baking a dough man for St. Nikolaus)

6: Celebrate St. Nikolaus

7: Make a gingerbread house

8: New PJ's for the kids

9: Make beeswax candles (rolled with beeswax sheets and wicking)

10: Watch a Christmas movie with popcorn and hot chocolate

11: View Christmas lights

12: Go ice skating (first time for the kids)

13: Make Christmas stars (window decoration)

14: Make Christmas cookies

15: Make gifts and cards for friends

16: Pick a Christmas Tree

17: Decorate our Christmas Tree

18: Make and Bake Salt Dough Ornaments

19: Paint our Salt Dough Ornaments

20: Visit Santa

21: Each child gets to pick a new ornament

22: String popcorn and cranberries for the tree

23: Walk in the moonlight to see the moon/stars

24: Write a note to Santa, bake cookies for Santa and get carrots for the reindeers ready

What are your advent plans? Will you have a calendar?

Tot School ~ Pumpkins

2011-10-24T16:04:00.000-07:00

Here are some of the activities that were on our tot trays this week...

Lovebug sorted our critters, by type (here ducks) and then by color.

She worked on these Melissa and Doug shape puzzles...

She worked on this number puzzle...

and this transportation puzzle (we had a big puzzle week, apparently).

Yet another puzzle ;)

Working with our connectors (from Lakeshore). She loves sorting them by color...

We also took a fun trip to the pumpkin patch, where each child got to pick their own pumpkin. We had a great time :)

The trip started with an educational intro on pumpkins...

Then we went on a hay ride and finally we got to pick our pumpkins..

Check out Carisa's blog to see what other tots have been up to this week...

Preschool ~Pumpkins

2011-10-21T16:35:00.000-07:00

Handwriting Practice...

We continue to move slowly through our handwriting practice. It isn't Smiley's favorite thing to do, so I am trying to keep it light and fun, mainly focusing on games. This week, we worked on the letter E again. We started by tracing our sandpaper letter E.

We then did some letter E exercises from our Handwriting Without Tears (HWT) workbook...

We assembled the letter E with our wooden pieces (part of HWT)...

And we finally traced a few E's...

Reading...

Smiley continues to like his easy readers from our Hooked on Phonics Kindergarten pack. He learned a few new sight words this week and we practiced them through various games...

I put one of his sight words on his train track, and he had to read the word in order for the road block to be able to be lifted off...

Pumpkin Theme...

Smiley has been really interested in pumpkins lately. So, we have been reading quite a few books about pumpkins, fall, and halloween. We also worked on several pumpkin printables from 2 Teaching Mommies.

Making pumpkin patterns...

Labeling the parts of a pumpkin....

Measuring vines...

The highlight, of course, was a trip to the pumpkin patch (including hay ride) :)

Halloween Crafts...

2011-10-18T13:49:00.000-07:00

We've been very busy crafting and decorating our house for Halloween over the past several days. Here are some of the things the kids have created:

Smiley made a spider from clay. He formed clay into a spider shape. He strung orange beads on black pipe cleaners and then poked the pipe cleaners into the clay. We let it dry for a couple of days and are now enjoying it as a Halloween decoration...

Our little love bug made this monster. She simply colored a paper plate and glued on little arms and eyes :)

We also made this box monster. Simply decorating and drawing on a shoe box, covered in purple and pink paper (love bug's favorite colors).

Tot School ~ Fall continued...

2011-10-17T21:05:00.000-07:00

~Our little love bug is currently 24 months old~

We continued with our fall activities this past week. I made a sensory bin for the kids, which they loved. I included oats, textile leaves, and eraser pumpkins. Lovebug really enjoyed scooping the oats into our halloween pails...

We sorted leaves by color...

We worked on different Halloween crafts this week as well. Lovebug made a bat...

Later in the week, the kids enjoyed scooping corn kernels.

Making Lego towers...

Working on a mommy-baby animal puzzle.

Finger painting a fall painting :) Somehow the paint always ends up on love bug ;)

Preschool ~ Fall Fun

2011-10-14T14:25:00.000-07:00

We continued to enjoy the fall season around here and engaged in several fall-inspired activities. However, the weather has been a bit crazy around here, with temperatures in the 80s-90s!

Fine Motor/Sensory/Writing Activities...

We really love the wooden pieces of our Handwriting Without Tears program, and not just to form letters! Smiley loves using the pieces as ramps for his cars, as bridges, or ladders for his fire truck :)

We did also use them to build a gigantic E, F, and L though ;)

The kids enjoyed playing with a fall-themed sensory box that included oatmeal, textile leaves, pumpkin erasers and small apple prints. I also gave them a few Halloween-themed buckets that I got from the Target dollar section a few weeks ago...

We sorted fall leaves by color. This was really an activity for the tot, but Smiley liked to participate for a little while...

Making patterns...

Later that week, I let the kids play with corn kernels. They LOVED it! All they needed were a few buckets, spoons and their trucks...

The kids had such a great time finger painting our ocean mural a couple of months ago that I thought it would be great to make a fall mural. Smiley started by practicing writing the letters L, F and E, before just mixing all the colors together ;) Unfortunately, I was too slow to capture his letters on camera... (I think this might have been the letter L)

Additional crafts included bats and pumpkins :) I love fall!

Everything else...

Reading continues to go really well. Smiley loves to read his little readers (hooked on phonics- K). He also played ABC Reading Eggs on the computer once or twice this week. It's great practice to reinforce sounding out and practicing his sight words.

Math just continues to be an everyday occurrence around here. Smiley is often counting something, adding, or subtracting. The singapore math textbook I purchased isn't really working for us right now. The concepts are too easy, and he isn't interested in writing numerals yet. So, for now we're just continuing with our everyday hands-on math :) Eventually, I would like to either purchase Montessori Math materials or Right Start materials. We'll see...

1+1+1

Tot School ~ Fall

2011-10-09T14:43:00.000-07:00

~Our little Lovebug is currently 24 months old~

Our activities this week were mainly centered around fall. We worked on apple prints, which the kids loved. If you want to make apple prints make sure to cut your apple horizontally to expose "the star".

We noticed the changing season particularly this past week. While it is still sunny and warm (even hot) during the day, it cools down as soon as the sun begins to set. We also have quite a bit of wind in the late afternoons. We will have to go and fly our kites some time soon :) We enjoyed one of these windy evenings at the beach...

Smiley cut apart paint samples from the hardwood store for us one day, and our little one had fun matching them by color (I got two of each set).

We then sorted by color group (all the yellows on one stack, the reds on another, the blues on another and the greens on another).

Preschool ~ Fall

2011-10-07T12:01:00.000-07:00

A lot of our activities this week have involved the changing season. It is finally starting to look like fall around here, with the weather cooling down, leaves falling, wind, and lots of pumpkins everywhere :)

Fall Theme

Smiley is fascinated by pumpkins (he already was last year). He completed this pumpkin cycle. I can't remember where I got it, but maybe from Montessori Now?

We then did the same with our Apple Cycle cards...

We baked our first pumpkin muffins of the season. Smiley was an excellent helper measuring the ingredients, pouring, and stirring.

And we all liked the finished product :)

We did quite a few puzzles this week as well...

Waldorf

I am beginning to like several Waldorf traditions more and more. One is oral story telling. I found a very cute apple story, that I told the kids. Smiley is very imaginative and LOVED the story. He even jumped in at several points adding some information to the story ;) I told the story LITTLE RED HOUSE, which you can find on page 103 of this booklet. In the end of the story, the little boy finds the little red house, with a star inside by cutting opening his apple, so this is what we did... We then used our apple star to make apple prints.

One of the most important parts of our days is going outside. We go for a nature walk, a bike ride, a walk along the beach, or to play at the playground at least once every day, but we try our best to go out twice, once in the morning and once in the evening. I find it so so so important to spend lots of time outside at this young age. My kids have plenty of energy and need lots of time to run around outside and explore nature. One of Smiley's favorite activities is to look for snails, worms and bugs :) He was thrilled when it rained this week and we went on a snail expedition (his name, lol). Another evening this week was spent on the beach. It was quite windy and chilly, which really confirms the change of the season...

Math
We continued to work on sequencing the numbers 10-20 and 20-30, with the help of these fun printables from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

On a different day, I drew a tree and had the kids make a specified number of play dough apples to put on the tree. I got this idea from Homeschool Creations...

The kids were only interested in this idea for a minute. Smiley then made a giant worm, which was much more fun than making apples, apparently. This happens quite commonly by the way, where we start a mama-led game, and after a bit, it turns into child-led play, which is totally fine with me. I think that at this age, kids learn best through play, anyways :)

Fine Motor Skills...
In terms of fine motor skills, we worked on cutting this week. Smiley cut apart paint samples from a hardware store. His sister then matched them by color...

After cutting all the pieces, he relaxed on the floor and kept cutting and cutting his pieces into smaller and smaller parts. He plaid that they were tags... He LOVED this. Again, this was totally child-driven and something he truly enjoyed and played for a long time.

Tot School ~ 2 YEARS old...

2011-10-02T14:23:00.000-07:00

~ Lovebug is currently 24 months old~

Our little Lovebug turned 2 years old this week! So hard to believe that our baby girl is already two! It seems like yesterday that she was born! In addition to birthday celebrations, our week was filled with lots of activities...

Sensory Play...
At this young age, most of our time is filled with sensory play, imaginative play, and reading :)

Lovebug loves sensory activities. Here she is transferring water with a big spoon...

Color matching...

Building towers...

Exploring the feel of shaving cream :)

Lovebug was really interested in playing with our wooden blocks this week and built towers on several days...

Transferring beans with a spoon... She was really good at this and didn't spill a single bean. I was shocked!

Putting cheerios in little holes (and then eating them, of course)...

The same activity, but this time with different sized pom poms.

And some pictures of her birthday celebration. We had a fun nature party at a local part with our extended family. I made a waldorf inspired felt crown for our birthday girl. You can read my tutorial here.

Her birthday gift was a beautiful wooden kitchen. She loved it :)

Felt Birthday Crown for a Special Girl

2011-10-01T22:13:00.000-07:00

Our little girl turned two this week!! I love the adorable Waldorf felt crowns, and of course, I had to make one for my special birthday girl as well. Her favorite colors are purple and pink and she loves flowers, so this crown is inspired by her favorite colors and flowers :)

Here are the simple instructions if you decide to make one yourself :)

You will need:

Wool felt (I got 100% wool felt from our local natural toys store that we frequent regularly, but you can also find felt online)
3/4-1 inch elastic, 5 inches in length
Embroidery floss and fun things to decorate the crown (beads, buttons, felt etc.)

Instructions:

Draw a crown template (just half the crown), and cut out
Fold a piece of felt in half and pin the template on top. Cut out two pieces of felt (one for the front and one for the lining.
Decorate the crown front. appliquéd the birthday child's first letter and several felt flowers.
Lay the lining on the back of the crown front and pin in place. Insert the elastic in between the two felt pieces and pin in place as well. I covered mine with a piece of fabric (2 inches wide and twice the length of the elastic).
Begin sewing your crown together. I hand-sewed it, using a blanket stitch. I used extra stitches when sewing over the elastic, to reinforce it.

Crown your special birthday princess or prince and let the celebration begin :)

Linked to: The Magic Onions

Preschool ~ Apples

2011-09-30T18:05:00.000-07:00

We continued our APPLE theme this week and did several apple inspired preschool activities.

MATH...

We laid out our number cards (from the Target dollar section a couple of years ago) from 0-25 and then counted out the according number of "apples" (cranberries from the target fall decorating section). Smiley is a hands-on learner, so he really enjoyed this activity.

We then added in his Lightning Mc'Queen car, who had to find the number that mommy yelled out. BIG HIT! I think Smiley really benefitted from seeing the numbers 11-20 laid out in order below 1-10. Before, he struggled with the order of 13-19, but seeing them below 1-10, really seemed to help him :)

We then built car tracks from one number to another and he enjoyed driving his car along the road...

Writing/Fine Motor/Sensory...

Smiley is not very interested in writing with a pen just yet, which is fine with me. He is still very young and lacks some of the fine motor control. But, he really likes writing letters in shaving cream :) We worked on the letters L and F.

Again, a car was involved ;)

He washed his cars for about 20 minutes :)

The kids were really into building with blocks this week and worked on making towers several times this week.

On another day, we wrote our letters (again L and F) in some leftover yogurt. I am glad we did this on a clean tray, since my kids decided to lick the yogurt off their fingers (strange, how yogurt is so much more appealing this way...;))

Smiley used tweezers to transfer beans...

And then transferred the beans with a spoon to a baby bottle...

On another day, he transferred water with a little spoon...

READING...

Smiley has been doing a great job with his reading. He is SO into it and so proud after each little reader he reads. We're about half-way through the Hooked on Phonics Kindergarten program. I try to only do one new reader per week and lots of review to make sure he is really solid rather than rushing through it...

Coloring his new sight words "this, says, of"...

Decorating his sight words with cheerios, beans and lentils...

Fall Activity...
The kids helped me put together some fall decorations...

I try to integrate Smiley into cooking/baking a few times each week. Here he is cutting apples for a yummy carrot/apple soup :)

Ocean Mural

2011-09-28T13:39:00.000-07:00

We worked on an ocean mural to go along with our ocean theme a couple of weeks ago. I somehow forgot to post about this earlier, but here it is :)

We started out by finger painting a blue poster board. This was probably the kids' favorite part ;)

We read Eric Carle's Mister Sea horse and painted a sea horse with water color, similar to how the artist painted his sea horse.

We made eels from all natural, self-hardening clay. The kids absolutely loved this!

We glued colorful aquarium stones, sea shells and sea snails on the bottom of our ocean. We made sea anemones from tissue squares and also added them to our board.

We cut out sea stars from construction paper, colored them with crayons and then glued some sand on them.

We made a fish swarm with potato stamps. We cut a potato in half and used a fish shaped cookie cutter to make a fish stamp (we only had a whale, but we just pretended it is a fish, lol). Smiley LOVED cutting the potato.

We cut bigger fish from construction paper and painted them. We then added tissue paper scales... (Lovebug preferred painting her hands instead)...

And here is the finished product...

Linking to: Red Ted Art, ABC and 123, Pinterest Tuesday

FIAR: How To Make an Apple Pie and See the World

2011-09-22T13:48:00.000-07:00

We started rowing our first FIAR (Five in a Row, Volume I) book today, How To Make an Apple Pie and See the World. It was a huge success. I decided to start us off with a little trip around the world, following along with the book, to collect all the items for our Apple Pie sensory box.

We used a big map that we got from Costco a few years ago. We started by naming the different continents and oceans, something we have been talking about during our Ocean Study...

We then read the book and followed along on our own map. First, we took a boat to Italy...

Once we were in Italy, we went on the Patio to cut some wheat grass that we had planted in the spring (and that was very dry by now).

We bundled our wheat and placed it on the map (Italy).

We then loaded the wheat on our train and road to France...

In France, we found some chickens (from our Baby Farm Animals Toob), which we also loaded on the train.

Smiley decided to build a train track from France, all the way to Sri Lanka :)

In Sri Lanka, we picked up some cinnamon. We loaded all our good on a car and drove to England.

In England, we found a cow.

We packed everything on a banana boat and crossed the Atlantic Ocean to Jamaica.

On our way there, we picked up some sea salt...

We added some sugar cane in Jamaica (pretend sugar cane, since I didn't find any at the store)...

Smiley loaded everything in his airplane. Loading and unloading the airplane was his favorite part, and he continued to play this over the course of the day...

He loved that we almost forgot our apples, and enjoyed shaking all the other ingredients out of the airplane over Vermont ;)

We picked eight apples in Vermont and fed one to the cow, one to each chicken (Smiley thought it was unfair to only give one apple), and one to the child...

I then gathered all our ingredients and created a sensory box for the kids to play with. I used wheat for the bottom, added our what grass, our plastic chicken and plastic cow (with a little pitcher for "milk"), our child figure (from a Plan Toy), cinnamon, our pretend sugar cane with two raw sugar cubes, 5 apples under an "apple tree" and a salt shaker.

I then added the vehicles we used on our trip and a few extra buckets, cups, bottles, funnel, and spoons and let the kids get at it :)

They LOVED it!

Tot School~Montessori Style

2011-09-11T15:15:00.000-07:00

~Ladybug is currently 23 months old~

I have always been drawn to the montessori approach and tried to incorporate montessori or montessori-like activities in our Tot School. However, I would like to be more consistent with this and decided to set up montessori inspired tot tray for Ladybug.

Here are the activities that were on our trays this week:

Ocean Stickers...

Scooping sea shells... (the little buckets are from the Target dollar section)

Wooden Beads (a HABA toy)...

A wooden screw toy...

Wooden cutting food (Melissa and Doug Toy)...

Pouring pasta...

Preschool ~Ocean Part IV

2011-09-09T14:51:00.000-07:00

It has been incredibly hot here this past week, in fact, it has been of the hottest weeks (if not the hottest week) of the entire summer! As a result, we haven't quite felt up to jumping into our fall theme just yet and decided to continue with our ocean theme, which is okay since I have quite a bit more planned :) We integrated our Ocean Theme into different academic areas, but also did some other work in reading, writing and math...

Reading...

Smiley continues to do a great job with his Hooked On Phonics Program. We're half-way through the Kindergarten program. This week, we learned the sight words: with, what, has. I printed them on paper and Smiley decorated them with candy, his favorite sight word activity ;)

(I took the picture before we shook the candy off)

We also continue to like a word family pockets. This week we worked on -op and -ox.

Math:

We continued in our Singapore Early Bird Workbook and came to the number writing. Smiley did great with number one, but struggled with number 2. I really don't want to push him too much at this age and handwriting is the area that is most difficult for him... He grasps math concepts easily and the Early Bird book is too easy for him in this regard; however, the writing part is tricky. I saw that numbers are actually covered in our Handwriting Without Tears pre-K program, and decided to just skip the numbers for now and work on it once it is introduced in HWT, so it all happens in a more step-by-step fashion :) I think a math program that is more hands-on will be a better fit at this time, and I am looking into purchasing some montessori manipulatives for Smiley... In the meantime, we're doing our own hands-on math activities, here with sea snails and shells :)

Writing:

As I mentioned, handwriting is the most difficult area for Smiley, so we are focusing a lot on fun fine motor activities, and keeping the worksheet activities to a minimum for now.

We had lots of fun making a sea urchin from play though and spaghetti, also incorporating pieces of a real sea urchin and a glass eye :) Smiley adored this activity and spent about an hour playing...

We also continued to work on our Handwriting Without Tears program, which we both really enjoy. Smiley built a mat man with the wooden letter pieces :) He LOVED this!

He also learned how to write the letter L and did really well with it.

we did some extra practice in shaving cream, which, of course, was a big hit.

Hours upon hours have been spent playing Legos this week. The boy is obsessed ;)

Science:

We learned why it is easier to float in salt water than fresh water. Read more about our experiment here.

We continued to learn our daily ocean facts during calendar time. You can find Carisa's awesome Calendar Connection cards here.

We read tons of books about animals and looked at our ocean posters daily (which was part of an ocean book that we got from costco a couple of weeks ago).

We spent lots of time playing with sea shells....

We spent lots of time in the kiddie pool :)

and did a float or sink experiment while we were at it ;)

EGGSperiment

2011-09-07T08:26:00.000-07:00

We are continuing our ocean study and did a fun sink or float ocean experiment today.

We hypothesized if it is easier to float in the ocean or in a swimming pool/lake? And why?

To test this hypothesis we filled one container with tap water (1.5 cups). In the second container, we added 1/3 cup salt to 1.5 cups water to make our salt water. Stir until all the salt is gone. I explained that the salt water is like the water in the ocean. We talked about how "salt gets in the ocean". One way is through rivers, which run over rocks containing salt and then carry it into the ocean. Another way is through volcanoes, erupting under water and releasing salt into the water.

Smiley sampled from both containers to make sure one was saltier ;)

Smiley then predicted what will happen when we put an egg in each glass...
We added a raw egg to each container.

We talked about why the egg floated in the salt water, but not in the fresh water... Salt water is denser than fresh water; therefore, an egg will sink in fresh water because the egg is heavier than the fresh water. However, the egg will float in salt water because the egg is lighter than the salt water.

In the end, you can slowly pour the fresh water into the glass with the salt water and floating egg. The egg should be floating in the middle of the cup. The fresh water is lighter than the salt water, so it should float on top of the salt water. I had Smiley pour the water in and I think he poured it too fast, causing all the water to mix together and this part therefore didn't work as nicely for us...

I got this idea from homeschool share, where this Float or Sink is part of their Hello Ocean Lapbook.
They have a fun little lap book component to go with this experiment that you can do with your child after doing the experiment :)

Tot School ~ Ocean Continued

2011-09-05T15:44:00.000-07:00

We continued to work on some to school ocean activities this week. We sorted fish and anemones by color. This is a file folder game that I got from homeschool share when Smiley was a tot :)

We used montessori match-up cards from Carisa's Ocean Printables. Our love bug started with the match up and then, I had the kids match our ocean critters to the cards. They both really enjoyed this!

She loves working on these Melissa and Doug shape puzzles and is really good at them...

She loves this connector game from Lakeshore Learning Store... She particularly enjoys connecting the pieces by color.

Visit Carisa's blog to see what other tot's are learning...

Preschool ~"official" Week 1, Ocean continued...

2011-09-02T08:35:00.000-07:00

Today was "officially" our fist week of Preschool/Pre-K for the new school year. We worked on reading, writing and math activities and also continued with our ocean theme and had a blast.

Reading:
We haven't done any "official" reading the past few weeks, while on vacation and therefore began our week by reviewing the sight words we had learned previously and re-reading the HOP (Hooked on Phonics) books we had read before. Smiley did really well and I introduced him to 2 new sight words. I love the sight word activities from 1+1+1 and the Moffat Girls, unfortunately, they no longer match the sight words/word families introduced in our HOP readers. So, I will start creating our own resources to follow along with our HOP readers... Smiley does not need (like) much repetition, so I won't have to create too much...

One idea, by Moffat Girls, which I love is tracing the new sight words with edibles. I knew Smiley would LOVE this. Our new sight words for the week were "like, to", which I printed in word and had Smiley trace with cake decoration. Oh, the joy!!! After this activity, which we did Monday, Smiley has had these two words down pat ;) (oh, and the eating was, of course, the best part!)

We used a few resources from Carisa's You Can Read program to reinforce our sight words of the week ("like").

I recently went to Lakeshore, Learning Store and got this fun Word Family Chart, that allows Smiley to build words by word family. We mainly used it as a review tool this week, with all the word families we had already learned and will continue to use it alongside our HOP books.

Writing/Fine Motor...
We did a few pages of our Handwriting Without Tears Pre-K workbook this week, but the focus was on fun fine motor activities, including play dough, cutting fruit and veggies in the kitchen, Lego, and working with pipe cleaners.

Math...

We worked on Singapore Early Bird Math (book A). A lot of it is review right now, which I don't mind. I knew that a lot of this book would be a review for Smiley, but wanted to make sure that he is solid in everything and didn't want to skip anything (such as learning how to write his numbers).

We did a lot of counting activities and simple addition problems using props corresponding with our ocean theme, such as shells. Of course, his favorite math activity was this simple addition game, using gold fish ;)

OCEAN Theme...

We used Carisa's fun Ocean Calendar Cards to learn fun facts about the ocean. We did this daily during our calendar time...

I worked with Smiley's sister on an ocean activity (I think from homeschool share) that we did when he was a tot. He thought it was fun and helped us hide the fish behind the same-color anemones... We then talk about camouflage, by using our shark who chased all the little fish who came out of their hiding place behind their anemones.

For another activity, the kids had to match up their ocean animals to Carisa's montessori match-up cards.

Smiley found a couple of poster tubes in the back of the closet and decided to build a pipe system ;)

We continued to talk about tide pools and finished this activity (from homeschool share).

As a fun project this week, we made an ocean in a bag :) We used a gallon ziploc bag, filled it with some sand, sea shells, our plastic fish and sea shells (table toppers from Target), and aquarium stones. We then added a few pumps of white body lotion and added a few drops of blue food coloring to it and rubbed it all together :) We then added a bit of baby oil as well (regular oil would do as well ~ maybe even some water?). We closed the bag and the kids loved the squishiness of it all :)

We started on our ocean mural (we used finger paint). More on that later :)

Sorting sea shells by shape and size. Lots of fun :)

Ocean in a Bag

2011-09-01T13:16:00.000-07:00

As part of our ocean theme, I thought it would be fun to make an ocean in a bag with the kids.

We used a gallon ziploc bag and filled it with some sand, sea shells, sea snails, plastic table topper fish and shells (from Target). We then added a few pumps of hand lotion and added a few drops of blue food coloring. We mixed the hand lotion with the food coloring by rubbing the baggie. Lastly, we added a bit of baby oil for good measure.

The kids had a blast playing with their ocean. It makes for a great fine motor activity :)

(I do recommended doing this activity on a tray, as the baggie might rip, especially if you add sea shells or snails)

Tot School ~ Ocean

2011-08-28T15:18:00.000-07:00

~Lovebug is currently 23 months old~

We continued our ocean-themed summer schedule this past week.

I put together another ocean sensory box for the kids, which they really liked.

We took a field trip to a nearby beach to see tide pools. We spent a few hours exploring and had a wonderful time.

We even saw a school of dolphins swimming by (you can see a dorsal fin on the picture below)...

Preschool ~ Ocean Part II

2011-08-26T15:52:00.000-07:00

We haven't quite started with our "official" school year around here, but we are beginning to ease our way into it. We started our Sonlight curriculum two weeks ago and love it. It takes us only about 20-30 minutes to complete the Read-Alouds (we are doing P4/5). The kids love to read first thing in the morning (and again before naps and bed), so that's what we have been doing, and it's been working great. Smiley tends to wake up before his sister, so I've been trying to read the longer texts (without pictures) to him while the little one is still asleep. She doesn't quite have the attention span yet to listen to a story without pictures ;) So far, we haven't done any additional activities to go with our Sonlight reading, but we will likely start this at some point...

The rest of our week was spent enjoying the rest of the summer and continuing to focus on our ocean theme. We learned about Tide Pools and the animals that can typically be found in them. We used books and a resource from Homeschool Share. I plan on using several other ideas from the Hello Ocean Lapbook as well.

We took a field trip to see a Tide Pool at a Nature Preserve just a few miles from us... The little hike down to the beach was just breath taking. Down by the beach, we had a blast wading through the tide pools and finding mussels, shells, sea crabs, crabs, lobsters, and algae :)

Other ocean-themed activities this week included an updated sensory box. It is very similar to last week's box, but I added sea animals that the kids loved playing with...

Tot School ~ Ocean Theme

2011-08-21T16:13:00.000-07:00

~ Our little lovebug is currently 22 months old~

We were on vacation for the past three weeks and therefore had a very relaxed learning time; nonetheless, learning style happened :)
I made an ocean-themed sensory box for the kids, which included fuzzy pom poms (to represent the water), sea shells, fish and shell table scatter (from Target), and sea critter finger puppets.

The kids loved it :)

On another day, we sorted the table scatter (blue sea shells and orange fish).

and filled pom poms in a baby bottle...

We spent a few days down in San Diego and got to visit Sea World, which was a hug hit with both kids. They loved touching some of the smaller sea animals (sea stars, sea urchins, snails etc.).

we saw Beluga Whales!

and Polar Bears!

We also were very fortunate that my family invited us to spend a week in Maui, Hawaii with them. We rented a house directly by the beach and had the BEST TIME!!

One day, we took a trip on a submarine and saw a lot of sea life :)

Of course, the majority of our time was spent at the beach!

A little tot school activity in Hawaii... (little glass pebbles that were used in candle holders outside)

Our cutie all dressed up, ready to go out to dinner :)

Preschool ~ Ocean

2011-08-19T15:13:00.000-07:00

My family has been visiting us from Switzerland for the past 3 weeks, so our weeks have been all about quality family time and fun :) Here are some of the things we have been up to. Due to the beach locations of our trips, we started our ocean theme hands-on.

I prepared an ocean sensory box for the kids, which they loved... It included plastic fish and shells (table decoration) that I got from Target. Lots of fuzzy pom poms to represent the water. Lots of real sea shells. And ocean-themed finger puppets...

Smiley loved to put the littlest pom poms into sea shells and to get them back out with tweezers...

He also loved filling up his schoolbus (pretending it was gas) and driving it around the living room (there were lots of emergencies involved to, hence the fire truck!).

Any play involving the schoolbus was probably his favorite and occurred repeatedly :)

We then spent a few days down in San Diego, and of course, had to go to Sea World! What a great addition to our ocean theme!! One of our favorite parts was to be able to touch different sea animals!!

Last week was spent in a house in Maui, Hawaii!! A generous gift from my parents. We had the most wonderful time!

Our house was right at the beach. It was the perfect set-up with two young kids (and 5 adults).

Due to the time difference, the kids woke up very early and we were able to play in the waves while watching the sun go up :)

One morning, we took a submarine trip to more closely see al the sea life, including sea turtles and an octopus!

On another day, we went to look at a sugar mill and learned the process from sugar cane to raw sugar. The kids even got a little sample ;)

Of course, the majority of the time was just spent having fun at the beach, such as building sand castles with my mom.

Curriculum 2011/12

2011-08-13T16:49:00.000-07:00

Smiley ~ Preschool/Pre-K:

Smiley has shown increasing interest in academic activities over the past year and particularly enjoys science and reading. I wanted to give our days a little bit more structure and have therefore decided to order curricula... When we start our school year in September, Smiley will only be 3.5 years old, so at a preschool age. His interests are more at a Pre-K level though, so I will call next year a Preschool/Pre-K hybrid, which we will likely continue until he turns 5 in January, 2013 and we can "officially" start Kindergarten.

Here are our choices for the next school year:

History, Science, World Cultures, Bible, Language Arts:

SONLIGHT P4/5: The spine of our curriculum next year will be Sonlight. I have heard such wonderful things about this curriculum and cannot wait to get started. Sonlight is a literature-based curriculum, which seems to be the perfect fit for Smiley, who LOVES to be read to.

FIAR: I also bought Volume 1 of Five In A Row, another literature-based curriculum, using picture books. We will likely add in FIAR units every once in a while, to supplement our curriculum, particularly if we decide to stretch this year over 18 months.

We will be supplementing with our own science units and monthly themes, largely based on Smiley's interests, the season, and holidays. We will also try to go on regular field trips to make our learning as meaningful as possible.

Reading:
We will use different resources for reading that are either free or that I have purchased in the past. I prefer a phonics approach to reading and our curriculum is therefore largely phonics based, with the addition of sight words (helper words).

Hooked On Phonics (HOP): I purchased HOP K-2nd Grade for an excellent price (about $20) a while back. Smiley started Level K a couple of months ago and has done wonderfully with it. It is by far his favorite reading program. He much prefers it over the BOB books.

Bob Books: We have the first set, but as I mentioned, Smiley is not a big fan of them.

ABC Reading Eggs: This is a fun online reading program that Smiley really enjoys. It is a great supplement to HOP, as it slowly introduces word families (phonics) and supplements with sight words as well.

You Can Read: A great FREE reading program by Carisa. We use this program for our sight words and for all the fun learning activities Carisa shares so frequently. We LOVE her blog!

Ready2Read: We love this free reading program from The Moffatt Girls. It combines phonics and sight words.

Writing:
Handwriting Without Tears: We will be using HWT~ Get Set For School (Pre-K) as our writing curriculum.

In addition to HWT we will do many fine motor activities, including sensory bins, cutting, gluing, play dough, beads, etc.

Math:
Singapore Math: We will be using Singapore Math: Early Bird Math as our math curriculum this year. We will heavily supplement this with lots of hands-on activities. One resource we will use is Jolanthe's Preschool Packs, which we will try to coordinate with our monthly themes.

Art:
We will do lots of arts and crafts coordinating with our monthly theme or our Sonlight/FIAR curricula.

PE:
Smiley is very active and needs lots of time to run around :) We don't have a garden and going to the playground/park is therefore of utmost importance!! We like to go to the park every morning for at least 1-1.5 hours and most days, again in the afternoon. This is also a great time for him to meet his friends, such as during our weekly homeschool playgroup.

More formally, Smiley will start swimming classes and may switch to gymnastics or a ball sport as the weather gets cooler...

Lovebug ~ Tot School

Our little lovebug will turn 2 in September. My main goal for her is to have fun and learn to love learning :)
Her learning activities will be very play-based and child-driven. I am sure she will take part in many of the activities her big brother is doing as well. We will get most of our ideas from Carisa's wonderful Tot School ideas.

Linked to: Tot School, Preschool Corner, Blog Hop

Tot School ~Letter Aa

2011-07-17T17:41:00.000-07:00

~Our little Lovebug is currently 21 months old~

LETTER Aa...

Our little lovebug is fascinated whenever her older brother does schoolwork and really wants to participate as well. For that reason, I thought I would give Carisa's fun TOT School Printables a try. She loved them :)

She already sings her ABC's and is very interesting in "reading", so I thought these printables might be fun for her. She loved coloring the apples in the letter Aa.

She is a HUGE fan of dot paint, so this was great for her :)

We talked about different fruit for her vocabulary building...

I put these laminated letters out for her brother to practice tracing; however, he had no interest in this activity. Instead, our little lovebug spent a long time tracing the different letters ;)

DRESS-UP...

She continues to be a huge fan of playing dress up, preferrably with freshly folded clothes ;)

INSECT THEME
We completed our unit study on insects this week with this fun sensory box (rice and insects from an insect toob).

ART/CRAFTS:
We painted a snail with water color...

and then decorated it

Some more dot paint fun with the apples counting game, also from TOT School Printables...

Painting a frame for her brother's sight words...

Learning Toys:

Preschool ~ Butterflies and Snails

2011-07-15T15:13:00.000-07:00

BUTTERFLIES...
We completed our study on butterflies this week. Our caterpillars had formed into chrysalis last week...

... and ALL 5 of them transformed into beautiful painted lady butterflies :)

We fed them flowers, which we sprinkled with a bit of sugar water, and orange slices and kept them for a few days.

We wrote and colored in our journal, where we have been keeping track of all the changes our caterpillars went through...

We went to a butterfly pavillion to see even more butterflies (and caterpillars, and eggs, and chrysalis)...

Then it was time to let them go...

To finish up our insect theme, I made the kids a sensory bin with rice and plastic insects (insect toob). They loved it. Rice definitely creates quite a mess though, so it may be a while before we do this again...

SNAILS...

We added a quick unit on snails this week as well. Smiley has been extremely interested in snails lately. We look for them every single morning :) One day this week, I let the kids collect a couple of snails. We made a snail habitat (we filled a plastic bucket with grass and lettuce) and observed the snails for a day. We went to the library and got several non-fiction books on snails...

I printed a snail and the kids painted it with water color.

Once the snails were dry, the kids had fun decorating them...

READING...

We used You Can Read, Unit 2 and Ready2Read, Unit 2 to work on reading this week, in addition to Hooked on Phonics and ABC Reading Eggs.

We focused on the -ig family this week. Using several activities from Ready2Read...

and then read our corresponding -ig book from Hooked on Phonics. Smiley read this book a couple of times and then re-read books 1 and 2 (-at and -ag).

Smiley really enjoys hands-on activities, so I am trying to incorporate fun, hands-on work whenever I can. We used these fun ice cream cones from Ready2Read. I used a file folder with velcro, so Smiley could mix it up and create different ice cream cones for us to "eat.

Smiley loves his cars, so we incorporate them a lot into our reading time :)

The sight words we focused on this week were "can" and "you". I chose to only do two new words this week... We colored our caterpillar words (from Ready2Read).

Sight word search with dot markers from You Can Read... We also used the playdough mats to trace our sight words with playdough (sorry no pictures).

Smiley loved coloring his two sight words with this glittery paint. Rubbing it in with his fingers was great fun! The printables are from Ready2Read as well...

Butterfly Pavillion

2011-07-14T08:46:00.000-07:00

As part of our unit study on butterflies, we thought it would be fun to visit a butterfly pavillion. Luckily, our local Natural History Museum has a butterfly pavillion during the summer months :) The kids loved it and had a wonderful time!

We saw a chrysalis...

...and many different butterflies.

Smiley was very excited about finding some rolly pollies as well ;)

Smiley was hoping a butterfly would land on his leaf...

Smiley found some butterfly eggs!

(the orange dots below)

and caterpillars...

What a fun-filled day and great summer activity for the entire family!

Linked up to: Beneath the Rowan Tree and Little Wonders' Days.

TOT School

2011-07-11T14:16:00.000-07:00

~Our little lovebug is currently 21 months old~

We had a fun filled week with different learning opportunities. We mainly focused on fine motor skills, sensory experienes, colors and shapes.

We worked on a 4th of July themed sensory tray. Our little lovebug spooned fuzzy pom poms with a spoon...

On a different day, she did some pouring and filling the pom poms in small holes...

She's a pretty silly girl, always dancing and jumping around ;)

We did some coloring... She usually needs to have something in each hand (same with food)...

I made a sensory bin filled with feathers for the kids, which they really enjoyed...

We played with our Melissa and Doug, food cutting toy, which the little one really enjoyed, although she typically just pulled the pieces apart rather than using the knife.

We worked on this shape puzzle. I said the names of the shapes as she inserted them into the puzzle...

I made a slit in the lid of a container and the little tot inserted our colored buttons. I had her get a certain color or shape at a time...

Here she is collecting all the hearts...

Her favorite thing to do right now is to play dress up. She loves to go to mommy and daddy's hamper or closet, pull out a bunch of clothes and put them on. Oh, SO MUCH FUN!

Preschool ~ Caterpillars

2011-07-08T14:51:00.000-07:00

INSECT THEME: FROM CATERPILLAR TO BUTTERFLY

As part of our Insect Theme, we have been learning all about butterflies. Smiley is, of course, very interested in the metamorphosis from caterpillar to butterfly. So, to make our study really hands-on we ordered 5 caterpillars from Insect Lore.

It has been great. We are keeping a journal, in which we draw and write everyday, noting the changes we observe in our caterpillars. It is incredible how much they grow every day! Very fascinating, even for mom and dad!!

To go along with our study, we have been reading several books, including:

From Caterpillar to Butterfly by Deborah Heiligman.

This is a great book for preschoolers/kindergarteners, explaining the change from caterpillar to butterfly.

Beautiful Butterflies by Meish Goldish

This is a great book with many beautiful pictures of butterflies. It includes many interesting facts on butterflies.

A Butterfly Grows by Stephen Swinburne

Another book on the metamorphosis. It has many pretty pictures and walks through all the steps with few words. Ideal for younger learners!

In addition to the above non-fiction books, we also read a couple of board books on the topic, including:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and The Crunching Munching Caterpillar by Sheridan Cain. Both books were great hits with the kids.

FINE MOTOR/SENSORY WORK:

In honor of 4th of July, I put an independence day themed sensory tray together for the kids. I included fuzzy, blue and white pom poms (from Michael's) and a star ice cube tray (from Cost Plus).

On another day, the kids played with a feather sensory bin...

PRACTICAL LIFE

Smiley helped me fill our mason jars with all kinds of goodies (grains, flours, sugar etc)...

We started a garden journal, which we use to note our observations about our potted fruit and vegetable plants. Here, Smiley is measuring them...

Helping daddy plant a new plant that he had picked out at the store :)

FUN

The weekend was busy with lots of 4th of July celebrations and get-togethers :)

Tot School

2011-06-26T14:50:00.000-07:00

~Our little Lovebug is currently 20 months old~

We worked with lots of different learning toys this week, mainly focusing on fine motor skills and sensory experiences...

Our little lovebug worked with these connectors (I have no idea what they are called)...

She worked on a puzzle...

She worked with this fun wooden building toy that her brother loves :)

She build towers with our wooden blocks...

Megablocks were a big hit again this week as well...

I made an insect sensory box for the kids and both of them loved it...

We colored quite a bit this week...

We cut play dough...

And we spent lots and lots of time outside.

She still loves flowers and enjoys picking them :)

Preschool

2011-06-24T08:33:00.000-07:00

Ladybug Theme

We continued our ladybug theme this week. We had started last week with a ladybug craft, which you can see more of HERE.

This week we talked a lot about ladybugs and I made some more pages for the science binder. I will share the pdf file here soon.

I also made a ladybug sensory box for the kids. I added our ladybug stones, aphids (from our ladybug game), petals (from Ikea, several years ago), and some foam shapes. The kids loved it. They are always big fans of sensory boxes :)

Fine Motor Activities...
We have been focusing a lot on fine motor activies lately. I made an additional sensory box for them, with many small beads. Smiley did lots and lots of pouring...

We strung cheerios on pipe cleaners (and then ate them)...

We put little magnets on cookie cutters...

We cut play dough...

We used scissors to cut the playdough. Cutting is still a bit difficult for Smiley, so we're working on building his grip strength :)

We drove our cars through the play dough...

Other Learning Activities...

We did quite a bit of arts and crafts this week. Here we made an underwater scene with lots of gluing...

We worked on puzzles...

Smiley is newly in love with his workbench. He's been working a lot with it lately....

Building towers...

Practical Life...
Smiley helped me make granola...

He cut strawberries and bananas for his breakfast...

He helped clean (we use vinegar mixed with water to clean)...

Outside FUN...
We typically spend at least an hour outside in the morning and another 1-2 hours in the afternoon. I thought I would share some pictures this week ;)

Smiley loves to ride his strider bike. He's doing such a great job with it. He is very fast and does a great job balancing...

muffin tin monday

2011-06-20T11:51:00.000-07:00

We had a snacky-type of lunch today. Now that the weather is getting nicer and we're spending even more time outside, we often come home right around lunch time, starving. It has to go quick, and a lunch that can be put together in a hurry is just right :)

Small mozzarella balls, organic cherry tomatoes, seeweed (from trader joes),

beet salad, organic multigrain crackers, and organic hummus.

Can't wait to see what others had for lunch today :)

TOT School

2011-06-19T14:36:00.000-07:00

~Our little lovebug is currently 20 months old~

Fine Motor/Visuo-spatial Skills:

We spent most of our week focusing on fine-motor skills, as well as visuo-spatial skills. An area I am working on with Smiley right now, but our lovebug was able to participate and benefit as well :)

She is a HUGE fan of megablocks right now and they were played with almost every day this past week. They are not only great for motor and visuo-spatial skills, but also for working on colors and counting. Our little lovebug is solid on blue, and pretty good with red, green and yellow. We're still working on pink, purple and orange :) A few weeks ago, she blew me away with her counting abilities. She is able to rote count to 11. She must have just picked it up from Smiley or one of us counting at times. It's not something we've focused on with her yet... Anyways, I am taking her current interest in counting and incorporate it in the actual counting of objects, such as the megablocks in one of her towers :)

We did a lot of sensory play this week. Both kids really enjoy doing this and it is so good for them :)

One of our fine motor activities this week included stringing cheerios on pipe cleaners. The kids thought this was a blast. They would string a few cheerios on the cleaners and then eat them ;) Play and snack in one!

I got our magnets and cookie cutters out this week and the kids had fun decorating the cookie cutters with the magnets. Most of our cookie cutters are Christmas themed, so I will have to remember to bring them back out in December for this activity. (not that the kids cared at all that it was completely the wrong time of year...).

To continue with our insect theme, we painted ladybug stones. Our little lovebug just loved this activity. We painted dry stones with red tempera paint (don't add water).

Once the paint had dried, I let the kids go at it with a sharpie (no, I am not THAT brave. I used a plastic plate after I shot a couple of pictures and reminded myself that the sharpie in fact is permanent!).

Preschool ~ Sight words

2011-06-17T07:51:00.000-07:00

~Smiley is currently 41 months old~

READING...

A lot of our week was focused on reading. We love the Ready2Read Program, which combines phonics families and sight word drills, as well as Carisa's You Can Read Program. We have been using both programs in addition to using ABC Reading Eggs and Hooked On Phonics.

This week we focused on the following sight words: a, I, the, and, see.

Smiley used his car to help him read his sight words...

He colored them and then cut them out... (great fine motor practice for him!)

I love the cute sight word caterpillar. We colored the circles, laminated them and hung them in Smiley's room :)

We then worked on our phonics family by using this fun pasting activity. He really enjoyed this.

We then used Carisa's You Can Read Program to further work on these first sight words...

He used his car to drive from word to word...

(he did eventually use a pencil as well, but I didn't snatch a picture)

He loved this dot paint activity. We did "a" and "the" first. He then felt the need to completely cover the words in dot paint and it got a little crazy ;) but he really enjoyed it...

Ladybug THEME

We continue to learn about insects. We introduced ladybugs this week, and what better way then to start with a little craft. We had some flat stones and I thought it would be fun to make some ladybug stones :)

We covered them in red tempera paint...

and then added heads and dots with a black sharpie.

PLAY...

Megablocks were a big hit this week. Smiley built a castle for his cars ;)

Ladybug Craft

2011-06-14T11:47:00.000-07:00

We are still learning all about insects. We finished our study on bees and are now learning all about Ladybugs. I though I would kick off our study by making ladybug stones. The kids had a blast!

We used relatively flat stones and colored them red with tempera paint. You could also use waterproof paint, particularly if you plan on putting them outside!

Even my 20 month old was able to color her stone independently :)

We let the stones dry while the kids napped...

We then used a sharpie to make a head, a black line down the middle and dots... Our little lovebug loved this and wouldn't want to give the sharpie back. I let her make two ladybugs, and big brother made one. This is still difficult for them, so I finished up the rest of our ladybugs ;)

We made this craft this past weekend and the kids have been carrying their ladybugs around with them. What a great hit! You could probably spray the finished stones, so they last longer! We may end up doing that (if I make it to the store again soon).

By the way, the picture below is not very good. It was very dark when I took it and it doesn't do our ladybugs justice. Just know that they are much cuter in real life ;)

Muffin Tin Monday

2011-06-13T20:59:00.000-07:00

I saw these cute muffin liners at Michaels the other day and just had to pick up a pack (set of 12). What better way to use them, than to start a Muffin Tin Monday post :)

I made a pretty simple lunch, including:

Organic cherries from the farmers market (x2), organic animal crackers from Trader Joe's, Organic Brown Rice and Beans, Organic Split Pea Soup (Trader Joe's).

I try to feed the kids organic food as much as possible, although we also have non-organic things at times... I try to stick with Organic particularly for the "dirty dozen" produce, meat, eggs, and dairy products. We get most of our food from Trader Joe's, which has a lot of organic selections, as well as the farmers market. I started buying raw milk from our local farmers market, and at times also buy pastured eggs and meat at the farmers market as well.

Tot School

2011-06-12T13:51:00.000-07:00

~ Our Little Lovebug is currently 20 months old~

Our little lovebug is starting to be more interested in puzzles. She loves these big chunky ones right now...

Dot paint is one of her favorite art activities :)

Just being silly with daddy and big brother...

Putting bugs together...

or just using the bin as a hat (whatever floats your boat, I guess)...

We started working on color recognition a little bit. She knows red, blue and green (and yellow, purple and pink occasionally). Here she sorted buttons by color...

however, she was more interested in doing a fine motor activity and pouring them from one container into another ;)

I gave her some additional bottles and cups...

We enjoyed the beautiful weather and spent much time at the park... We try to go out for at least 1-2 hours every day. Most days, we go out in the morning, and again after naps...

She is a great climber now.

and goes down the slide all by herself.

She LOVES flowers!!! (notice the flower in her hand)

She actually loves the swing as well, although her face doesn't show it in this picture :)

Picking flowers, of course...

Riding her little fire truck. This little leapfrog fire truck is always a huge hit on the playground. All kids love to play with it! Best 10 dollars spent ever! Oh, and notice the little flowers she is holding in her hand :)

Preschool

2011-06-10T15:52:00.000-07:00

READING...

Our main reading program comes through "Hooked on Phonics" and "ABC Reading Eggs", both focus particularly on phonics, but also integrate sight words. We add in some BOB books every now and then, as well. We have been moving pretty slowly in terms of reading. I really don't want Smiley to get burned out, he is so young! However, I think it is more me holding him back rather than him not being ready... He really loves reading as long as it is on his terms... He loves ABC Reading Eggs and would probably do it more often. He learned several sight words now, "see", "and", "the" and I want to make sure he is solid in them and not move too quickly...

I came across this cool, FREE reading program a few weeks ago, which combines phonics and sight words. It is perfect for us. The first unit covers exactly what Smiley is working on right now :)

He is still OBSESSED with CARS (and can't wait for CARS 2 to come out in a few weeks). I yelled out a word and his car (I forgot the name of the car, oops), had to find it and drive on it...

We then went apple by apple and Smiley read the words. He does great sounding them out :)

We then used this cool work sheet and Smiley dot painted the correct words. He loved this. Do you think he pushed his paint hard enough ;)

We then did this apple page with our dot marker as well. He was supposed to use two different colors, based on which word family the words belonged to, but he insisted to just use one color...

BUG THEME...

I have been majorly slacking on our bug unit. I hope life slows down soon and I get to pick it back up! Smiley still talks A LOT about bees though, so he definitely remembers :)

Here we built a bug with a toy that we recently got at a consignment sale.

MATH...

I am trying to add some more math to our preschool. He does really well with counting and has one-to-one correspondance down pat. We are now working on simple addition problems. I took advantage of his love for cars and came up with this simple math game...

It was Smiley's idea to actually match the cars by color ;)

PLAY...

Most of ours days still consist of lots of play, of course. The math game quickly changed into a street building game...

Smiley even made street signs for his cars ;)

He's quite creative at storing his cars as well ;)

This is the first face I saw Smiley draw :)

The weather has been so nice that we spent a lot of time playing outside as well. (he insisted on wearing his helmet the entire time we were on the playground...)

TOT School ~ Fine Motor, Colors

2011-05-28T08:00:00.000-07:00

~Our little LoveBug is currently 19 months old~

Fine Motor:

We worked a lot on fine motor skills this past week. This is definitely an area of strength for our little lovebug and she truly enjoys all these activities.

We put spaghetti in a shaker with holes...

She worked on a screw-type toy that she got for Christmas. This is still a bit difficult for her. She is able to stick the pieces together, but hasn't quite figured out the screwing yet.

Animal Names:
Lovebug's vocabulary is really starting to take off. She understand a lot and is more and more able to also express herself. I put a bunch of animal cards in front of her and yelled out the name of different animals and she had to find them. She LOVED this. I did the same thing with her brother when he was younger and he also really enjoyed this :) We also focused a lot on colors this past week. We will continue to work on both areas :)

Sensory Play:
I put out a sensory bin this week and lovebug really enjoyed playing with it. I am so impressed with her spooning and transferring skills. I don't think her brother was able to do this as well at her age. I think girls are in general more advanced with these fine motor activities ;)

Preschool ~ Fine Motor

2011-05-27T15:13:00.000-07:00

~Smiley is currently 40 months old~

Fine Motor Skills:

We focused a lot on fine motor skills this past week. Here are a few shots of what we did. The kids put spaghetti in a shaker type container with small holes. A parmesan container or sugar shaker would work equally well... They both loved this.

They worked on a cute screw-type toy that Smiley's sister got for Christmas. It's still a little difficult for her to actually screw the pieces together, but her brother enjoyed it a lot ;)

I was planning on doing some more writing and pre-writing practice, but Smiley was not interested. I would say that hand-writing is definitely the area that is most challenging for him. He is very young, so I am not pushing anything right now. I really just want him to enjoy our school time together :)

Reading Skills:

We worked on our ABC puzzle this week and Smiley is really good about sequencing the letters while singing the song ;)

We do lots and lots of read-alouds every day. It's a huge part of our daily routine and has been since Smiley was an infant. We typically read a few books first thing in the morning (while the kids have their milk). We then read some more before naps and occasionally in the afternoon. We always read 3 books before bedtime (both kids, on the couch) and then one more book in Smiley's room. He has been much more interactive while reading and asks lots of questions and asks the meaning of words if it is one that he does not know. I think all the reading we do has a lot to do with his great vocabulary!!

We picked up our BOB books and Hooked on Phonics books a couple of times this week as well. I am not very disciplined with this yet. Smiley really has an interest in reading and is often trying to sound out words, so I really want to get better about this and make reading part of our routine!

German...

This is probably the area I have focused on most the past couple of weeks. Smiley's German skills have improved dramatically lately. I have really made an effort to only speak German with him and his sister. He understands most of what I am saying and is starting to also answer me in German :) It is really tough to speak a foreign language consistently when living in an English speaking environment, but I really want him to have the gift of being fluent in two languages, so I am trying my best to stick with it!

Totschool with Lovebug

2011-05-22T15:39:00.000-07:00

~Lovebug is currently 19 months old~

We continued our spring theme this past week. The kids worked on our spring collage together. Our little lovebug enjoyed putting the stickers on the collage. She is currently obsessed with flowes, so she was really into this :)

She also enjoys coloring a lot...

We worked with our magnets quite a bit this week. We're working a lot on color recognition. She knows her colors quite well and is able to give me/point to the correct color if I ask her. However, if I ask her for the name of a color, she says "blue" to everything ;)

Preschool

2011-05-22T15:29:00.000-07:00

~Smiley is currently 40 months old~

We had a pretty relaxed week of tot school/preschool this past week. We worked on puzzles a few times this week. Smiley now works completely independently on them.

We continued to learn about bugs. We colored the title page for our Bee Unit. Smiley loved this. We reviewed our binder and talked a lot about bees. He told everyone about pollination and how bees make honey :)

We finally finished our spring collage ;)

Smiley's handwriting skills continue to improve. We reviewed a few of Carisa's handwriting sheets that we had worked on earlier in the year. We're about ready to jump back into the RRSP units :)

We colored quite a bit this week...

And made patterns with our little magnets...

Preschool ~ BEES Science Unit

2011-05-13T16:43:00.000-07:00

Smiley is a HUGE science fan. He asks lots and lots of questions every time we cover a certain topic. We were learning about bees and I really wanted to provide him with more information that would answer his questions. I started to compile information and created a science unit on bees. I plan to add other insects as well as we cover them over the next weeks. I really want to bless others with these files as well and decided to share them with anyone who might be interested. The link below should give you access to the pdf files. I created a file on Insects in general (just a brief overview) and one on Bees. This is my first time sharing a document, so please let me know if you have issues accessing the files. I printed the pages, put them in sheet protectors and started an insect binder. Smiley and sit down together and look through the files. It is a very interactive process of me sharing about the science facts and him asking questions. He really loves this and it fits his learning style perfectly. I am sure there are other preschoolers/kindergarteners out there that enjoy science as much as Smiley does and who might enjoy these files as well ;) Hopefully, we will add ladybugs, ants and other insects soon :) I would be happy to hear any feedback you might have about how I could improve the files :) Thanks for visiting!

Bees Unit Study

Insects Unit Study

Preschool ~ Insects

2011-05-07T15:05:00.000-07:00

Science:

Our preschool theme this week was INSECTS. We started talking about the different features of insects (6 legs, 3 main body parts, sometimes wings and antennea) and talked about different insect species... Smiley is a HUGE science fan, so this was right up his alley. Plus, he likes anything creepy, crawly ;)

We read several fun insect books this week that we found at our local library and did lots of internet research as well. I am plan on covering different insects over the next couple of weeks. This week, we started learning about bees and will continue our study on bees this week. I started putting together a science folder for Smiley that I will hopefully be able to share next week :)

Reading:

Smiley continues to love his ABC Reading Eggs, an online subscription that we purchased a few months ago. This week, he learned all about the -ee sound and words such as see and bee (perfect fit with out theme).

I was also able to buy "Hooked on Phonics: K-2nd grade" for an awesome price a few months ago, and we started reading a couple of stories this week (focusing on: cat, rat, fat, sat). He really enjoyed this and did very well.

Math:
Smiley likes one of our ipad kindergarten apps (TEACH ME Kindergarten) that has fun addition & subtraction math games. He does really well with this. Other than that, we haven't focused much on math lately (other than constantly counting stuff, of course).

Tot School

2011-05-01T15:07:00.000-07:00

We have been so busy the past several weekends that I didn't have time to link up to the weekly tot school meme. However, now that things are starting to calm down a bit, I actually have time to post again (although we just got back from visiting family in San Diego a couple of hours ago)...

A couple of weeks ago, during our spring break, we were lucky enough to visit the Long Beach Aquarium. It was our first time. What an awesome place to learn hands-on about sea creatures :) We prepared by fishing with our fishing kit :)

Because the weather has been SO beautiful here lately. We've spent much time outside. We even took a trip up to the Central Coast (Pismo Beach area) to visit Lil' Lovebug's godmother, who lives there temporarily (while on internship).

We made different craft activities for Easter. Here our lovebug is decorating a foam cross with Easter themed stickers...

Of course, we had to die Easter eggs :) She still does not like getting her hands dirty, so she didn't get that into it ;) What you see in the pics below is about the extent of it...

The weather wasn't great on Easter Sunday, so we opted for an Easter egg hunt indoors. Our little girl blew us away with her egg finding abilities!!! She was amazing and even beat her older brother!

She loved the jelly beans (all natural, lol) that were hidden inside the eggs. In contrast to big brother, who did not like them at all...

Preschool ~ Easter

2011-04-30T09:00:00.000-07:00

I was a bad photographer this week and only got pictures from dying our Easter eggs and our little Easter egg hunt... Our main learning right now happens through reading and everyday life. Smiley LOVES to be read to, and always has. He can sit for hours, listening to stories. I'd love to move on to chapter books. Please let me know in the recommendations if you have suggestions for first chapter books for boys (he loves stories, such as Curious George, Rainbow Fish, Mike Mulligan, Corduroy, etc.).