Chinese New Year Theme - February 19-25, 2015

Chinese New Year isn't something we normally celebrate or even really talk about, but when I saw it on our library story time calendar as a theme I thought it could be fun to do it here, too.

Drew and I made paper lanterns out of construction paper. He worked on his cutting skills with scissors. This is a hard area for him because he still wants to use two hands. I thought finding a pair of kid's scissors that would pull themselves back into the open position would help, but it didn't. It just frustrated him more, so I let him use my scissors and he was much more successful. I was really surprised.

Then we made decorations for the lantern. He used a circle punch to punch out 10 circles. He made some "moons" as he called them that were missed punches. He liked the punch once he understood he had to put the paper into the slot, and he really liked counting them.

Next he used the glue sticks to glue the circles on. Glue is another one of those areas we haven't worked on and I know I need to. He gets frustrated when he doesn't have enough glue to stick things to except his fingers. I think using liquid white glue would be easier, but I am not sure how out of hand things would get before he had glued everything to himself, or his hair. He also used some colored circle stickers to decorate the lantern. It was a good way to make him count the different color circles and talk about which color had more.

Once it was all decorated I put it together. When I was done taping it and trying to fluff it out he kept saying it looked like an octopus. He was right. When I handed it to him he started alternating between ringing it like a bell and squishing it to make an octopus. I am not sure he got the idea of it being a lantern, but he liked it.

Ring! Ring! Ring!

It is an octopus!

We also did some painting. In honor of Chinese New Year we used the colors red and yellow. As he was painting we were talking about how when he painted with the red and yellow it made orange. He kept telling me that is how purple is made. Sadly, I kept trying to correct him that it was orange, but once I stopped to think about it he was right, last week we made purple the same way. He wasn't telling me we were making purple today, but that is how purple was made, too, by mixing colors. I think he outsmarted me on that one.

I helped him make a little dragon out of egg carton. I had to paint it for him because his paint wouldn't stick to and dry on Styrofoam, so, I had to use my craft paints. I don't trust him with those yet because they aren't as easy to clean up as his paint is. So, my lesson learned for the week is to make sure to buy eggs in paper cartons on the weeks that we need egg cartons, or find friends that do. He helped me glue the google eyes on to the head and then string the head and the body together with a pipe cleaner.

This week we were reading books about Chinese New Year and kites. I am going to roll the kites into my March theme of "In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb" starting next week. It seemed like a great tie in. He liked the Red is a Dragon book a lot, the others he isn't as into. I am hoping the more we read them the more he will enjoy them.

We had been intending to go to a Chinese New Year celebration with a Dragon Parade, but this weekend AJ and I were both to sick to really get off the couch, so we missed it. Instead we watched some videos on YouTube. It gave us a chance to talk about the Lion Dance and all the gymnastics they were using, and the how the drummers were playing and moving around to the rhythm, and then watch the snippets of a parade and all that was going on there.







There were supposed to be some other great adventures for this week's theme, but AJ and I both came down with massive colds and then my car died and we had to deal with that. Next year, I plan to be a little more on top of it and not just a spur of the moment theme.

Mardi Gras Theme - February 14-18, 2015

This was a really short theme that overlapped the Valentine's theme. I really wanted to work this theme in because it is something I want us to create traditions around. Living in Orlando and having passes to Universal means that we go to the Mardi Gras parade at least once a year, so it seemed like a good way to work in the theme. 

We went and saw the parade with our friends on Saturday night. Some how I missed taking a picture of Drew with his beads, but I have a picture of Luke with his.  Drew wasn't as successful as Luke was at catching them, but he will get better. 

We also made Mardi Gras themed pancakes in Shrove Tuesday. I think they came out ok this time, next year I know to add more color to the batter, especially the purple. 

Drew and I made a sign for Mardi Gras and painted it. We talked about mixing the colors red and blue to make our purple. It was also our first big attempt at staying in the lines while painting. He tends to be a more abstract artist than a stay in the lines artist. 

Once he understood what I was wanting he did pretty good. I did discover I need different paint brushes for him. I only have little skinny ones and he doesn't like them. 

On Tuesday we had a break from Mardi Gras at library story time. They were celebrating President's Day. So, we heard stories and say songs about the presidents. 

Getting a good shot of him dancing isn't really possible. He is in constant motion. After story time the library does a craft. This week we made Abraham Lincoln dolls. It was a very parent involved craft, especially after Drew accidentally cut me with his scissors. I found an area we really need to work on. 

This week since it was a short theme I didn't print any new worksheets and just reused the Valentine's Day ones. I had enough that we didn't repeat many. Thank goodness because his focus on repeat stuff is very very very short. For the repeat stuff I had to bribe with the candy heart pattern pages because he gets to munch on the hearts as he works with them. 

I did manage to get some of our homeschool stuff up on the wall. I still need to work on it, but it gives me a start. I got the bulletin board up that I can change the calendar and decorations on easily. I also found a magnetic white board at Goodwill. Drew has been drawing on it and using his magnets on the letters of the week sheets. Until I get everything figured out there is a big space to hang his artwork and big projects. I kept the clock up in the same space because we are working on telling time. The analog clock is next to the digital on the oven so we can explain the time to him. He is getting good with it already and is understanding that things happen at certain times like his gymnastics class. 

Getting Back In The Swing Of Things - Valentine's Day Theme February 9-14, 2015

One of my biggest goals for this year is to get back into the swing of things with homeschooling. Drew is getting close to VPK age, and even though we aren't going to be sending him to a traditional school for this program I want him to stay on track with his peers. He has some of the basics down, so it is time to expand on them. 

Right now he can count to 10 with no problems, to 20 and only skipping 14, but once he gets to 20 he can count to about 50 or so until he gets bored. He can do some simple math like under 10 addition and subtraction, but in truth it is still more counting because he needs to see it in fingers or objects to get it. He does understand the concept of zero, which honestly is one that surprises me. Drew has his basic shapes and colors down pat, AJ has been working on some more complicated shapes with him like rhombus. He can recognize almost all of his letters, though some still confuse him on signs because they look like numbers, especially Z into a 2. He will identify letters when we are out and about until he gets bored with the game and just starts messing things up to annoy me. Boredom is going to be my biggest challenge with him. 

We kicked things back off in earnest with Valentine's Day. It seemed like a good starting point because there are a lot of good activities and preschool printable packs for it. 

We started with stringing Fruit Loops on to pipe cleaners and making them into hearts. It gave us a chance to work on counting large numbers, stringing in patterns, and fine motor skills. There was also lots of snacking on them and using them as lightsabers until they were made into hearts.

We made Valentine's to take to our playgroup's party. I was hoping we could work on writing his name, but he wasn't interested in it at all that day, but he did work on the letters in his first and last name and what it looked like put together. That was a new skill for him. He also started understanding the concept of a first name and a last name. It was fun to see him get that AJ, Humma, Humpa, Mamie, and me all have the same last name as him.

At the party the kids got to decorate heart cookies and then eat them. It gave me a good idea to let him practice with a knife more often. 

Later in the week we worked with the letter V for Valentine and H for heart. Some of the things we did were use V stamps to fill in the letter V, the letter H to fill in the H, and worksheets to practice handwriting, identifying what is different, and patterning. 

 

I want to get in the habit of posting his work so that I can look back and see where he is improving. I have a hard time judging that on the day in day out basis. It should also get me in the habit of documenting and keeping a portfolio of his work for when he starts kindergarten. 

Most of the sheets we used this week were from www.overthemoon.com Valentine's Day preschool pack. We used some from Living Life by Learning, www.giftodcuriosity.com, and PreKinders.com

Zoo Theme

I know it seems like forever since I posted here, but we haven't stopped homeschooling. We did take a break on introducing new concepts to reinforce some of the ones we had already worked with. We are now back to new concepts and new themes.

The theme for last week was zoo animals. It was a really fun theme. The recommended book of the week was Good Night, Gorilla . I carried that theme a little further by getting some Curious George books to add to it. Drew loved "Good Night, Gorilla" and Curious George Visits the Zoo . He would just sit down with the books and point out things to me. He especially liked the part in Curious George where a little boy was crying until George gave him a balloon.

I found a great zoo theme preschool pack from 3 Dinosaurs. It has puzzles, memory games, matching animals together, and coloring pages. I love the fact that she makes packs just for toddlers. I did limit which ones we did. Instead of 12 animals we matched 3, and for the matching animals we did 4. He loved the pack!

This was the first week I had introduced music to our homeschooling. I played the Curious George cd whenever we were playing inside or out. He really enjoyed dancing. I think I will be hunting a cd for each week theme from now on. I like the Curious George one because it was music and not just silly songs. We did try the silly song cd, but it was scratched and didn't play on our cd player. That is the downside of borrowing things from the library.

We finger painted elephants this week, too. Elephants are one of Drew's favorite animals. I was happy to be able to include them this week! He painted several other animals, but this was my favorite. We also talked about the colors and what happens when he mixes them all together.

Zoo week was a fun week. I liked adding extra elements and playing things a little more by the ear. We are still trying to figure out our schedule for things, but they are meshing a little better.

Homeschool Supplies

When I thought about homeschooling I forgot about setting up a space to keep the supplies. I had thought I could just keep them with my craft stuff, but that turned out not to work. When I wanted something for Drew to do I had to go hunt my my craft room, and by the time I found his stuff he was over wanting to do it. So, I cleaned out a section of our kitchen cabinets that we weren't really using and moved his stuff in. This has worked so much better, especially since it is right next to our eat-in table.

We have Crayola Colors 24 Piece Puzzles for different weeks colors. I got them from Wal-Mart in the dollar bin. They have 24 pieces, which works well right now. I wish they had had the yellow one when I was buying mine, but they were all out. I like these puzzles because they have lots of objects of that color for us to talk about, and isn't just a picture.

The boxes are from Ikea and fit in the cabinet fairly well, but they have to be turned long way. If we keep the boxes in the kitchen I will probably go back and get another color so the orange doesn't stand out as much. But for now they are working great at corralling the little supplies.

In this box we have stickers, foam letters, foam sheets, glue sticks, bath crayons, and laminated Bible verse cards. A bit of a hodgepodge, but since most of the things are stickers it works.

The other box has our Crayola Washable Watercolors , Crayola Washable Crayons , Crayola Washable Markers , poster paints, stapler, and Crayola Washable Kid's Paint . These are the supplies I was always having to hunt for and now that they are in the same box I can make a quick grab for the one I think will be the least mess that day. Huge word of advice, buy the WASHABLE version of Crayola supplies. They are slightly more expensive, but the clean up is so much easier and will keep you from pulling your hair out. You will notice a box of non Crayola markers in the box, I used them once and they were hard to clean up and I haven't used them since. The poster paint is non Crayola washable, but sometimes I just need a good poster paint.

We have our books of the week in here, too. That way I always know where they are and I can pull them out. I was keeping them on the counter and one had an accident with Drew. Thankfully, the library has a policy that as long as the page wasn't torn out it isn't "damaged". But, we will be keeping library books up in the cabinet for a while. We also have our collection of play-doh on this shelf. I like the box we got at Wal-Mart. There are 16 little sticks in the box and covers all the basic colors.

Our Fisher-Price Brilliant Basics Baby's First Blocks is on the shelf, too. I love this sorter! A friend gave it to Drew for his first birthday, and it is great. I keep it up on the shelf so that when I need it all the pieces are together. We are missing one of the blue circles, but that is ok, I will find it one day.

For Drew's first Christmas I made him a set of cloth letters. Since the curriculum we are using does a group of letters at a time, I just have these pulled out. The others are mixed into his toys.

I also have a binder to keep all the lesson plans. I was trying to keep them loose and that was failing horribly. I have the summary for the year printed out and put in the front pocket with the laminated scripture verse of the week. Then I have the weekly plans with sheet protector dividers to hold that week's coloring sheets and complicated crafts. I also have a tab to keep track of the full list of lesson plans in the back that tells me more than the basic spreadsheet in the front does.

Example of everything for one craft in a sheet protector.

So far this system is working well for us. There are supplies that are still in my craft room like my card stock (not the cheapest option, but I already have it and so I am using that instead of construction paper), my printer, my silhouette, and lamination machine. Most of these things are too big for the cabinet, and where they are is convenient for when I am working at my desk getting things ready for the week.