Preschool fun: “G” for goose week

Since we have our own little goose family growing in our backyard, we decided to do G is for goose. Here is a roundup of our G week:

~ G is for goose coloring sheet and writing sheet

~ Goose coloring sheet which we did using glitter (for g, of course!)

~ Damian played with these cute egg shape sorters that we took out from our local library (our library provides these awesome “story bags” that come with a set of books on a given topic, along with corresponding puppets, puzzles, and other related toys. LOVE our library!).

~ Connect the dot number sheet

~ We read through the Canada Geese page on National Geographic Kids and on Animal Planet

~ We met our own backyard baby goslings when they hatched.

~ Goose label/color sheet

~ Do-a-dot Gg sheet – we have to do this for every letter because Damian loves the do-a-dot sheets and markers!

~ We built our foam G, used our g sandpaper letter, made Gg playdoh letters, and made Gg’s on the peg board.

~ We did this cute letter g craft from Homeschool Creations.

~ We used various parts of Jolanthe and Carisa’s Bird Preschool Pack.

~ The boys put together and played with their Playmobil farm complete with a goose family (oh, and a sea serpent, of course, because all farms have them, right?)

And of course the end of the week would not be complete without adding Gg to our Chicka Chicka Boom Boom Tree!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5K too

Science Unit: our complete Solar System study

We have had an incredibly fun journey into space over the past month (actually a little longer because of the sick days in between!). Here are the highlights of our trip:

~ Boy did we read books! We read a whole collection of books on space, from easy picture books to space encyclopedias. We usually read the more basic books out loud together, so that the material was more accessible to Damian. Then I put the more complex reading in Rylan’s workboxes for him to read on his own. If he had questions, we discussed it together during my one on one time with him. He also reads the more complex books with his Dad during bed time (he stays up a little later than Damian these days). Here are some of the books we read, Amazon limits you to 10 items per carousel, so I couldn’t fit them all in without turning this post into a long series of book lists! :)

~ We also watched several DVDs:

• Bill Nye the Science Guy: The Planets
• Bill Nye the Science Guy: The Sun
• Bill Nye the Science Guy: The Moon
• Eyewitness The Planets

~ We read the Magic School Bus book about the Solar System, watched the related DVD, and then completed all the experiments/activities in the Magic School Bus: The Secrets of Space science kit. You can see a couple of these below (most of them involved flashlights and therefore being in dim light, so I did not take many pictures):

 

{build your own telescope and solar system model}

~ To learn about the phases of the moon, or the lunar phases we built and used this model and read up about it on wikipedia, which also has a very cool animation of the lunar phases. For a tutorial on how to make this model, look at this post.

~ We put this solar system puzzle together.

~ As with all our unit styled studies, we keep all the books and manipulatives (that can be reused) from our learning in our “feature study” area. You can see in the picture below all the books, posters, lacing cards, roll a rocket game, space songs, puzzles, lunar model, earth orbit model, etc. The boys are encouraged to use this material throughout the duration of the unit (for more on our school room layout see this post).

~ I created several sensorial tubs and activities which I spread out over the course of the month. With the tubs, I left them put together for a couple of weeks each, so they could revisit the tubs and play.

{tub contains: rice base, “space” letter cookie cutters, star and moon cookie cutters, a mini earth globe, star bursts, black pompoms, “moon rocks”, sparkly star and moon paper cut outs, rocket ships, and the contents of the Safari space tube}

{tub contains: moon sand base (I could only find green and yellow when I went shopping for moon sand, would not have been my first choice, but worked none the less), mini ax and rock mould, magnifying glass, rocks made from moon dough, cookie cutters, and the contents of the Safari space tub.}

{space playdough play}

~ I used the A is for astronaut pack materials from Spell Outloud for Damian (I laminated them, and used stick on magnets at the back of each item so they could be used on our white boards and the fridge).

~ Damian did this A is for Astronaut do-a-dot sheet from Making Learning Fun.

~ Rylan completed various worksheets and coloring pages in his workboxes throughout the course of our study, here are some examples:

• Space word jumble
• Space word search
• Space crossword
• The planets coloring sheet
• Rocket coloring sheet
• Planet word search
• Dover Coloring Book: Exploring the Solar System
• Writing practice:

~ We put together a glow in the dark solar system, stuck it to the ceiling with putty, closed the blinds to make the room dark, laid down on the floor, and “star gazed” up at the ceiling (we did real star gazing in Hawaii, but here in a big city it is not so easy, especially when the sun sets after the boy’s bedtime these days!).

~ In trying to bring more music into all our learning time, we listened to the classical CD, The Planets, by composer Gustav Holst. While listening we discussed the Roman/Greek gods that the planets had been named after, and how the music conveyed the characteristics of these gods.

~ I used parts of the Astronaut preschool pack from Homeschool Creations for Damian. Both boys especially loved singing the “Climb About the Spaceship” song, which we added actions to and sang many times to begin our day’s exploration.

~ I also used a few of the activities from this pack for Damian.

~ I made this earth lacing card for the boys to use (found the earth picture on Google images). Make sure to laminate or stick your picture onto cardboard (actually I did both), so it is sturdy enough for lacing.

~ To help the boys understand and visualize how the earth rotates on its axis and orbits around the sun, giving us day and night and the seasons, we made this model, which they could manipulate themselves to get a sense of how it all works.  They wanted to add the moon on to it too, the second picture shows that addition. For a tutorial on how to put this together go to this post (it also explains other activities we did to reinforce this concept using a globe and flashlight).

~ I created this solar system concentration/match up game for the boys to play with. You can download the cards from here, and read about how we used them in this post.

~ We created a large scale model of the solar system on our reading room floor. We used planet cut outs, yarn to create the rings of orbit, black pompoms to create the asteroid belt, and at the end the boys added labels to each planet.

~ Of course we had to build rocket ships! We built two different kinds, at different times during the month long study. The boys built both set of rockets entirely by themselves:

{To make: paper towel roll, sheet of paper for tips, construction paper wings, tissue paper streamers. Put together with tape and decorate.}

{Idea for these from Kid Craft Weekly}

~ The boys drew solar systems using rainbow scratch paper.

~ Rylan created his own constellations on black construction paper, and wrote his own mythical stories behind their names.

~ Just for fun, the boys wanted to play with this “galactic ooze” that we found at our local teacher resource center. :)

~ Websites we visited together:

• Kidsastronomy.com
• NASA kids
• NASA solar system exploration

We plan to visit a planetarium this summer, otherwise, that’s a wrap (hope I remembered it all!). Happy space exploration!

And here is the rainbow felt alphabet!

Last week I posted about our rainbow felt numbers, and promised to share the alphabet when it was finished.

You will notice the whole alphabet is in repeated rainbow colors, except I made the vowels light blue, just so they would be highlighted.

Hope you all had a wonderful Mother’s Day weekend!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5K too

Musical ABC cards (printable)

In follow-up to my post yesterday about how I am trying to channel Damian’s learning more through music, I wanted share these ABC cards that I made for him last week.

He loves singing and dancing, watching concerts and videos on You Tube(like Yanni, Sarah Brightman, Andrea Bochelli, Enya, Celtic Woman, the Riverdance, etc), but he is also very fascinated with instruments and how they make music. Some days (most days) he will line various objects up from pots and pans to toys and drums and use his tapping sticks to play music on them. He will walk around the house using his hands or tapping sticks to hear the sound that various surfaces will make. Really a musical beat is just coming out of him all the time it seems.

So anyway, back to the cards :). I thought what better way to appeal to him, when learning the ABCs and phonics, than to do a set of alphabet cards that are instrument themed. Now let me tell, finding A-Z in instruments was not easy! I made them a mixture of classical instruments and folk instruments from around the world. I had to cheat a couple of times and use musical terms instead of instruments, because I could not find an instrument with the short vowel sound of the letter. And let’s face, X is near to impossible. I decided to go with xylophone, even though it is not the correct first sound.

You are welcome to download the cards, I suggest laminating them before cutting them out, to give them some durability. Here is the link, enjoy!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5k too!

Incorporating music into our school days

I have been working, over the last few months at incorporating more music into our daily school time. Every member of our family loves music, so it has always been a part of the daily rhythm in our home, but lately I have been giving it a lot more thought. Why? As I watch Damian grow, I am seeing in him a very keen interest in music and a natural aptitude for it.

One of the advantages of homeschooling is that I can cater to my children’s specific interests during the course of their learning. With Rylan it has always been through his love of reading and animals, and I have had several years now of figuring out how best to orient his learning around those passions, but music is a new slant for me. It has always been there, but now I need to make it more of a focus, more of a vehicle for Damian’s learning, because it definitely lights a spark in him and makes his concentration keener.

Damian started Music Together classes around 12 months, and we have been going strong ever since. I have no doubt that these classes are giving him a good foundation in music, and have definitely made music a lot of fun. We also sing these songs together at home and in the car during the week, and as a result have accumulated a box full of instruments which he plays with every day.

You may have noticed that we sing a lot as a part of Damian’s school time, I am always looking for songs related to the theme or topic he is learning about. Also our circle time is filled with song, in fact, we sing most everything from our prayers, to our school song, to the calendar songs, to our virtue quotation memorization. Not only is it a wonderfully cheerful way to start the day, but it aides memorization.

I also incorporate music into our geography studies. It gives a glimpse into the culture and “vibe” of the people we are learning about.

Another thing I have started doing in the last few months is playing classical music during our school time. After we have completed our circle time, and Rylan moves onto his workboxes and I am doing one-on-one time with Damian, I turn on some classical music. It plays quietly in the background while we are all working. I can say, without a doubt, that it has the most wonderfully calming effect on our school time. It aides in quiet concentration, it is uplifting, and it helps to feed Damian’s passion because he is definitely happier when music can be heard. On the weekends Ramtin gives the boys little tidbits of information about classical music – the composers, the type of music, etc; during the week we just listen to it and enjoy it.

I am just starting to research Suzuki piano lessons, as a possibility down the line for him. I have heard a lot of good things about this program, but I am uncertain about him starting so young in more formal lessons. I am going to try to attend a preview lesson with him this summer, so we can both see what it is all about.

To those out there who have musically inclined children, I would love to hear what you have done to nurture this interest in your children?

Some linky appreciation

This is a really mixed bag of stuff, but I have been saving a few links and recommendations that I have wanted to share for a while and have not gotten round to putting it all together!

Firstly, there is this post from Motherhood and More in which she shares her prayer box idea. I love this idea, we have used something similar in the past for learning virtue quotations during our circle time, but I love the cards she has put together. They are great for children’s classes or for family use.

Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations, has been putting together fun preschool packs under a number of different themes that children will love (and she is making more). I plan to use some of them for Damian.

Two items which are making my housekeeping SO much easier. One is this nifty cordless vacuum cleaner that my folks bought for me (thank you, Mom and Dad!). I love this thing – it is light weight, swivels to get under and around things easily, does not break my back like those little handheld dust busters, and best of all no cords! I keep it in my laundry room, which is right off my kitchen, and it is easy to whip out and do a quick vacuum after meals or the end of the day. It works well on carpets too, which is fantastic for when I pull out a sensory tub in the school room!

The second item is my new bread machine which my hubby got for me. I prefer to make our bread, rather than use the store bread, but making it was taking too much time in my already too busy days. But this thing is awesome, it takes me 5 minutes to put the ingredients in, press a few buttons, and a few hours later I have a perfect loaf of healthy, fresh bread.  This model has two kneaders, which I have been told makes all the difference, though I wouldn’t know, since this is my first bread machine.

This post from Deb at Living Montessori Now that provides a great list of free Montessori materials online.

And tell me these art supply pouches are not just the cutest way to organize your kids pencils and crayons?

Numbers you can hold on to ~ rainbow hand sewed felt numbers

I sewed this rainbow set of felt numbers for my littlest learner to play with and have fun with while he learns all about numbers. We liked them so much I sewed an entire alphabet too, which is almost finished. I will share pics of that when it is completed.

I got the idea from one of my favorite blogs Counting Coconuts, but I actually stuffed my letters with toy stuffing to give them a real 3D look and feel.

Using them with math links.

Of course he could not resist counting while jumping on them! I think my jumping math and jump to spell activities really took in this house! :)

This has been added to: Preschool Corner and 5K too! and Show and Tell.

Preschool fun: a review of our letter F week ~ all about fish!

We did our letter F week a few of weeks ago. Since then Damian I have taken a little break from our usual routine to focus on space related activities as a part of our solar system unit. All of which I will share with you in my summary post on the unit.

Our letter F week was a quiet-ish one, actually. We spent a lot of time reading fish themed books together, since Damian has, really just wanted to read a lot lately, and I am going with that. Since he is only 3 years old, I am very low key and easy going with his work, mostly doing something a little more formal because he loves being a part of our school time. I did not do any sort of planned school work with Rylan at age 3.

We did a couple of the activities from Confessions of a Homeschooler’s letter F. Damian played with this magnetic fish game, which he had a lot of fun with.

We also played this game together several times. Although it is, sadly, not a well constructed toy, it is really great for developing fine motor control and my boys both love it.

Both Rylan and Damian got to paint fish from this Melissa and Doug set. They love painting these animals, we have done them before with our letter D for dinosaur week.

We also spent a day at the zoo to see real fish in action! This is the tropical fish tank, all the fish we used to swim with every week. It makes me happy just to see them, but also a little “home” sick for Hawaii!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5K too!

Preschool fun: Review of letter E week ~ elephants and earth

We actually did letter E about three weeks ago! Sorry, my blogging time is limited these days, but I do eventually get things posted! :)
Since we cover a lot of the same activities every week, simply changing the letter, I will refer you back to our previous weeks to see some of what we have done, such as sandpaper letters, playdoh mats, building foam letters, learning numbers, patterning, sequencing from biggest to smallest, sensory tubs, do-a-dot letters, collages, puzzles, peg boards, chalkboard writing, etc, etc: letter A, letter B, letter C, letter D.


But I did want to share some highlights of this week that we have not shared before:
~ Sorting by first letter sounds with our alphabet box. I laid all the objects from our alphabet box for letters A to E on the ground, and put the drawers for those letters out as well. I asked Damian to pick up each object one at a time, same the name of the object, then say the first sound of the object’s name, then put it in the right letter box based on the first sound of the object’s name. We will do this exercise again periodically, adding more objects to it, as we go through the alphabet.

~ We made elephant masks!

~ We colored a picture of the earth with people holding hands around it (kind of like my “Nurturing Virtue” image) and memorized the following quotation from the Baha’i Writings:

The earth is but one country, and mankind its citizens. ~ Baha'u'llah

Hope you all have a wonderful weekend! I am most happy because my hubby will be home after being away for a week on business. Next week I will be sharing more details on our solar system study, including a printable game, highlights from our fishy letter F week, as well as a special project we are working on to prepare for Ridvan (and other Baha’i Holy Days in general). Hope to see you there!


This has been added to: Show and Tell and Preschool Corner & 5K too!

Jump to spell words game (and letter and phonics recognition for my preschooler too!)

Since my math jumping game was such a hit around this house, I decided to use the same concept in our spelling practice time. I lay out floor letters for the entire alphabet (printed the letters from here), then give Rylan a word or phrase and he spells it out by jumping on the letters to form the word(s). If it is a phrase instead of a single word, as he switches from one word to the next he shouts out “new word”, if the word he is spelling is a proper noun, he shouts out “capital” as he jumps on the first letter of the name. When we use jump to spell for spelling practice, the comment at the end is usually, “Can we do some more spelling, pleeease?”. Got to love that! :)

Of course, not to be left out, Damian wanted in on the action, so he gets to do his own form of letter hopping to practice letter recognition (I call out the letter and he jumps on it) and phonics (I make the sounds of the letter and he jumps on the matching letter). All in all definitely a popular exercise in our home!

Now that it is warmer out, I think we will take this lesson outdoors too. I will have Rylan write out the alphabet in sidewalk chalk and then the jump spelling will begin!

This has been added to: Preschool Corner & 5K too! and Show and Tell

An old classic: the Lite Brite

The other day we were over at my sister’s home, and since she has grandkids (yes, her grandkids are the same age as my kids, I was a late comer in my family!) she has a stash of toys in her house that my boys love investigating while visiting her. This time she pulled out something new for them – a Lite Brite, which she had just picked up from a garage sale.

When I saw it, it brought back a flood of childhood memories! I remember spending hours creating pictures and patterns on this toy. It was an equally huge success with my boys. They laid down on a rug and created together on the Lite Brite for the rest of our visit there. Since it uses small pegs to create an image it is excellent for practicing the pincer grip and fine motor coordination in general. And the reward when you switch off the lights and see your image colorfully glowing in the dark is bound to be a hit with the little ones. Win, win.

My sister had picked up an old style one at a garage sale, which was like the one I used when growing up. Does it look familiar to you?

When I got home that night I did an online search to see if they still made them. Sure enough they do, but they have been updated somewhat.

The newer one has a smaller board than the original one, which is a shame, but it still works nicely. It has a convenient little peg holder built into the board, so the pegs stay with the board all the time. It is also battery operated, so it does not need to be plugged into the wall, like the original ones. We bought one, and the boys have enjoyed many hours of creating on it! Me too! ;)