Spring Break

This week has brought us hopefully to warmer weather and fun times. We are off from school enjoying our Spring Break. I hope to return well rested and ready to conquer the last leg of our school journey.  The time in between Spring Break and Summer Break was always the toughest for me when I was teaching. The warmer weather beckons us to play but the lesson plan says otherwise :( I hope you had an awesome week and I will see you next Friday.

Mucky Ducks Action

I planned a great week of mucky duck activities to go along with Ducks in Muck book by Lori Haskins. I am a visual learner and I have found that visual plans allow me to actually remember what I wanted to do along with the book. So many times I have finished our week and read over my plans to notice that I forgot an activity that I truly wanted to do. So I created a visual plan for our Mucky Ducks week and thought I would share it with you.

Download the Mucky Ducks Visual Plan HERE.

Some of the activities came from my Mucky Ducks tot pack while others, I found around the web. Each activity found around the web has a link so you may check it out. This visual plan allowed me to see what we did as well as remind me what we didn't do. I hope this helps you too. Here are a few of the activities that we worked on this week.

We read the book and we made chocolate play dough. I can't tell you how much of a hit this was. This was brought out all day. I added some cars and trucks so they could roll the tires and make tracks in the "muck."

I halved the recipe that is included in my visual plans and we still had enough to give away to a visiting friend. This play dough had a great texture and smelled awesome. Kaleb tried some, only to realize that it didn't taste as good as it smelled.

We made truck mud paintings. I used a template to cut out truck pieces and allowed Kaleb to glue them down. Then I gave him two colors of brown paint. I let him do it all by himself and he was happy. This idea came from I Heart Crafty Things.

J's painting was more precise.

Kaleb loved the magnifying cards and playing with the magnifying glass.

Kaleb working through the 2 part puzzles. I would place one half of the puzzle on the cookie sheet and have him match the part to the picture.

He is trying the duck sewing card. He wasn't too impressed with this activity. J loves these though. She likes to work on sewing cards while I read her chapter book.

Next, we worked with the matching cards. First, I placed the truck cards on the table and pointed out the shape colors. Then I had him match the ducks to the trucks.

J is working with her -uck word family mat. She added the letters/blends and read the words.

This is one of J's favorite activities lately. I made mixed up sentences which she would cut out and place back in order. After, we finished the sentences, we used the word cards to create silly sentences.

J is finding the -uck words in the truck. I may have to up the font on this activity because the cards are so small. But she still liked trying to find them with her magnifying glass. That was our week with Ducks in Muck. Enjoy the printable pack and ideas for a fun filled week.

Links

I Can Teach My Child - has the recipe for the chocolate play dough. I halved this recipe because I didn't have the amount of cream of tartar and salt needed. The play dough turned out fine and it really made a lot. I can't imagine how much it would have made with the full recipe.

I Heart Crafty Things - mud truck painting idea came from here.

Living Worldsapart - pinterest board for Ducks in Muck for more ducky ideas.

Ducks in Muck Tot Bag

My new tot bag is based on the book Ducks in Muck by Lori Haskins. This is a well loved book about ducks, trucks, being stuck, and muck. Kaleb adores this book and we read it daily. It seemed only natural that I create a tot bag to go along with our reading. I also got creative and created a free printable pack for both tots and kindergarteners. You may read and download the printable pack here.

My Ducks in Muck tot bag includes the duck/truck matching cards and play dough mats from my printable pack. The duck/truck matching cards can be used to practice colors or shapes. The play dough mat is 2-sided. One side has the d is for duck and the other side is t is for truck. I laminated this for easier clean up. I added a duck sewing card which I found at . This is great for hand-eye coordination. The foam truck puzzles idea came from Little Family Fun. I had planned on making them magnetic (and I still might) but I will use them with water on our glass door.

The five ducks math mat will be used to practice counting and acting out the story. The -uck word truck printable came from my kindergarten printable pack. How many -uck words can you find in the story?

I added the 2 part puzzles and made them magnetic. Kaleb loves magnetic puzzles. The tot bag also contains the magnifying cards that I created. Use a magnifying glass to find the letters or the -uck words. The 5 little ducks story patterns come from Kizclub. Along with reading Ducks on Muck, we will be learning the 5 Little Ducks song. I laminated these and added velcro for our felt board. The color ducks came from Confessions of a Homeschooler and these will be used for color recognition. We are still working on our colors and I plan on using these different ways. I will have my tot match blocks to each duck, I can hide these and have the tot find them, I can cut them and make them puzzles.

The best part, though, from my tot bag was the chocolate "muck" play dough that I made. This was, by far, the best addition to the tot bag. Kaleb loved it. We rolled trucks in it, Kaleb cut it into pieces and served it on plates. We had to have muck for the ducks. I only wish I would have had plastic ducks for the muck! Oh, well, maybe next time.

Links

I Can Teach My Child has the chocolate play dough recipe.

Little Family Fun has the idea for the foam truck puzzles.

Kizclub has the patterns for 5 Little Ducks felt board.

Confessions of a Homeschooler has a free printable pond pack that includes the color duck cards.

Living Worldsapart my free printable Mucky Ducks pack for both kindergarten and tot.

Living Worldsapart pinterest board for Ducks in Muck.

Tot Tuesday

The warmer weather has brought on an irresistible urge to Spring Clean. I truly believe that this is inherited from my mother. Every Spring, I would watch her dismantle rooms, clean everything, and put them back together. I love ya, Ma! I have been trying to wrap my mind around our visit to 'Merica and get prepared (the best I can) for our visit. I have been sifting through toys, clothes, and various items deciding what goes and what stays. The other day I was working my way through the winter clothes for some time when I realized that I hadn't heard my tot. Everyone knows a quiet tot is trouble...

What did I find? I found my tot in the pantry. He also became enthralled with the Spring Cleaning gene and he was re-organizing my pantry!

It took me a few minutes to find him as he had known to shut the door behind him. He took everything off the shelves, checked everything out, and thought about having some tea... (if you look at his feet, he has successfully opened every tea bag that we own!)

He is explaining the redo to me as I am telling him that we have to clean up the mess. Thanks Kaleb! I think I will have some tea now.

Mucky Ducks Printable Pack

Another of my tot's favorite books is Ducks in Muck by Lori Haskins. We have both the board book and the easy reader versions. Both books have been well worn due to multiple readings. What is better for a boy - mud, trucks and ducks! This book has been on my tot bag creation list for awhile. I have researched and worked hard on this title (some are easier than others). But I have finally finished my tot bag for Ducks in Muck and I even made a printable tot pack that I named Mucky Ducks. I hope you enjoy the activities that I created.

Mucky Ducks tot pack contains:

play dough mats

seek-n-finds

letter tracing cards

strip puzzles

2 part puzzles

size sequencing

roll and graph

find the ducky game

math mats

just to give you a few examples.

Download the Tot Pack HERE.

And since I have a kindergartener, I also created a kindergarten printable pack to go along with the book. 

Mucky Ducks Kindergarten pack includes:

addition math mat with ducky counters

skip counting puzzles for 2's, 5's, and 10's

seek-n-finds

roll and graph activity

word tracing cards

word family -uck mat

where's the duck game focusing on blends and -uck words

Download the Kindergarten Pack HERE.

This is truly my first printable pack that I created. I have been wanting to do something like this for awhile and I was finally able to figure things out. I am still new to this so if you see some mistakes, please e-mail me and I will correct them. Stay tuned for my Ducks in Muck tot bag which includes some of my printables as well as a visual planner for my Mucky Ducks week packed with fun things to do.

The clipart used in this pack were provided by:

The Enlightened Elephant and Graphics by Ruth and Chantelle.

Thanks so much!

Sonlight Week 25

 This week, we read about jobs around the world. different types of motion, and worked on finishing The Wonderful Wizard of Oz. We finished our Nursery Rhyme book, somewhat early. Once I started reading, she begged me to continue. We also finished our bible program. We had several visitors which kept us busy. Here are a few things that we accomplished.

J finished her bible program early. We will continue our bible time using some pages left over from a bible activity book as well as reading a devotional daily.

J finished her word family pages. I like to practice words families and sight words every chance we get.

J is working on the book 1 1/2 of Explode the Code.

I brought out some shape puzzles for her to work on. These would have been easier if they were magnetic. The pieces kept sliding around, especially with a little brother looking over her shoulder.

I caught J looking through the Oz book. She really liked this book.

I just happened to have some green cling wrap and we made Emerald City glasses. I found the idea and pattern from Birthday in a Box. I am hoping to have time to create an Oz play mat, but we will see. Sorry for the lack of pictures this week. We had so many visitors, we were just trying to stay on top of school. See you next week.

ABC Review Pack

I have been investigating all aspects of preschool learning for my tot for the new school year. I know, I know - this year is not finished but I am a teacher/planner at heart. First, I had decided to create my own "boy" centered preschool activities, full of messy experiences and "boy loves" such as bugs, dinosaurs, and cars. I planned on avoiding the alphabet (since he is not quite 3 years old yet) and just focusing on fun themed activities. But Kaleb has changed my mind.

He has recently fallen in love with letters and numbers and is able to distinguish the difference between the two. So I decided to add learning letters into my school plans. I still wanted to keep with the "boy theme" but wasn't sure where to start. Then, I stumbled across Royal Baloo's Zoomin Movin Alphabet series. Her letter printables are awesome and they are free! The Zoomin Movin Alphabet series is all about vehicles - cars, trucks, which is right up Kaleb's alley. He loves anything with wheels. Royal Baloo has posted free printable packs for the first five letters of the alphabet, each with a new vehicle and she plans to create a pack for each letter of the alphabet.

I have been wanting to try my hand at developing printable packs for my tot as well. Since there are only 26 letters in the alphabet, I thought it would be good if I created several review packs to go along with Royal Baloo's series. These, in no way, are to detract from her series. They are to be used in addition to her packs as a form of review.

So...(trumpet fanfare)....here is my first ABC review printable pack!

I have tried to add a variety of activities that would aid in the review of each letter, number, and sight word. This is my first printable review pack. My plan is to add a new review pack for every three letters. This will give you an additional nine weeks to your preschool schedule. Since I will also be homeschooling a first grader, I was trying to include Kaleb into our 36 regular school weeks.

I have included....
letter/sight word play dough mats
roll and graph the sight words and letters
search the letters magnifying pages
letter/picture match game
milk jug labels
missing letters
clothespin number cards
letter/sight word tracer cards
number/letter strip puzzles
number cards and more. 36 pages of review centered around the transportation theme.

I hope this pack is helpful to your preschool plans. And if you haven't already, visit Royal Baloo to download all of her printable packs.

Download ABC Review Pack HERE.

We will most likely not use all of the activities included in my free pack. I like to have a variety of activities to pick and choose from to keep things new. There are a span of different abilities in this printable pack. Some things may be easy for your child and others may be challenging. You know your child best, do only the activities that interests him/her. Every child is different. I am in no way endorsing school for all tots. My tot has watched his sister only to be disappointed when he can't do school as well. That is why I have begun planning learning activities for him.

All Graphics were purchased from

Tot Tuesday

Kaleb has loved the sensory bin full of the nuts and he asks to play with it daily. But I finally got tired of always cleaning the nuts up as well as finding them downstairs, in pockets, and under every piece of furniture I own. So, I decided to change the sensory bin. He does not like the fur-fru of my speciality bins, even though I still try to entice him with my color bins and such. I went with something more simple - beans. I gave Kaleb a large bin filled with different beans that had served J well in the past few years.

He was very busy pouring and scooping. I had to remind him several times to stay on the blanket. No matter how many times I do that, beans still end up everywhere.

I'd say that the bean sensory is a success! It is easier to clean, no. It makes no difference - beans, rice, nuts - Kaleb is going to make a mess. But he loves this activity and who am I to take it away from him?

I want to make a small note that some beans are harmful if ingested without being cooked. Please watch your child when playing with small items.

A Free Moment

For the last week or so, I have been working my way through the toys, books, and craft supplies to weed out the items not worth saving while we are gone. This has been a monumental task but it seems, the desire to spring clean comes with the warm weather. (I think I learned this from my mother :) It has been somewhat difficult to do this with children afoot, especially if they see something they "love" go into the bag.

Kaleb surprised me the other day while I was working.  He spread out on the floor and contentedly read through his books. Thus giving me some free time to actually pack a whole box and it was a big one as well!

He looks so sweet "reading" his books. It was nice being able to work for some time. Hope your day has unexpected surprises.

Sonlight Week 24

This week has awarded us with some warm weather, warm enough to open the windows in the house. Warm enough to think that it might be Spring. And with Spring, comes Summer, and with Summer, comes our trip to 'Merica. It was encouraging to see the message in the Sonlight manual about only 12 more weeks to go...wow!

We learned about different types of energy. We continued to read The Wonderful Wizard of Oz which J absolutely loves. I could without the graphic descriptions of the animals dying but she doesn't seemed phased by it. She asks to read this book all the time which has put us way ahead of our schedule. Here are a few activities we did this week.

We learned about different building blocks we needed to make our "life" house strong.

J practiced "take away" using the ten frame and some counters. 

J practiced her blends with this free printable reader that I found from...sorry, I seemed to have lost the link.

J is still practicing her sight words could, should and would. She is having difficulty with these so we have been practicing them all week.

I added an alpha handwriting sheet this week. But instead of asking her to write her letters, I asked her to write words that started with each letter. She could use her word wall or dictionary to find words for each letter, if needed. We did this all week. (Kaleb is in the background....playing with letters.)

The included activity sheets are so easy for J to do that I do not even copy them. I do briefly have her go over them.

J finished her word sorts for different e-word families.

Since St. Patrick's Day is around the corner, Art Friday revolved around green crafts. J colored a scene on a paper coffee filter and then sprayed the filter with water. These were then cut out in the shapes of shamrocks.

They also made tissue paper rainbows to hang in our windows. I drew a basic outline of a rainbow on parchment paper.

Then they spread glue over the outline and added small pieces of torn tissue paper. Hope your week was sunny and warm. See you next week;)

A Tisket, A Tasket..A Toy Basket

Kaleb has taken a shining to an IKEA collapsible toy bucket that we own. I use it to hold the monstrous amount of stuffed animals that we own which seem to keep multiplying. Every day, he has to drag his bucket out of his room, down the hall to our living room. Then, he proceeds to dump out the toys onto the floor....

and get into the bucket.

J will then add as many toys as possible. Kaleb will sit there until I drag him out. He thinks it is fun, not sue why though.

I wonder what he will find next to entertain himself!