Blast Off To Summer - W

W is for .....

Water Play

Mrs. McNosh Hangs Up Her Wash by Sarah Weeks

Who Took the Cookies from the Cookie Jar? by Rozanne Williams

When it was time to work on the letter W, it seemed like it was the hottest day ever. It was perfect for our water day. I bought a small cheap pool for the balcony. (I know we are only going to be here for a few more weeks but I thought the kids could get quite a bit of use from it.) I filled the pool with buckets from the bathroom, that's how desperate I was to cool off with no hose.

Then we had a picnic lunch inside to get out of the sun complete with a special treat from 'Merica - M&M's. It was a good day. All most to the end and to the time we take off. Hope you are enjoying the weather :)

Rocket clipart from:

Blast Off To Summer - V

V is for......

Visiting Friends

 V is for visiting friends.  Recently, we had the chance to visit some good friends of ours. We had dinner, tea, and dessert. Then we had the opportunity to visit Zeynap's art workshop (pic of Zeynap's husband and J). I love her art work and we have been blessed by their friendship. 

Here's a sneak peak of what we were treated to. She is a talented artist and they are good friends. They will be missed during our stay in 'Merica. 

Rocket Clip Art from

Blast Off To Summer - U

On to letter U.......

Underpants

Bear in Underwear by Todd H. Doodler

Aliens Love Underpants by Claire Freedman

We watched/read Bear in Underwear on the iPad since I don't own a physical copy of the book. The kids got a kick out of the bear trying on the different pairs of underwear and all of the silly reactions.

Then I gave the kids a bear to make. I found the free pattern from Chalk Talk. Kaleb experimented with glue and markers.

J designed silly underwear with a tree and flowers.

The Bear in Underwear turned out cute.

Rocket ClipArt from

Tot Tuesday

What I got myself into! One day, Kaleb asked to go upstairs to play and I told him it was okay. I even opened the baby gate to the world upstairs for him. I was planning on joining him but I needed to get a few items before I did. Little did I know that he found the forbidden fruit....a salt bin that J uses for play was wide open for the taking....and boy, did he take it! This is what I found...

Um...do you see my floor? By the time I got upstairs, the damage had pretty much been done. He made a mess so I just let him continue.

He dumped the entire bin into a container and mostly, on my floor.

He enjoyed the salt so much, what could I do? It all vacuums up, right? Well, I am still finding salt in the toys but it was worth it. He finally had a shot at playing with the salt. What fun!

Blast Off To Summer - T

We are now on the letter T. T is for....

Tea Party

The Tiger Who Came to Tea by Judith Kerr

This is a cute book where a tiger comes to tea and practically eats them out of the house! 

Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star by Kate Toms
I love Kate Toms' books. They are good stories and have super sweet illustrations.

To celebrate this letter, we had a tea party complete with "friends." J isn't one to appreciate hot tea so we went with cold and I added brownies and cookies for a special treat. We talked about our school year, the upcoming trip to 'Merica, and what she would like to learn in first grade. We had a good conversation. I enjoyed our tea party time. We will be doing this again.

Rocket Graphic from

Blast Off To Summer - S

We are onto the letter S. S is for.....

Senior Skip Day

Keke is graduating this year....well, in a couple of days. Every school year, the seniors have a skip day and J got invited to be a part of that. She and her big Sis went to the beach for the day. Aren't they adorable?

Rocket Clip Art is from

JKL Review Pack

Another installment of my alphabet review packs is finally available. Yay! My alphabet review packs are based on Royal Baloo's Zoomin' Movin' Alphabet Series. If you haven't check out her site, please do. She has quite a few free printables for all ages. This pack has 49 pages of activities to review the letters JKL as well as the numbers 10 thru 12 and sight words: not, me and my.

Inside this printable pack you will find...

play dough mats

matching game

strip puzzles

alphabet tracing cards

magnifying cards

roll/spin and graph activities

sight word puzzles

letter/sight word parking lot game

I hope you find this preschool pack useful for your tots. I would love to hear from you if you download this pack and, as usual, if there are any mistakes, please let me know. If you use this pack and blog about it, please share a link. I would love to see it in action.

Download the JKL Review Pack HERE.

All graphics are from:

http://melonheadzillustrating.blogspot.com

Blast Off To Summer - Q

We are getting to the end of our summer time countdown, yay! We are on the letter Q.
Q is for .......

Quiet Reading and Quilts

Danny, the Duck with no Quack by Malachy Doyle and Janet Samuel

The Quiltmaker's Gift by Jeff Brumbeau 

Selina and the Bear Paw Quilt by Janet Wilson

This project was found at Making Learning Fun. We still going.....

Clip Art Rocket is from

Tot Tuesday

No words today....just pictures.

Baby Love....what else can I say?

Blast Off To Summer - P

We are now on to the letter P. P is for....

Playdate

It is extremely rare that I have the entire day with just one of my kids. One kid to devote my time and attention. Today was such a day. I had a play day with Kaleb. 

I asked Kaleb what he wanted to do and he asked to play outside in the sandbox. I usually like to wait until after lunch to play on the balcony because it isn't covered but I couldn't say no. We played in the sandbox for a good hour. He made me sand soup and I ate it. 

After convincing him to move inside since it was extremely hot, we played with some of his wooden toys. He doesn't get to play with them often because of our neighbor situation.

I then taught him a new game. I set up towers of blocks and showed him how to crash his car into them to knock them down. This was loads of fun. We had the opportunity to play all day (minus a short nap after lunch). It was a great time to reconnect with my tot, just me and Kaleb. I hope to have more one-on-one times with him soon.

Clip Art Rocket is from

Sonlight Week 36

We did it! We finished the entire curriculum. We read all of the books and we are finished. Wow. What a year! J learned so much. She learned to read and definitely enjoyed the mini readers that came with the program. She learned all of her numbers to 100, skip counting, telling time, adding and subtracting, measurement and much more. In Science, we read and learned about all most everything - space, electricity, animals, you name it, we read about it. She learned about different times and cultures all over the world. Her favorite was learning about the knights and castles. We did many art projects and hands-on learning. She did weaving and sewing. J learned how to tie her shoes. We read so many chapter books. She loved The Boxcar Children and My Father's Dragon. Well, she pretty much loved all of the books that we read.

I can't believe she completed kindergarten. It is on to first grade, hard to imagine. I am so proud of J. She did great this year and I am lucky to be able to teach her. Love ya J! Hope you had a great year of Sonlight. We are off onto another adventure, most likely with Sonlight Core B. Hope you see you next year.