Happy Thanksgiving

clipart by My Cute Graphics

 Hope you and your family have an awesome Thanksgiving.

Tot Tuesday

Living in 'Merica has opened many new experiences and lots of new food to try. Grandpa brought chocolate doughnuts home the other day and the kids had a ball eating them for a healthy (ha, ha) breakfast.

Kaleb using the doughnuts as glasses.

Play first then eat. Sorry, Dad, no doughnuts are left for coffee.

Wheel School - M is for Mail Truck

The new preschool plans for the week are now available for download - M is for Mail Truck. This was an easier topic to find activities to plan than some of the other letters.

The visual plans include many activities to use for M is for Mail Truck week.   

The free printable game of the week is a letter matching game complete with alphabet stamps. Use these to "deliver" the mail or use them to add the letter stamps on the correct postcards.

Download M is for Mail Truck HERE.

Hope these plans and printable game are helpful to your vehicle loving tot. We are slowly making our way through the alphabet. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me. I would love to hear if you are using these 

Winter Promise Week 13

This week was a busy one, complete with J's birthday. We finished reading Ribsy by Beverly Cleary several weeks early. So we will move onto another chapter book that is on my reading list for the year. We read about lions, gazelles, and the savannah. We are in the last few lessons of our Reading Curriculum with our new curriculum waiting in the wings.   We are breezing through Level One of All About Reading and will be working through Level Two. We are also just about finished our handwriting book and I am not sure where to go after that. Here's what we did this week...

Another benefit of staying with Grandma and Grandpa is that I am able to raid my teaching bins that are stored in their basement. I guess you could call this week - the week of games. I raided my bins and found all kinds of goodies that I was never able to take to my classroom overseas. This Math Mat was one of the ones to stay in 'Merica. It reviews addition and subtraction of the numbers 1 thru 10. We have been reviewing addition in math every day with flashcards and I thought this would be a fun way to review with movement. She was somewhat intimidated at first but then got into it as it progressed. She has asked to use it every day since then.

Another fun item I found was the Math Wraps. These are cool little key cards that you wrap the string around the correct answer. It takes a little coordination but she got the hang of it. She is still reviewing addition.

J is practicing money with another treasure found in the basement, a game called Spend-Earn by Rocket Minds.

J worked on keeping track of the November calendar. Each day she wrote the date and we reviewed the days of the week. This month was particularly interesting to her because she was counting down to her birthday.

Her story of the week was We Want Some Too! She practiced it all week.

Since this is her first Thanksgiving in America, we spent the week learning about the Pilgrims and Indians. J worked on a book with pockets. Each day, J learned a new concept about the first Thanksgiving and added all of the projects to the pockets.

Lastly, some pics from last week when we were studying giraffes. We read Giraffes Can't Dance by Giles Andreae.

Then J created a super cute art work with a dancing giraffe. This one turned out so cute that it will be framed and hung in her bedroom. I love it. Busy week coming up. Hope to see you soon.

Happy Birthday, J!

Another year has come and gone and it still amazes me how much you have grown. You never cease to surprise me with the observations you make. I often wonder if you are older than your years. I love you, J, more than you will ever know. And I am so proud of you, I always will be. I hope your 7th "real" birthday in 'Merica is the best. Love you - Mom.

Tot Tuesday

Recently we traveled from the south to the north and have experienced a slight change in the weather. It even snowed, somewhat briefly. But it has been very cold here. One of the joys of cold weather is warming up by a cup of hot chocolate.

Kaleb has recently discovered hot chocolate. I am not sure if it is truly because he likes the taste or because of the marshmallows that he gets to add to the cup (as well as eat by the handfuls).

Probably the marshmallows - but I still love that he is joining us in this cold weather tradition and bringing Mousey to enjoy a cup as well. Hope you have time to enjoy a cup!

Wheel School - L is for Limo

The new plans for L is for Limo are done and ready for download.

Because of the lack of Limo fun things to do, I decided to go with a Hollywood/stars theme for the week. 

 The free printable game is an Alphabet Highway matching game. I included all letter highways ...

as well as upper and lower case alphabet vehicles. This would be a great game to laminate and add magnets. My little guy would love this as a magnet activity. 

Download L is for Limo HERE.

Winter Promise Week 12

Week 12 and we started to learn about the Savannah. We read about termites and giraffes. Did you know that a giraffe's tongue is about 18 inches long? Wow. We began reading Ribsy by Beverly Clearly. J worked on telling time and she practiced her math facts including doubles.

We work on her math facts before each math lesson.

J learned a new concept in math - quarter hour and quarter of. We practiced all week.

J's story of the week was The Red Hen which prompted a discussion about whether it was fair of the hen not to share the bread.

This week brought us weather that was cold enough to snow (but it didn't stick) so we brought out the hot chocolate. J is just now loving hot chocolate with marshmallows.

Highlight of the week - Grandma and Grandpa bought J a "princess bed" (bed with canopy) along with polar fleece sheets. J loves her bed - the smile tells it all. Hope your week was full of unexpected surprises. See you soon.

MNO Review Pack

It is finally here and finally finished! I finished the MNO Alphabet Review Pack. 50 pages of alphabet review fun. This printable pack will go well with Wheel School. Here are a few things I included in my pack.

There are several strip puzzles to print, laminate, add magnets, and let child play.

I included several matching games to review the letters MNO.

There are sight word puzzles...

and a parking lot game. This is one of Kaleb's favorite games to play using his cars and trucks. This pack has 50 pages of fun. Hope you enjoy it. Please drop me a line, I would love to hear from you if you are using this pack. Thanks.

Download MNO Review Pack HERE.

Tot Tuesday

I was walking around the dollar store the other day and came upon a bag of rocks. Rocks for one dollar, I just knew that I had to use them. I bought a container, as well, and filled it with two bags of rocks.

I placed the container on the table, added some measuring cups, and a few construction vehicles. It didn't take him long to find them.

He totally loved this new sensory bin - rocks, construction vehicles - all up this little man's alley. Not too bad for $3. I love the treasures that the dollar store may offer - hope you have a week full of unexpected treasures! See you soon.

K is for Kayak

K is for Kayak is finally finished. Yay! We are slowly working our way through the transportation alphabet and we are on K. This week, due to the lack of kayak activities, I chose a camping theme to go-along with it. This made planning somewhat easier and gave a variety of activities to do.

K is for Kayak includes the weekly visual plans. I am totally visual and by creating these plans with the pictures allows me to know what is coming up and plan accordingly.

The free printable for the week is a transportation fishing game. Print the fish, laminate, and add metal paper clips. Make a fishing pole from a wooden dowel or pencil and let the child fish for vehicles. I also added fish programmed with the alphabet if you wanted to make a matching game.

Download K is for Kayak HERE.

If you have any questions or problems, please let me know. It would also be nice if you would drop a line if you download. Thanks.

Winter Promise Week 11

After a crazy week of traveling, birthday party, trick or treating, we have finally got back on track with school. We are in a new place - Grandma and Grandpa's, in a new setting, but we were finally ready to get back to work. We finished reading Christopher Mouse and started Ribsy by Beverly Clearly. We are plugging away at our reading curriculum and I believe we will be done before Christmas.

J practiced reading her story of the week - The Big Mess. She read it every day to practice fluency.

J loves her animal poems and reviewed them daily. We added the Ducks poem to the list. Ducks were our focus animal this week. So we read all about them.

One way she reviewed the poem was a printable page from my Week 11 set. She glued the poem in the correct order in her notebook.

She also practiced her sight words from the poem with magnetic letters. Also included in my printable pages.

She practiced counting money for math.

She read to her brother, who is always close by when we are working. Kaleb is always ready to listen to a story.

And we made banana bread just for the fun of it. We had an awesome week full of fun. The kids have loved being here at Grandma's and Grandpa's, loving the yard, and climbing trees. Hope your week was good, see you soon.