Winter Promise Weeks 25 thru 27

It has been three weeks since I last posted J's Winter Promise activities. We traveled to Florida in those weeks and haven't stopped since. J has the opportunity to attend a co-op while we are down here which she loves interacting with kids her age. We will be traveling soon to head back to my parents. (We haven't been in one place too long, have we?) Here is a recap of a few of the activities of her last few weeks.

In All About Reading, J learned about contractions. The program included some contraction flip books so she could practice the contractions.

She learned about snakes (one of her favorite animals) and she created an _ake snake. Each paper ring had an -ake word on it.

We also had the opportunity to discuss onomatopoeia - words that makes sounds like tick-tock or splash.

We also had the chance to see older brother for his College Senior Recital. I can't believe he is graduating this year! Where has the time gone? (Josh is the one in the front with the red vest.)  It has been nice to be in warmer weather and to be involved with our old church. We will be back to the colder weather and our family in a few weeks. I hope you have enjoyed the new printable packs and I am still working on a few surprises for later. See you soon.

Writing in the Sky

Lately, after dinner, the kids and I have been walking around the neighborhood. The kids love this time - they get to run and pick up sticks. The other day, we were walking and J noticed letters in the sky. I couldn't believe it - some one was sky writing.

It says U + God = smiley face. The sky writer continued to write on talking about how Jesus loves you and Jesus forgives. We were mesmerized. It was a great message - talk about reading the writing on the....sky.

Tot Tuesday

We recently changed states (again) and returned to the house that we were living in before Christmas. Because of the trip to Grandma and Grandpa's, I did not take any of their accumulated toys because they already had toys up there. Because of that, when we returned to the house, it was Christmas all over. The kids had a variety of "new" toys that they forgot they had and played with them, for the first week, tirelessly.

Kaleb found a game that I had found in a thrift store called Avalanche Fruit Stand. It comes with a variety of fruit and two jumbo tweezers to pick the fruit from the stand without dumping the whole lot. I bought it for fine motor practice as well as the thought that both kids would like playing this game. Kaleb found a new activity as he played with the game.

He pulled the game from the shelf and fond the color buckets from the teddy bears. He began separating the fruits into colors. The strawberries went into the red bucket...but wait there wasn't an orange bucket. That's okay, he found a plastic container to use for the oranges. He continued until all fruits were separated into the correct color buckets.

I sat down to play with the fruits but he wouldn't let me mix them. No the bananas do not belong in the orange bin. And he was serious, don't mess with his fruit. The fruit from the game was a hit all week. He fed it to his mouseys, he gave some to his sister, and he even slept with it while he napped. I love when the kids find a different way to play with an ordinary game. I wait to see what he will come up with next.

Wheel School - S is for Submarine Printable Pack

I have finished a new printable pack for Wheel School - S is for Submarine. The printable pack includes a week of planned activities as well as a free printable tot pack.

It includes play dough mat...

tracers to prepare for writing letters as well as letter tracers....

a mini color the sub book with visual clues to the color words...

a mini submarine printable emergent reader...

and several math mats with printable counters. This is just a sample of what the printable pack includes. I hope your tot finds this enjoyable. If you have any questions or problems, please let me know. 

Download S is for Submarine HERE.

Graphics for this tot pack:

A J Accomplishment!

J was born in the city and not a nice city with wonderful parks close-by or great sidewalks. She has always wanted a bike and I had always been hesitant to get her one. Bikes are expensive in the country we live in and would I be able to find her a safe place to ride near our apartment, with level ground? So, we waited until we came to 'Merica.

Grandma found this awesome bike at one of our thrift stores and bought it for J. J struggled with it for a long time - the training wheels would not stay on, the wheel needed to be fixed... Then the other day, her father convinced her to just learn to ride it with one training wheel. What did she have to lose?  It didn't take long - she was definitely ready to learn!

I love the tongue...while she concentrates on riding this bike...

And she is off! She fell a few times, even drew blood, but she insisted on getting back on the bike to ride. Go, J, I am so proud of you. Unfortunately, we had to leave the bike behind in our travels this month but she is looking forward to returning to ride again. My city girl learned to ride her bike What an accomplishment! :)

Tot Tuesday

Sharing with your sibling or even just taking turns while playing a game can sometimes seem elusive when you are a parent of more than one child. Sharing just doesn't seem to come naturally and you encourage and encourage but you wonder if it ever sinks in. Taking turns is another hard concept to grasp. Kaleb is at the age where everything is his (even if he walks away from it) and it is always his turn. Recently, I found the game, Break the Ice, and pulled it out to practice taking turns.

It took some doing but Kaleb patiently waited for his turn to bang on the blocks of ice. I love that this game has two hammers because I imagine it would have been extremely hard to work on both sharing and turn taking!

He got one! I love games that a variety of ages can play at the same time. It is difficult when a little one has to watch while the older plays with the parents. Break the Ice is a game that can be played by all and later, if I want, I can make it into a learning game by adding sight words or math problems to the bricks for my older.

Games - a great way to learn how to share and learn how to wait your turn. We will be working on those skills for some time!

Wheel School - B is for Bike

Wheel School has another new transportation tot pack - B is for Bike or Bicycle. I included a week's worth of bicycle activities.

B is for Bike has a visual plan...

several B activities such as dot the B's, stamp the B's...

4 part bicycle puzzles...

bike letter tracers...

and a bicycle size sort among other activities. I hope this adds to your tot's preschool activities. If there are any questions or problems, please let me know. I would also love to hear from you if you download, thanks.

Download B is for Bicycle HERE.

Graphics from:

Tot Tuesday

The other day, while I was working with J, Kaleb did an amazing thing. Kaleb is always around and wanting to be involved while J and I work on school. He is usually not far, spending time playing with his toys or on my lap, right in the middle of things. Today, he decided to participate while J was reading her sound cards.

He repeated everything J was saying.

I love this one, you can really tell he is saying the "o" sound.

J thought it was funny as well. He stayed to work through all of her sound cards and some of her word cards. Then he decided to go play. He had enough with the reading lesson but I am sure he will be back.

Wheel School - M is for Monster Truck

Recently, my DH and my kids went to the Monster Truck Rally. In honor of this, I created a new Wheel School Tot pack - M is for Monster Truck. This printable pack is based on the printable packs from Royal Baloo. She has been my inspiration for this tot pack - thank you.

I included the weekly plans for M is for Monster truck packed full of M activities.

There are monster truck tracer pages....

a clothespin activity card...

a monster truck sewing card...

and some monster truck puzzles. I hope your tot loves the M is for Monster Truck pack. If you have any questions or problems, please let me know. I would love to hear from you if you download this pack - a little comment goes a long way. Thanks.

Download M is for Monster Truck HERE.

Graphics are from:

Winter Promise - Week 24

This week brought us a freak snow storm where the public school kids received two days off from school. J, on the other hand, did not get a snow day. We worked all week amid doctor appointments, snow days, and sickness (Kaleb). We are preparing for a trip to Florida but we will be back in time for Easter. Hopefully the snowy weather will be done by then and we can have a warm Spring Break.

Because of the cold weather, we has school in the bedroom, complete with our lap desk. In Math, J learned about liquid measurement. I brought out all the items we were learning about and if it had been somewhat warmer, I would have allowed her to play with the items and water. Being in 'Merica, J was able to see what a gallon looked like - we use liters instead of gallons.

It is not often J gets to do art work during math. But I found this cute Super Gallon Man craft and figured it was a great time to make it. Super Gallon Man came from Amber Polk's TPT store. You can find it here.

Our story of the week was The Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle. For her reading, we are working through grade level textbook readers that I have found at thrift stores. But since the story in the textbook doesn't have all of the great cut-outs and such, we used a soft back book of the same story.

After reading the story, J worked through a number sequencing exercise which I turned into a story sequence activity. We used the pictures to make a step book of each day and what the caterpillar ate. This gave her practice in sequencing the story as well as practice writing her days of the week. The sequence activity can be found at Amy Buettner's TPT store.

J is sometimes still mixing up B's and D's. I was checking out pinterest and found a link for a B, D, and P online game for extra practice. The link for the game is HERE. She played this several times and asked for more. She loves when I incorporate any kind of technology into school days.

J practiced her sight words with a memory game that I bought a while ago. The sight words were really pre primer so the game was relatively easy. But she enjoyed it and we played it twice.

Snakes were the focus animal of the week - one of J's loves. We read all about them in various books, which we have read a thousand times before, and she worked through the animal fact sheet for her animal notebook.

Lastly, we had it on our list to make pipe cleaner flowers since last week's story - Flower Garden by Eve Bunting. We didn't get a chance to make them until this week. So, I finally purchased some pipe cleaners and let J go to town.

She made a whole vase of pipe cleaner flowers. They turned out super cute and now are gracing the top on her grandmother's bookshelf. Nothing like have fresh flowers in the middle of a freak snowstorm! I hope you had a great week and I will see you on Monday with a new printable Wheel School Pack. I am just putting the finishing touches on it and hope to have it published soon. Have a great weekend.