Tot Tuesday

Sometimes, as a parent of two small ones, you wonder if they will ever get along. They go through stages/days of always fighting and bickering but then you find this....

In a small little hole, between the couch and the wall, I found my kids propped up on some pillows. J had her head in Kaleb's lap and he was stroking her hair. They weren't fighting or arguing, they were just together.

No pulling of hair, no hitting or yelling....just together.

So sweet, those moments when you think you kids will actually be friends.

Hope your Tuesday is filled with sweet moments like these.

Sonlight Week 11

This week we started a new chapter book Twenty and Ten by Claire Huchet Bishop. I was a bit unsure about this book because of the theme (war and hiding children from the Nazi's) but J has enjoyed the book so far. It was a busy week of a birthday, a teacher Thanksgiving, and a family Thanksgiving. But we continued through the week. Here are a few of the activities we did this week.

J learned to play Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star on the piano. She recently started piano lessons from her sister. J wants to play an instrument like her father and her brother.

Our mystery letter of the week was I. J is practicing writing her I's.

J working on her I page. It was difficult finding I related pictures in the magazines this time.

We started short i words in our reading program. For every word family, I make reading cards that we cut - separating the word family and the beginning letter. These help her to read the letter, blending it.

J worked on her Bob book printables  for the book Mat. She is coloring by letter the main words from the book. She liked this activity and wants me to print more. These printables came from In Lieu of Preschool. There are a group of blogs who have gotten together to create printable pages for the Bob books. So far they have posted up to the third book - Dot.

We read about the Indians and created an Indian headband. J cut out feathers and copied Indian symbols on her head band.

 She decided her headband needed to have six feathers since it was her birthday this week. She is already thinking about being six.

For Thanksgiving, we made a cute book named Hide, Turkey, Hide! It is a free download from Merry Kinder Kapers.

J also worked on a word sort. She started with some i words because we are working with those in her reading program. I found this free printable but I lost the link. If you know of the link, please let me know, so I can share it.

For Science, we learned about mammals. We worked on our Sonlight Science pages. We finished our week and had a good Thanksgiving with family and friends. Next week, we will start our Christmas fun weeks in addition to working through our school work. We will be preparing for Christmas. Hope you week was filled with family and friends.

Happy Birthday, J!

Today is my squeaky's birthday. She will be six years old, I can't believe how fast the time has flown by. Six. She has kept my life full with excitement and wonder. She is a joy and a sweetie, a little mother to Kaleb as well as to Keke. She tried to keep everything in line and orderly. She loves animals and loves learning. It is amazing what she has learned over the years. J, love you and happy birthday.

first birthday

Happy Birthday - and may you have many more!

Tot Tuesday

One Saturday, we took the opportunity to visit the school that my DH teaches at and just played and played.

Kaleb took to collecting some rocks and digging in the dirt.

Rocks are so much fun!

J enjoyed digging as well. It was nice to get out of the apartment and just play in the grass, dirt, sunshine. How I miss having a yard to play in. But I am thankful for having the school nearby with dirt and grass.

Sonlight Week 10

This week brought us the end of The Family Under the Bridge, learning about animals, The Mayflower and Pilgrims. Here are just s few of the activities we did this week.

In Bible, we learned about Moses, the burning bush, and miracles.

In Math, we worked on our ten frame. I would add yellow chips to the ten frame and ask her how many she would have to add to make ten.

I pulled out our Inchimals to practice measuring. These are the cutest things. I splurged on them last Christmas and I am glad I did. J was using them to measure items from her desk. We were working on measuring to the inch so these worked out perfectly.

We played a new game with our chalkboard. I wrote different words and she had to read them to erase them.

We worked on syllables with this worksheet I found here. She had to say the word and count how many syllables. She then used a hole punch to punch the number.

J started a word family notebook page. I found this free printable at This Reading Mama. We started with the am family. She wrote all of her am words on the page, leaving some room to add more when she learns blends. These will be kept in a notebook and we will add to these.

S was the mystery letter of the week. J was practicing her S writing.

J working on her S page. She asks to do this every week. She likes to look through old magazines and find items that start with out mystery letter.

J is practicing her reading using the Bob books. There are a few blogs who are offering free printables to go along with these Bob books. We are working on the first Bob book, Mat. I cover the pictures so she has to focus on the words. After she reads the pages, she can look at the picture.

J is working on her Mat word search. You can find the printables for the Bob books at In Lieu of Preschool. Go there and it will direct you to the other websites. So far, they have posted for the first three Bob reading books.

Just in time for the Thanksgiving holiday (which the country does not celebrate but we do at home), we learned about the Mayflower. J created a replica of what she thought the Mayflower would look like...

complete with colored sails!

J and I then created a 3-D model of a Pilgrim village. This was found in a Scholastic book and I printed it on card stock. We watched two videos at Scholastic about the Mayflower and the village life at Plimoth. These were great to add a visual to our learning. Check the videos and website out, some good stuff for Thanksgiving there.

Next week brings us Thanksgiving but we will have school all week. It is also J's birthday. We will be learning about Indians and reading a new chapter book Twenty and Ten. Hope you have an awesome week.

50 Days Celebration

Yesterday, we celebrated a different kind of milestone for our kindergarten year - 50 days in school. You read correctly, we have completed 50 days in kindergarten. I felt a mini celebration was in order, this is some of what we did.

We danced to some music...J (in her socks) and

Kaleb. We danced to our new Jackson Pollock song which ties into our artist study (which will be posted later).

J practiced her tallies by making 50 tally marks.

J practiced counting to 50 by 5's, 10's, and by 2's.

J also wrote her numbers to 50, all by herself. We have been practicing counting to 100 every day using 5's, 10's and 1's. But this time, she wrote her numbers without having me to repeat them or tell her what number was what. I am so proud.

Then, to top off the celebration, we had ice cream sodas for dessert while watching Planet 51 (a fifties type of kid movie). Our ice cream sodas were orange soda and vanilla ice cream.

Kaleb enjoyed the ice cream soda as well. Not too bad of a 50's day celebration. 50 days down and how many more to go?   (answer: 130 more days to go, yay!) The printable for the 50's math practice came from Flying Into First's freebie.

Tot Tuesday

Kaleb has been working with our nut sensory bin but I thought it was time to give him something new to play with. So, I changed his bin. I decided to go with a fall theme - popcorn kernels, a pine cone, some silk leaves, a few acorns, and some apples and pumpkins made from salt dough. I was excited about this new bin - to give Kaleb a new experience. Here's what I learned....

Kaleb didn't like the change. At first, he spoke to me about it and kept pointing to the acorns that I had placed in a plastic bag. He wanted the nuts back. When I asked him to try it, this is what he did.

He used the metal coffee can and cleaned out the bin. He removed the leaves, the pine cone, the apples and pumpkins....so he was left with...

kernels and acorns. Then he went to work...

pouring, scooping, busy, busy. What was I thinking? He doesn't want the fru fru stuff, he just wants the basic. How funny! I guess I will try it again, sometime soon. Well, it was still fun for him.