Winter Promise - Week 8

We are in our 8th week of the school year and if all goes well, we will finish in May. J has been enjoying learning about animals with Winter Promise and she is looking forward to her first 'Merican birthday party as well as her first Halloween. I definitely have been enjoying the experiences that my kids have had here - English libraries, the aquarium, zoo, and Children's museum. I hope to add to those experiences while we are able.

In Math, J reviewed counting money and telling time.

J read a story about fish in her reading textbook. She reads one story a week several times to aid in her fluency.

J enjoyed using some of the printables that I made for this week. She loved the challenge of learning how to spell alligator. I wasn't expecting her to learn it right away but she did. She spent all week telling people how to spell it! If you missed Week 8 printables, go HERE.

She used the letter tiles to practice the word alligator as well as other words from the poem Alligator Stew by Dennis Lee. She loved the poem and I think, when possible, that I will include an animal poem each week.

While we read about the wetlands, we included facts, plants and animals that we read about. This page was added to the animal notebook.

She completed her alligator notebook page. We read a few extra books from the library about alligators.

Kaleb is supervising while she draws her alligator on the alligator fact sheet that I created.

She worked on some addition problems using the alligator math mat that I created. She added teeth to the alligator to work through the math problems. She thought this was fun to do. She then created her own math problems as well.

While reading about reptiles, J added some facts and drew pictures for her facts on the reptile sheet (also in the pack that I created). She loves snakes almost as much as she loves sharks! Well, we had a full week of learning about alligators, reptiles, and turtles. Next week, we will be learning about salmon and flies (yuck). I am working on the printables for next week even though the topic is somewhat difficult. Hope to see you soon.

Tot Tuesday

'Merica has opened a ton of learning opportunities. We have enjoyed visiting the aquarium, the science museum, the children's museum, the tractor museum, and now the zoo. Wow! What a big difference from the zoo that we had visited in our other country. 

Kaleb and J sitting on top of a Komodo Dragon statue.

Kaleb even got to touch a Manta Ray! They were so fun. The rays loved to splash him with their "wings".

He even got the chance to ride the Merry-Go-Round. That was a big thing for him. He didn't want to get on it but once it started, he loved it. 'Merica has kept us busy but I love all of the places my kids can experience and many for the first time!

Wheel School - G is for Garbage Truck

Week 7 of Wheel School is ready for download. Yay! G is for Garbage Truck. I don't know about you but my son has been loving all of this attention to the different vehicles and such. He loves this and he especially loves garbage trucks.

This week's plans are packed with garbage truck activities. My favorite would have to be the mud paint. It looks like so much fun.

Download G is for Garbage Truck HERE.

The free printable is a re-issue of my Garbage Truck Game Pack. I loved making this and  I thought that I would offer it again. 

Download Garbage Game Pack HERE.

Winter Promise Week 7

It was another crazy homeschool week, seems like these are becoming more and more  frequent (regardless of my protests). We started the week with a trip to the local zoo and ended the week with Friday school. There was no breathing room in between, we just seem to keep going and going. I am not sure how we got to be so busy, I think it is 'Merica in general. We are always busy with appointments and place to go, people to see. Don't get me wrong, I love being here but I feel like I need a vacation from the "doing". I just want to sit still and relax with no places to go. So what did we do this week?

We made fall wreaths from paper plates. I gave the kids fall colors of paint, a paper plate, and some brushes/sponges. I let them create their own wreath. When they were dry, they added some fall stickers. We also used the extra painted paper to make leaves. On the leaves, we wrote what we were thankful for and we hung it up on the wall.

Our animal of the week was the tiger. J is working on her notebook page, writing about tigers. 

We read several books about tigers and made a few mini books to add to the notebook page. The mini books can be found at Home School Share.

Then she created a pair of tigers for her notebook. I had intended for her to paint these but she decided she wanted to color them with markers. She made all the stripes.

She loved her tigers. She has enjoyed learning about all of the different animals this year.  The tiger pattern came from Learn Create Love.

After reading about the tiger, we watched a video on Netflix about them. It talked about how the tiger numbers are dwindling and we may loose them forever. J informed me that she wanted to help the tigers when she grew up. She just might do that. Hope your week wasn't as busy as mine ;)

Happy Birthday Sweet Boy!

My sweet baby boy is three years old today. I can't imagine our lives without him. He completes us. Happy Birthday, Sweetie Pea!

Wetland Learning Pages

This year, J is learning about different habitats and animals. We are currently using Winter Promise's Animals and Their Worlds. Each day, we read about different animals and weekly, we focus on one particular animal. Winter Promise supplies a notebook page for the animal of the week but I felt like J needed more. Not necessarily more to do but I wanted to increase her comprehension while we were reading. So I created my own notebook sheets for J to work through each week.

Week 8 concentrates on reading about Wetlands and reptiles. I added a fact sheet for wetlands. As J learns about the wetlands, she will add to the notebook page. I included animals, plants, and interesting facts to write about.

We will also be reading about reptiles. I will have J read about the characteristics of reptiles and write/draw what she has learned. Because we use many different resources (not just the ones from the program), she will be able to choose what she would like to add to her notebook page.

Another day, we will be reading about turtles and tortoises. It seemed only natural to add a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the features of both.

Lastly, the focus animal of week 8 is alligators. I created several printables to work with while learning about alligators. Above is an alligator math mat. J will use teeth printables to work through addition sentences. I also included a poem by Dennis Lee about Alligator Pie. I decided to use this poem for spelling practice and added some language arts activities as well. 

Download Wetland Learning File HERE.

This printable is my creation, it is not created to replace the program we are using. It was created to compliment it. Please use it accordingly. I have had the idea of creating printables to compliment what we are learning for several weeks. I know that I have started with week 8 of Winter Promise and I have plans to go back and create printables for the earlier weeks. But right now, I will probably focus on the following weeks of our learning. If you have any suggestions or problems, please feel free to contact me. Enjoy learning about the wetlands.

The clipart alligator is from KPM Doodles.

Tot School

Kaleb begs to play the iPad.

 After a long day of tot school, library toddler time, and swimming. I found this....

While playing on the iPad, he fell asleep. It was too much! It must be nice to be able to sleep anywhere. :)