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.

Wetland Week 11 Pages

Now that I have figured out the issues I was having with my computer updates, I can post the printables that I made for week 11. Because of the crazy week I had, we are currently on week 11. Here are a few things I made:

I included a new poem for the week - Ducks by Mary Ann Hoberman. J is loving the new poems and she has committed them to memory. We read them daily and review the previous weeks as well. They are fun poems so she loves reviewing them. This printable is a cut and paste activity. J will cut out the verses of the poem and paste them in correct order in her notebook.

I focused on sight words through out the poem. I felt that J needed more practice with the sight words so I created several games to go along with the focus words from the poem. For this game, J would roll a die and write the word the corresponds to the number rolled.

I also included trace and write the focus words from the poem for more practice.

 These bubble words are great for rainbow writing - allow the child to trace the word with several different colored pencils for extra practice.

Sight word magnet sheets - have child use magnetic letters to practice the sight words.

Lastly, a draw and write sheet for the notebook to write facts about the other animals that they read about. Enjoy these printables and I hope they are helpful. If you have any questions or problems , let me know. Thanks.

Download Wetland Week 11 Pages HERE.

J is for Jeep

I finally figured it out and hopefully, I figured it out correctly. For over a week, I have not been able to post any of the free printables because of updates to my computer. It seems that the update took away my ability to make password protected pdf's and I couldn't figure out how to fix that. But I think I finally got it. According to the rules of using graphics for freebies, I have to create the files to be locked. I didn't want to get in trouble. If you find my calculations are wrong, please let me know and I will fix it.

Now, on to the next installment of Wheel School - J is for Jeep. It is finally ready for download.

When I was working on J is for Jeep, I kept thinking that jeeps remind me of a safari. So I went with a safari theme to the week. I included the weekly plans.

One of the weekly printables is a felt board rhyme. Print the pictures, laminate, and add velcro or magnets. Read/act out the felt board rhyme included in the plans.

I also included a jeep matching game. Use the jeep play mat and print out the wheels to match on the mat. I added upper and lower case letters as well for a different version of the game. I hope you enjoy this week of Wheel School and I will see you next week for the next installment.

Download J is for Jeep HERE.

Tot Tuesday

We recently had the privilege to visit the Children's Museum here in 'Merica. I was amazed at all of the exhibits, all child sized, for the kids to interact with. It was amazing. My favorite, though, was watching Kaleb explore each of them, unsure if he was actually able to touch! There, he discovered the light box and the magnetic tiles.

 

He worked with them for awhile, while the girls (J and a friend) were flitting about, from one play thing to another. It was nice to watch him concentrate on constructing the pieces together and seeing the light shine through. It got me to thinking about making my own light box so I thought I would share some sites to help you.

My idea of a light box would have to be easy to make, easy to store, and relatively inexpensive. My storage space is limited and we are moving around, so it would have to be portable. Now, I probably won't have time to make it before I move along to my parents' house but it will be put on the project list to do later.

Teach Preschool - has directions on how to create a portable light box

Testy Yet Trying - has another set of directions for a light box

Teach Preschool - has a great idea on how to make your own set of colored discs for the light box

Testy Yet Trying - has a great idea of using colored sand for a light box activity

Play At Home Mom - has a great idea on how to make a magnetic sand box (not quite a light box but it still looks fun)

The Measured Mom - has a great idea about using the light box to explore x-rays. Great idea for a human body unit!

Incredible Art Department - using the book Swimmy, recreate the story using the light box

No Time For Flashcards - has the idea of using plastic lids to create color disks for the light box

Hopefully this will inspire you to create your own personal light box. I know that I will definitely be trying it as soon as I can. I especially like the x-ray light box activities. Happy exploring.

Sorry for the Interruption

Last week was a whirlwind. We packed, traveled to Grandma and Grandpa's, experienced many new things, went Trick or Treating. So I just let my blog go. I am trying to get back into the swing of things and start back to school this week. I am having issues with the new update of my programs. I have J is for Jeep preschool plans ready but I am having issues with password protecting the images. For some reason, with the update, I have lost that option. If you have any ideas on how I can remedy this so I may start posting the new plans, I would welcome any ideas. Here are a few activities that we accomplished this week (besides driving 900 miles by myself with the kids). We experienced a few first times here...

First Time in a Disney Store

J participated in a Disney Princess dress-up party. She dressed up, played a few games, got some candy, and walked in a parade around the mall. J was slightly overwhelmed since this was her first visit to the Disney store and she was amazed at all of the products.

First Time Pumpkin Patch/Decorating

The kids were able to go to a local pumpkin patch and choose pumpkins to decorate. They decorated pumpkins for the first time for Fall. Some might wonder why we have never decorated pumpkins before. Where we live, they have pumpkins but they do not look like anything we have here. They aren't even orange! And there aren't typically sold in one piece.

First 'Merican Birthday Party at Chuckie Cheese

We celebrated both J and Kaleb's birthday before we left Florida. The reason behind this was to allow the new friends that my daughter made to attend her party. This was exciting for J. She had never been to Chuckie Cheese and she will be 7 years old! (That should go down in some record book, I think) My older son Josh was able to come up from college for the birthday party as well. It was very exciting for her.

 First Halloween/Trick or Treating

When we arrived in the states, J asked if she could dress up for Halloween and go trick or treating. Now, this isn't something that we participate where we live and we didn't really participate in it with my older kids. I didn't see the harm in allowing my kids to do some trick or treating. J's Grandma made this wonderful Cinderella dress. It was awesome. I traveled all day on Wednesday so we could make it back in time for Halloween.

J was thrilled to be Cinderella - isn't she pretty?

Being in the states this year has offered many first experiences that my children haven't had. It has been neat seeing all of the new things from their eyes. I am glad that they have had the opportunity to be here. We have made many great memories and hope to make many more.

I hope to be able to post more printables soon. I am working through the password issue with the new updates. If you have any suggestions, please help. See you soon.