E is for Excavator, Elephants, and Eggs

After an unplanned week of from Tot School, we are finally back on track. I had high expectations while moving to our new house. I planned on focusing on the move for two days but it seems a move takes over one's life -huh? We worked with the letter E this week.

Because of the move, I wanted to keep the sensory bin simple. So, I just used my blue rice, added letter E's and an egg that I found in a random bin. I put it together with a few excavators/diggers for digging fun.

Kaleb used his foam blocks to trace the letter E. He worked with both the upper and lower case letters.

I had a last minute idea for a fun alphabet review game - Fried Egg Flip. These pages aren't available in my notebook pages but if you would like to download them, I will include the link below. I gave Kaleb a spatula, placed the upper case letters besides the cookie sheet and the fried eggs on the cookie sheet. He flipped the eggs and used the spatula to match the letters. I also included the vehicles for extra matching.

I found these cute, simple puzzles at Target. I only gave him the letters that we have worked on so far.

I wanted Kaleb to have some tracing practice while learning his shapes. I placed the shape worksheet inside a plastic folder and gave him a dry-erase marker.

E is for envelopes....I found this cute game from PreKinders.  I only printed the number envelopes. He chose an envelope, counted the items, and then "delivered" the card to the correct mailbox. (link below)

I also found some tracer alphabet cards at the Dollar Store. He used his finger to trace the letter e's.

Even though the sensory bin didn't change much, he still had plenty of fun playing with it. He parked his excavators, cement mixers, and trucks around his rice bin.

As a fun activity, I hid dinosaur skulls in the sand and had the kids excavate them. Notice the stick down the middle so there was no question about which side was which. We are on to the letter F.

Download Fried Egg Flip Game HERE.

Links

Prekinders - Mailbox math free printable games.

Sonlight B + C - Week 6

Again, we didn't have your typical week of school - seems like these weeks are becoming more prevalent. DH came home after several weeks and things that have been waiting to get finished or fixed, started to get done in our new house. On top of that, J and I got sick. I had hoped to avoid the whole coughing my head off thing but it was not in the cards. It is one thing to be pregnant but to be pregnant and sick is just awful. So, we struggled again to get everything done but we managed. It was definitely nice to have someone (my DH) around during the day, so I sneak off and take a nap if I needed one. (And this week, I surely needed several!)

In LLATL, J worked on a new reading story complete with contractions, a review of nouns and adjectives, and handwriting.

She worked on her new spelling list. Every day, she does a new activity to practice her spelling words. I allow her to choose which one she would like to do. She likes writing sentences and drawing pictures.

In All About Reading, she worked on "pickle" words - words with C (consonant), L, E at the end. There was a ton of practice using these words but it definitely helped it to sink in.

J is reading from her bible reading book. Kaleb likes to come around when she is reading so he can see the pictures and listen to the story. What else did we do this week? We helped Daddy unpack the car from his trip and went grocery shopping so mom didn't have to. J helped unpack her clothes - we finally were able to get a dresser for the kids clothes as well as a dryer - Yay! She helped wash and fold baby clothes in preparation for Riley. And she met a new friend in our neighborhood - same age and grade. She is super happy. Just another broken week but we did accomplish some things :) I often find myself wondering how we are going to do "everything" with a new baby arriving soon. Only time will tell. Hope your week was uneventful. See you soon.

Letter E Interactive Notebook - revisited

We finally got the chance to work with my Letter E Interactive Notebook. We are slightly behind in our letter learning but we are continuing through the alphabet - one letter a week.

We started with talking about the letter E and made the mini flip books.

Kaleb cut out the pictures and glued them underneath the flaps.

Kaleb sorting the upper and lower case eggs into the nests.

Another game included in my notebook pages was to match the letters with the correct vehicle.

This matching game was pretty easy for Kaleb, maybe too easy. All of the pieces will fit into the envelope in the pages.

Lastly, Kaleb made the letter E into a cracked egg. You can find the Letter E Interactive Notebook Pages here. We are on to the letter F. Hope these pages were helpful. See you soon.

Letter G Interactive Notebook Pages - free printable

The next installment of our interactive alphabet notebook is ready for download. I am trying my best to move ahead in the alphabet series so I can have the pages done before I have the baby but not sure that is going to happen - so please bear with me. Here are a few of the pages ....

We always start our new letter pages with some flip books. They include pictures of items that begin with the letter G. Kaleb will cut them out and glue them under the flaps.

A letter G puzzle is also included - I usually make this magnetic for easier use. I included a blank letter G to make it easier to put together.

G is for Gum Ball Machine - have the child choose a number and add pom poms to the gum ball machine for one to one correspondence practice.

Upper and lower case G sort - add envelopes to the back of the gates and place the goats in the correct gate.

Glove alphabet matching game - this would be fun along with clothespins and a clothesline. Have child match the gloves and "hang" them up.

Grape Alphabet Review game - using colored pom poms have child cover the letters that you call out. I hope you will enjoy these interactive pages for the letter G.

Download Letter G Interactive Notebook Pages HERE.

Our New Move

Last week, we had to put down the school books and moved to a new house. My intention was not to take the whole week to unpack and settle. But, it didn't work out that way - moving tends to take complete control, doesn't it? So, after week, we are ready to move on and begin our school schedule again. But I thought I would share some of the "learning" we did this week....

Our new house has a wonderful old tree in the yard. J has been chomping at the bit to climb it - it is her officially her tree.

It also has a wooden porch. I don't have any outdoor furniture yet but we did add our sandbox to it. We moved to a wonderful historical house in a great neighborhood. We are glad to have finally settled down and we are ready (all most ready) to add baby Riley into our house - 4 weeks and counting...

During our move, I found this sweet drawing on my older daughter's dry erase calendar. J drew a great picture of her family, including baby Riley! Isn't that sweet?

Cute smiles on moving day....at least someone was smiling :)

Parable of the Lost Sheep

Bible this week brought us the parable of the Lost Sheep. It is a heartwarming story about a shepherd who leaves his entire flock to find one missing sheep.

The kids really like the color sheets. It gives them something quiet to do while I read the bible story and discuss it.

We played the missing sheep game - using a marshmallow that I drew a silly face on, I placed it under a cup and the kids had to track the sheep cup to find the marshmallow. The kids were better at this than I expected.

Using the templates from Catholic Icing (link below), the kids made their own shepherd and sheep to play with.

We would have made shepherd staffs but I didn't have the necessary items on hand. So, we used the next best thing - wooden spoons. I gave the kids 2 balloon sheep apiece, denoted by color, and they had to usher them into the stall. They couldn't beat the sheep but had to move them nicely across the floor. It was a rainy day so they played this quite a while. J drew cute sheep faces on them and named them.

For breakfast one morning, they made cinnamon roll sheep (sort of). I gave them a roll, some chocolate chips, and pretzel sticks for legs. Kaleb ate the chocolate chips and licked the icing off the top. J made a sheep though and ate the roll.

Lastly, they made some cotton ball sheep using the templates ground from Calvary Chapel  Kids (link below). I printed them onto card stock to make the project stronger with all that gluing. These turned out cute - they won't fit in their bible notebooks but they are still cute to hang up. We have finished the first unit on Jesus' Parables and are moving onto Jesus' miracles. This should be fun :)

Links

Calvary Chapel Kids - cute Lord is my Shepherd craft with free template.

Free Kids Crafts - super cute q-tip sheep craft for older kids.

Catholic Icing - TP shepherd and sheep craft with free templates.

Faith Filled Freebies - good shepherd balloon game.

Apples and ABCs - cute sheep art project, no template but looks easy enough to do.

Letter F Interactive Notebook Pages - free printable

The next installment of my interactive notebook is available - the Letter F. Due to our move, we will be working on F in a week or two. So, stay tuned. Here are a few items in my interactive notebook...

I included the letter F puzzle. For Kaleb, I always make the puzzles magnetic to make it easier to put together.

Add the laces to the football - using pipe cleaners - I would have Kaleb choose a numbered helmet and add the correct number of laces to the football. This could be made into a fine motor activity by adding tweezers or chopsticks.

Swat the alphabet fly game - using the available fly swatter to make one of your own, have your child swat the correct fly when you call the letter.

Upper and lowercase F review game - have your child use brown and white pom poms to mark the letters. You could also use paint or stickers to review the letters. Enjoy the new notebook pages.

Download Letter F Interactive Notebook Pages HERE.