Working on R

J is learning in spite of me. I went into the upstairs where we do "school" and this is what I found. J had been playing with her magnetic letters and she placed her name on the easel. Okay, so she used a b instead of a d (this is a difficult task for any four year old) but she knows her name.

We began by sorting objects into two categories - Real and not real. Okay, so the unicorn is a bit of a stretch.

We made our garden/dirt bin. I am not sure she is going to like this. I found some flowers and flower pots, a digger tool from Ikea, some glass rocks in different shapes, some beans for seeds, and some plastic egg cups. She can "plant" the flowers and make little flower arrangements. The dirt I found is literally dirt from the ground with plant roots and all. She loves her rice bins and beans but the dirt, I am still unsure. We will see.

R is for roller coaster. I found this printable roller coaster game and I programmed it with the letters of the alphabet. In order to stay on the spot, J had to say the letter and the sound it made. The game is found here.

J is sewing her letter R.

J is working on her name. After she placed the letters in correct order, I covered her eyes and took a letter away. She had to "find" the missing letter.

A while ago in 'Merica, I found this flower game. It had flower cards for each letter and several games you could play with them. We are matching the pictures. These go well with our new garden unit.

Our world map is getting full. Each week, we read about an animal that corresponds to the letter we are learning and we place the animal picture on the map where they would live. At the beginning of the year, we placed pictures of our family and connected them to where they live. J remembers that her big brother lives by the flamingos. We added a reindeer this week.

As promised, photos of DH driving a backhoe. Yes, that is J inside.

And some funny photos of Kaleb eating a noodle. He sucked it in until it was gone. What's coming this week, the letters S and T (we have to combine a couple since our time is running short), more garden items, and I have only 9 more days for this Internet class!

Success!!!

He finally did it - he turned over. I was stressing because all of the "baby experts" said he should have been rolling over beginning at four months. Well, now we are in the later part of six months and he hadn't turned over yet. So yesterday, I kept putting him on his tummy (which he only likes for a short time) and he finally got tired of it and rolled over. Yay! I promptly texted my DH and when he came home, he wanted to see Kaleb roll over. Well, everyone thinks I am crazy because he didn't do it. I have the pictures to prove it. I don't care what anyone says - he turned over on his own, I didn't push him! ha ha

Another Country

This week, we have had to pleasure of leaving the city and experiencing the country for a short time. When we were preparing for this new adventure, I was discussing the "country" with J. J was soo excited that she proceeded to inform Keke that "We are moving to another country!!!" No, we aren't in another country but it can feel that way when you are away from the bustle of the city. We didn't do any letter learning this week but J learned many things. Let me share them with you.....

This is one of the views from our cabin. It had rained just about all week but this day was finally sunny! You can still see the snow on the mountains.

This is a picture of our cabin. This cabin was complete with a fireplace and a loft with a ladder J had to learn to climb up. We enjoyed many nights with a fire in the fireplace. Look at the green grass, we don't really have grass where we live.

This is Montana. This dog loves rocks, pipes, pine cones, and basically anything you can throw. J had to learn to get along with him. She loves dogs but Montana is pretty big and he gets soo excited when you are about to throw something, he will knock you down. He just wants to play. You have to be quick though because he will snatch whatever you were planning to throw out of your hands. Throwing plastic pipe is one thing but you should see the huge rocks he expects you to throw!

Here is J and Kaleb. Although it finally became sunny, it was still cold. Here they are enjoying the playground on site. It was cold enough for Kaleb to wear his mittens. He really didn't like having his hands covered but he managed.

Kaleb in the swing. He zonked out after this picture.

J on the playground enjoying the fresh air! It rained soo much that every time we went out, we came back muddy. I thought I overpacked clothes for the kids but J has used all most every outfit I packed. If she got the least bit wet, she had to change. I finally figured out that we had to have "outdoor" clothes and "indoor" clothes. When she came in, she changed to her indoor clothes. That saved on some laundry.

My darling hubby. This trip was his idea, he found this awesome place. He even got to use his skills of irrigation to help the owners with their field. He may even get yo use a backhoe! Look out! If he does get to drive it, I will post a picture, this should be interesting.

My pretty white Converse sneakers - I don't think they will be the same after this trip. I encouraged Keke to only take one pair of shoes which we both did. I didn't expect the amazing amount of mud here. I was doing good with the sneakers until Montana stepped on me foot with a muddy paw, it was all down hill from there. I really like these sneakers.

Well, I guess it is back to reality and back to the city. Next week, we will resume our letters. I believe we will be on R. (only 7 more letters to go) I passed my first Internet class with a 98% so I am happy! I am currently working on one more then I will be done. yay!

Zoo Train

When my older kids were younger, we used to spend quite a bit of time in the bookstore. This particular bookstore had a Brio train set for the kids to play with. My kids loved going to there because it was a new toy to play with. This past weekend, our school had a consignment sale and I happened across a Brio train set. I had planned on buying a train set from IKEA for J's birthday but here this was....a complete train set. I hemmed and hawed for awhile until DH said "just buy it." So I did. Here's what we did yesterday....

We put the train together and ....

we made a zoo for all of the passengers to visit...

and we had a great school day just playing with the train. My next project (hopefully soon) will be a train table. I am searching the bargain room at IKEA for a coffee table with a shelf that I can paint. I will be able to use the shelf underneath for train storage. So J got an early birthday present and I think Kaleb will like it too when he's older, of course. We are finishing zoo and moving on to garden. I am hoping to plant some things soon and someone just gave us a table and chairs for the balcony. So now, we will have a place to sit outside when it gets warmer.

Letter Q

This really doesn't have anything to do with the letter Q but I found this game and Education.com and it was too cute. I just had to make it. It is called Monster Mix-ups. You roll the die and move around the board collecting monster pieces (head, body, feet). The education value? Probably not much, maybe number recognition using the die. The fun value - she loved it. She wants to play it again tomorrow. You will have to excuse the way she was dressed. No, it is not warm here but she said she wanted to "air out." So, she didn't put on her shirt that I laid out for her. She left her favorite princess t-shirt on and as you can tell, she had lunch in it and shared it with her shirt. I asked her what she got on the front, her reply "tomatoes, I forgot to lean over!"

Q is for quilt. We looked up q words in the picture dictionary and then we created a pattern block quilt. This was found at Confessions of a Homeschooler. She has lots of activities for the letter q.

Q is for quail. We read about quail in our Science ABC book of animals and J colored her quail. If you notice, she also wrote a q next to her quail. The quail was found at Making Learning Fun.

J stamped a q with quails. I love these stamps. They were purchased at Michael's. They have an animal for every letter in the shape of that letter.

We are still learning about the zoo. J is separating animals into those that eat plants and those that eat meat. This was really too easy for her. She asked me if the words above each column said "herbivore or carnivore." I had to tell her no. This cute activity was found at 2 Teaching Mommies. I haven't been able to access this site for a long time, not sure why. Sometimes access goes in and out with the tide. But this is a great site, with lots of printable activities and fun stuff to do. I hope I will be able to access this website again.

Q for quail. She colored a quail and traced her Q's. This coloring page was found here.

Q is for castle? Nah, but every castle needs a queen! I printed this castle on card stock and J painted it with water colors. I then cut out each piece for her to glue together as she wanted. a mighty castle indeed, don't you think? The castle was found here.

Q is for Queen and here is Queen J! I altered a picture of a queen and added J's pic. She then painted it for her castle. Isn't she cute? Queen/princess found here.

And I had to add some pics of my sweet pea. He is so much fun. I just love that smile.

Don't you love that hair? More stuff to come...have a great one!

The Letter P

Sorry it has taken awhile to post. I have been taking an online class and it is alot of work. The class has me making a web page for a unit study. It has consumed my time and I still have four weeks to go. Last week, we worked on the letter P. Here is what we did.

Here J is adding her O to the Chicka tree. It is getting full and she knows when we finish the alphabet, we will be taking a trip to 'Merica. So, she is getting excited.

P is for Princess. I found this game from little piles everywhere. It is really cute and J had to match the Princess with the crowns.

Here is a close up of the cute game. We played it all week.

Here is J's finished ocean mural from the letter O week.

This isn't really for the letter P but we are still loving snakes right now. I made snake 3-part cards and we matched the snake with the names. I did have a Python in the cards for the letter P.

P is for penguin. J made penguins for our Zoo Train. Aren't they cute?

P is for peacock as well.

Here's my drool monster. He is drooling like a champ and loves to chew on fingers. Luckily for me, he only has 2 teeth! We are on to the letter Q and I just happened to find a good book about a quilt at the book sale this weekend.