Tot Tuesday

We have a window that is just the right size. Riley loves looking out and while we are working through school, he grunts to have the blind raised. Then, he looks out and "talks" to us about what he sees.

He's coming to tell me what he saw... a garbage truck or a ball. Life is fun:)

Whales Unit Study

We are working through Considering God's Creation this school year and we recently came up on a week study of whales. Because we are ahead of the game and we already worked on the human body (last year), I decided to work on a whale unit study. I used Evan-Moor's whale unit as the backbone for our study, as well as books from the library and the notebook pages from the Science curriculum.

J worked on the whale vocabulary by matching the words with the definitions.

She read some cards with whale sentences and had to decide whether it was true or false. We did this before actually learning about whales to see what she already knew.

I purchased a whale Toob and printed some whale card (link below). She matched the whales to their cards and we learned about them. The whales were a hit with all of the kids. They were played with in the bathtub for weeks after the unit was over.

J measured the size of a Narwal's tooth and she couldn't believe it!

J researched whale facts from the multiple books that I checked out of the library.

She made her whale tail cover of her pocket book. It turned out cute.

J divided the whale cards between toothed whales or baleen.

She made a model of baleen whales and plankton that get caught in it.

After the unit was over, I gave her a mini test. This is the look she gave me. I told her that it wasn't going to be a problem because she already knew so much about whales. I just wanted her to see how much she knew.

Photos of her finished Whale book.

This is her cover of her Whale pocket book.

She had a pocket for baleen whales and any mini books that she did, I added them to the opposite pages.

Her pocket for toothed whales. All of her projects and mini books were added to each pocket, sort of like a lap book. It was nice to check off another project from my list, yay! This moving thing really altered my plans but we finally got it done. I am glad we took the time to learn more about whales. Have a wonderful weekend....I think I have another box to unpack:(

Links

Evan-Moor - has the basis of my study in an easy download for $5.99.

Homeschool Share - has a free printable Whale lap book.

Pinky Homeschooler - has free printable whale and dolphin cards to go along with the matching Toob.

Step into Second Grade - has a few free printables you can use in your whale unit.

Mrs. Home Ec - has some super cute whale alphabet matching printables for the younger crowd.

Birch Fabrics - has a free printable whale softie pattern if you have one who likes to sew.

Pretty Toys - also has a printable pattern for sewing a whale. It is in a different language but looks easy enough to figure out.

Alpha and Omega - has a blubber experiment page.

Wildflower Ramblings - has a free printable pattern for a felt whale, add a felt W on the back for younger children.

Two More Minutes - has a pattern for a whale tag toy for youngers.

Learn Create Love - has a few printable whale craft printables.

Lewis and Clark - finishing up

With the recent move and Easter/Spring Break, our Lewis and Clark unit was placed on the back burner for a few weeks. We finally were able to finish it and complete the lap book. Yay!

One of J's favorite books during this unit was The Captain's Dog by Roland Smith. She loved it so much that after I read it out loud to her, she read the complete book to herself again.

J is finishing up her timeline of the expedition for her lap book. We chose a few key events to place in the timeline from our study.

She is working on a mini book of the animals that Lewis and Clark encountered during the trip.

Here are a few pictures of her completed lap book. She used two coloring sheets of the explorers for the from cover.

We used two red folders and several sheets as extenders. My favorite part was the Grizzly Bear that we measured using yarn. That was one big bear! We definitely learned a ton and read many books. I love units like this:) I am also glad that we were able to finish it. I hate leaving things undone. The lap book template came from Hands of a Child. We are on to bigger and better things.

B4FIAR - Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?

We recently moved and Kaleb's VPK is too far away so I made the decision to bring him home. We picked up with Before Five in a Row and we rowed Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear this week. If you are not familiar with Five in a Row, you basically read a book for five days (or more, if you would like) and learn many things. (I will try not to bore you with too many items that are found around the web for this book:)

After Kaleb joined us for Bible that day, we pulled out the alphabet chart and worked through the alphabet. I believe he stopped at the letter S in his preschool so I picked up with the letter T. We worked on T all week with several different activities each day.

After reading the book, Kaleb worked with a small bear that I made from felt. I fashioned a mini felt board from the top of one of our moving boxes. I just stapled the corners and it was the perfect size. I made several outfits that matched the character's clothing in the book and we discussed what Jesse Bear wore through out the story. He played with this several times. I found the templates for this activity from Mama Smiles (link below).

This brought us to discussing what we would wear in different types of weather. I found this super easy printable with matching clothing cards. The top of the chart says "What I would wear..." and the bottom of the chart says, "What I wouldn't wear..." in this type of weather. Kaleb had to determine what clothes were appropriate for each type of weather. This free printable came from Speech Me Maybe's TPT store (link below).

I love my magnetic cookie sheet and magnetic letters! Kaleb worked on beginning sounds for each letter with this alphabet mat. What I liked about this activity is that the pictures aren't in alphabetical order so he had to say the picture and determine the sound. This came from the Kindergarten Connection (link below).

Jesse Bear just seemed to beg for the rainbow bears to come put and play. We played a graphing game - Kaleb rolled a die programmed with different color bears and then, placed a bear in the correct column. He truly wanted the blue bear to win (but it was the purple!). This activity came from Life Over C's (link below).

We talked about the American flag since Jesse had a ball in the story that looked like the flag. He painted one with our paint daubers. He also created one with cut paper. All of these items will find its way into our Jesse Bear notebook. This idea and printable came from Meaningful Mama (link below).

He made his own Jesse Bear puppet and as you can tell, he was pretty happy with it. Not sure where this idea came from. If you know, please inform me so I can give proper credit.

This was one of my favorite moments this week. Kaleb is a very action oriented guy so I included some different movement activities. Here, the kids are doing the Teddy Bear chant and Riley joined in. I love this photo.

Another Math hands-on activity I included this week was to measure fruits and veggies. We talked about the differences between the ruler and the tape measure and he had practice using both. This is another favorite photo - I love his face when he measured the celery and found it to be 9 inches long!

After measuring the fruits and veggies with the ruler or tape measure, he also used the Unifix Cubes to measure them. I know this activity came from somewhere but I can't seem to find the link. Sorry:(

One last activity was to review his numbers. I lined them up (Montessori style) and had him count the bears for each number. He worked through to the number 20. These are just a few of the activities that we worked through this week for Jesse Bear. There were so many that I wanted to do like make bear pancakes but time would not allow it. I think he had a good first week of homeschool:) On to our next book.


A few pictures of his Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? notebook. I used a 3 prong folder, copied the book cover, and added all of the loose papers he worked on throughout the week. He enjoyed looking through it and showing people who came to the house.

Links

The Kindergarten Connection - has the free printable Alphabet Beginning Sound Match. Laminate, add alphabet magnets.

Nurture Store - has the instructions to make colored sand.

Life Over C's - has the free printable rainbow bear graphing activity.

Mama Smiles - has the free printable template for the felt bear and the clothes.

Pre K Pages - has a great free printable movement game about the weathers. We used this all week to play indoors as well as outdoors. Kaleb loved the different movements. There is no picture of this because of the intense movement but if you have a child who loves to run, download this game:)

Pinay Homeschooler - had a great idea to make a different picture with a bear for each season. I had this on my activity list but we never got around to it. It may show back up in a later school project. I just wanted to mention this.

Meaningful Mama - has the free printable flag template for the dot art.

Speech Me Maybe - has the free printable for What to Wear? game Kaleb played.

Tot Tuesday

My little one seems to be a budding artist!

He found the chalk and pulled himself up a chair. He began drawing....

At least he is drawing on the board and not on our walls, right? Have a great day.

Character Training - Faithfulness with free printable

We are currently working through the Virtue Training Bible in addition to our regular bible curriculum. Each week, we work through a virtue, adding a new page to our virtue notebook and a word to our word ring. This week, we worked through the virtue of faithfulness.

J looked up the definition of faithful in the dictionary and added it to her virtue notebook.

J colored her word ring card. The card has faithfulness on the front of the card and a key bible verse on the back.

J colored the faithful coloring sheet that was found from His Sunflower (link below). She colors while I read from our lesson or our chapter books. She loves this activity.

Here are the faithfulness pages that I created to go along with our virtue study. If you would like to down load my notebook printables, link below. Enjoy.

Download Faithfulness Notebook Printables HERE.

Links

Kids of Integrity - free lesson plans on faithfulness along with a few printables.

His Sunflower - a free coloring sheet and mini lesson on faithfulness.

Meaningful Mama - several lesson ideas on faithfulness.

Tot Tuesday

My monkey is at it again....

What a smile....and what a climber. He definitely keeps me on my toes. Have a great day.