Car Tubes

 As I look around the apartment, I realize that I need to either use or get rid of items that have been accumulating. I have been keeping cardboard tubes, large cardboard sheets, and various items that I come across. These are just waiting for the perfect project. I can't wait any longer. I have to start cleaning out the various items because of our soon (not soon enough, sometimes) trip to 'Merica. Hence, the inception of car tubes. I taped (no easy task) the cardboard tubes to the IKEA step stool that we own and instant fun.

Kaleb checking them out.

J instructing him on where to put the cars. I was lucky enough to have two different sized tubes. This made it easier for Kaleb to find cars to roll down both tubes.

Kaleb and J spent some time rolling all of the cars we own down the tubes.

Then, Kaleb decided to see if other items without wheels would roll down the tubes. Some got stuck, others made it out. This was an easy activity that both kids loved.

Tot Tuesday

Kaleb has developed a fondness for the IKEA step stool that we own. He carries it around the house to serve his needs.

Sometimes, he carries it to a window (which is closed) to look outside. Sometimes it is to the bathroom sink to test everyone's toothbrush.

Most of the time, it is right next to me while I make dinner. Here he is helping himself to some waffles. This can be good and it can be bad. There are times when I am uncomfortable with him right next to me during dinner making time, so I had to come up with some activity that would get him off the stool. Enter water play.

Kaleb is happy when I give him a bowl of water, cup, bowls, and spoons.

I place a large towel on the floor in the kitchen to soak up most of the mess when he spills and let him have at it.

Does he make a mess? Yes. But is it worth it? Of course. He is not right next to me when I am cooking so he can't get hurt, especially if I am using oil. He is still in the kitchen so he feels like I haven't banished him and he gets to do one of his favorite things - play with water. The towel soaks up most of the water, his clothes do too. It is just water, he can change and it will dry. Now, if I tell him he can't be on the stool while mommy is cooking, he will go right to the cabinet and grab a towel because he knows whats coming -water.

Tot Accomplishment

I recently found a mini chore that my tot can complete while loving to do so.

He loves putting away silverware. He can easily match where the pieces go and put them in the correct places.

While he is putting the pieces away, we talk about what they are. He is telling me that it is a (butter) knife.

Before asking him to do this activity, I always put away the sharp items that can hurt him. (This goes without saying.) He does a really good job. Now if I can just teach him to wash the dishes as well.

Sonlight Week 21

This week started out with sickness and it seems it was hard to recover. We are still reading In Grandma's Attic (all most done), we continued to lear about our bodies and we read about Russia. In Math, we started working with fractions and counting money. In reading, we are still learning different blends.

For Bible, I found a bible activity book that J hadn't finished. So I gave her a choice of what sheets to work with. She decided to finish the sheets on Jesus' birth. We will be finished Learning About God workbook before the school year is through so I am adding a few things here and there.

The mystery letter of the week was K. J is learning to draw a kitten while wearing her Hello Kitty outfit (one of her favorites).

We read many books this week. She is doing well with her reading. Here she is reading a Bob book. We cycle through these books weekly.

This week, I added some computer time for her reading/language arts time. J typed her new sight words on the computer. She loved this activity.

J working on her -ip word family page. We have all most completed the entire pack of these worksheets.

J working on her handwriting.

J is working on sentence writing. After every reading lesson, she copies a sentence from her story and then writes one of her own.

We read about some missionaries in Russia. J made some Russian paper dolls.

She also made a Russian skyline picture with colorful domes.

This was a cute and simple craft to do. Well, that was our week. J is doing much better, no more late night coughing - yay! Now, it looks like my tot is getting sick. Hopefully, this is just a cold and not the croup! See you next week.

My View of School

It seems that no matter how many activities that I plan for the tot, it is never enough. He loves working through his trays but wants me close by while he is doing it. I wanted to share my view of my school day. This is what my day often looks like....

Kaleb has to be on my lap. Occasionally, he will go play with his sensory bin or cars but when I am working with J, he has to be in the middle of things. If I am not working with J, he is fine. Am I a multi-tasker or what?

Homeschool Sick Day

What do you do when your home schooled child is sick? It has been ingrained in me that my children should attend school 180 days a year. But, if you think about it, if your child was in public school, even she/he would be allowed some sick days. J recently had a bout with Croup which ended us at the hospital at 4 in the morning for treatment. You could tell J wasn't feeling quite well enough to work through school but was she sick enough for a sick day? What did we do? Well, for starters, I let go the guilt of having a sick day and not sticking to my schedule. Then we had some fun while sneaking in some learning,

I didn't want to overwhelm J so we started out reading our National Geographic Explorer magazine on my iPad. We read about pandas, the solar system, China's clay soldiers, and how birds of paradise attract mates. We love how the app brings all forms of National Geographic together - great pictures, movie clips, and learning. It was definitely worth the price of the subscription - which was generously supplied by Grandma and Grandpa. (Thanks mom and dad!)  Then I brought out a 100 piece puzzle that we had yet to try. J wasn't sure she could do it but she completed it.

J has been watching Dinosaur Train lately and has been on a dinosaur kick. Next, J suggested that I bring down the dinosaur puzzle to complete. Kaleb decided to help with that one. He got somewhat frustrated when his pieces wouldn't fit together. I would arrange them so he could just pop them in.

Then, of course, I had to sneak some learning. I suggested that J search our animal encyclopedia for the dinosaurs in the puzzle. I gave her some paper and asked her to write the names of the dinosaurs she found to label the puzzle. She loved this.

She wrote the dinosaur names and added them to the puzzle. She found all most all of the dinosaurs that were pictured in the puzzle.

After an episode of Dinosaur Train during lunch, she wanted to bring down her dinosaur animals to play. Although we might not have had the "traditional"school day, I can say that J definitely learned more about dinosaurs and she was able to rest when she needed. Hope your week is sickness free.

Tot Tuesday

We have been working on colors and I brought out this game that I had since J was smaller. Where's mouse? It came from a Mailbox subscription that I had long ago. It consists of colored houses and a mouse. The object is to find the mouse hidden behind one of the houses using color words. But since Kaleb is still young, I use the color words and he finds the mouse.

We started the game by setting up the houses. I talked about the colors and such.

Then I hid the mouse behind a house. We did this first without closing his eyes. He found the mouse.

Then I asked if he wanted to hide the mouse. He thought it was funny when I would pick a few of the houses that I knew the mouse wasn't behind and then he would show me where the mouse was hidden. This is an easy game for tots and you could probably create your own. Plan Your Preschool has a felt version of the game with a cute rhyme to go-along and Moms Have Questions Too has a color game using popsicle sticks. Two easy and simple games to help your tot learn his colors.

This is his "stop taking pictures and play with me" look.

Our Valentine's Day

We had time for some Valentine's Day fun this past week.

We worked on some heart day math. I gave J some puffy heart stickers to use as counters and she worked on some basic addition problems. 

We talked about putting words in ABC order and J worked on putting heart words in ABC order.

We made cookies. Kaleb loved the sprinkles! That's all he wanted to do and he got upset if anyone else wanted the sprinkles.

They worked on beading hearts. Kaleb actually tried this for a while and then, resorted to swinging the pipe cleaner which released tons of beads across my floor. But at least he tried.

And they painted Valentine's. Kaleb wants to do everything J does so I try to include him as much as possible.

Sonlight Week 20

After struggling to get through the distractions from last week (DH and DD home from school), we are finally back on track and working towards the end. I can actually see it - do you realize that there are only 16 more weeks until the end of school? I know, I know, that's like four months but I can all most feel it! Don't get me wrong, I love teaching J and we are learning so much. But, after school is over, we are heading back to the states for a spell and I am truly looking forward to that. These past few weeks we have had some struggles (more than normal) and I am just ready for a change.

Well, on to Sonlight. We are still reading In Grandma's Attic. We have been ahead in this chapter book and J has loved the stories of when Grandma was little. We celebrated 100 days and Valentine's Day this week. We learned time to the half hour in math, began reading e words, and read about our bodies. Exciting stuff.

We read about the birth of Jesus and worked on selected pages in our bible book.

J is working on her calendar notebook. She traces the date, counts the days until Valentine's Day, counts the days left in the month and such. We do this every day. She also adds a sticker to our 100 school days page and uses the 100 chart to practice counting by 1's, 2's, 5's, and 10's. This notebook has definitely helped with her counting skills.

We reviewed odd and even numbers. J had to color the even numbers yellow and the odd numbers blue. This free worksheet came from Krista Wallden's TPT shop.

Mystery letter of the week - N. J loves making her alphabet page.

She learned how to draw a narwal. She also loves the alphabet drawing pages. I found those free printables from Inspired by Kindergarten. She has a whole file, one for each letter.

I created a sight word search for some of the sight words that I want J to practice.

J began reading e words this week and she worked on -en word family house.

We are constantly practicing our sight words. I try to use this game about once a week and work through all of her sight words that she knows so far.

This is another sight word activity J loves called See it, Write it. The words are incredibly small and in order to see them, she has to use a magnifying glass. After she reads them, she writes them in the next column. We also had some Valentine's fun and 100 days fun this week. Busy, busy, busy. Hope your week was full of good things.