Wheel School - U is for Unicycle with free printable

I know what happened when I started this series - life got the best of me but I am now trying to finish all of my unfinished projects at the request of some of my readers. It has been requested that I finish the Wheel School visual plans for each letter of the alphabet and I am finally getting to it. So...here is my U is for Unicycle download..

I went with a circus theme since you see unicycles there in action. I included many ideas but only use the ones that look interesting to your child.

I also  made a U letter sort, peanuts and peanut tubs. Kinda reminds you of the circus, right? Enjoy. See you soon. I am also working on my alphabet interactive notebooks as well. Stay tuned :)

Download U is for Unicycle HERE.

Jedi Reading - Short A Review with free printable games

Jedi Reading is something I worked up for my son who was past the alphabet sounds but not quite to the sounding out words of learning to read. I decided to focus on word family, just simple CVC word families. I have not included blends - that will be another lesson, to make it as simple as possible. I combined word families learning with the love of Star Wars and Kaleb was hooked.

We just finished most (not all, for several reasons) short A word families. I thought it was time to review and, in our review, I made several more new games. We took this time to review all emergent readers that we have been reading each week as well.

One game that I made was a word sort. Each Death Star has a word family on it and Kaleb would pick a card, read it, and then place it on the correct Death Star.

I made a path game using the word families. Kaleb would spin the spinner and move the game piece to the next word from that selected word family. He had to read it to stay on the spot. Also, for more review, you could have your child read every word to the selected word family.

I gave Kaleb some letter tiles and for each character I had him create a word from different word families. HE did these without the help of the printable word cards.

Next review game, he rolled a die and, based not he number, he wrote a word for that family in the column.

I also created a lightsaber game - Kaleb would choose a lightsaber and create a few words from each family with his letter blocks. This can also be done with letter magnets or letter tiles. I made the lightsabers small enough to fit in a cup and they could choose from there.

I made several other games - a Roll, Say, Keep game mat, word target game, and Death Star word sort (a different version). All of the review games are in my review pack. Download link below. Enjoy.

Download Jedi Reading Short A Review Games HERE.

Our 24 Family Ways with free printable

We finished our sibling bible study and we are onto another devotional - Our 24 Family Ways by Clay Clarkson. I wanted to continued our morning bible time but didn't want to pick up Telling God's Story Book 2 until next school year. I found this complete with coloring pages which seems to be the fav right now with my kids. To go along with this bible study I made several notebook sheets. My first draft of notebook sheets included too much writing for the time I allotted for our bible study. So, I changed it and now, they are art journaling. After every reading, they draw a few things to help them remember what was read.

There is a memory verse for each week so I try to find an extra coloring sheet for the verse. They can color it while I read.

Our first week of Our 24 Family Ways - our journal page, verse coloring sheet, and the coloring sheet from the book.

Here's a view of both Kaleb's and J's journal sheets for the week. The write the memory verse in the bracket and the family way at top. They draw what they want to remember from the bible readings.

This is my completed bible journaling page for our new devotion. Notice there are only four squares for journaling through the week. I just couldn't manage five squares but I figure they can journal Friday's lesson on the back. Each day they work a lesson, the color in the number flag. If you would like a copy of my journal page as well as the others I created that required more writing, look below. I hope you enjoy these. The kids and I have - I am right beside them for this and I like how these pages are working out. See you soon.

Download Bible Journaling Pages HERE

Tot Tuesday

Riley has figured out how to open my school room supply closet and, just at his level, is our play dough bucket. He has been having some fun with play dough lately. His favorite tools are the scissors. I am glad they only cut play dough because he is getting adventurous with his other scissors.
Have a great day.

Frog & Toad Mini Unit

Recently, we have obtained some tickets to see a play called A Year With Frog and Toad. I couldn't think of a better time to do a mini unit on the Frog and Toad books. I was hoping to finish the unit for all of the books before the play but that might not happen since we are finishing up our other literature unit. We will at least have two of the books finished though, which is better than nothing. My fourth grader wanted to join in on the fun as well even though she read those books several years ago.

As I researched items and activities to do with Frog and Toad, I couldn't find anything out there that was free. I truly sat down one night intending to complete my own unit and printables for them when I found a Frog and Toad Reader's Notebook by Michael Friermood (link below). It isn't free but I had to decide if I had the time to create my own unit (while in fact I am working on many others) or buy one. I was truly looking for a lap book but the reader notebooks looked super cute. I liked how I could print two notebooks on one sheet of paper and how they were able to be used with my older and younger child. I took the plunge and bought the three pack.

Each notebook has a pre-reading, during-reading, and after-reading activity. There were review questions and vocabulary, learning about toads and frogs, drawing and researching. The kids loved them! Here are a few of the activities that we accomplished with our unit.

J is working on drawing her picture of what makes her grumpy for the pre-reading activity of chapter one.

Kaleb is working on his vocabulary word of green. He drew a picture that matched the definitions of the word in each block.

We learned about the differences between frogs and toads. They completed a Venn diagram and watched a mini movie (links below). We went to the play and they loved it. It was a cute musical about Frog and Toad's Year and it had every part that we read in the books. Love it! Hope you have an awesome weekend.

Links

Parents as Partners - has a youtube video of the differences between frogs and toad, complete with review questions at the end.

Michael Friermood - has the bundle for the Frog and Toad book, reader notebooks.

Happily Ever After Education - has the free printable Venn diagram and a writing project for the differences between frogs and toads.

Jedi Reading - AB Family with free printable

My son Kaleb is currently in kindergarten and, if you have been following along, he wasn't quite ready for a formal reading program yet. He did, however, know all of the letters and sounds of the alphabet and I just couldn't see going back thru the alphabet one more time. But I did not want him to lose the letter sounds and I still wanted to work on some reading with him. I created Jedi Reading. It combines his favorite - Star Wars AND my favorite - reading. Instead of a formal reading program, I am concentrating only on word families that fit into the CVC category (no blends and no long vowels for the moment). This week, we concentrated on the AB word family.

I always try to find a beginning reader for the word family but it is proving to be too difficult. I couldn't find one for the AB word family, so we created our own story. It was called Gab the Cab. We wrote a simple silly story about Gab the Cab going to the lab to nab Tab. (My mom will get that joke.) Kaleb illustrated it and we used it for the whole week of the AB family.

He worked on an AB word family sort. This free printable came from Spelling and Technology (link below).

He used paper letter tiles to create the AB word family using this free worksheet from Lettie's Lessons (link below).

He practiced his words using the letter blocks. I believe this was the best purchase for him this year. I love that the blocks are blue and red for letters and vowels. He likes building the words.

He took his Jedi test which requires him to read his reader, make the words with magnets, make the words with the letter blocks, and write the words. He does all of this without any help or the reading cards. I call a word to him and he writes/makes it. No cheating:)

He is working on his words with the letter magnets. We were using the magnets from All About Reading but I decided to use the magnet letters that I bought. They are all different colors but I think they are easier to use at the moment.

He passed his Jedi test and he placed all of his word cards on the word wall as well as his lightsaber for the AB family. I had planned on moving on to the short e words but I changed my mind. We will do a week of Short A review with a few new printable Star Wars games - stay tuned:)

Download Jedi Reading Printable for the AB word family HERE.

Links

Education - has a free worksheet matching the AB words.

Spelling and Technology - has a free AB word family printable using bubbles. and another set of AB word family printables.

Lettie's Lessons - has some free AB word family printables as well.

My Father's Dragon - Part 2

We are on our second week of My Father's Dragon by Ruth Stilles Gannett. Kaleb is loving his map of Elmer Elevator's adventures. We worked hard to complete the book this week and put together our lap book.

After every chapter that we read, Kaleb makes each animal from paper scraps and places them on his map. He has really taken to this activity - I must think of more map activities for him!

He made a paper plate tiger after Elmer Elevator came across the seven tigers and convinced them to chew gum, instead of chewing him!

He cleaned the rhino tusk - an egg that was soaked in soda. He used toothpaste and a toothbrush. Rhino was very happy after he cleaned the tusk:)

Another project that Kaleb enjoyed was creating his paper plate lion with the crazy hair. He used pipe cleaners for hair and notice the sad face on the lion. He was super unhappy about his messed-up mane.

Kaleb fixed the lion's mane by tying ribbons and making curls. The lion was ready to see his mom.

He added the lion to his map complete with a ribbon bow.

I made a find the word activity for the chapter where Elmer meets the gorilla. The gorilla has fleas that he can't get rid of and Elmer gives the monkeys magnifying glasses to find the fleas. For this activity, I placed the words that he was working on (AB words) in small print on a gorilla and had Kaleb find them and write them. He asked me to make more of these word searches.

Lastly, he made a dragon mask to end the unit on My Father's Dragon. We put all of his mini books into a lap book and we have moved on to the next book in the series - Elmer and the Dragon. Not so much to do for this next book but still much fun to read. See you soon.

Tot Tuesday

Riley found the linking blocks in my school cabinet and had a ball playing at the table while we were working on school.

He put them together matching the colors.

He made lightsabers, can you tell we are a Star Wars family?

This is my favorite - I love his smile here:) Have an awesome day.

The Long Winter - Weeks 1 & 2

We have recently started reading the fifth book in The Little House Series called The Long Winter by Laura Ingalls Wilder. We are continuing with our Little House notebook and if you would like to download the pages that I created, see my post HERE. We are using the Prairie Primer as our base and most of the mini books cover questions from the Primer so you will need a copy of it to complete the notebook pages.

The fifth book is a hard read. You get to experience the super long winter with nothing but snow and ice storms with the Ingalls family. You struggle with them when they run out of flour and potatoes as well as coal for the stove and kerosene for the lamp. You can almost feel the biting cold in the mornings as they struggle to survive.

J is working on her notebook pages for the unit. I am finding that the further we get into the Little House books, the less information there seems to be from the Primer. But it is still good information and J still loves it.

The family ran out of kerosene for their lamp so Ma made a button lamp. She used axel grease to light it. We made our own version of a button lamp but instead used a quarter and some muslin. She wrapped cotton thread around the muslin and we dipped the end in olive oil.

Then, she placed the "wick" into a heat resistant dish with some olive oil at the bottom. We went outside to light it because we weren't sure how it was going to react. After a few tries (windy day), we finally got it lit. It was smoky so I am definitely glad I didn't light it inside. And the smell wasn't that great but it did work. We got light! This idea came from Little House Living (link below).

I have had this project on my mind lately and I just so happened upon a free printable from As They Grow Up (link below). I wanted J to be able to experience the braille alphabet with her fingers and this seemed the perfect way to do it. She wrote her name and the names of her brothers and sister using little dots of glue. After they dried, she was able to run her fingers along the raised dots to somewhat "see" how it felt to read braille. Now, I know that Mary isn't in the school for the blind yet, at least not in this book. But it seemed like a good project as any.

It has been on my mind as we have been going through these books that I wanted the kids and their father to build a "little wooden playhouse" in our yard. I had this project in  mind from the beginning of the school year but it is proving to be more difficult than expected. The city is requiring that we obtain a permit for the playhouse and, since we bought the plans online, it requires that we have an architect looks at them for the state seal of approval. I am finding the more we investigate the building of this playhouse, the more walls we run into. It was a noble idea and it would have proved to be an awesome learning experience. I am still hoping to achieve this project but we will see. Hope you have an awesome weekend!

Links

Teacher By the Beach - has the idea for the braille name project using glue dots.

Little House Living - has the directions for the button lamp that we used to make ours.

Steve Spangler Science - also has a tutorial on how to make a button lamp.

As they Grow Up - has the free braille printable name activity.

Jedi Reading - AG word family with free printable

My son Kaleb wasn't quite ready for a traditional reading program although he knew all of the letter sounds. I didn't want him to lose that so I created an in-between program that would focus on word families. Each week, he would learn a new word family and hopefully, this would pave the way to a more comprehensive reading program. I named the program Jedi Reading and each word family he conquers, he gains a lightsaber. This week, his word family was AG.

He worked on a word sort - AG words and not AG words. I had him read every card for extra practice. This was found at I Heart Literacy (link below).

Another word sort. He seems to like these. He sorted the raindrops for AG words and AN words. This was a word sort that I found from Shining Little Minds (link below).

This was a review of several word families that I found at The Measured Mom (link below).  He had to read the word and color the correct picture.

He took his Jedi test and passed. We added the AG word family to the word wall and he gained another lightsaber. Yay! f you would like to download the Jedi Reading Pack for the AG family, link below. Enjoy.

Download Jedi Reading Pack for AG word Family HERE.

Links

I Heart Literacy - has a free printable pack for the word family AG.

Grasshopper Apps - has another free printable pack.

Special Adventures - has the free printable AG word family reader as well as some worksheets that we used.

The Children's Museum - has a bunch of flip books that we use for several word families.

My Rainy Day Creations - has another free printable AG pack.

Shining Little Minds - has the free word sorts for short A.