Tot Tuesday

My tot couldn't decide whether he wanted to be a cowboy or Captain America. We decided to call him Captain Cowboy!

By The Shores of Silver Lake Tea Party

This Little House tea party has been on my mind for a while now and we just recently found the time to have it. I truly wanted to have this tea party when Ma invited the girls from Plum Creek over for Vanity Cakes and tea. But, time got away from me and I finally made up my mind to do it. I was glad, as well, and it wasn't as difficult as I expected. One way that I made it simpler was that I made easy doughnuts instead of trying the vanity cakes recipe from the cookbook. I read that these could be difficult to make and I just wanted to go the easy route.

We made these 3 minute doughnuts that I found from Fun Cheap or Free (link below). They couldn't have been easier - a can of biscuits, some oil, and sugar. Super easy!

J and Kaleb set the table for our tea party. I brought out the white table cloth and our special tea cups and saucers.

J wanted flowers and I brewed the tea. Our dishes didn't match but that was the fun of it! We found our special tea cups at the Goodwill.

Our plate full of easy doughnuts. It didn't take long before they disappeared. I had to make a plate for my DH or he wouldn't have been able to try them.

J served the doughnuts in her prairie costume (Thanks Mom!). Riley joined us - I chickened out about letting him use the glass plate and cup though. Maybe next time. He also brought his Darth mask - he wanted to dress up too:) He just couldn't eat the doughnuts with it on.

Kaleb slurping his tea. Even though he is slurping, it was a great time to enforce some table manners. We talked about elbows, taking smaller bites, and not wiping our faces on our shirts:)

J is trying out her pinking drinking - haha. Riley too!

This tea party was hosted by my mom! Thanks mom! She was the one who graced us with this awesome tea pot and sugar/creamer set. We will be using this for a long time. We love you and wish you were here for our tea party - maybe next time:) If you haven't taken the time for a tea party, you should. It was fun, simple, and easy to do. Have a great day.

Links

Fun Cheap or Free - has the recipe for the 3 minute doughnuts. Try them!

B4FIAR - Katy No Pocket

We have returned to the Before Five in a Row books with our newest selection - Katy No-Pocket. It is a cute story about a kangaroo without a pocket to hold her baby. We took this time to learn about Australia and kangaroos.

We learned about the country that kangaroos come from - Australia. He colored a simple map and I made it into a puzzle. The map came from Education (link below).

After reading about kangaroos, Kaleb worked on a large paper kangaroo. He painted each section with water colors.

Then, I wrote facts about the kangaroo onto the cute project.

This book has a ton of animals on each page. We loved finding them all. I found a simple printable of all of the animals in the book and we found each one while we read the story.

After finding the animals on each page, Kaleb decided he wanted to make an ABC book. So, we stapled some pages together and we discussed each animal and what letter it began with.

And this story just lends to the idea that one needs some pockets. So, I made Kaleb a new apron from material that I already had on hand. He promptly found some animals that he could tote around just like Katy. I love that smile:)

Links

Julie Lee - has a cute free kangaroo craft idea.

Around the World Learning - has a cute idea for kangaroo math game.

Little Learning Lane - has a free printable kangaroo booklet as well as en even/odd number sort for the book.

Homeschool Share - Katy No-Pocket lap book printable.

Education - has a free printable map of Australia.

A Place of Abundance - has an apron pattern to use.

Homeschool Creations - has a free Australia mini pack.

Mother Natured - has the free printable movement dice.

Skip to my Lou - has a tutorial for an apron.

Ducks in a Row - has a cute kangaroo pocket game to go along with the book, use for reading or math etc...

Simply Home Blog - has a cute pocket project if you don't feel like sewing.

Jedi Reading - AN family

Jedi Reading - learning to read word families with the love of Star Wars. Kaleb loves Star Wars and I was trying to peak his interest in reading, so I came up with Jedi Reading. We are working on word families. I am using this as a bridge to learning how to read. He didn't seem ready to actually sound out the words but I wanted to continue some form of reading education. I though word families might be the way to go for him and I added a great bonus - Star Wars. Now, he is working on his second word family - AN. He is working towards his light saber.

For each word family, I scour the internet to find activities and printables. I try to include many different aspects - games, books, working with magnets, stamping, etc... to keep his interest.

Kaleb worked on this cute, free printable house book. He really loves to stamp the words, so when there is a part where he can write - I give him the option of stamping.

He worked on a mini AN booklet that I found from OCD in First (link below).  It had a few pages - building words, finding the words, word search, and writing the words.

Kaleb is building his words using the letter blocks. I love that these blocks have the read vowels like All About Reading uses. When we pick up his reading lessons, he will be used to seeing the letters marked this way.

He is working on his Jedi test - he read the cards and built them with blocks. He is totally focused here - he wants his light saber:)

He earned his light saber for the AN family. He is adding it to his reading wall - way to go, Kaleb!

Here he is, cheesy smile and all, in front of his Jedi Reading wall. On the top are his light sabers for the two word families that he has completed and on the bottom are his word cards. We add them to his word wall after his Jedi test. This will help in his review and give him a visual of all of the words that he has learned so far. On to the AP family!

Download Jedi Reading AP word family pages HERE.

Links

Brandy Wells - has the free printable word sort for the AT and AN families.

Aleximer - has the free AN word stamping pages that we used this week.

Jennifer Wiggins - has the free AN pages as well.

Pamela Hyer - has a free AN word wheel.

OCD in First - has the free printable mini book for the word family AN.

The Children's Museum - has free printable flip books for many of the word families.

Tot Tuesday

A set of Darths have invaded my home...haha.

By the Shores of Silver Lake - week 1 & 2

We finished On the Banks of Plum Creek and have moved to By the Shores of Silver Lake as our reading progresses through the Little House Series.  We are using The Prairie Primer as our base and we are loving it! If you haven't seen the blog post about the notebook pages that I created for By the Shores of Silver Creek, check them out. We are through our first two weeks.

The notebook pages seem to be working well. I believe there was just one day where we had too many mini books for the back of the page but the next day, we had more room.

Mary lost her eyesight because of sickness. J is learning about the human eye and I finally caved and ordered a special treat for her (she just doesn't know it yet). She will probably think it is gross but I think it will help her appreciate the eye!

Laura became Mary's eyes and she talked to Mary about everything that was going on. She described a sunset to Mary and J painted one to add to her notebook. She used our paint daubers for a pointillism effect.

I blindfolded J and asked her to walk around the house. Then, I had her put her clothes away without the aid of her eyesight. This task took longer than normal because she had to rely on her sense of touch to sort her clothes. I believe she was glad when she could take off her blindfold!

Pa accidentally shot a swam with an eight foot wingspan. We measured it out just to see how long that really was! Wow, eight feet! They couldn't eat it so they used the feathers for a bed. Hope you have an awesome weekend! See you soon.

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Jedi Reading - "AT" Family

Kaleb is currently in kindergarten this year and I had hoped to be teaching him how to read using All About Reading Level 1. He knows all of his letter sounds but when trying to teach him how to sound out words, it just wasn't clicking. So I decided to wait. But I didn't want him to lose the letter sounds and I still wanted to work on trying to read. I came up with Jedi Reading - a reading program complete with Kaleb's love of Star Wars but just working on word families. I thought by having Kaleb learn word families that it would enable him to read "chunks" of words when he was ready.

Jedi Reading - here's how it works. I chose a word family for the week and we spend the entire week working on the one word family. I started with the short a word families because I thought they would be the easiest. On Friday, after a week of practice, Kaleb would take his Jedi test and, if he passed, he would receive his light saber for that word family.

The first word family that he worked on was the AT family. I found several activities around the internet for the word family. I created some mini games to go along with our word family study. At the moment, we are only focusing on CVC words, not words that require blends even though they may be part of the word family. I just don't want to confuse Kaleb right now.

Kaleb is working the the AT family - he is using the read it, build it, write it mat that I created in my free printable pack. He chose a card, read it, built it with letter tiles, and then wrote it on his mat.

He then worked on a roll and read page that I found from Curriculum Castle (link below). He would roll a die, read the word with that number, then trace the word with markers.

His favorite activity seems to be stamping with the alphabet stamps. He chooses a card, reads it, then stamps it on a paper. He worked on this all week.

He also worked with the AT family by building the words with the alphabet magnets. We have the magnets that came with All About Reading but I felt like the larger magnets would help him better. We worked with the magnets several different ways - he would read a card then build it, I would ask him to change one letter to build a new word, or I would ask him to build a certain word. After he built the word, he word write it on a larger dry-erase sheet that hangs by my board. These words are left up all week for extra practice.

At the end of the week, he takes his Jedi test. It consists of several different aspects - he will read the easy readers that we have been working on all week, he will build the words using the magnets or letter blocks, he will write the words on paper - all from memory. No word cards to help him. He did great with his first word family. I am so proud of him!

He earned his first light saber on his reading wall. After the completion of his Jedi test, he added the word cards to his new word wall.

His new light saber for his AT word family. He worked hard and we are now on to the AN family. If you would like to download the AT word family pages that I created, the link is below. Have an awesome day.

Download Jedi Reading AT Family pages HERE.

Links

Curriculum Castle - has the free AT family pages that we used in this lesson.