Cobweb Christmas December 13-19

I was sick this week so we didn't really accomplish much school. I also didn't care as much for this weeks book selection so I didn't have much motivation to get to it. We did manage to get in a few activities though.

The kids got some fun crafty Christmas gifts from our sweet neighbors this week. Hannah got sock puppets to make and caleb got bobble head monkeys. They had a great time making these!

They made Spider counting books to go along with The Cobweb Christmas book. They put one number on each page and used paint dots to create the coordinating amount of spiders. Hannah made a few extra spiders on each page, but overall they did great with this activity.

Hannah sorted spider pictures by color, size, and pattern. Sorting is a popular activity suggested for this age group, but both of my kids have mastered this so wemay begin skipping this activity for the most part.

We also took our monthly field trip to Reed Creek Park where we learned about seeds and enjoyed a special craft day at library story time. The week ended with some fun play time at a Sunday School Christmas party.

Olive, The Other Reindeer Dec 6-12

The kids loved our book selection this week, Olive, the Other Reindeer. Of course we did lots of reindeer crafts! This week we also attended a great puppet show at the library on Monday evening, attended our regular storytime at the library on Wednesday morning, and enjoyed our annual visit to the Hayride thru the Life of Christ.

The kids made reindeer out of red plastic cups.

I recently taught the kids how to play Uno. It is great color, number, and matching practice. When we finish Hannah likes to sort the cards by color. She loves sorting and matching anything these days!

I read a fun Rudolf poem. Throughout the poem Rudolf kept mixing up what color his nose was. The kids had to find the pom pom that matched the color of Rudolf's nose in each part of the poem.

Rudolf puppets with hand print antlers.

We began something new this week that I call Musical Monday. On Mondays I will play some music, get out the instruments, and let the kids just have a good time singing, dancing, and playing with the instruments. Week one was a success!

Hannah has been enjoying "reading" to me. She picks a book and makes up the story based on the pictures. I don't know where she got that accent from!? :)

The Doorbell Rang

I am just loving the book selections from Itty Bitty Bookworm. This week we read The Doorbell Rang and talked about sharing cookies and did lots of fun math.

This activity didn't relate to our story, but here Hannah is sorting Christmas erasers.

We acted out the story during snack time. We started out with two kids and 12 cookies.

We eventually had 12 kids (okay 10 of them were imaginary). Caleb and Hannah each started with 6 of the twelve cookies, but each time the doorbell rang they had a new friend to share their cookies with.

They each got to cover a golf ball in paint, Hannah chose purple, Caleb used pink. I put a piece of paper inside an empty large metal can. They added their painted balls to the can. We secured the lid and rolled the can back and forth. When they opened the can they found their finished painting. See video at the bottom of this post.

They cut out circles for cookies then decorated them with glitter paint. The next day we used these to shop at the pretend bakery.

I love Hannah's intensity here!

They painted stars white then added glitter (we still have gold glitter all over the tables).

This is Caleb's usual attempt at blocking me from taking his picture.

Videos of the week... Hannah singing our Old St. Nicholas song, the tin can paint project, a raking leaves with Daddy.

One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims

This week we read One Little, Two Little, Three Little Pilgrims as well as a few other Thanksgiving books, but we didn't really do a lot of school time beyond that. We did make it to our weekly storytime at the library and then just had a fun family week.

Caleb and Hannah got to crush the Oreos for our Thanksgiving dessert.

Thanksgiving Day after eating a wonderful dinner, we went to Euchee Creek Trails and let the kids ride their bikes. We have been walking there before, but have never taken the bikes. They had a blast and tested Mom's nerves! Caleb LOVED pedaling as fast as he could down hill. Sometimes we lost visual of him, but we could still here him screaming, "Whoo, Hoo!" I was surprised by how fast Hannah was willing to go right behind him. The real agenda behind this trip was to keep Ron from taking an after dinner nap and to make the kids good and tired for bed. Well, we kept Dad up, but the kids still hung in there and fought going to sleep on time. Oh, the hours they manage when Granny is around!

Ron's mom joined us for Thanksgiving. Always a treat for us all.

A sweet picture of my munchkins. This is Caleb's pose with Hannah in every picture I take of them lately.

Hannah is in love with the camera. She wants me to video everything! I am thankful though to have moments like these recorded.

There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie

We are having so much fun with life and activities lately. Itty Bitty Bookworm is giving us some great ideas for learning and exploring. We are preparing to gradually get back to more academics, but we will continue to spend the majority of our day with the fun stuff! This week we read There Was an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Pie. We also read other variations of the book such as "...swallowed a fly" and "...who swallowed a bat". The kids LOVED these books! As always we continued reading Bible stories and learning our Bible verses. This week we read Daniel in the Lions Den.

I attend a Tuesday morning Bible study at our church and the kids love going to play with their friends while I am in class. This was our last meeting for the year so the kids had a pajama party with snacks and a movie.

Hannah made a Thank You card for Ms. Shaunda

Caleb made a card for Ms. Tammy.

Our plan was to take homemade soft pretzels for snack. Here is Hannah preparing the dough.

Still kneading...

Hmm, thought I loaded a picture of Caleb with the dough too, I had lots, guess I missed it somehow. Anyway here is the finished product. They were okay, but just tasted like dinner rolls so we decided on a different snack. It was fun anyway.

The next day we made Baker's Clay and used cookie cutters to make fun shapes.

Hannah made dogs, stars, and little girls.

Hannah painting hers after they were baked.

Caleb made Bob and Larry, bats, and cats.

I love how he painted Bob and Larry! This activity kept them happily engaged for a LONG time!

This was our Preschool Nature Walk week at Reed Creek Park and we were all excited that Daddy got to go with us! This month we learned about turkeys. We sang lots of turkey songs, went on a hunt for little pieces of paper with pictures of food that turkeys eat,

Letter recognition fun- if it is a "T" act like a turkey. If it is not "T" squat down.

Hunting for REAL turkey food

Using our five senses to explore feathers

Number hunt

Turkey Craft

On Friday night we had a Thanksgiving party with our Homeschool Care Group. We enjoyed being with other homeschoolers, played musical chairs,

Bingo

More Bingo

Turkey Shoot

Our final activity for the week was another turkey craft. I gave them each a plate with blue, yellow, and red paint. We talked about what might happen if we mixed it all together.

And then of course we mixed it and it turned BROWN!

I painted their hands and let them make turkey prints.

Caleb's

Hannah's

To Market, To Market

We had another fun week with the Itty Bitty Bookworm curriculum. This week we read To Market, To Market. Sunday night after the kids went to sleep I rearranged a few things to create a grocery store for them. I emptied a bookshelf from our office/schoolroom and moved it into the kitchen. I stocked it with empty boxes and containers that I had been saving for projects such as this. I set out their shopping cart, a reusable shopping bag, their cash register, some change, and a few coupons. They were thrilled to find this Monday morning. We played with it all week and although I would like to get the shelf put back where it belongs, I have allowed the "grocery store" to stay for a little bit longer. I really got a kick out of listening to them play. Caleb would come up to me while we were shopping and say, "Hey, don't I know you? It's good to see you again." He would do the same with Hannah and add a dramatic "it's been such a long time" hug. I wanted to laugh so hard, but Caleb really gets mad if you laugh at him. It was just extra funny because he isn't really the creative/drama type.

We worked on rhyming words from our story of the week.

I gave each of them a grocery store circular and asked them to cut out five foods that they like. Caleb chose ice cream, candy bars, potato chips, grapes, and lettuce.

Hannah chose cupcakes, ice cream, crackers, chicken, and orange juice.

Caleb found this online version of his FAVORITE game (Candyland).

Our sensory experience this week was a bucket of corn kernels. They enjoyed stirring them up, serving them on plates and in cups. Here Hannah is putting her small animals in the corn.

It was a cool, rainy, windy week so we were inside most of the week which lead to dress up time....

And lots of games like Lucky Duck,

No More Monkeys Jumping on the Bed,

Checkers,

and BINGO, just to name A FEW!

We also spent a very fun day at Chuck E Cheese's but I purposely didn't take my camera because I wanted to just focus on spending a fun day with them.

These videos could have been saved for next week since they are from Sunday night, but I couldn't wait to share them. Caleb's Sonshine choir sang Christmas songs for the service Sunday night. It was Caleb's first time performing on stage. He went back and forth all day about doing it or not, but did great. He wasn't happy about me using the camera at first though. He kept holding up his hand to try to keep me from seeing him. And in case you are wondering, he was very compliant about the 4 piece outfit. He did ask to take the tie off after he sang but I couldn't complain about that!

And finally, here is a video of Caleb reading Book 3. This one has been a little more difficult thanks to some sight words, but he is doing well. Hannah loves this part of the week and REALLY wants to get to read too.