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.

Introducing Itty Bitty Bookworm

This was our first week using some "school" ideas from Itty Bitty Bookworm. I have been getting lots of great school ideas from reading other homeschool blogs so it will be interesting to watch our homeschool adventures grow and change along with us.

We began the week by preparing our calendar for the new month. Wow, this year has gone by FAST!

Hannah practiced our letter Hh song. We sing each letter every day alternating between Caleb and Hannah. I choose a letter. They have to point to the correct letter and sing the song. The letters go along with our Bible lesson. Caleb knows his letters so this is mostly for Hannah and really seems to be helping her learn.

Our Bible lesson this week was David and Goliath. We read the story from several different story Bibles throughout the week. We watched the Veggie Tales version "Dave and the Giant Pickle." We continue learning Bible verses each week.

Our book focus this week was Gregory, the Terrible Eater. It is about a goat named Gregory who had strange eating habits. Caleb and Hannah called several family members and asked each if they liked to try new foods. We used the "data collected to make a chart. We discovered that most people we surveyed like to try new foods.

We sorted pictures into to categories, goat food and people food.

This was our sensory center. I dumped the shredded paper from our VERY full paper shredder into our small swimming pool. Was it a huge mess? Yes. Did they enjoy it? Yes? Would I do it again? Yes, but would try to stress a little less about the mess.

Goat Grid Game-this game practices one to one correspondence. They roll the dice and cover up the corresponding number of goats until all are covered.

I was surprised by how well Hannah did recognizing the number of dots on the dice without counting.

Feeling Bag- I put items that related to the story (box, small doll shoe, rubber tire, button, car) in the bag and they took turns guessing what item they were feeling.

I picked up an old pair of shoes from a thrift shop (50 cents) for them to shoe paint with. They thought this was GREAT. They even got to help pick out the shoes. We were looking for something with a cool design on the bottom but our paint was too thick for the design to really show up.

Trash Toss- I wrote numbers 1-10 on sheets of paper that had already been used and were no longer needed. I spread the numbers out around the room and they I had to find the number I called out, wad it up, and throw it into the trash can.

We made haystacks for dessert.

And the BIG NEWS of the week...Caleb lost his first tooth! It was about to fall out before he even told me it was loose! He is the only 4 year old we know who has already lost a tooth so he is pretty proud. In fact, I'm not sure any of his 5 year old friends have even lost teeth yet. He's growing up SO fast. Makes me all the more thankful that I can stay home with them and educate them myself. I cherish our time together.