Preschool Week 4

Preschool Week 4

Age 3

We have been doing school activities the last 2 weeks.  I just haven't had time to post.  Here are some activities we have worked on.

Bible Acitivity- Noah and the Ark

We read the story from one of Little Sweets Noah board books.  It has flaps she can flip up. One page has color words which is great because that is what we are working on for reading.

Literacy- Color Words

Little Sweets is working on reading color words.

Math- Ordinal Numbers

Little Sweets showed which animals were first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and sixth. 

Fine Motor, Art, and Literacy

Little Sweets read the color word on the rainbow and painted the line that color.  She used her color words sheet to help her with the colors she didn't know.

Math-  Number Recognition and Counting

Little Sweets named the number and put the corresponding number of popsicle sticks in each toilet paper roll. 

Science, Art, Literacy

I thought it would be fun to do a color mixing activity.  Little Sweets is learning to read color words.  Right now I am giving her help by writing the word in the corresponding color. (We just started working on the words).  Little Sweets read the word and made hypothesis about what the new color will be.  She picked purple. 

I mixed blue and green food coloring with baking soda.  Little Sweets helped me squirt some vinegar into the jar.

The reaction was very cool and we made a new color, green.  Little Sweets doesn't look to enthusastic in this picture, but she did have fun with this activity.

Dramatic Play, Literacy, Math, Fine Motor

Little Sweets and I played store.  She made the sign for store. I told her the letters to write.  She hasn't worked on s yet so I wrote that letter.  The rest she wrote.  She also took scissors and snipped the edge of the paper.  She is getting real good at this. 

Her Princesses bought different dresses at the store.  She told me how much they were and counted out that many pennies.

We took turns working at the cash register.

This post is linked to Tot School

Preschool Week 3

Preschool Week 3

38 Months Old

Math- Coin Identification and Counting

Little Sweets loves playing with coins.  I decided to make a game to help her identify coins.  She's been working on coin identification for a while so this was review.  She really enjoyed this game.  We used a generic game board I made on the computer.  Little Sweets picked out one of her disney princesses to use as a game piece.  She pulled out a coin from her bucket if she could identify the coin she got to roll the dice and move that many spaces on the board.  I played the game with her and we each took a turns.   

Literacy-Fishing for Sight Words

Little Sweets loves using her fishing rod that she got with one of her puzzles.  I thought it would be fun to use it in game.  I printed out pictures of fish on the computer.  Then I laminated them, cut them out, and wrote sight words on them using a washable marker.  (This way I can reuse the cards with different words.)  Then I placed a paper clip on each fish.  Little Sweets used her pole with a magnet on the end to going fishing.  After she caught  a fish if she could read the word she got to keep the fish. 

Fine Motor- Lacing Cards

I picked up a bunch of lacing cards at a garage sale.  Little Sweets had fun doing this activity. 

Literacy -  "AT" Family Picture Card Word Matching

I got this activity from The Moffatt Girls ready to read program.  Little Sweets matched the words to the picture. 

Math- Sequencing Smallest to Largest

Bible Activity-  Adam and Eve

We read the story of Adam in Eve in Little Sweets Bible My First Hands on Bible. We did the activities in the bible.  Then we reenacted the story using Ken, Rapunzal, a pipe cleaner and a tree made out of a wooden spoon, play dough, and cherries from hi-ho cherry-o.

Math- Counting and Number Identification

Little Sweets loved putting the cherries on the play dough tree so I thougt it would be fun to turn it into a math activity.  Little Sweets counted the cherries she put on and took off the tree and matched it with the correct number written on a popsicle stick. 

Fine Motor and Literacy

We are working on reading color words.  Little sweets read the word then colored the shape with the corresponding color.

Math -Number Recognition

I wrote numbers on a game board that I made for Little Sweets.  She read the number she landed on.

Fine Motor- Cutting

 Little Sweets worked on cutting the strips of paper. 

Math and Fine Motor

Little Sweets picked a card with a number on it and put that many pom poms into an ice cube tray using chopsticks.

Math- Number Recognition and Counting

Little Sweets counted the objects on the back of a flash card and flipped it over to check the number.  We are working on recognizing numbers 11-20

This post is linked to Tot School and Preschool Corner at Homeschool Creations.

Appropriate Learning Time for Preschoolers

Appropriate Learning Time For Preschoolers

I have been asked by several of my friends who are homeschooling what I think is an "appropriate learning time."  I have been pondering this question and I think it is different for every child.  Each child has a different attention span and different interests.  I think the most important thing is to help children develop a love for learning.  Be careful not to exasperate your children and don't get caught up in comparing your child to others.  All children are different and excel in different things.  My advice is to make learning fun and engaging, especially when you are working with young children.  If your child looks bored or disinterested then stop what your doing. You may want to come back to the activity at another time or scrap it all together and try a different approach to teaching the concept .  Remember to evaluate your motives.  Are you teaching them this because little Sussie down the street has mastered this task, or are you doing this because is developmentally appropriate for your child at that time? (Always remember what may be appropriate for one child may not be for another child.)   Think about the activities you are doing and try to be creative and do activities that revolve around the interests of your child.  The best part of homeschooling your children is that you know your child best and can develop lessons and activities that will match their interests and attention level. 

Preschool Week 2

Preschool Week 2

38 months

Word Wall Fun

I decided to make a word wall for all of our fun sight words.  Little Sweets loves to get out her magic wand and point to the words and read them.  Often times she will do this on her own with no prompting.  She also likes to dress up like a princess pretend she's princess presto with the power to spell, thanks to Super Why!  Super Why is an awesome educational show on PBS kids.

Math and Fine Motor

I placed pom pom balls in an ice cube tray and Little Sweets told me the pattern. Then she extended the pattern by picking up the correct color pom pom with the tongs and placing it in the ice cube tray. 

Math

I bought a bunch of alphabet and number stickers in the clearance isle at Walmart.  I placed the stickers on legos and Little Sweets put the numbers in order 1-10.

Math and Fine Motor

I hot glued beads to a pipe cleaner.  Little Sweets told me the pattern and then made the same pattern on another pipe cleaner.

Language Arts and Fine Motor

I recently started working on writing letters with Little Sweets.  We tried this a while back, but she didn't show much interest in it so I stopped.  Lately, she's been asking me how to write letters so I thought this would be good time to start again.  She started with her Kumon letter workbook then I wrote letters with a highlighter and she traced them.  

Alphabet Book

Little Sweets is working on an alphabet book to go along with writing letters.  She writes the letter she learned to write that day and then thinks of picture that goes with the letter.  She draws the picture to go with the letter.  We have been doing a little invented spelling along with this activity too. 

Math, Language Arts, Fine Motor

Little Sweets was very excited when daddy brought home a box of fruit loops.  I thought it would be fun to do some educational activities with the fruit loops.   

First I brought out the color word cards. I am just introducing the color words so I used the ones I made with colored construction paper.  Little Sweets read the color word and sorted the fruit loops by color.

Then we graphed the number of fruit loops by color.  We talked about most, least, and the same.

I got a piece of spaghetti stuck it in some playdough and we made patterns with the fruit loops.  I think this was Little Sweets favorite thing to do.

Little Sweets also colored her sight words.  I got these sight words from The Moffatt Girls free reading program.  You can get it here. 

This blog is linked to Preschool Corner.  For more great preschool ideas please go here.

Review of the book " My First Hands on Bible"

I recently received the book My First Hands on Bible  in the mail courtesy of Tydale House Publishers.  This Bible was written for children age’s three to six and uses hands on activities to engage young readers and to help them better understand the text.  The Bible uses actual scripture from the New Living Translation to tell Bible stories.  Throughout the story there are hands on activities that the child can engage in to make the story more relevant and understandable.  At the end of the story there are additional activities that the child can do with the parent.  There is also a prayer and special Jesus connection feature.

My daughter is three years old and loves her new Bible.  She is excited to read the story and do the activities with mommy and daddy.  This is a great way to teach young children about scripture.  The activities are engaging and make the story more understandable and relevant for the young child. I highly recommend this Bible to anyone who has a child that is preschool age.

Disclosure of Material Connection:  I recieved this book free from Tydale House Publishers book review bloggers program.  I was not required to write a positive review.  The opinions I have expressed are my own.  For more information about this program go here.

Does Breast Feeding Doll Go Too Far?

I don't usually blog about this topic, but this news report really got me fired up.  You can watch the video here.  The controversy is if it is inappropriate to give a little girl a  doll that breastfeeds.  To be honest I think this is the most ridiculous controversy ever.  First of all you don't have to label a doll as a breastfeeding doll for a child to mimic breastfeeding.  My daughter is 3 years old and while I was nursing her sister she went and got one of her dolls and started nursing the baby doll.  Why wouldn't she do this when this is the only way she sees me feeding her sister.  We don't use bottles so why would she want to feed her baby a bottle.  Children model and mimic what they see. I think it is fine for a little girl to pretend she is a mommy and feed her baby the way her mommy feeds her baby.  Unfortunately, our society has put a stigma around breastfeeding.  It is a natural, wonderful thing and is the most healthy way to feed a baby. Why shouldn't we be teaching our daughters the importance of breastfeeding at such a young age?   What are your thoughts?

Women of Faith Conference

This year the women of faith conference will be visiting 28 cities around the country.  Thanks to book sneeze I will be attending the conference in Charlotte, NC.  I am very excited and can't wait to hear all the speakers and to be a part of something so awesome.  The speakers for the event in Charlotte will be Sheila Walsh, Luci Swindoll, Lisa Harper, and Ken Davis.  The musical guests will Mary, Mary and Natalie Grant.   Nicole Johnson will be leading drama and there will be special guests Henry Cloud and Karen Kingsbury.   Tickets are still available.  The event pricing is $89 per person for groups of 10 or more and $99 per person for individuals and groups of 2-9.  For more information about the Women of Faith event in Charlotte, NC and other Women of Faith events around the country please go here.

Preschool Week 1

Preschool Week 1

36 months

Bible Activity-Creation

I am getting some of my ideas for our Bible Activity from this website.  This week we did creation.  We read from Little Sweets Bible; The Beginners Bible.  Then I retold the story through picture cards   Little Sweets used her wand to point to the card I was describing. 

Language Arts

We have been working on  a few sight words over the summer.  This week we added "see" to our list.  Here is the list Little Sweets has been working on. 

Sight Words- A, at, go, I, is, it, see, the

Sight Word Activities

Paint and Reveal

  I used a white crayon to write sight words on paper.  Little Sweets took water colored paints and painted over the page and words appeared on the page.  She read the words as they appeared.  I got this idea from this blog.

Stamping Sight Words into Play Dough

Little Sweets used her letter stamps to make words in her play dough.  She also used number and picture stamps. 

Reading Sight Word Book

I have printed out several books that use the sight words we have been working on.  Little Sweets loves to read these books.  This week she found all the books I printed out and decided she wanted to read a book that had sight words we hadn't done yet.  She was determined to read the book and did a great. job.   We will be adding those words to our list next week. 

Word Family Activities- "at" Family

Here are some of the activities we have been doing for the "at" family words.

Word Whammer

Little Sweets made words in her word whammer- cat, sat, fat, mat, bat, rat

Self-Checking Word Wheel

I made this word wheel for Little Sweets and she loved it.  She turned the wheel read the word and checked to see if she was correct by lifting up the flap and looking at the picture.  I posted directions on how to make it here.  I was surprised at how quickly she picked up on blending the sounds to make the word. 

Art/Math

Homemade Play Dough

Little Sweets helped me make homemade play dough.  She helped with counting and pouring.  You can get the recipe for homemade kool-aid play dough here.

Math

Counting, Number Recognition, and One-one correspondence

Little Sweets told me the number on the page and counted the dots as she placed them in the squares.  We did this activity for numbers 10 and 11.

Number Recognition

Little Sweets put bottle caps on the number as I called it out.  She can recognize numbers 1-10 so we are working on 10-20.  It was helpful to have the colored squares because I could tell her to find the number 17, it is on a blue square.  This narrowed it down and made the activity much easier for her. 

Fine Motor

Handwriting

Recently Little Sweets has showed an interest in writing letters. She asks me how to make them and shows me when she has made a letter so I thought we work on some handwriting.  Here she is tracing letter cards I made for her.  The cards are laminated so she can reuse them. 

Linked to Preschool Corner