Diaries of the Teacher Mom: November 2009

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

Thanksgiving: My First Thanksgiving

We had a nice week, still figuring out this whole "home schooling" thing. We did A LOT of fun things this week and spent a good amount of time training Sir Thomas. Wow, is it difficult to teach and have a little one under foot! However, I really tried to turn those training moments into positives and with each day those moments became fewer and far between! Thank goodness for small miracles!!

This week we read My First Thanksgiving by Tomie dePaola
An easy read for both the boys, yet enough information to expand on for Charlie and simple enough for Tom.

We colored pictures of turkeys

We made our annual Indian Corn. This year Tommy was artistically inspired and painted more then the corn :)

And big brother followed suite.

For Tommy time, we worked on grouping our counting frogs (that I purchased at the Dollar Store) together to practice our colors and counting

We made our Thanksgiving Fact Book, put up our Tepee

dressed up as Cowboys and rode our horse(swiffer) around the house.

The boys used our new dry erase board.

Tommy practiced drawing circles and line, Charlie wanted to write our address and Daddy's cell phone number.

The boys made Native American Headdresses using feathers, construction paper and tape. Our first go with tape and they both did really well!!

So cute!

We also played with a bunch of our favorite learning toys that we checked out from the library's toy loaning program. LOVE the library!! We played ringtoss

Tommy and I worked with the clock on shapes, numbers and putting the puzzle pieces in the correct spot. Charlie and I did the same thing and then used the clock portion to introduce him to telling time. I would call out different times, like what time we go to bed, have lunch etc and he would position the hands in the appropriate position. He did great and really enjoyed this! We might need to get this for Christmas!!

Charlie also did the math puzzle and matched up the numbers with the corresponding picture.

We played a lot of games this week, some of our favorite were Feed the Turkeys. Charlie fed them , and himself some candy corn.

And a Harvest Pattern Game

I would make a pattern and then he would copy it, then he made me one and I did the same. It was fun working together.

Meanwhile, my good little helper was hard at work.....love it!

We also covered our daily work, devotions, calendar, weather, Kumon workbook, Explode the Code workbook and read a lot of books about Thanksgiving!! Charlie also enjoyed doing several lessons on Starfall.com...great resource!
Turkey Poem:
The Turkey is a silly bird
His head goes wobble, wobble
The only word he really knows is,
gobble, gobble

Thanks for the ideas!!
Native American Headdress notimeforflashcards.com
Harvest Pattern Game, Feed the Turkey Game and coloring sheets from makinglearningfun.com

Friday, November 6, 2009

Bear Snores On, getting ready for winter

We had a fun, productive week during our learning time! The boys, and I were more then thrilled to be back on track after our bit with the flu!!

We based our week around the book Bear Snores On

We read the book each day and even watched a video of it on youtube. Within reading a few pages, Charlie was chanting along with me "But the Bear snores on..." This is a great book that illustrates nicely how bear hibernates in the winter and how friends can help each other.

Tommy used the alphabet magnets on the cookie sheet

and played the bear emotion puzzle with S

while Charlie worked on his Bear Facts book.

Some of the bear facts that he included in his book were that bears live in caves/dens, that they eat berries and fish, have thick fur etc. He glued pictures in his book of bears doing these different things.

Having this book was great because we pulled it out through the week and and used it as a visual aid to remind us of what we had learned about bears. We also glued in our helping loving hands bear wheel that had different pictures of kids doing things like helping put away their clothes, wash the table, hugging each other, reading books together etc. This was to go with the theme of how the animals in Bear Snores On, helped one another and shared their snacks together.

We did our basic work, Kumon

and Code books for some math and phonics work. Even little brother wants to do "school"

I even tried to have their lunch be something fun and "beary", so made their PBJ sandwich look like a bear (kind of!) cut it with a heart cookie cutter, used PB to glue down the popcorn eyes and M&M nose...it was a BIG hit
!

For our science portion of the week we continued to work on our body from our Amazing Me book. We learned about skin and colored some "skin" on our body. Charlie also added his hair since we had forgotten to do that the last time.

We also did a touch and feel bag. I put several items that were different textures in the bag and Charlie had

to close his eyes and use his "skin" to

feel the items and try and identify them.

In preparation for the cold weather, we made a treat for our outdoor friends by placing our Halloween pumpkin filled with Indian corn and stale bread out on patio table.

We also made several bear "dens" during the week. The boys had a lot of fun getting all their stuffed animals or friends of Bear, like in the book, and placing them in the den too. We also ate popcorn and hot chocolate like Bear and his friends did.

Charie in his bear den, looking at his Bear Fact book and eating an orange in preparation for his long sleep, hibernation. He did this all on his own, so cute

Tommy and Charlie making a bear den for their stuffed bear. I placed plastic food around the house and they walked like a bear to gather it and brought it to the den.