Week 2 of Valentines

It is kind of nice not having a "theme" per se these last 2 weeks. Instead we have been focusing on making Valentines Day crafts and cards for some of our favorite people. This year we are really trying to reinforce giving to others. Whether it is taking food to the food pantry at church, donating used toys and clothes to the Salvation Army, taking dinner to a neighbor in need, or making cards for our family and friends, we want our children to grow up with giving hearts.

The boys made 2 types of hand-print valentines. I added the wording "Happy Valentines Day, Love, Charlie/Tommy". I think they turned out so cute!
We also painted the outside of the boys pinky finger and along the side of their palm to make the heart prints.  They also made their Valentine card box to collect their cards in and prepared their Valentines for the Co-op friends on Monday.

Penny even made a cute butterfly Valentine card.

On Thursday we had a small Valentines Day party with a few of our friends.

For our treats we had confetti cupcakes, brownies and strawberry milk. 

The kids decorated their cupcakes and made a valentine card to take home.  It was a lot of fun!

Besides all our pre-Valentines Day fun, we stuck to our basic lessons as well. Charlie completed lessons in Phonics and Math, practiced his hand-writing by finishing up his Thank You cards from his birthday and we picked up his Explode the Code book.


I had a conference call with Charlie's "teacher" from K12 this week as well.   We went over his test scores from the AIMS web test he did a few weeks back.  Charlie scored average or above average on all subjects.  She was also pleased with the progress that he has made from the beginning of the year and feels that he is right on track in most areas and ahead of the game in some.  She also said that if we continue to complete lessons at the rate we are currently working, then we will be done with his school in late April.  The last day of school is technically June 3rd.  We will most likely continue on as we have been, possibly taking a few days off for the boys to have a "free day" from school and for me to devote to planning their summer curriculum and Tommy's curriculum for next year.

What we were playing with this week:





Linking up this week to:

No Time For Flash Cards
ABC and 123 
Preschool Corner

Preschool: Week of the The Penguin

Tommy's Penguin

  I have done some tweaking on a curriculum for Tommy and have decided to focus on one theme for a few weeks.  We will be doing different activities based on the theme we are learning about.


This week we started our Winter theme of Penguins.   When Penny was hospitalized for RSV, my dear cousin Amy from Montana sent us a copy of Don't Be Afraid, Little Pip by Karma Wilson & Jane Chapman.  Ms. Wilson is a personal friend of my cousins and therefore signed the copy for our little Penny. It was so thoughtful of both of them!


We started off by reading the book which is about a sweet little penguin named Pip who desperately wants to learn to fly but is told repeatedly that she must swim instead.

After reading our book we made penguins out of model magic.  I told the boys what characteristics they needed to make or how to roll the clay etc, but they
did everything else.  Their creations could not be any cuter!!


I had hoped to use the penguins to make snow-globes with, but we all agreed that they were just too cute.  See, I am learning to go with the flow! :)
While I was getting our supplies out I set the boys up with a cute video  from National Geographic about penguins.  They learned how scientist tracked and counted penguins by placing bar code chips in their feet and then having them walk over long pieces of metal that they disguised in the sand.  The penguins were so cute!

Another fun activity was making snow cream.  I got the idea from Susana, who is my wealth of knowledge blog friend!  Trent gathered some snow from the front yard (we had plenty to spare!), I added some milk, vanilla and a little sugar.  The boys added sprinkles and ate away.  Charlie said it was ok but too cold, Tommy accidentally dumped about half a tube of sprinkles on his and thought it was "gwoss" (gross) and Trent said it tasted like watered down ice cream.  I think we will try it again next year when I can taste it and make it better (no dairy for me because of little Miss Penny).  It was fun  though and something we did as a family, can't beat that!

Tommy also did some worksheets from Starfall.com on the number 3 and the letter C.  Our neighbors had also given a ton of odds and ends preschool workbooks.  I have given one to Tommy as his school book to do with us as Charlie finishes up his seat work.  Tom loves it and it makes him feel so big.
 

Hammering his ABC puzzle

Color match game I made him.

The boys also had some fun in the tub with  a full bottle of shaving cream (our fake snow) and a few chunks of colored ice.  I took different plastic containers and filled each of them with water that was different colors. I then just put them outside for a few hours and later that night brought them in when it was bath time.  We let the boys play in the shaving cream with the chunks of ice and they loved it.  Since they were in the bath it didn't matter how messy it got.  In the end the boys had fun, they were clean and I had a squeaky clean bath tub! Win, win for everyone!!

 We made these adorable penguin footprints and a snowman snow-globe out of more model magic.

Linking up to:

Preschool Corner and 5K too

Read.Explore.Learn 

Kids Get Crafty

Weekly  Wrap Up

stART
No Time For Flash Cards
ABC and 123 Learning 

Paper Mache Snowman Faces

Tommy's Snowman Paper Mache face, with carrot nose and coal eyes and mouth

One of the books we read this week was The Biggest, Best Snowman Ever by Margery Cuyler.


A very sweet story with an even sweeter lesson, that you are never too small to accomplish big things!  Nell, the little girl in the story, is told that she is too small to do much of anything.  She sets out into the wintery woods where she meets up with her animals friends an together they build the Biggest, Best Snowman Ever!  Proving that with a little help from her friends, she indeed "big" enough to do BIG things.

To go along with this story and our week long theme of Snow/Winter, we opted to make paper mache snowman faces. 
We started off  by practicing writing our letters in flour, an idea I have seen all over the blog-sphere.  It is great fun for little people and a wonderful exercise for little fingers.

Once the boys were done making a complete mess writing their letters, we started to work on our snowmen faces.  We used water and flour mixed together and then dipped bits of toilet paper into the mixture.  I helped Tommy form some of his pieces because it was difficult for him to do so since it was so sticky.   It was great fun, until I went to clean up! 
We waited about a day for them to dry and then painted them.  Orange for his carrot nose and black for his coal eyes and mouth.  I think these turned out so great and the pictures don't show their depth.  Tommy had so much fun to have complete control over his creation and I think that shows!

Ice Cube Sun-catcher

This was a very cool activity for the children and myself.  It took a few days to complete but the end result was worth it!  Isn't our ice cube sun-catcher pretty?!

 We tied this project into Charlie's science lesson on measuring liquid. It also turned into a spontaneous art class when the boys mixed different colors of food coloring to make the colors that they wanted. We used our fun tropical ice cube tray from Grandma Candace for the ice cubes. We put the tray outside for a few hours to freeze them. Again linking into Charlie's science lesson on temperature. That is one of the cool aspects of homeschooling, that lessons over lap and the younger ones can be learning right along with the older children.

Once the ice cubes had set we filled a cup with water and placed it in the middle of the black flat bowl.  The water in the cup keeps it from moving around when we filled the black bowl with yellow colored water. It also makes a smaller circle in the sun-catcher that we can use to hang the sun-catcher from a tree etc.We placed our sun-catcher outside again (I guess temperatures in the low teens are good for something!) and let it freeze over night.

 

In the morning we brought it in and ran it under the tap for a few seconds to loosen our suncatcher from the mold.  Our ice cubes did not hold their "tropical" cute shapes but melted into small round balls.  Regardless, we all thought it turned out very pretty.

Daddy hung it from the playscape in the backyard and we will continue to enjoy it as long as the weather permits.  This is one of those projects that we will certainly do again and the possibilities are endless!

Linking to:
Something for the Weekend
Kids Get Crafty
Preschool Corner and 5K too
Creative  Connections for Kids

Preschool Theme: Winter/Snow

 This week we focused on all things Winter/ snow for Tommy's school time.

We read a lot of fun books.

We made snowball cookies. Tommy loves to help in the kitchen.  He calls me "Big Chef" and insists that I call him the "Little Chef".  Oh, how I long for him to stay this sweet forever!!

For a fun craft the boys made snowmen out of shapes.

We also made an ice cube sun-catchers. 

We all had fun doing resist snowflake paintings. I used a white crayon and drew snowflakes on a piece of white paper. Then the boys painted with water colors over the paper to "find" the snowflakes. Tommy loved watching the colored water pull away from the wax on the paper. It was a fun project!

Tom also did a few worksheets from Starfall.com focusing on the letter A and the number 2.

We practiced our letters in flour and then made paper mache snowman faces.

Tommy continues to amaze me.  We are just starting to do formal instruction with him with regards to the alphabet and number recognition.   He can write his name and can correctly identify most of the alphabet.  Yesterday at lunch I was reviewing the sounds that all the letters make with Charlie.  Tommy knew every single one of them and answered with lightening speed.  I was shocked but very proud of our sweet boy!

Linking up to:

Preschool Corner and 5K too

Read.Explore.Learn 

Kids Get Crafty

Weekly  Wrap Up

stART
No Time For Flash Cards 
Creative Connections for Kids
 

Stained Glass Nativity Ornament

This was by far our favorite Christmas craft to make and one I will cherish always. It was so simple and yet, I think it captures exactly what we need to focus on at Christmas time.

I had bought some vinyl Nativity scenes last year. I had no idea what I would do with them but I loved them the minute I saw them.

I had the boys take small pieces of tissue paper and lay them down on contact paper to give a stained glass effect. We covered that piece with another piece of contact paper and then laid the vinyl Nativity on top of that. Then I attached some simple ribbon we had in our craft drawers to hang the ornament from the tree or in the window.

I just love them! and the kids really enjoy making the stained glass.

Merry Christmas!

Homeschool: Kindergarten & Preschool weeks 8 & 9 Letter I

We have done a little bit of school the last 2 weeks. We started back to our school lessons a week after Penny was born. I have had Charlie concentrating on the basics, Phonics and Math. I also had Charlie do more independent work on the computer for the Study Island portion of his curriculum. This is a testing portion that K12 offers to help practice different concepts that he is learning. He did really good and I think it is a great exercise for him to do on his own. It really is sharpening his ability to follow directions and computer skills.

I have given Tommy a break from his weekly curriculum but realized today that he needs more structure so I am starting to incorporate more of his work back into our daily routine.

Besides the basics we have tried to do a few fun things as well. We made pumpkin playdough from scratch. The boys really liked doing this and it was super easy to make. We then made turkeys out of the playdough. I think they turned out really cute. With the extra playdough and materials we had we made up 2 packages for our friends Luke and Elizabeth and sent them in the mail. We talked about Thanksgiving and how we are thankful for things and people in our lives. We got the idea from my friend Susana, who did this last year.

We also did our crafty ABC for the week, the letter I. We made Iguanas. Tommy is REALLY into writing the letter "I" lately and even though he knows how to write his name he is much more excited to write "I, I, I" over and over again :) Charlie got creative with his Iguana and added his name and his initials to it. If you look closely at the bottom right corner of his picture you will notice that his Iguana has "pooped"....so typical of my little fella :)

Charlie had a great time making a paper bag city. One of his magazines had a few sheets of store fronts, houses etc that he could cut out and then glue to paper bags and make a city. He loved this project and did it over 2 days.


Tommy had a fun week doing projects around the house, helping me do laundry and washing the dishes.


First 2 weeks back at school went slowly, as to be expected. But we had fun doing our studies and projects and starting to figure out a new routine.

Homeschool: Preschool Letter L

Tommy had a good week of preschool. He is just starting to build with little Legos and loves to make things with Charlie.

He worked on his foam ABC puzzle, hammering in the letters.

This is only the 2nd time that he has done the 1:1 cards and I was really impressed with how well he did this time.

He helped empty the dryer. He LOVES to clean and do laundry :)

Charlie helped him work on a new "to him" puzzle. Team work and helping little brother at its best!

Working on the Letter H glue and cut project. Not one of our best moments of school, but he finished it and moved on to his ABC's as he calls them (Starfall.com) and was a happy camper again.

Tommy asks to do ABC's every.single.day. And he would literally do it for a whole afternoon if I let him, which I don't. I limit it to about 20-30 minutes. But I am really impressed with how quickly he has mastered the basic computer skills on both the laptop and the PC. Here he was matching the shapes and spelling words. He doesn't "know" how to spell the words but is learning the letters and their sounds etc.


Playdough Mat, finishing up letter L

L is for Lion

This is the book that we are using for RRSP. I love this book and how it applies scripture verses to every day scenarios in a manner that little kids can easily grasp.

5 Senses Experiments with Charlie

Touch

Taste...too funny!

T-ball with Daddy....he is going to be a great athlete someday!

Painting his papermache pumpkin

Working together with Charlie to make the color orange

I had him mix red and yellow paint in a ziploc bag to make orange. He really liked doing this, squishing it with his hands and seeing the colors mix.

We also spent a good deal of time outside this week. I am taking full advantage of the mild, yet wet weather we are having, even if it means we do less school. I know that in a few short weeks the weather will change and we will be able to spend less time out for long periods of time. Here Tommy is making "hot cocoa" out of mud and water...yum!

Tommy is really doing great with his school. He is quickly learning to recognize all the letters of the alphabet, can sing the entire ABC song, can count to 20 and we are working number recognition as well. We are focusing primarily on ABCs and numbers right now. Reading lots of books and just having fun. He is so eager to learn and be like his big brother Charlie!