...and then came X, Y, and Z

We have officially made it through the alphabet! It's been a year of lots of pinterest searching, trial and error, late nights of planning and prepping, and a lot of fun learning time with my kiddos. I won't lie not everyday was a smooth home school preschool day.  My kids are 3, 2, and 1. And, they all have their 3, 2, and 1 year old moments. Oh and I have my mommy moments too! But, I would do it all over again and will next year! It has been rewarding to have the opportunity to experience all those "ah ha" moments and to be able to learn right along with my kids. 

 We are looking forward to a more laid back summer! 

Our letter X activities were deleted from the camera because I thought I had put them on the computer...I guess I didn't..oops! 

Here is Y and Z!

Y day was yellow day! After finding all our yellow clothes, the kids went on a yellow hunt. Here they are laying out all the yellow things they found. 

We made yarn bowls. This activity idea came from the blog   Find Joy in the Journey. This activity was easy and only requires a bowl, plastic wrap, yarn, glue, and your willingness to get sticky!

Once the bowl was dry, Ava was excited to fill it. She has since gifted it to Daddy  for his paperclips at school!  Dominic wasn't willing to send his off so we have a paperclip bowl for home too!

While Ava and I worked on a number puzzle, Dominic practiced cutting yellow paper. 

Look Mommy I did it!  Our long puzzle goes up to 25!

Since the weather has been so nice, we did handwriting practice in the driveway! 

We finished our Y theme with a Y mini book.

Z

Practicing writing the letter Z

Ava and Dominic made a zebra craft. The template came from  DLKs Craft for Kids . We talked about the patterns that can be found on a zebras skin. 

And, of course we needed to take a trip to the zoo! Here Ava and her friend are enjoying the Manatees. 

The kids were excited to touch real furs.

While at the zoo, we of course needed to seek out the real zebras! 

Thanks to all those who have followed our journey of home school this year! 

If you are a follower and haven't joined the site please do! And if you are a blogger too, let me know! I am always looking for activities and inspiration! So much of our preschool curriculum has been inspired by the wonderful blogs I have found!

W is for Worms!

We took a couple weeks off of our official school time. I guess you could call it our spring break! The break was much needed, but I was excited to get back to our more structured learning time. W is the letter we have been waiting to get to! Worms are a big deal at this house. Ava literally has spent hours looking for bugs and worms in the backyard. Dominic is often right beside her. We are excited the weather is warming up and soon backyard bug and worm hunting will resume! Except this year, Ava and Dominic will know a little extra about the worms they find. 

In addition to lots of fun books and practicing writing the letter W, take a look at what we did during worm week. 

Books we read: 

Diary of a Worm By: Doreen Cronin 

Marty McGuire Digs Worms By: Kate Messner and Brian Floca (This is a chapter book and such a great read-aloud if you are doing worm composting with kids.)

The Worm Family By: Tony Johnston 

Worm By: Jill Bailey

Wiggling Worms at Work By: Wendy Pfeffer

y

The sensory activity for the week was "dirt playdough". I used the regular cooked homemade play dough recipe, but I used brown tempera paint to color it and added coffee to give it more of a dirt look. The idea came from a blog, but I can't find exactly which one I found it on! I will come back and add it if I can locate it! I picked up artificial flowers and plastic pots at the Dollar Store. I cut up brown pipe cleaners to act as worms. The kids really got into planting and making homes for their worms.  

Our worm composting bin has been a lot of fun. I won't lie, the first night some tried to escape.  Worms don't bother me, but worms on my basement floor kind of grossed me out! We got in under control now. The worms are all settled in their new environment. Ava is good at reminding me we have to check on them, feed them, and make sure to give them water. We are already starting to see worm castings (just a fancy word for poop). In the gardening world, worm castings are known as black gold because it is so good for the soil. We are excited for the day we can add some to our garden! It will take a few months to reach that point. 

Ava was excited to pull out some of the worms to observe. We talked about how they move, what they feel like, and located different parts of their body. When I was taking this picture, Ava told me she was observing the worm and looking for its bristles. It is always fun to hear her use the vocabulary we read about and talk about! 

Along with observing the worms, Ava had to draw a picture of what she saw. She dictated her observations to me and I  recorded her thoughts under her picture. She said, " I saw the rings. I observed the worms squirming really fast. They were really lively. They are really cute." 

I love when the Dollar Store pulls through with materials that make planning easy! This week, I  found apple and worm cutouts. Since we have been talking about worms and composting, this was perfect for a math activity I had in mind! I numbered each worm 10-20. On each apple I put dots representing the numbers 10-20. Ava had to count the dots on each apple and find the matching worm. 

Here is a simple art activity that we did. Ava had to cut and assemble the apple. We put a worm going through the apple. 

This week I was able to get some great use out of activity bags my friend and I made last year. This activity was a measuring activity. Ava was given pictures of various lengths. She was also given different materials to measure with (pipe cleaners, string of beads, ribbon, etc...) We pretended that the materials were worms and she had to match the worms up to a picture that had the same length.

It is difficult to study worms and not read one of my favorite books, Diary of a Worm . In the story the worm makes a macaroni necklace in art class. Dominic used colored pasta to create a macaroni necklace of his own.  Ava did the same activity, except she was given different patterns that she needed to recreate using the pasta. She worked on AB, ABC, and AAB patterns. 

We read the book Diary of a Worm two times. The first time we read it for fun. The second time we stopped after each page looking for things in the story that were fact and things in the story that were fiction. We wrote down our findings on fact and fiction posters. Here they are....currently the posters make up part of our living room decor. All part of home schooling I guess! 

Of course we needed to make some dirt pudding! Since we have a dairy allergy in the family we had to make pudding from scratch. I was excited to find out that it really isn't any harder than the boxed mix and its healthier too! 

I even found the all natural version of  oreos! Dominic loved crushing the cookies. 

The end result was yummy! We added some gummy worms on top for fun! 

This writing activity was super easy to create and Ava really enjoyed it.  All you need for this activity are card stock sentence strips and Bend a Roos! (Or Wiki Sticks) I made cards with every letter in the alphabet, numbers 0-9, and created some word cards too. I of course made a card that said worm, but I also made cards for all the people in our family. I cut the Bend a Roos at different lengths. Ava had to trace the words using the Bend a Roos. I let her pick the words and letters she wanted to work on. This activity is great for seeing how letters form words, practicing to write letters, and letter recognition. 

She was really proud every time she finished a word. 

The Worms Have Arrived!

There was much excitement today as we were about to head out to bring Ava to church school. Our much anticipated worms arrived! 

Checking out the package that was just delivered in the mail! 

Ava in her glory! A bag of 500 worms and she didn't even have to spend hours digging in the dirt to get them! ( I think she likes digging in the dirt too!)

Now that our worms had arrived we had no choice but to get our worm composting bin ready to go. After all, our new worms needed to eat! First step was to collect some dry leaves and a few cups of soil. 

Shredding paper for the bedding kept Ava and Dominic busy during that hard to fill hour before dinner! I had them use scissors so they could get some cutting practice in at the same time! 

Everybody joined in when it was time to assemble the bin. First we had to put the shredded paper. 

Next we had to add the leaves and dirt. 

The final step before adding the worms was to spray the bedding to make it moist. 

The kids were most excited about getting their hands on the worms. They were quite lively things despite there long journey to get to us! 

While we observed the worms, we looked for the worms' saddle (or ring as we call it) and tried to find the head and tail. 

Into the bin go our 500 worms.

It was fun to watch them in their new home. Their first meal was a banana peel and orange peel the kids made sure to save from their lunches. 

Now that our worms are here, we are ready for our W is for worm week! Next week I will be taking a break from blogging, but will be back after Easter with our W is for worm activities. Wishing everyone a very happy Easter! 

V is for Volcanoes (and a lesson on St. Patrick too!)

Letter V week brought us some fun with volcanoes. It was a pretty low key week.  We spent two days on volcanoes and an hour or so today talking about St. Patrick's Day. With only W,X,Y, and Z left to cover in the alphabet we are starting to wind down for the year. But, since its only March, we are not in any big rush. We are anxiously awaiting the arrival of our composting worms to go along with W is for worms week. Since they have not come in yet, we will have a review week next week and then spend the week before Easter exploring the Easter Story and having some Easter themed fun! 
Here are a few pictures from our week! 

Books:
Volcanoes By: Franklyn M. Branley
Volcanoes By: Seymour Simon
Patrick Patron Saint of Ireland By: Tomie dePola
St. Patrick's Day By: Brenda Haugen

The sensory table is usually the hit activity of the week and this week was no different. Over the course of the week Ava and Dominic have literately spent hours at this table. If they are really into something, I hate to stop them just to start a new activity. We didn't get everything accomplished I had planned this week. But, I'm okay with that! I made a batch of gooey gak (as we like to call it) and dyed it red to represent the hot lava of a volcano. I cut the bottom of two plastic cups and covered them with tinfoil to make volcanoes. I also added some plastic dinosaurs. Oh, and the kids love cutting the gak, so I added some scissors too.  

The recipe that I use for the gooey gak is one part glue to one part liquid starch. Keep it in an airtight container. I highly recommend wearing a smock or old shirt. It does stick

 

The kids were quite fascinated by the idea of erupting volcanoes. We tried out the classic volcano experiment with baking soda and vinegar. The kids built their volcano out of home made play dough that I made back in October and was ready to be cycled out anyway. I gave them small cups of baking soda and vinegar to add to the craters in their volcano. They took adding the ingredients very seriously.

Here they are adding the vinegar. 

Ava's face says it all. They thought the reaction created by the vinegar and the baking soda was cool. They wanted to keep trying. They experimented using different amounts of baking soda and vinegar to see if they could create more of an eruption. 

Here Ava is working on her weekly handwriting sheet. 

 I searched a long time for some volcano project ideas and finally found this idea on the blog Some of This and Some of That. I liked this idea because it was simple and provided the opportunity to work on cutting skills. I also liked that the erupting lava was the letter V.

Ava created a mini letter V book from First School.  

So, this was way off the Volcano topic. With St. Patrick's Day coming up, I wanted to incorporate the topic into the week..We read a couple books about St. Patrick's life and created a shamrock shaker. Since it has been said that St. Patrick taught the people of Ireland about the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit being one using a clover, Ava labeled her clover. I am finding that the more opportunity for her to do her own writing, the more letters she is able to write without assistance or having to see me write it first. It is fun to watch things click! 

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Learning About the Letter U and Under the Sea

We are still having fun talking about our recent trip to the Newport Aquarium. Introducing the letter U using the under the sea theme was a perfect extension to our fun day visiting the sharks and other great under the sea creatures! 

Books: What Do You See Under the Sea? By Bobbie Kalman 

It Could Still Be Coral By: Allan Fowler

Under the Sea By: Dr. Frank H Talbot

I Spy Under the Sea By: Edward Gibbs

Shells! Shells! Shells! By: Nancy Wallace 

Let's Look at Opposites By: Nicola Tuxworth 

 

To start off the week,we answered the question,"What lives under the sea?" Both Ava and Dominic had some great ideas and had fun remembering what we had seen at the aquarium.

This week we practiced using directional words such as near, beside, between, under, over, behind, etc..  I gave the kids sea creatures. They had to listen to the directional words and put them in the correct arrangement. We also spent some time reviewing opposites such as under/over, near/ far, sink/float, etc... 

The kids had fun creating their own under the sea habitats. They started by  finger painting to create the water. I showed them how to use their fingers to make waves in the paint.   

I printed out sea animal clipart. Ava colored and cut her own. She used beans for the sand/rocks and  Easter grass for the seaweed. 

Our sensory table this week was an ocean theme. I added plastic sea animals and gems (we pretended they were rocks and coral reef) to some water. This activity was a hit. It practically looked like the kids had gone swimming once they finished playing in it each day. I am glad the table is in the basement, because we would have had some really wet floors!  Even Lilly joined in the sensory activity for the first time and loved it! 

One of the math activities this week involved Ava counting bubbles and matching each numbered fish to the correct amount of bubbles. We worked on counting and recognizing numbers 1-20. 

Ava went deep sea fishing for rhymes. She had to fish for a picture, say its name, and find a picture on her rhyming mat that it rhymed with. 

We spent some time talking about the concept of sink and float. Before testing if the objects would sink or float, we made predictions about the outcome of each object. 

We tested our predictions.Our foam letter U floated just like we thought! But, we were surprised that our mega block sank to the bottom. 

This fun shark project idea came from the blog Almost Unschoolers. Dominic is making his scary shark face!  

Ava decided to make her shark differently and said her shark was nice. I liked how she made it her own creation! 

Ava practicing writing the letter U

Our language arts project for the week was scrapbooking our pictures from our visit to the aquarium. It's not completed yet, but coming a long and the kids are having fun with it. Ava has been working hard to label the pictures and decorate the pages. Dominic has been enjoying decorating the pages too! 

I found this free sea animal measuring activity at Peterson's Pad. Using foam cubes (found at the Dollar Tree), Ava had to determine the length of each sea animal. She then recorded her findings.  She took this activity very seriously and kept saying, "this is fun"! I have been wanting to do more with measuring with her. This activity was a good introduction.

We'll be moving onto the letter V next week. Plans are still in progress, but I do know the week will include building our own volcano!