The Letter G: Part 2

If you missed the first part of this unit, you can see what we did over here.

Our G unit consisted of learning about the letter G and the sound it makes, but it was also unit about goats and one of three units on farm animals.

After reading several books about goats to Banana Bear and Princess, I had Banana Bear draw a picture of something she learned about goats.  I also had her write a sentence about her picture.  I love seeing how she spells phonetically! (You can see my translation below her sentence.)

Since our Letter G and goat unit is one of three units about farm animals, the MFW curriculum had us make stick puppets of farm animals.  I thought it would be really fun for Banana Bear to put on a puppet show to Old MacDonald.  She had a blast!  

While learning about goats and farm animals, we practiced the names of baby farm animals.  Banana Bear made a book using a worksheet from MFW.  On each page, she paired the adult with the baby. And (with much drama) she wrote a simple sentence on each page: "A _______ is  a baby ________."

Since we were learning about goats, I thought we would try some goat's milk cheese.  I gave the children some goats milk cheese and a little bit of mozzarella for comparison.  They loved it!  It was a really fun way for them to compare and contract items.

Our unit would not have been complete with out another tactile activity for the girls to partake in!  So we made glitter G's.  I chose to use glitter because glitter starts with G and helps to solidify the sound that G makes, especially for Princess.

On our last day of the unit, we read The Year At Maple Hill Farm by Alice and Martin Provensen.  It was a really great book, and we were able to use it as the starting place for a lot of different topics.  After we read the book, we went through the book for a second time and listed off all of the animals that we saw in the book.  Then we separated the animals into two different groups: farm animals and wild animals.

After discussing the animals, we discussed the different months of the year. Banana Bear had a really fun time when I got down my calendar and we went through the year month by month discussing the holidays.  

After we discussed the holidays and months of the year, Banana Bear painted a picture from the book.  She had the most fun painting.  She loves to paint!

And that concluded our G-g-goat unit.  We had so much fun, and the girls learned so much!

Busy Bag Wednesday: Endless Tissue Box

Ok, so this activity isn't really a bag but it is still a great way to keep little ones occupied!  The other thing that I love about this activity is that it cost me absolutely nothing to make! I got the original idea from here.

To make this activity, you will need an empty tissue box or an empty baby wipes container.  I used an empty wipes container.  If you have one I would suggest using a wipes container, as it is sturdier than a tissue box.

Next, you are going to want to get your hands on some fabric.  If you scraps from an old sewing project, this is a perfect time to use them!  If you don't have fabric scraps, you could cut up raggedy clothes that is beyond repair.  Or check your thrift store!  One of our local thrift shops has fabric all the time!  I had some fabric scraps that a friend had given me a while ago, and thought this would be a great project to use some of it for.  

Take your fabric and cut it up.  I cut mine into strips that were about 12 inches long.  As you can see in the picture, my fabric strips to vary in length and width.  I wasn't not exact about this at all!  And while I was cutting, I thought varying the width and length would provide more interest to Lil' Man.

The fabric I used was all cotton and one knit.  It would be really fun to mix up the types of fabric to add different textures to the box: some knit, some flannel, some fleece.

After I cut up my pieces, I tied them together.  I ended up using 25 strips of cloth to fill my container.  (Obviously, I cut way too much!)  Stuff the tied pieces of fabric into your box, and let your little one play!*

*Obviously, we are talking about a very large length of fabric here.  This activity should be used under adult supervision to prevent strangulation.  

The Letter G: Part 1

Last week we finished up our Gg-Goats unit.  I thought I would share a review of what we did during this unit. Because it was six days' worth of learning, I am going to break this up into two posts! We really did have a great time learning.

On the first day, I introduced the letter G and the sound it makes.  This is review for Banana Bear, but it really helps Princess out.  After introducing the letter and the sound, I give the girls textured letters from our letter puzzle.  Banana Bear tells me the sound each letter makes and tells me a word that starts with each letter.  For Princess, I name the sound and she gives me the appropriate letter.

Lil' Man appears very interested.  Maybe he's learning by osmosis! ;)

After I introduced the sound, Banana Bear worked on her picture cards.  These cards are part of her My Father's World Curriculum.  After she colored all her pictures, she cut them out and glued the letter to an envelope.  Then she says the name of each picture, the sound it starts with and traces the textured letter with her finger.  One of the sentences she did for the letter G unit was "Grass starts with /g/." Then she traced the letter g with her index finger as if she were writing it. 

Banana Bear coloring her picture cards.

While Banana Bear worked on her picture cards, Princess colored a worksheet with the letter G and three pictures of things that start with the letter G.  

Here, notice Princess coloring with her left hand.

Princess also did a dry erase sheet tracing the letter G while Banana Bear made letter G's in a container of salt. 

And here, notice her writing with her right hand.  It makes my head spin!

My girls love tactile experiences, and this little salt container is one of their favorite things to get out and practice making letters in!

One of Princess's favorite things to do each unit is a size sorting activity!  For our G unit, she got to cut out gumball machines of various sizes and put them in order from smallest to largest.

And that was all in the first day! We did so much more, and I can't wait to share it with you in my next post!

Busy Bag Wednesday: Sight Words

What is a busy bag, you ask? A busy bag is a life saver for me!  Busy bags are activities that I can give the children to keep them occupied while working one on one with another child.  Busy bags keep them busy while I'm busy!  :)

I am currently in the process of making up a whole bunch busy bags in order to help my days run a little smoother!  Since they are so helpful to me, I will be sharing my busy bags to spread the helpfulness! 

I created this busy bag for Banana Bear to use. This busy bag is to help reinforce the sight words she is learning.

I created a set of thirty-two cards with sight words.  And since I said I wanted to share, you can find my sight word cards here. I printed them out on card stock, and then laminated. If you don't have a laminator, you can use clear contact paper to cover the cards.

Then I made some kool-aid play dough from the recipe found here.  I actually kind of regret choosing that specific recipe because I found Banana Bear eating the play dough while working on her busy bag!  If you don't want to make play dough, you can just through a can of the store bought stuff into your bag.  

Download Sight Word Cards HERE

Put the play dough and cards into a gallon sized zip-topped bag.  Ta-da! Busy Bag!

Now when Banana Bear finishes a task early, she can work on her sight words! (And hopefully, she won't eat anymore play dough! ;) ) 

A Case of the Mondays

It was Monday today. And boy, could I tell!  For some reason, Monday's are just difficult.  Maybe it's because we don't have school on the weekend, and my girls just think they are supposed to play My Little Pony all day. Whatever the reason, we had a serious case of the Mondays today!

Our morning started off with a fit from Princess.  She cried for a half an hour because I had made a new busy bag for Banana Bear, but I haven't had time to make a new one for her yet.  Throughout the morning she would let out this small whimper, "I want a new busy bag." 

At one point this morning, Banana Bear read the word "dad" then burst into tears because she missed her daddy.  We spent a good deal of time calming down, comforting, and discussing that daddy would be home in the evening.  Eventually, we got back on track...for a little bit at least!

After lunch the meltdowns returned.  Princess did not want to cut her paper.  And apparently, she thought this an appropriate thing to do with it.

Since Princess is a preschooler, I do not require that she finishes a set amount of school work each day.  At her age, learning should be through play.  She and I did however discuss the appropriate thing to do with a worksheet or project that she doesn't want to do. 

While Banana Bear was working to make a baby animal book, she declared the project was too hard.  She refused to work it. 

What was I to do?  The task was appropriate for her, but she was having a case of the Mondays.  We all get them, so what did Banana Bear and I do?

We sat down and prayed together. We first asked God to give me some grace and patience.  (I was in dire need of both of those things!)  We asked God to help her improve her attitude. We asked Him to help her learn, even when a task seems hard. 

And God listened.  He granted me the grace and patience I desperately needed.  Banana Bear pulled through and finished her task.  She even found it wasn't as hard as she was making it.

Banana Bear finishing her project.

As soon as our afternoon seemed to be getting back on track, I could hear little whimpers coming from upstairs.  Lil' Man decided that a forty-five minute nap was enough for the day! Graciously, he woke up all smiles, and we made it through to the end of our school day!

By God's grace, we made it through our homeschool day.  And even though it was a difficult one, I'm so glad that I get to be at home with my children, helping them to learn and grow!

An Ant Hill

There are ants in my kitchen.  They are making a home.  And I am not freaking out!

Actually, I did freak out a little bit when the ants came, and I had to dump them from the little vial the arrived in into the Ant Hill.  I knew that I had gotten every single ant into the hill, but I couldn't get the creepy-crawly feeling off of my skin. 

But Banana Bear and Princess have been so excited to have this little ant farm.  Though their excitement has dwindled from the first twenty-four hours of having the Ant Hill, they still spend a good deal of time looking at it every single day.  They are always amazed to see the work the ants have done since the last time they looked.

This little Ant Hill has been a great teaching tool to solidify all that we learned about insects during our last unit!  The night the ants arrived, Banana Bear was rattling off insect facts to her daddy.

"Daddy, did you know all those ants are girls? They are worker ants, and the workers are all girls!"

"Daddy, the ants are insects.  They have six legs and three body parts!"

"They have a head, a thorax, and an abdomen."

Even last night, Princess exclaimed, "Daddy, the ants are all girls!"  (She picks a lot up from her big sister!)

I am so glad that this Ant Hill was included in our kindergarten curriculum.  The girls have had so much fun with it, and it has help to reinforce all that they learned during our last unit!

A Fun Day with Insects!

Yesterday, we finished up our unit on the letter "I" and insects.  We had so much fun, and I just couldn't wait to share what we did!

We started our morning with our normal routine.  We did calendar time and our daily notebooks.  Even Lil' Man got in on our notebook time!  He and the table were covered with blue WASHABLE ;) marker!

Banana Bear worked with her Cuisenaire Rods.  She loves working with these!  The last day of every unit we do the corresponding letter from this book.  It's a great way get for her to get some hands on math.

After lunch, while Lil' Man napped, the girls got to listen to some music.  We listened to Flight of the Bumblebee while Banana Bear and Princess danced around pretending to be bees collecting nectar!  They had so much fun!  You might notice, Banana Bear "filling her pockets" while doing her dance.  She remembered that bees fill their "pockets" with pollen to take back to the hive.

After dancing, we had our reading time.  One of the books we read was The Bee Tree by Patricia Polacco.  It was a great story, in which a grandfather and granddaughter chase after bees to find a honey tree because the granddaughter is tired of studying her books.   Several people from the town join them. After they collect the honey from the tree, everyone goes back to the house and enjoys baking soda biscuits, tea and of course, the honey!  There was great moral, too.  The grandfather uses the difficulty of chasing bees to get the reward of honey as an analogy to how we chase through books to gain the reward of knowledge.  In the spirit of the book, we made baking soda biscuits to enjoy with tea and honey.

Mixing our biscuits

While we waited for our biscuits to bake, Banana Bear and I did some "ant" math.  I made up word problems to practice addition and subtraction, and Banana Bear used the raisins as ants to act out the problems.

When the biscuits finished baking, we all sat down and enjoyed tea, honey and our biscuits!   I could definitely get use to sitting down for tea with my kids every day!

And that was our extremely awesome and fun day!