Week 10-Letter I

Letter I week has come and gone, here is a little look at what we did!  

Math: We played a game called "In and Out".  Hannah and Ethan had fun tossing monkeys into the hula hoop.  The we counted how many monkeys were inside the hoop, and how many monkeys were outside of the hoop.

Nature Study:  We went on a nature walk to a park/forest nearby that we had never been to before.  We enjoyed this for quite awhile until Hannah abruptly declared it time to go.

Hannah and Ethan spotted mushrooms along our way.

Kind of creepy looking if you ask me.

Hannah thought it would be fun to hang from a tree.

Hannah and Ethan in their rain clothes.

Our feet.

Look who got tired and "needed" to be carried.

Art:  I took a popsicle mold and filled each popsicle with a different colored water.  I just used food coloring and water.  They turned out quite vibrant and not nearly as drippy as I expected.

The popsicles are ring molds so they worked super well with this activity

Hannah worked very carefully on her masterpiece.

I made one too and it really was fun.

Reading and Language Arts: We moved onto the letter I.    

They like finding the letter we are working on.

The kids decorated their pictures of Inchworms and ice.

They added little paper scarves so that the inchworms could stay warm.

One of the language games we played from All About Reading Level Pre-1 including taking mystery objects out of the bag and coming up with rhyming words. 

Faith Foundation: This week we finished up our lesson on our feet.  It seems silly when I read it written like that, but its on our feet created by God and the uniqueness of our bodies.  The kids our getting a lot out of these lessons and I love listening to them talk about what they are learning.  I probably should trust myself better.  I intentionally chose these lessons because of they way its takes something that the kids can grasp completely (ie feet) and brings it back to God, but not in a way that seems stretched or inorganic.

Here is Ethan looking at his foot poster.

Hannah is coloring her feet ever so carefully.

I thought it would be fun to set up a series of different things to walk on.  

First, a garden kneeling mat(bumpy), playdough (smooth and squishy), grocery bags(crinkly??), and scarves(soft).

The last three included a bag of colored rice (hard and pokey), ice pack (cold) and fake leaves (I don't know what word describes the leaves papery).

The playdough was the absolute best.

They both went back forth through he line at least a dozen times.

Here is Hannah retelling our story about feet.

Week 8 - Letter H

Week 8 - Letter H

Math: This week for a math activity I handed out some foam hearts and a dish each.  My plan was to say a number and have them count out the appropriate number of hearts.  They both did this a grand total of once. hehehehe  Instead they wanted paper and crayons so they could make some heart cards.  For the record, I have no idea what is going on with Hannah's hair in these pictures.

 Art: For the art activity for H week.  Hannah and Ethan made houses out of paper bags.  First, I asked Hannah and Ethan what they wanted their houses to look like (doors and windows) and drew on the details.  Then they colored their houses.  To finish, we stuffed the houses with paper towel and stapled a colored paper roof on top.  Hannah thought our houses needed people so she decorated the window sill for me.  The bottom picture is of Hannah and Ethan proudly showing their finished houses to Andrew.

Nature Study:  Was totally forgotten.  As it was, we hardly went outside with the weather so rainy and cold.  

Reading and Language Arts: This week we read Prayer for a Child by Elizabeth Orton Jones and illustrated by Rachel Field.  As usual Hannah and Ethan both think this book was not only written for them but about them.  At least in this instance it's understandably  The dedication page has the picture of a little girl (who looks remarkable like Hannah) with the dedication For Hannah. Now Hannah can spot her name a mile away and thinks this is great. Further into the book is a picture of the little girl and her brother.  I'm just glad that they don't think we need a cat after reading the book.  

Hannah and Ethan even got a chance to read their H book with Daddy which is always a exciting thing.  Our activity page for the letter H was a Hippo which we painted and sprinkled salt a glittery effect, which in my opinion did not work.  But they enjoyed sprinkling it.

  

Faith Foundation: This week we started out lesson about our feet.  We are looking at how God created us and made us special.  Our verse is Deut 5:33 Walk in all the way that the LORD your God has commanded you.  We looked at the different things we can do with our feet.  

We also made a footprint poster.  I set up a large piece of paper and with a paint tray on one end and a soapy water bin on the other side.  Hannah and Ethan took turns walking on the paper with their paint covered feet.  Looking back I wish I could done this different.  Next time I would use one color for Hannah and one color for Ethan.  Our footprints ended up quite muddy looking.  Oh well.

Just for Fun:  These were some activities they Hannah enjoyed the last time we did the letter H.  I pulled them out and Ethan liked them too.  The first was hammering golf tees and balancing marbles. 

 The second was building towers with our odd H shaped pieces.  I have no idea what these are or their intended purpose.  But they liked the.

Week 6 - Letter F

Letter F week went by very quickly.

Math: Fly counting.  Pretty basic.  Choose a number card and count out the appropriate flies.  Simple but enjoyable none the less.

 Art:  GONG SHOW.  For our art activity, I put out some feathers and paint.  This went really well until the phone rang.  I came back to find my usually paint hesitant boy covered in Hannah's hand prints and Hannah covered in Ethan's hand prints.  I threw them outside (happy that it wasn't raining) and gave them cloths and a basin to wash up.  In case you can't tell it is Hannah's hand print right over Ethan's left eye.

Nature Study:  Our nature study this week was disgusting.  I bit my lip and washed my hands a lot in order to get through it.  They had fun examining flies.  Hannah and Ethan both love bugs and I don't want to bias them because I loathe bugs.  They looked through magnifying glasses and colored a picture of a fly.  Hannah and Ethan enjoyed matching the picture to the actual fly.  But Ethan's favorite was pulling the wings off the poor dead fly.

Reading and Language Arts:  We did our craft page on capital F.  I think this was my favorite activity page so far.  Hannah and Ethan did a good job of finger painting their F's green and adding some fish to the pond. We also (Hannah and I) played a rhyming game.  She is getting quite good at rhyming, Ethan is not interested in these activities for the most part (the language exploration section after each letter).  


This week we read Thank You, God by P.K. Hallinan.  I love the pictures in this book because each one is filled with light.  Its very simple but it does a good job of pointing to God as our source for all things.

Just for Fun: I took out the fabric squares that I made last year for F week and blind folded them using their monkey hats (now that I look at this pictures more closely, I find it a little creepy) they each felt the fabric and told me how the pieces of fabric felt.

Faith Foundation:  This week week we finished up learning about our hands using them to bless others.  Hannah and Ethan made helping hand posters using their feather painted pictures.  Then they each told how they can use their own hands to be helpful.  Hannah said that she could use her hands to clean up, bake dough, and wash the table.  Ethan said he could use his hands to pick up things, play play dough, and get things for me.

Week 5- Letter E

Math: For our math activity this week sorted googly eyes.  Three sizes extra large, regular, and tiny.  It was fun using the eyes as our sorter item.  

 Art:  We did 2 art activities; one on the fly and the other planned.  Our "planned" activity with the earth hand prints.  Its really simple and I loved how they turned out.  Paint your hand blue and then add some green paint onto carefully so that the paint doesn't mix too much with the blue.  Then make your hand print.

Our second activity was a crayon resist at Hannah request.  No she didn't request a crayon resist, she asked if we could paint and I decided to make it a little more interesting.  Draw a picture or write a message with white crayon on white paper.  Paint everywhere and wipe the extra paint off with a paper towel.  Voila.  Hannah and Ethan we suitably impressed.

Nature Study:  We went on a nature walk and collected some things look at when we got home.  I gave Hannah and Ethan their own nature bag (goodie bags from a birthday we went too).  I was surprised at the variety of things we found.  Hannah was THRILLED with finding dead beetles.

Reading and Language Arts: We continues working on our AAR Level Pre-1 by doing capital E.  Hannah and Ethan have been enjoying this a lot.  They love the cute animal stories and the craft page.  Our craft page the week had us fingerprinting some peanuts for the elephant.

This week we read, which unsurprisingly was all about the differences in seasons.  The text is really sweet and I loved the illustrations.  We ( I made, they played) seasons boxes.  It is a small folded box has a lid that pulls off to reveal pictures of seasonally specific items.  Its from kizclub.com.  As well as a season pom pom sort that I found here for the tree.

Just for Fun:  This was a really fun idea using plastic Easter eggs (painted white) as a sound matching game.  Each egg had a different object (coins, beans, rice, and nothing).  I made two sets so so that Hannah and Ethan could use them as a sound matching activity. I really enjoyed watching them do this activity because it was a little difficult at first.  

Faith Foundation:  In this weeks lesson, we learned that God gave us hands to be used in many ways; working, playing, communicating, helping, and praying.  We can use our hands to bless others.

Clap your hands, all you nations; shout to God with cries of joy. Psalm 47:1