Author Archives: Deanna

Katy No-Pocket

We had a pretty simple week with Katy No-Pocket by Emmy Payne.  The manual had lots of good ideas for discussions, so that was how we spent the bulk of our time.  Since we’ve been spending a lot of time preparing for the arrival of our little Arianna, it was a good time to talk about all the different ways to carry a baby.  We looked at pictures from when the boys were little of them in slings, wraps, backpacks, or just being carried in arms (we don’t use strollers much).  Ian also really liked the part of the book where the man dumped all his tools out.  He tried to name them all and we talked about how each one could be used.

We also did a couple activities from HomeschoolShare.  I got out the cards from the Animal Classification Cards Set II .  We never grouped them, but the boys had a lot of fun looking through them, naming the animals, and reading the facts about them.  Ian also loved making a game out of the Animal Homes Matching Cards from Kizclub, which we found through HSS.  (There’s also a game similar to this on the Peep and the Big Wide World website, so he was familiar with the whole concept and figured out the matches the first time without any help from me.)

Like I said, it was a pretty simple week, but the boys enjoyed the story.  I’m going to try to do a couple more Before Five in a Row stories before the baby comes, but if we don’t get to them, we’ll pick them up again in the new year.

In the Fiery Furnace

We enjoyed another great story last week as we learned about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego being thrown into a blazing funace for refusing to worship an idol!  Once again, as I planned I checked out what ABC Jesus Loves Me had to offer, and found some great ideas in the 4-Year Old Curriculum week 2 lesson plan.  Ian has had an affinity for the book of Daniel since shortly after he turned two, and while that mostly focuses on our next story (Daniel in the lion’s den), this story is also a favorite for him.  He couldn’t seem to get enough of it this week.

I told the story from Daniel 3 over and over using our flannel board set, as well as reading it several times in The Beginner’s Bible (by Karyn Henley) and once in Classic Bible Stories: A Family Treasury.  He also requested it for his bedtime Bible story, which I read in the NIV.  (I would prefer to read it in the ESV, but he won’t have his own copy of it until Christmas, so I just use the NIV that we keep in his room.)

For our Bible notebook page, we used a craft from dltk-bible.com.  We used the sponge painting option for the fire since Ian had never done that.  Also, the craft only had the three men and I wanted to add the fourth, so I printed out both the color characters and a black and white copy to make the “one like a son of the gods”.

  

The only video we watched to go along with the story was Veggie Tales: Rack, Shack, and Benny (available streaming on Netflix), which was certainly fun, though there were so many elements that were different, I’m not sure how much connection Ian made with the Bible story.

We continued learning Proverbs 3:5-6 as our memory verse for this lesson, so much of our iPod playlist was the same as last week:

The new songs, however, were a big hit!  From the first day, Ian started singing along with the songs about Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, and I know this is one story that will stay with him forever.

Jonah and the Big Fish

This week we talked about the story of Jonah.  It’s so familiar, but I actually got a lot out of our lesson as the repeated exposure brought new insights into my mind.  Somehow I developed more empathy for Jonah, yet at the same time I felt more frustrated by his lack of mercy than I’ve ever felt during previous readings.

We did tell the story with our flannel board set, but only two or three times (we usually do it several times throughout the course of a week).  It was just a hard story because the scene kept changing!  Actually, Ian liked helping with all the changes, but I found it challenging to keep all the pieces in a place where I could help the story flow smoothly.  We got plenty of exposure this week in other ways.  All four chapters of the book of Jonah were on our iPod playlist (see below) and Ian surprised me with how quiet he got almost every time we listened to the Bible reading.  This was one story that was in all our Bible storybooks, but we only read it in The Beginner’s Bible (by Karyn Henley) and The Rhyme Bible Storybook for Toddlers.  I had the pages marked, but we never got to the versions in Classic Bible Stories: A Family Treasury, The Bible in Pictures for Little Eyes,  or The Rhyme Bible Storybook.  Hopefully we’ll hit those next time, because I know the boys would love the pictures.

I was thankful for the ABC Jesus Loves Me 4-Year Old Curriculum (lesson 25) on Jonah which provided some fun ideas of things to do throughout our week, such as a dot-to-dot of the fish spitting Jonah back out.  This was a really good activity for Ian.  We practice counting every night with our calendar activity (most people do this in the morning, but we have found it much easier to be consistent at bedtime), so he recognizes the numerals and is almost able to count up to 30.  I helped him find each numeral the first time, and then he wanted to retrace it over and over.  I’d never thought of doing that, but it was good practice.  (And Elijah worked diligently alongside us, which was good practice for him!)

Ian also played the game that goes with the story of Jonah on Charlie Church Mouse: Preschool.  When I first found out about the CCM computer games, I read reviews online (generally pretty good) and downloaded the free demos (which include one story from each CD-ROM).  To be honest, I was a little disappointed.  The animation seemed rather outdated compared to some of the kids’ games I’d seen.  But Ian really enjoyed playing the games.  So I went on Amazon and bought cheap copies of the Preschool and Kindergarten games from a Marketplace seller.  That was a few months ago, and he still plays them a LOT, and Elijah loves watching.  I know Ian’s caught details from the stories through them, as well as practicing some important skills.  So my opinion on them has definitely changed for the better.  I’m pretty sure I’ll buy the Early Elementary level once I think he’s ready for it.  (And Elijah’s just itching to be able to do “Church Mouse” all by himself.  He asks for it every day!)

For our Bible notebook page, we used a craft from sunday-school-fun-zone.com.  There were two pages to print out: the whale (with a lift up flap so you can peek “inside”) and a bunch of Jonahs.  (Ian got in some good scissors practice to get one of him praying.)  Simple, but so cute (at least before Ian decided to use almost every color marker he had on Jonah)!

  

I chose Proverbs 3:5-6 as our memory verse for this lesson.  It was a little long, but I always hear both verses together, and I think it’s an important passage to have memorized.  So we worked on just verse 5 this week, and next week we’ll add verse 6.  The memory songs on our iPod playlist include both verses, so I don’t think it will be too hard for Ian to learn the whole passage.

We watched two videos related to the story.  The first was Jonah and the Whale from the Greatest Heroes and Legends of the Bible series (which I recorded on the DVR a few months ago and saved for this week).  I have some reservations about this movie.  They took quite a bit of creative license.  It starts with a fictional back-story to explain Jonah’s antipathy toward the Ninevites.  There’s also a very unrealistic seen of Jonah in the water before the fish swallows him, and some odd moments inside the fish as well.  I found it confusing how they seemed to go back and forth in calling it a “whale” and a “big fish.”  And like the rest of this series, the men are wearing really short tunics with nothing underneath, so at least half their thighs are exposed, which just doesn’t sit right with me.  Ian’s never commented on the clothes though, so I try to bite my tongue.  He did get a lot out of watching it, and it prompted some good discussions about what really happened.  It also really captured Elijah’s attention and had him asking questions about the story, so he seemed to get more out of the story this week than I think he usually does.  At the end of the week we watched Jonah – A Veggie Tales Movie (available streaming on Netflix) for fun, which obviously takes a lot of license as well (but since I was expecting it with Veggie Tales, it didn’t stand out as much to me).  It was actually helpful watching two interpretations, because Ian really noticed the things that they had in common, as well as some of the differences.  It drove us to dig into our Bibles for the truth!

We had a rather long iPod playlist this week, but we listened to it a lot as we worked, played and rode in the car:

One thing I really loved about this week was seeing Elijah really participating.  I don’t know whether he’s just entering a new developmental stage or if something about the story really captured his attention, but he seemed like part of our lesson this week.  He kept asking questions, pointing out Jonah in the movies, and singing the Karen and Kids “Jonah” song over and over and over (at least “Jonah, Jonah.. Hey, Jonah! Jonah, Jonah….).  It’s so fun to see him learning and interacting with Ian about the lesson.

Scripture Memory Songs–and a giveaway!

If you’ve read any of my posts about our Bible lessons, you know how much I value music for helping us memorize Scripture.  When possible I love to find a CD with our verse on it so I can include it in our iPod playlist.  If I can’t find one, I’ll try to set the verse to a familiar tune.  Here are the CDs we have in our personal library right now:

And I’m always looking for new ones.  I’ve had my eye on the “Seeds Family Worship” CDs for a while, and today I found out about a giveaway of a couple other CDs that sound wonderful!  So I thought I’d write about it, both so I can enter the giveaway and to share with you!  Here’s a quick glimpse at what’s being offered:

“God’s Word From A to Z”

Abe & Liza Philip have produced an album for children called God’s Word From A to Z. This album is a delightful collection of 26 important Bible verses (from A to Z) set to music.

“Ascending”, “Pure Words” and “Songs From the 40′s, 50′s and 60′s” 

Jamie Soles has produced three albums of Psalms set to music. Nearly all of the Psalms on these albums are word for word taken from the English Standard Version and each song is a full Psalm (Psalm 46 is divided into two songs).

Ascending – Psalms 120-134, The Psalms of Ascent

Pure Words – Psalms 1-16

Songs From the 40′s, 50′s and 60′s – A collection of Psalms from Psalm 42-69

For more details on the CDs and how to enter the giveaway, check out Raising Olives (one of my favorite blogs!)

Big Green Pocketbook

This week we jumped back into Before Five in a Row with The Big Green Pocketbook by Candice Ransom.

I printed and laminated the “Green pocketbook pocket and items” from homeschoolshare.com.  (I can’t link it directly to the page, but if you search for “Big Green Pocketbook” on the site, you’ll find it!)  For some reason the box of crayons didn’t print out, only a blank card.  I just drew my own.  Ian LOVED this activity.  I pulled it out the second time we read the story, and he insisted on doing it every time we read it from then on.  The first time through, I handed him each item.  After that I spread them all out and when we came to each place where the little girl added something, I let him pick out what the right object was.  By the third time, he was choosing the right one before I said the word.  Lots of fun!

We made green pudding out of blue and yellow (using food coloring in vanilla instant pudding).  We did this a few months ago for our Bible notebook page on Adam and Eve and Ian loved it, so it seemed like a fun chance to talk again about combining primary colors.  Once again, Elijah HATED this activity.  (I started by giving him plain pudding in a bowl since he’d been so against it last time, but then he begged for “colors” so I thought maybe he wanted to copy Ian.  Evidently joining in was NOT was he was trying to communicate.)

  

The B4FIAR manual suggested talking about shapes (like the ones on the little girl’s shirt). I thought about making shape cookies, but after doing the pudding that seemed like a lot of sugar for one week, so we used the shape cookie cutters with playdough instead.  Again, I let the boys mix blue and yellow playdough to see if we could make green.  Elijah (22 months) surprised me by naming the “diamond” and “circle” on his own.  I was curious as to what other shapes he knew, so I asked him the others as I held up cookie cutters.  He missed the rectangle and square (although he said “star” and might have just been having trouble pronouncing it right), but knew “triangle,” “star,” and “heart.”  Sorry to brag, but I was mighty impressed since we haven’t made any effort to teach him.  I think it’s such an advantage to kids to have an older sibling!

  

We didn’t write our own thank you notes this week, but we received one from a friend (who just happened to have drawn a picture of the gift we gave him), so we talked about expressing appreciation.  We also went to Grandpa’s office to use the typewriter and to stamp papers with a “ker-chunk” like the lady at the bank.

It’s been a while since we did anything from Before Five in a Row, and I think we were all glad to be back!

King Josiah and the Hidden “Treasure”

We had so much fun this week!  We learned about King Josiah and how excited he was when the Book of the Law was found in the Temple.  When they found the lost scroll, it was like finding a treasure, so we talked a lot about how special the Bible is and how we “hide” it (the NASB says “treasure” it) in our hearts.

I told Ian the story of King Josiah over breakfast Monday morning.  (I was so frustrated last week with not being able to keep his attention, so I thought I’d try something different.  It definitely captured his attention better!)  As soon as we’d eaten, I got out crowns for both boys.  I had cut them out and decorated them with glitter paint the night before so it could dry, and then we got out the markers to finish up with their own artwork in the morning.

Then we went over to our flannel board set to review the story.  I had all the things inside the temple lying on their side, with a scroll for the Book of the Law hidden behind a table, and we talked about how the temple was in need of repair. Ian helped act out Hilkiah the priest finding the scroll and bringing it to Josiah.  Then we all helped “clean up” the temple by setting things straight and tossing out the statues bad kings had set up.  We talked about what a special place the temple was and how excited they were to find the “treasure” of God’s law.

The story is from 2 Kings 22:1-20, which we read at bedtime.  The only Bible story book we had that talked about Josiah was The Beginner’s Bible (by Karyn Henley), so we left that out all week and read through it several times.

We just happened to have the perfect Bible  for this lesson: this Bible that looks like a treasure chest.   To emphasize how precious God’s Word is, we played a game of “hot and cold” where I hid the “Treasure Bible” and had the boys look for it.  Ian loved it!  He and I took turns hiding it over and over and looking for our treasure.  We played this game several times throughout the week, and Ian was excited to “teach” it to Daddy.

After the first time we played, I introduced our memory verse, Psalm 119:11. “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.”  (See our iPod playlist for memory songs.  The first two use this NIV text.) For our Bible notebook page I wanted to “hide” a Bible inside a heart, but I also wanted to convey the idea of the Bible as treasure, so I drew a treasure chest with a Bible inside.  Then Ian glued it inside a folding heart.  I’m not much of an artist, but it got the point across.  Such a simple notebook page, but it really captured the essence of the verse.

  

Ian really liked our iPod playlist this week and requested it almost every time we got in the car (in addition to listening several times at home).  I didn’t have anything for the story of Josiah, but I found lots of songs about our memory verse.  Here it is:

Beautiful Vision by Sally Clarkson

“Seeing my children’s hearts and souls as treasure chests so to speak, I prayed and pondered, how could I so invest in their lives so that they would have eternal and true values and memories, and foundations of truth and godly purpose to carry with them and to draw from the rest of their lives.”

This morning I was reading Sally Clarkson’s latest blogpost, and I just had to share the link.  It puts into words so many ideas I’ve had floating around in my mind but haven’t yet found a way to express.

Elijah Goes to Heaven

What better way to finish up our weeks on Elijah than with the exciting story of the chariot of fire coming to escort him up to heaven in a whirlwind?  I don’t know if it’s just because Ian accepts whatever I tell him or if he really didn’t get it, but he didn’t seem all that amazed at the miraculous aspects of the story.  It probably didn’t help that we had less time than usual for lessons this week.  We spent one day at a children’s museum he’s been begging to go back to for months, and then Grandpa and Grandma returned from a month-long trip, so we were pretty busy this week.  I didn’t want to skip our Bible time altogether (I’m now in my third trimester and the way I’m feeling, we’ll probably be taking a break from “school” soon), so I just focused on getting the story into Ian’s heart and mind, and we skipped much of what we usually do (like a memory verse, a page for our Bible notebook, an iPod playlist, and any kind of literature unit).

When I introduced the story with our flannel board set I was a bit disappointed because Ian didn’t seem all that interested.  (In fact the first time I tried, I ended up stopping halfway through because he kept getting distracted.  We came back to it later and made it through, but still without much comment from Ian.)  However, later that day I found him playing with the flannel board on his own, and he’d obviously caught more than I thought. In his mind I guess Jesus was in the chariot, because when he was retelling it, the Elijah figure got very excited, saying, “Jesus!  Jesus!” and kissing him all over.  I love how God works.  I’d tried telling Ian the story, got frustrated, gave up, tried again and made it through but still felt like a failure, and yet it turns out God was working in his heart the whole time.  Jesus may not have actually been a part of the story, but I think Elijah must have felt that same sense of excitement at going to see the Lord.  Ian caught a part of the story I hadn’t even considered.  It was a good reminder to me that my job is just to be faithful in teaching my children God’s commands.  “You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.” (Deuteronomy 6:7).  God’s the one who stirs their hearts.

The only other thing we did was review the story throughout the week.  We read it from The Beginner’s Bible (by Karyn Henley) and The Bible in Pictures for Little EyesIan also requested it for his bedtime Bible story, so we read it from 2 Kings 2:1-14 in the “real Bible”.

And that wraps up our four weeks on Elijah!  We’ll be doing a few more Old Testament stories this fall, then we’ll take a break to welcome our little Arianna to the family, and hopefully jump back in with the ABC Jesus Loves Me 3-Year Old Curriculum for New Testament stories starting in January.

Entertaining Elijah (tips for toddlers)

Elijah playing with “rainbow stones”

“What do I do with the toddler/preschooler while I’m homeschooling an older child?”  I know I’m not the only mom who has asked that, because when I started looking online for answers, I found lots of great suggestions.  So I thought I’d share the list I compiled.  Most of these are activities you can set the child up with and let them “work” independently, but there are a few “preschool-type” activities that are for you to do with them.  I was too lazy to separate them out.  (Just being honest!)

A few of these are original ideas, but the vast majority are copied from various other sites (which I’m afraid I can’t cite because I either forgot to note it down or else I found it in multiple places).  I broke them down into categories because, well, that’s just the way my mind works best.  I haven’t tried them all, especially the ones that would be better for an older preschooler, but I’ve found it very handy to have a list for when I’m not feeling very creative.  (Activities in bold are favorites around our house.)

NOTE: Many of these suggestions involve small pieces that could be a choking hazard.  You know your child best!  (Some of mine could be trusted… others not so much!)

“Seatwork”

  • New Coloring Books (in order to keep them new, just tear out unused pages and staple them together)
  • Paint-with-water books (where the color’s already on the page and you just run a wet brush over it)
  • New Crayons (try to keep the crayons fresh by sharpening them or melting old crayons and making new ones in fun shapes)
  • Color Wonder Paper and Paint/Markers
  • Chalk or light colored crayons on dark construction paper.
  • Sticky notes and pencil.
  • envelopes, labels, paper, and stickers.
  • Stickers & Wax Paper (they can reuse the stickers that way)
  • glue stick and white glue, scissors, construction paper and paper scraps
  • Easy-to-use paper punch and strips of paper.
  • Scissors and paper (no other objective in mind!)
  • Stencils, paper, colored pencils
  • rubber stamps
  • Put paper clips onto paper
  • Tear paper (use for a mosaic-type art project later?)

Sorting/Matching

  • Matching shapes – cut out shapes, then draw around them on another sheet of paper. Let the kids match the shapes.
  • homemade cards to play as a memory game or in any other creative way.
  • Sort Duplo blocks by color & size.
  • Look through a button box.
  • Magnet and paperclips, washers, a nail, etc.
  • Magnets and a Small Cookie Sheet
  • Ice trays/muffin tins/egg cartons and buttons, beads or marbles for sorting.
  • Various colored pom-poms to sort out into colored cups with a small spoon/tweezers/tongs

Tactile Play/Small Motor Development

  • Lacing Beads (easy to make a homemade set with colorful beads or cut up straws and a shoelace or pipecleaners.) Older child can do patterns
  • Lacing cards (I bought some Melissa & Doug ones but you can make your own with just cardboard shapes with holes punched around them.) Attach yarn, wrap masking tape around the end.)
  • plastic canvas and a large plastic needle with yarn
  • Chalk & Small Chalkboard (you can get them at craft stores for about a dollar)
  • Make a necklace or snack chain with yarn (masking tape on the ends) and any cereal with holes (like cheerios). If the toddler is old enough, they may be able to string them himself. Older child can do patterns
  • Nuts and bolts to sort. Go to a hardware store and pick out several sets of large nuts, bolts, and washers that fit together. Buy several of different diameters. Use them as an assembly project. This builds eye-hand coordination and estimation skills.
  • Writing tray; Put a layer of rice or cornmeal in a cookie sheet or baking pan. Good for spelling practice or picture-drawing or practicing A B C’s. (vacuums up!)
  • Colored rice to pour through a colander or funnels.
  • Rice/birdseed/lentil bin:This is a fun alternative to a sand box that can be used indoors or out by children who do not put things in their mouths. Fill a large, shallow plastic box ¼ of the way with rice or birdseed. If you’re using it inside, t’s a good idea to keep an old sheet underneath, or put the whole box inside an old wading pool to keep the spills under control. Add spoons, funnels, measuring cups, a two-liter bottle, a metal strainer, etc. for play. Play figures and toy cars work well, too. Activities: stand the two liter bottle upright. Try to fill it up using the measuring cups, and then the funnel. Compare/learn math: See that two halves equal one cup, etc. Add a container of salt to the mix. Have the children use the strainer and see if they can separate the two. Just playing with the rice/birdseed is soothing to children and will engage them for a long time.
  • Pouring Beads: small tray and 3 different containers and a spoon used to pour small beads.
  • Play-dough with a plastic knife, rolling pin, cookie cutters, small plastic toy, play dishes (my kids love the stuff in the set I linked, but there’s so much you can do on your own)
  • Refrigerated cookie dough and a cookie sheet. They can play with it and you can eat all the results.
  • Using a spoon, tongs, or tweezers, pick up and sort objects such as blocks, spools, coins, beans, marbles, cotton balls, pins, buttons, straws, nails, nuts, bolts, popcorn, etc.. and place them into containers of varying sizes (i.e. egg cartons, cups, mugs, jars, etc.)
  • Rice table: have a mixture of rice and several kinds of beans. Child uses a large slotted spoon and picks up a spoonful of rice mixture. They are to carefully shake the spoon back and forth until the rice falls through the slots and only the beans are left. Pour the beans into a small container. Goal is to continue until the container is filled.
  • Put ping pong balls into a dish tub of water (or bathtub), then have the child tongs to transfer them to another bucket.
  • rainbow stones“: we have an ice cream bucket full of colored glass stones like you use for silk flower arrangements.  Both boys LOVE playing with these (just running their fingers through them, spooning them into containers, sorting them by color, etc.)
  • Geoboards with rubber bands

Entertaining Household items

  • Several cardboard boxes (cereal boxes, shoe boxes) to make a train or a town or just to stack and build with.
  • Sticking crayons into an old parmesan cheese container
  • Small cars or super-ball in a wrapping paper tube.
  • A retractable measuring tape to measure with.
  • Game pieces from lost games & cards. Find old games at garage sales if you don’t have lost pieces.
  • Pringles can with a slit cut in the top to drop cardboard or plastic coins.
  • Draw roads, houses, etc. on large paper or cardboard and have them use cars and trucks on it.
  • A large box (that’s all they need – they’ll do the rest).
  • Throw a blanket over a coffee table or card table. Give them clothes pins. They’ll figure it out.
  • A plastic bottle (clean milk jug, well rinsed detergent bottle, etc.) and small items like clothespins, pennies to drop in and shake out again (this can be a little noisy during school).
  • Damp washcloth and wall or window to “clean”. Paper towels and a spray bottle with a little water in it.
  • Let them “wash” a few plastic dishes. Put an egg beater, measuring cup and baster in the water.
  • Soft foam balls or daddy’s matched socks in a ball to pitch into the laundry basket.
  • Poke holes in thick cardboard with a tack. (Just be sure you know where the tack ends up!)
  • Mini-sandbox; Put a layer of sand in a box the size of a banana box. Add trucks, cars, popsicle sticks.
  • Shallow bucket on a towel on the floor. Add water, boats. Plastic fish, measuring cups, etc.
  • Make a tunnel of kitchen chairs.
  • Give them a crochet hook and a length of yarn. Demonstrate chain stitch a few times. This is not for everyone, but if you refuse to do it for them, you’ll be surprised at what they figure out.
  • Scrap wood, hammer, nails.
  • Bucket of water and a paintbrush-for outside painting. Works best on wood or concrete.
  • Chalk on sidewalk or steps.
  • A cup with non-toxic soapy water and a straw to blow bubbles. You may put it on a sheet of paper and add food coloring to the water.
  • Watch a bug ! At the table, at an anthill, wherever.
  • Sort/Stack Poker chips
  • Use sprayer bottles filled with water and sponges to have the child “clean” a desk or table, then squeeze the excess water into a dishpan.

Store-bought Toys

  • Wooden Puzzles (no more than 2 puzzles per activity box)
  • Wooden Train Set
  • Shape Sorter
  • Peg Boards
  • Lace & Link (made by Lauri)
  • Fit-a-Space (made by Lauri)
  • Blocks (my boys like making roads and tunnels out of them more than building up so far, but they’re still a hit!)
  • Beanbags and a bucket.
  • Tops- bought or made with ½ toothpick and cardboard disk.
  • A marble maze – set it in a shallow cardboard box or cookie sheet to cut down on the lost marbles.
  • Ziploc bag or “Toob“of small plastic toys such as farm animals or little people.
  • Little People“- we have various sets (house, school, barn, etc.) from my childhood that entertain for HOURS
  • Have a stuffed-animal tea party with real crackers.
  • Dominoes (my boys especially like our colored set)
  • Toy shopping cart to collect things around the room.
  • Unifix cubes and numbers printed on cardstock. Helps with number recognition and 1:1 correspondence.
  • Arrange blocks by size, color, or shape
  • Cuisenaire rods
  • Felt board play: Betty Lukens Felts makes beautiful, full-color felts for counting, telling stories, and so on, or you can make your own by using a black sharpie to outline or draw shapes, numbers, letters, animals, and so on onto heavy duty interfacing (find it at your local fabric store). Color with pastel crayons and cut out. You can also cut pictures out of magazines or discarded books and apply iron-on interfacing to the back. For the board itself, use a large piece of heavy cardboard, wrap in blue flannel, and secure with tape/hot glue.
  • Nest/stack cups or containers of different sizes. Discovery Toys’ Measure Up Cups are pricier, but have correct measurements and are great to use with sand or water.  We’ve also loved the Fisher Price Stack-and-Roll set
  • pattern blocks (either by themselves or with design cards)
  • Melissa & Doug “See & Spell

Other

  • Books (make sure to pick some out that are ONLY used for special times)
  • Small CD Player, Headphones, & Fun Music or stories to read along

If you want help finding anything let me know!

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Goldilocks and the Three Bears (Golden Storytime Book)While looking for bear ideas, I stumbled upon First-School’s page with all sorts of ideas for “Goldilocks and the Three Bears.”  Ian LOVES this story, so I decided to take a break from Before Five in a Row to do our own literature unit.  We read the story from two different sources, both treasures from our used bookstore visits.  It’s in the first volume of the Childcraft books, and we also love the version in this book.  It’s older, but the illustrations have so many details, like Goldilocks losing her locket and one shoe, which almost create a story within the story that is never mentioned in the text.  I realize I am rather traditional, but even I was surprised by how many versions of the story are out there (and how many I didn’t like).  There are some key features I looked for in choosing a book:

  • characters: the 3 bears = a dad, a mom, and a baby (I found a few “creative” versions that changed this.)
  • sequencing/comparison: hot, cold, just right; big, small, just right; hard, soft, just right (It actually drove me crazy how many people messed with this!)
  • Just my personal preference, but I prefer more classic looking illustrations as opposed to anything too cartoonish.

As I said before, I found some good ideas at First-School’s page on the story, but we actually didn’t end up getting to all the ones I’d prepared.  No worries.  I’m sure we’ll spend time on this story again in the future, and maybe we’ll get to them then.  I printed out and laminated some pattern strips, sequencing cards (small, medium, or large–also a good sorting activity for Elijah making piles of beds, chairs, and bowls), and a 4-piece puzzle (which Ian really liked, to my surprise, since he’s never shown much interest in puzzles).  On another site I found masks of Papa, Mama, and Baby Bear.  The boys really like masks, though they were more interested in running around the house growling through them than retelling the story.  (I never could get them to stand still long enough for a picture!)

  

To incorporate some nature study we took a morning walk like the bears and enjoyed a woodsy park near our house.  I really want to start spending more time outdoors now that it’s cooling down. (I despise being outside when it’s too hot.)  We don’t have terribly defined seasons here, but there are plenty of things to appreciate in the coming months, so I downloaded the Fall Nature Study from Five in a Row.  (Not all of it will be appropriate for preschoolers, but we can get ideas from it year after year and I needed some inspiration.)  One of my goals is to start a very basic “nature journal” with Ian.  So on our walk we collected things for nature collages and had lots of fun assembling them once we got home.  I just used clear contact paper.  (My original intent was to make a “turkey” to help us decorate through Thanksgiving, but I couldn’t quite figure out how to do the body so it’s a little abstract.)  Both boys really enjoyed playing with all the leaves, feathers, and flowers we found.

  

And finally, as a little something different, we watched the first six Salsa Spanish videos from Georgia Public Broadcasting.  The first is the story of the three bears, and in the next five Goldilocks returns to make amends in various ways.  They are pretty much completely in Spanish, but don’t let that turn you off if you don’t speak the language!  They’ve actually been favorites of Ian’s since right around his third birthday.  I speak VERY little Spanish myself, but I hope to include it in our homeschool curriculum.  For now, that just means the occasional Salsa video.  The vocabulary is simple and repetitive without being boring.  Here’s a complete list of episodes (with links to the videos).  (If you’re interested in doing the program, there are additional resources available for teachers of Kindergarten through 2nd grade.)

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