U lessons

This week we made an underground picture. We glued brown paper bag (for the dirt) to green construction paper (for the grass) and then the girls painted inside the U tunnel I drew on the paper.

Then we added some pictures of burrowing animals after the paint dried. We have a chipmunk, worms, ants, a mole and a groundhog.

I saw something similar over at No Time for Flashcards blog.

I found a link to beginningreading.com at the Confessions of a homeschooler blog. I printed out a u letter find worksheet and a printing u practice sheet.

I have decided to do this for each letter from now on and keep the worksheets in a folder. Then we will put that week's worksheet into a sheet protector so they can use the dry erase markers. I also printed out a counting activity printable from the Confessions of a Homeschooler blog.

Seemed perfect that she had just posted about the letter U, as I have been looking for some more ideas.

We also made umbrellas, which have become a part of our Up banner/mural that we have started. For the umbrellas I searched for an umbrella template, copied and enlarged it, and printed out an extra copy so I could have a pattern by which to cut out the shapes in the colors the girls wanted to use to glue onto the umbrella.

Then we made some rain. I cut raindrops out of foil and the girls stuck it onto the sticky side of clear contact paper, then I covered it with another piece of contact paper.

Then we sponge painted clouds onto our sky banner/mural.

We talked about things that go up in the sky.

Our Up "mural" is the sky with the painted clouds and it is now hung to the "archway" between the living room and dining room. We made white cumulus clouds along with some gray storm clouds because I wanted to hang the umbrellas and rain to this banner/mural. We will be adding other crafts next week. Things that go UP.

This week we also started our new Bible Time book. Well, it is new to the girls. I have had a family worship felt set from Little Folk Visuals for over 10 years. I had forgotten I had this particular book as a matter of fact. I like that the book has object lessons, songs and activities to expand upon the lesson. We started with the story of creation which will take 3 weeks to cover. This week we focused on Days 1 through 3, so we had another way to link "sky" into our lessons. I decided tonight that we will make a Days of Creation Lapbook to help reinforce what we are learning. So, stay tuned...

I also found a color matching activity, though I can't remember whose blog I saw it on. As we are low on printer ink I used the template which I found for the big umbrella craft so I could cut umbrellas out of construction paper. As of today the girls have not had a chance to play this game. But they are to pick a raindrop and match it to the correct colored umbrella.

Here is the list of words I used for Uu:

words I found signs for: umbrella, uncles (I used pictures of two of their uncles), up

words without a sign: umbrella bird, umbilical cord (I used a picture I took of Hannah before her cord fell off)

Understanding is a wellspring of life unto him that hath it. Proverbs 16:22

I got my felt board out with these cute little pieces that are to be used for counting/math activities. I had been browsing through blogs, clicking on links to other's blogs and lost track of where I went. One idea I saw was to use a felt board for patterns and that was what I planned to do. Tabitha had other plans. The girls ended up putting matching pieces up in groups, in lines/rows. I took the opportunity to talk about odd and even, which I hadn't done in months. When Tabitha had two like pieces together I told her she had two pieces and it was an even number because they each had a friend. Then when she added another matching piece I told her it was odd because one of them didn't have a friend. So she would add another one so it would have a friend and become even. She would alternate between different animals until the entire board was covered with animals in groups. Then she used the pumpkin pieces and some animals got to eat.

When we were done, I had the girls sort them into piles so they could be put away neatly.

Tabitha wanted me to play some music out of my beginning piano book. When her grandmother was here she showed Tabitha and Amelia how to play with one finger so they weren't banging away. So she wanted me to show her how to play Brother John. I thought I had a brilliant idea. I used a piece of paper to mark the piano keys and then wrote just the note letters on paper. Then I pointed to the letter and asked her to find the matching letter on the keys. At first it looked like she understood. She found C, D and E but the next note was C again and she pointed to the G. Then when I tried to get her to point to C again she was looking up at the book, the paper and down the keys. I was frustrated, she was frustrated (in tears actually), so we stopped and haven't gone back to it yet. Here are some pictures of what we did:

One more picture. I wanted to share the barbells Tabitha made with her legos:

Update: I found the blog where I saw the color matching activity! Some really neat activities over at Chasing Marcus

To see what others are doing with there preschoolers and toddlers head on over to Homeschool Creations and 1+1+1=1

T Lessons concluded

These lessons were done a few weeks ago, but I thought I would share them this week. Next week I will share what we have done and are planning to do this week for the letter Uu.

We started a lesson on Telling time. Tabitha and Amelia both made a clock with movable hands. We painted a paper plate and then glued on the clock template I found here. I used the 8 inch size, but they also have a 6 inch template.

The girls also painted the clock hands.

I cut them out first and taped them to a bigger piece of paper so the girls could paint them with out having to touch them.

When everything was dry I put it all together with a metal paper fastener.

We spent some time discussing time on the "real" clock and then Tabitha did an activity I made up for her. I found a different clock template at a really cool website called Journey in Time. This website is chock full of information about clocks and telling time. The section "Once Upon a time" has the history of telling time and classroom activities. There is a section on the Foucault Pendulum. The section "Just in Time" has more activities, such as math/science and it is here that I found the templates along with so much more. There is also a section on sundials.

Anyway, I copied the template with the numbers and pasted it into my word processing program. I shrunk the size down so I could fit several on a page, then I printed them out, cut them out and glued on the clock hands (quite a tedious task). I have 12 clocks, one each for one o'clock through twelve o'clock. Tabitha had fun picking a clock and using her big clock to "make" the matching time. So far we have on worked on telling time to the hour.

We also made a train accordian book for their T books.

I found a pattern here and printed out extra copies so we could have more cars. After I taped them together, the girls glued circles onto the wheels and squares onto the windows

then they glued pictures of animals beginning with the letter T onto the back of the cars.

Our train is transporting a turkey, a toucan, a tortoise, a tahr, and a tapir.

We went over to the thrift shop and found the game Topple. No, I didn't realize until I got it home, that it would go well with our T lessons. Tabitha was really looking forward to playing the balancing game. Then when we started to put the pieces on the balance board she decided it would be more fun to make them into "sandwiches."

These are the words we put on our word cards that I was able to find signs for:

tiger, tent, telephone, turtle

And these are the other words we used:

tag, toucan, Tabitha

To see what others are doing with their preschoolers and toddlers, head on over to Homeschool Creations and 1+1+1=1.

I'm still here

No, I was not on a blogging strike or anything. We were not very productive last week as I was preoccupied with being over 40 weeks pregnant. We have a couple of T projects that I will share. But first I would like to introduce you to our newest addition, our little Hannah:

And there you have the reason why we were not very productive this week as well. She was born Sunday April 11th at 12:23pm via c-section due to the cord being wrapped around her neck. I was in the hospital until April 14th. Which was cool in it's own way, as I consider it my birthday present that I was able to bring the baby home on my birthday after being treated to the special "Stork Dinner" the hospital provided.

I hope to be able to get back to posting regularly again soon. I will share our few T projects we did and we should be getting into our geography lessons with our postcard swap (though we have only received one postcard so far).

An Easter Basket To Share

For each one that is completed and linked up to their site Hershey’s is giving $10 to the Children’s Miracle Network, but it has to be done by tomorrow.

So, here’s the rules:
This basket didn't cost a thing but it's worth 10.00 to the Children's Miracle Network! Here's how it works:
Hershey's is partnering with bloggers to donate $5,000 to the Children's Miracle Network! They are hosting a blog hop and for each blog entry, Hershey's will donate $10 to the Children's Miracle Network.
Hershey’s Better Basket Blog Hop Rules
1. Copy and paste these rules to your blog post.
2. Create a blog post giving a virtual Easter Basket to another blogger — you can give as many Virtual Baskets as you want!
3. Link back to the person who gave you an Easter Basket.
4. Let each person you are giving a Virtual Basket know you have given them a Basket.
5. Leave your link at Better Basket info in the comment section. You can also find the official rules of this betterbasket blog hop and more information about Better Basket with Hershey’s there.
6. Hershey’s is donating $10 per blog participating in the Better Basket Blog Hop to Children’s Miracle Network (up to a total of $5000 by blog posts written by April 4, 2010).
7. Please note that only one blog post per blog url will count towards the donation.
I received this basket from Ticia over at Adventures in Mommydom. I am not sure who has received this, though I will be giving it to a few people I can think of. However, if you read my blog and have not received this basket from any other blogger, go ahead and help yourself to the basket, making sure to follow the above rules. I hope you agree with me that this is a great cause.

A Mommy's Adventures

Counting Coconuts

Mama to 3 Blessings

Our Country Road

The Activity Mom

The Narrow Gate Academy

Along the Way

That is everyone I have time to give this to for now. I enjoy each one of your blogs. Not that if I didn't send you this I don't enjoy your blog! But the girls really want to go on our walk and I can't list everyone's blog I read. So please don't forget, if your blog isn't there you can still link up and help support this great cause.

Easter Bible Time

In our house we call our family devotional time "Bible Time." I have called it that since the older children were little. Usually we read a story out of our little Bible Story Book or pick a board book we have (usually Jonah or David and Goliath). However, this past week and a half we have pulled out the Resurrection Eggs (as I have seen on multiple blogs) and let them guide our Bible Time.

As I have no idea where the booklet is that came with the eggs when I bought it many years ago I have been choosing to read the corresponding Bible story from which ever of the Gospels seems to tell the story most clearly for each night.

First we open the previous nights' eggs one at a time and Tabitha will answer my questions about each one if she can. For example, we go through a series of questions for the first egg. "Who rode the donkey?" "Where did Jesus ride the donkey to?" "What did the people shout?" "What did the people wave?" (By the way, the answer to that question tonight was "pompoms.") She is definitely starting to remember more and what she doesn't remember we discuss. Not sure how much Amelia is picking up, but she loves getting her turn to hold all the objects.

When we get to the egg from the very last night we also attach a picture representation to our cross.

Then we read the verses for that night's egg or eggs (2 at the most), and introduce that night's object/egg.

On Palm Sunday we made very simple palm branches.

I printed them off the internet and cut them out. Tabitha snipped the fringes and Amelia glued on the word "Hosanna" to the back. She refused to let me help her cut , and seeing as she was trying to hold the scissors by the blade I decided she wasn't quite ready. We use these to wave as we sing the song "Hosanna, Loud Hosanna."

If I had a decent amount of ink I would have printed out the Resurrection Eggs Printables that Carissa has available on her site. Here is a link to them.

If I am not in the hospital this weekend with a newborn we will be making Resurrection Cookies. I did this years ago with the older children (though none of them remember). I found the recipe again here, though she is unsure of the original source. This website has loads of information and ideas for focusing on "Resurrection Sunday" as opposed to "Easter." Especially here.

I also hope to make Resurrection Rolls for the first time.

To see what others are doing to raise their little ones for the Lord check out Raising Rock Stars at Carissa's blog.