C is for...Caterpillar Word Family Chart

I began this Blogging Through the Alphabet journey a couple of weeks ago, and I am determined to stay faithful this time around. I might not always post on the same day of the week, but I have every plan to post something each week.

Cristi from Through the Calm and Through the Storm and Meg from Adventures with Jude are hosting this weekly party. All are welcome to join in. You don't have to be a Schoolhouse Review Crew blogger or a homeschooler, but you do have to keep your posts family-friendly.

Here is how I decided my "theme" for this round of Blogging Through the Alphabet. As I was going through old blog posts recently, I noticed I have some neat ideas for activities and crafts that I did with in the past. Unfortunately, I always included them in my weekly wrap up posts or more recently in Poppins Book Nook posts, so they sort of got buried. I can't really share them as individual activities or create pinnable images to promote them and share my ideas, which is why I started this blog in the first place (to share my ideas with others who work with children). So, I am going to make new posts for these ideas.

One of the benefits in doing this is, I am remembering these ideas that I had forgotten, which means I can now do these activities with the younger children. I will be sharing the old pictures and possibly sharing new pictures of the younger children participating.

Several years ago I created a fun way for the girls to work on their word families. We were doing Letter of the Week, and were up to the letter C.  Caterpillars were quite popular while we were doing that unit, which is what led to this activity.

C is for . . . Caterpillar Word Family Chart

First I made the background by taping together some blue and green construction paper. I then made the caterpillars by tracing a circle onto the green grassy area. I made some short and some long as you can see. I then used different colors of construction paper to make the caterpillars heads. I cut out more circles in the same colors as the heads and wrote the words on the circles. Each caterpillar focused on one word family. These were used to word on C-V-C words. Lastly, I attached Velcro to the caterpillars and to the backs of the word circles.

The girls enjoyed building the caterpillars as they read the words on the circles.

Time to go cut out some circles so Hannah and Harold can start building caterpillars.

You could laminate the circles to help them last longer. I usually use clear contact paper for lamination purposes. This is a trick I learned while working at the Montessori. I didn't laminate these as I figured it wasn't that difficult to cut out more circles.

School Time Week 34: Conclusion of C (Caterpillars and Clouds)

It's been another productive week here.  I am not sure what there is about having the new curriculum, but I have been extremely motivated and organized.

We started our week with a Breakfast Muffin Tin which had no relationship whatsoever with our themes this week.  Just a request from Tabitha.

This week we focused more on the Trinity.  We used the illustration of an egg to explain the Trinity, which I thought was a pretty neat idea.  I've seen the shamrock used around St. Patrick's Day, I've used the triangle.  Both of which are three parts to make a whole.  But the egg seems really appropriate, because each part is actually different from the other, shell, white and yolk and has a different function/job, just like the Father, Son and Holy Spirit do.  We then spent some time drawing pictures of our family (all of whom have a special function in our family).  

We sang a cute song to reinforce the idea of God being 3 persons in 1 and then spent time doing things in groups of three.  I let the girls take turns picking things to do, Amelia liked choosing spinning 3 times.  Daddy had us do 3 sit ups.  Though we also got to jump and clap.  Then we built 3 block towers...

and pyramids.

Amelia still has some difficulty with counting one to one.  She can count, but she didn't quite get the idea of stopping at 3.  So we will work on that occasionally.

I'm not sure which day we actually did the second day of our Interlock, but we learned that is important for people to work together.  We made a "Our Helpful Jobs" chart.  I didn't feel comfortable calling them "chores."  We came up with different things the girls have been helping with and can start helping more with.  Things such as, helping with the laundry (putting them in the washer, putting them in the dryer, and Tabitha also helps fold), cleaning their spot on the table after meals, picking up toys, picking up papers and sweeping after meals (Hannah makes a royal mess).  I wrote them down, put the paper in a sheet protector and added lines to make it into a chart.  Then they get starts on it when they complete "helpful jobs."

We really didn't do everything in the Interlock this week, the biggest reason was I just couldn't go out and get some of the materials.  Though some things just seemed to much of a review that wasn't needed.  Next week looks interesting though.  

I am glad that the Interlock is just extra stuff really.  We did have a lot to do with our C lessons.  The girls worked on finding C's

On Wednesday we had a picnic in our back yard.

And got to enjoy some time observing the clouds.  And of course, if you are going to observe puffy clouds, you have to spend some time figuring out what they look like, don't you?  Tabitha of course gave Amelia input for what she was seeing.  I actually had them look at the pictures a day later, to see if what they came up with was different (it was).

Tabitha: whale

Amelia: elephant

Tabitha: dog or zebra

Amelia: fish

Mom: Dog

Tabitha: heart

Amelia: whale

Mom: face (possibly a frog)

Mom: I see a bird wearing a baker's hat blowing out a fire or blowing smoke or ice.

The rest of our Wednesday was quite eventful. Before we made lunch we had gone to the library because we wanted time to go to the park after the picnic (originally the picnic was to be in park, but it was easier to just bring it out to the back yard).  While we were there we saw some friends who also homeschool and are a part of the homeschool group. We aren't actually a part of the group yet, the girls being so young, but they invited us over to the fire station with them for their field trip.  I shared about that on Wednesday, but here are a couple of my favorite pictures:

On Thursday we painted some cloud pictures. First we checked out a couple of different types of clouds online here at Web Weather For Kids. Then the girls painted Cirrus clouds:

And Cumulus Clouds

Today we added clouds to our Learning to Read chart.  The other day I shared our caterpillar word families. I had already planned on using clouds to work on the sight words.

I showed the girls several sight words one at a time.  Tabitha really knew them all already.  Then they put them on the chart.  After they were all on, I asked the girls to find a word and hand it to me.  Amelia actually did pretty well.

Unfortunately Miss Hannah likes pulling the circles off the caterpillars several times a day.

Then we made Cotton Ball C's, which conveniently looked like clouds in the sky.  What can I say, I like connecting things in our lessons.

We had another spontaneous activity at meal time this week.  I had recently read part of the Hershey Fraction Book that I had actually planned on doing when we discussed fractions while doing F.  I just kept putting it off, but decided I needed to read it before having to return it to the library. We only got a few pages in and the girls were getting really frustrated that they couldn't eat their chocolate.  So, I let them eat them, sharing them out evenly.  What amazed me, was that Amelia wanted to do it again after I returned the book.  So I simplified it a bit.  We talked about the bar being 1 whole bar (in the wrapper and out of the wrapper).  Then I broke it into 2 pieces, putting half on one side of the paper and one on the other.  I wrote the fractions above the candy, telling the girls they had 1 of two parts.  Then we pushed them together to show two of two parts make one whole.

Then I broke each half into half giving us 4 quarters.  Once again I wrote the fraction, explaining we had 1 of 4 parts as I wrote.

Then we put them back together and I showed them 4 of 4 parts added together make 1 whole bar.

Then we shared them out and ate them:

Mommy and daddy had to share 3 pieces, so we got 1 and a half rectangles, while the girls each got 3 rectangles which were 1/4 of the bar.

Tiny Tot Time

Miss Hannah found herself a new activity.  She was in my cupboard and found this pan

And had fun putting plastic silverware (also from the cupboard) in the hole.

She also discovered that you can make some cool "music" with plastic forks and spoons and a cooling rack.  Sorry, no pictures of those.

 And of course, this is how she spent a lot of time at the Fire Station.

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School Time Week 33: Starting Weaver Interlock and letter C

This was our first week of using the Weaver Curriculum's Interlock program.  I have been debating for a while what curriculum we are going to be using as the children get older.  I've contemplated unschooling, piecing together curriculum from sites online plus the crates of books I found at the thrift shop a couple of years ago.  I've talked to a friend at church who has used the Weaver Curriculum successfully for years with her 4 children.  I have looked at Sonlight now and then because I like the idea of a literature based curriculum.  As I was discussing homeschooling with my friend at play group several weeks ago I brought up the Weaver Curriculum.  Surprisingly she had a couple of volumes she said I could use as they were given to her and she wasn't using Weaver.  What she had was a Volume 1 and the Interlock, which is the preschool/kindergarten curriculum.

I decided to use the Interlock while continuing to debate what the future will hold.  More on that in another post. We have had quite the productive week.  I am trying to stay nice and organized.  I put the first week's lessons in a binder and have been working on the Interlock in addition to our letter of the week.  More or less it has added Bible to our day.  The curriculum includes a Bible story, Language arts, Social Studies, Preschool or Kindergarten arithmetic, Music, and Physical education.  I have decided to do the "kindergarten" option for math as even that is review for the girls right now.

The Interlock program starts at the beginning.  Our Bible verse this week is Genesis 1:1.  We talked about how God is our loving Father and like our earthly father he has given us a gift.

Daddy gave the girls a gift (he got them little cars so it would go with our C lessons) that they were to open during our lesson.  Then they made him special cards on which they each drew a picture of themselves with their daddy.  Then I printed out the answers they gave me to the suggested questions in the lesson book so they could glue them in the cards. 

After a busy day they gave the cards to their daddy after dinner (which was a special dinner for daddy.  We made one of his favorites, lasagna.)

They also got to share a special song called Daddy Daddy We love You, sung to the tune of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.

On the second day of our lessons we talked about how Jesus is God and was with God when he made the world.  Then we discussed how Jesus is in heaven preparing a place for us:

And God has provided us a home to live in here on earth which daddy helps provide for by going to work.  

Amelia's house has a spider

And Tabitha's house has puppets in the windows and a bee on the flower outside.

For math, we are to be reviewing the shapes.  I chose the kindergarten over the preschool because the preschool option has the children learning one shape per week.  Seeing as it is review for the girls I decided one a day is slow enough.  Though the girls did enjoy finding the shape of the day and coloring it.

Not sure what was going on with Amelia's shaggy outlines.  

They were supposed to go on a shape hunt, but I decided to make the above sheet instead.

I actually rearranged the order of reviewing the shapes because I wanted them to correspond better to our Bible lesson.  Circle on day one for the earth, square on day two to represent the house, triangle on day 3 to represent and help illustrate the Trinity, because we talked about the Holy Spirit on day 3, guess I forgot to mention that.  

I am looking forward to working our way through the story of Creation, plus I believe Noah in these next 35 weeks.  

Now, onto the C lessons.

Monday of course we had our C muffin tin:

And they also made their C collages.  Our C words this week are:

caterpillar, castle, clock, clown, crab and cap.

I actually got our word cards made on Sunday so we could use them for the lesson.  The girls read the word and find the picture to put on our poster.  Then on the second day they pick them off the poster and we play a game where they have to pick one of the pictures and try to remember which is the right word. Tabitha can do it no problem now, Amelia likes to turn the cards over to check (cheat).  On the third day I write the word on the easel chalk board, they take turns underlining and circling letters then bring me the picture.  Next week I plan on describing how we do this.

Then the girls made C caterpillars later on in the week.

I brought out the C poem we had done waaaay back when we first did the letter C last year.

Caterpillar creeping

caterpillar crawl

caterpillar climbing

all along the wall

Caterpillar spinning

Caterpillar snug

Caterpillar changing

What have you become

by Beverly Qualheim

For the first verse we just creep our inching finger along the opposite forearm and then up to the shoulder. For the second verse we spin our hands around each other, hug ourselves and roll our hands around each other, ending up with the hands interlocked at the thumbs, palms facing in like a butterfly.

And our C Bible verse is

"Casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you." 1 Peter 5:7

Yes, we have two verses a week now, the girls are doing great.  Plus Tabitha can say the verse we have hanging in our bathroom.

"My dear brothers, take note of this, everyone should be quick to listen and slow to speak and slow to become angry, for man's anger does not bring about the righteous life that God desires." James 1: 19,20

The only Spanish we really did this week was the days of the week while we are doing calender.

The amazing thing is we got all this done and we were running almost every day.  I have dropped the exercise routine from my morning for now.  I know I need to exercise, but my exercise was taking over an hour and by the time I then got the girls ready for lessons it was past 10 o'clock.  I was getting so frustrated.  Now, we get up, get dressed, have breakfast (I even do their hair while they eat), clean up from breakfast and are ready for lessons. I was so excited to be starting the new curriculum so it really motivated me.  We started by 8:30-9 at the latest and were able to have the lesson and get out of the house by 9:45 on Monday and Wednesday, and 10:30 on Tuesday.  On Monday and Wednesday I took the girls over to the high school where their sister attends.  Her teacher had arranged a child care experience for her classes. They actually created a day care environment and asked for parents to bring younger siblings in for 2 hours, from 10 to noon.  The students watched the children, played with them, took them out to play and did a craft with them. The girls had a great time going to "school."  Of course, Tuesday brought play group.

To wrap up our week we headed over to Grandma and Grandpa's.  After some visiting and dinner we got to go check out their chickens and horses.

She really wasn't as scared as she looks here.  I just missed the shot where she was actually petting the horse.

Tabitha on the other hand wouldn't go close enough to pet them.  And she is the one who kept insisting we go out to see the horses! Obviously she hadn't realized how big they were up close.

Then on the way back to the house we found some snails.

It's been two years since we observed snails (and we never had any big ones).  So we took them home in the jar and I plan to keep them for a few days and let them go. Last time we kept them too long and they ended up dying, I don't want that to happen this time.

Please take a moment and check out my giveaway for Chicken Soup for the Soul: Shaping the New You.  I am keeping it open til June 1st.

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