The 2017 Back to Homeschool Blog Hop: Planning and Recording Our Homeschool Year

Planning for Our Year

Welcome to the third day of the Homeschool Review Crew 2017 Back to Homeschool Blog Hop. Today my fellow Crew Mates and I are going to focus on Planning/Record Keeping. Last year I mentioned how very unorganized I can be when it comes to planning and keeping records. I'm happy to say, I have improved a bit, but I definitely have a way to go.

I have been using the Hey Mama! Schoolhouse Planner that we received last year for review. In last year's blog hop post on planning, I mentioned that I would be using this planner. I surprised myself by actually using it almost all year. There was a month or so in there that I got away from using it, and I was definitely not as organized. 

This is what the weekly planning pages I use look like:

I loved this planner, as I was able to customize it to my liking, putting the days of the week across the top and our subjects down the side. Being spiral-bound, I was able to fold it back and keep it open to the current week's schedule. Sadly, there was no print planner offered this year. So. . . I had to do a bit of combining to get a planner I like. 

I do have the digital version of this year's Schoolhouse Planner from The Old Schoolhouse. So, I am using the monthly calendars from there. 

However, this specific planner did not have the same type of weekly planning pages. Thankfully, I was able to go into an old digital version of the Hey Mama! planner to print off copies of the daily planning pages that work for me.

I have yet to decide how I am going to bind the pages together. I may just hole-punch them and put them in a small binder or a prong pocket folder. Not the same as spiral binding, but I will have to make do.

I am going to start our lesson planning next week. However, I never go more than one or two weeks in advance. I've learned that "things" come up, and plans get changed. If my planning goes too far in advance, I have way too much editing to do. I found my best weeks last year happened when I planned one week at a time, filling in the planner during the weekend prior to the upcoming week.

See, the My Father's World Teacher Manuals have everything scheduled out.

The problem is, I am trying to combine two grade levels, so I take the above information and write it into my planner tweaking where I need to. I also like to be able to add the books we are reading. Additionally, I have to schedule in review products. 

Writing the information into the planner really helps me to stay more organized and on task. Even on weeks where I write the lessons and books in after the fact, I am still keeping a record of what we ended up getting done. This helps when I am at the end of the year and need to see what we got done during the year. So, it is a planner plus a way to keep my records

Speaking of keeping records.  I wanted to share my simple way of keeping track of our attendance. 

In addition to using the planner, I have a small wall calendar. This is a simple calendar that is offered free at our bank. 

The boxes are just the right size for writing information in. We use this calendar for our calendar/weather time. I will place a star in the box, then the child who is the leader will draw a picture to represent the weather. Plus, they decided to start writing in the temperature as well. If there wasn't school, I can note what we did instead, if applicable. I can also use it to write down special events that are coming up. At the beginning of the month, the hubby circles the days he is working so I can plan things around his schedule if needed. The best thing about this system, all I have to do at the end of the month is count up the stars to know how many days we did school. I then write the number at the bottom of the calendar.

For me, this is the perfect way to keep track of our attendance. As long as I don't misplace the calendar of course. 

Another part of planning is getting our daily routine into order. Each year I tend to change up our routine a little bit, tweaking what didn't quite work the year before. Of course, new school years bring new curriculum, so that is another reason the routine may need to change.  This year I am changing up our daily routine as we are adding in a different chore system, one that was desperately needed. 

I've mentioned in my Littles Learning Link Up posts that I have a review coming up soon for The Everyday Family Chore System from Everyday Homemaking. Changing up our chore schedule is also causing me to switch other parts of our routine around. While our daily school routine is still in planning, our new chore system is working very well. I can't wait to share my review next week. Here's a quick glimpse at our new chore chart. 

I hope to be able to share our new school routine at the beginning of our school year (which starts the first week in September). Hopefully I will be sharing a "Day in Our Life" type post so you can see how our days flow.

So, what does planning and record keeping look like in your home?

Tomorrow I will be sharing about our homeschooling outside the home. 

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The 2017 Back to Homeschool Blog Hop: Supplies I Can't Live Without

Supplies I Can't Live Without

Welcome to the second day of the Homeschool Review Crew 2017 Back to Homeschool Blog Hop. Today my fellow Crew Mates and I are going to focus on School Supplies. I actually wrote a post about our essential school supplies 3 1/2 years ago. Not surprisingly, a lot of the items are the same, though there are some differences. So, let's take a look at what I can't live without when it comes to making sure my children have a great education.

One of the most important items we need in our home for homeschooling is the computer with internet connection, plus the printer. We continue to use various educational websites to supplement the children's learning. I also use the internet to look up information and pictures, though I don't use the images to quite the extent now that I am not putting together preschool activities. And if I didn't have the computer, I wouldn't have a blog, which means I couldn't be on the Homeschool Review Crew, which means we wouldn't have a lot of our wonderful supplemental products that help expand our learning opportunities. 

In addition to the computer, there are basic supplies that each of the children need to have to work on their lessons. Supplies that I make sure to grab up when they go on sale this time of year, though I never can get enough to last the full school year. 

On the first day of school the children always start out with the following:

• 1 or 2 one-subject, wide lined, spiral notebooks
• a binder (though this year there may end up being two each)
• a prong paper folder
• watercolor paints
• markers
• glue
• ruler
• a pencil box, into which goes the following:
• a pair of scissor
• colored pencils
• crayons
• a glue stick
• a couple of sharpened pencil 
• and an eraser (not pictured)

They keep these in their drawer box in our cubbies. 

However, there are also other necessary supplies:

We use a lot of printer paper and card stock. The card stock will be used again this year to make a timeline, as we did while going through Adventures a couple of years ago. But there are lots of other uses for the card stock.

Construction paper is needed for many projects as well. 

The paper cutter is used an awful lot, especially now that the children are always wanting paper squares to work on origami. 

The 3-hole paper punch is essential for making sure the children's work gets into their binders. 

Of course, I couldn't use the printer without the printer ink. 

There are so many uses for the stapler, rubber bands, tape and even the hot glue gun. 

And we use the index cards for various assignments. I actually think I am going to have to buy some of the bigger cards this year. 

The zippy bags and the envelopes are both used for storing cards or pieces for crafts, or other uses. 

The Velcro probably won't get the same amount of use as it did when I had preschoolers, but I'm sure I will find uses for it, so I am keeping it as an essential for this year.

And that contact paper is so important for laminating things and for crafts (whether here at home or at co-op)

In addition to the above materials, we also have a nice supply of paint:

And I love being able to use these crates with the hanging folders to keep our papers organized. 

 

Last, but not least, but almost forgotten, is our easel, along with our calendar time materials. 

I'm not sure how much longer we will be doing calendar/weather time, but these materials I found a few years ago are still getting used. Though, as you can see, we may have lost a couple of the pieces. The poster on the bottom may or may not get used this year. I used it for letter of the week in the past, and all of the children are beyond that. However, I may find a use for it this year. 

So, what are the supplies you can't live without?

Tomorrow I will be sharing about planning/record keeping. I admit, I'm still not quite sure what direction I will be going in. Hope you can stop by tomorrow so you can see what I decided to talk about.

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Littles Learning Link Up: Toilet "Training" Success (Finally!)

 Each month you will find:

• A seasonal round-up (toward the beginning of the month)
• A guest post featuring crafts, activities, tips, snack ideas or other early childhood topics. (toward the end of the month)
• Posts where I share what I have been up to with my preschoolers and/or early elementary children (including occasional highlight posts where I share how we used ideas that have been linked up here on Littles Learning Link Up).

Each week, I will host a link up, where you can share either what you have been up to recently, or old posts that may go with the theme.  Feel free to link up more than one post.

Each week I will continue to feature a couple of posts from those that have been linked up. 

I hope you will continue to share your wonderful posts, and I hope you will find something new to try with your child(ren).

It would be great for everyone to stop by and visit the other linked-up posts as well. Check them out, leave some comments, pin those that interest you. Let's make this a real party and socialize with each other.

What have we been up to?

This week I would like to focus on something other than schooling for a little bit. We have been struggling with getting Harold to go potty for a while. If you were around when Littles Learning Link Up was still Toddler Idea Tuesday, you might remember that I posted about potty training early last year. We thought he was ready back then, had purchased some underwear for him. We had our good days and bad days. I even shared some tips that had been working for us. Unfortunately, poor Harold was having such trouble in the bowel movement department. TMI alert (feel free to skip the next paragraph)

It appeared that Harold was struggling to have a bowel movement because he was constipated. I would look over and he was standing with his legs crossed and seemed to be straining. But all there would be was a little runny BM. This could go on for days. Finally, one day he had eaten some chopped prunes and he had a decent sized BM. Unfortunately, after that we went right back to the same problem. And he was getting rashes.

I am not sure how long we allowed this to go on before switching him back to diapers (which I swore I would never do and talked against in my post last year). However, we didn't keep switching back and forth, I just completely gave up. So, we continued allowing him to wear diapers, even though he was way past the age of the older girls when they went potty and older than I wanted him to be. I took heart in remembering that they say boys are harder than girls, figuring he would go when he was ready.

So, a  couple of months ago, he asked for underwear again. We went out and let him choose some underwear. . . Spiderman this time. He seemed to be doing well at first, but still only one instance of poopy in the potty (which we praised immensely). Then we started having the same issues mentioned in the TMI paragraph above. I was determined to keep him in underwear this time, I mean, he had just turned 4 recently. I was constantly washing out undies. I ended up getting angry a few different times and yelling at him (one time was after he had just sat for a while with no results and promptly pooped his undies right after getting off the toilet). I felt awful when he cried because I yelled at him. A week and a half ago, I was at my wits end. I asked for some advice on the homeschool boards I am on on Facebook.

My husband and I liked this one lady's advice of using rewards. Another thing I had sworn I would never do and had even included in my previous post as one of my tips. Anyway, I had to eat my words and we told Harold he would be getting to go to the store to pick out prizes that he would receive after going poopy in the potty. After church last Sunday, I headed to the dollar store (not something I like doing on a Sunday, but I was desperate). Here is what we purchased:

He was promised that he would get to choose one little toy every time he went potty and would also earn a sticker on his chart. If he filled up the row he would get to go shopping for a bigger prize.

I didn't expect such instantaneous success! As soon as we walked in the door he asked to go potty. He was successful and immediately was given a sticker and a little man (yes, even before I could get pictures taken he had done this, as you can see in the picture above).

Now I had a new problem. He filled up the first line of the chart the first day! I figured it would be a few days at least. But he was determined to get those toys and stickers, and to go shopping. He would go in to the bathroom, have a tiny BM, which I would praise, and happily go to get his prize. Mommy and daddy decided we would go broke with this strategy. So, the next day, we told him it was day 2 and things were going to change up a bit. He would still get a sticker every time he went poopy in the potty, but he would only get a toy at the end of the day if he had not had any poopy in his diaper. He was still successful. I had to take him to go get a couple of prizes because he had filled up both rows of the chart.

We then decided we couldn't afford to keep getting him these toys. So, we changed it up again. Each time he went potty, he would receive a jelly bean or spice drop. Much cheaper for us. And still enough of an incentive for him. He has since earned almost all of his toys and hasn't been asking for them. He does NOT go poopy as often as he did the first few days. I hesitate to say the following for fear of jinxing things, but he has not had one accident, even while we have been out and about. And, while we are away from the house, he goes without asking for candy when he goes potty. I had actually taken a bag a jelly beans with me just in case, but he never asked for them, and I surely didn't offer.

He was most definitely ready, he just needed a little bit of incentive. This was my Mother's Day gift to myself (as that was the day we started this).

Moral of the story: Every child is different. What works for one child will not always work for another. I still stand behind my thoughts on allowing a child to be ready. But, I will admit there are strategies that may have to be applied for one child that didn't have to be applied for another.

Moving on...just a little look at our review schedule:

I recently posted my review for Zeezok Publishing. My reviews for Poetry Memorization with the Institute for Excellence in Writing and Greek Myths with Memoria Press will be going up this week. The reviews for Science Shepherd and Sunya Publishing will be posting next week. In June, you can look forward to the following reviews: Essential Skills Advantage, Shiloh Run Press (a book called The Glass Castle by Trisha White Priebe and Jerry B. Jenkins), Forbrain, the Hey Mama! Planner, Veritas Press, Laurelwood Books, LearnBop, and ArtAchieve. I'll be sharing a little more information about those products next week, so you know what they are all about.

As you might be able tell, our review products are continuing to take up a lot of our schooling time. Which could explain how we have fallen behind in our core curriculum. Though, we have been catching up a bit. Fortunately, the children are learning lots of great subjects, and we are so thankful for these great review products.

A few somethings I would like to share with you:

As Father's Day is right around the corner, I invite you to check out my Round Up from last year: Father's Day Gift and Card Round Up. 

Don't forget to check out this month's round up: April Showers Brought May Flowers.

And finally, don't miss last month's Guest Post: Using Crayons to Learn About Rocks.

I know I plan to do this activity when we reach our Rock unit next year.

I am lining up my guest posts for the new year. If you would be interested writing a guest post for Littles Learning Link Up one of these months, please leave a comment or contact me via my contact info on my About Me page. I will need to have your email address so I can contact you. I am looking for posts that have to do with young children: crafts, activities, foods/snacks, tips, or other ideas. I am open to suggestions.

Now onto:

Littles Learning Link Up Features

On my last Littles Learning Link Up post, there were 19 wonderful posts linked up! 

I will be picking one randomly selected post to share, plus the top clicked-on posts

Please don't forget to stop by other posts that are linked up. See what catches your eye, stop by, pin the post to a relevant board, and perhaps leave a comment to let the author of the blog know you have been by for a visit. I know I appreciate others commenting and letting me know they have read my posts, so I am sure others do too.

This week's Randomly Selected Post is:

Jen from Though Shall Not Whine shared 7 Ways to Keep the Littles Busy {While the Bigs Do School}.

Now, for this week's Top Clicked-On Posts:

Shecki from Greatly Blessed shared Our Week With a Surprise Doctor Visit.

Shecki from Greatly Blessed also shared Doodle Across Multiple Subjects with Kwik Stix.

Lisa from Syncopated Mama shared Latticed Learning: Week 30.

Join the Party!

I would love to have you join in this week! What sort of activities do you do with your young children? Do you have some favorite activities you would like to share? I invite you to link up below. I will be pinning posts on one of my relevant boards, and I would love to feature some of the activities each week from what is linked up.

Please know I may share a picture from your post and link back to it, along with sharing how we used your idea in our school time. By linking up you are giving me permission to use a picture from your post. I will ALWAYS give credit and link back. Additionally, if you choose to try out any of the ideas with your child, please make sure you give credit where credit is due.

Linky will be open through Monday night, to give me time to check out all the posts and get the Features organized. Please take the time to visit some of the other wonderful posts linked up.

<a href="http://totsandme.blogspot.com/search/label/Littles%20Learning%20Link%20Up"><img alt="Tots and Me" src="http://i597.photobucket.com/albums/tt58/kewkewphoto/littles%20schooling%20b%20small%20Collage_zpsefibifom.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket" /></a>

An InLinkz Link-up

5 Days of Homeschooling Essentials- Day 2: Organization

Anyone who knows me in real life know that organizational skills do not come my way naturally. In fact, they tend to run the other way! I haven't been near as organized as I would like as I need to be. This is something I am working on, not just in our homeschool but in our house and other aspects of my life. In fact, "Organization" is my Word for 2014 because I know that it is essential, not just for our homeschool, but for peace in our daily lives.

What are some things I am working on toward organization?

I am working on decluttering, which I hear will not only help with my stress levels (being able to find things when I want them is definitely less stressful), but may also help alleviate some of my memory problems as well (from what the hubby had been reading).

I am working on creating a schedule for my day, limiting my time on the computer and making sure I am getting necessary things accomplished. I have actually started setting a timer to help make me aware of the amount of time I have spent on different tasks. Even if I am in the middle of something I will stop and wait to finish it later so I can stay on schedule. I don't have a specific schedule written out yet, but I am working on it. As I stated recently, little steps at a time. I am looking forward to the opportunity to review one of the Chore Planners from Motivated Moms to help keep me on task. You can look for the review the first week of March.

One of the biggest things that has helped me keep from getting completely disorganized in our homeschool time was adopting a workbox system.  I had read about workboxes here and there but wasn't sure if they would be for us. I am so glad I gave it a shot. At first I thought it was going to be too expensive and take up too much space. I had seen pictures of other's workbox systems where they have sets of drawers to keep their children's work in. I have to tell you now, I knew those would be way beyond our financial reach and NOT an essential for our homeschool. Then I was directed to a blog called, The Mother's Journal where the author had shared about using cereal boxes for her child's workbox system. This seemed quite promising.

Here, let me share how I have been organizing our school work.

I start by having the year's work all laid out by unit in file folders in a box that I keep under our activity table. Fortunately this is easy to do using the My Father's World curriculum. The student sheets we purchased, along with any of the letter of the week ideas from the past are in each letter unit's folder.

At the beginning of each week I take the pages and place them in folders labeled by day. Currently we are on a 6-day system, taking 2 weeks (3 Days each week) to finish a unit. We are actually going to be switching to a 4-day system (taking 1 week) after we finish our K unit. These folders will remain about the same, except the 3rd folder will just be for Miscellaneous work each week. 

Each morning we have lesson time I take their workboxes and remove the previous day's work to check it over. After I file that work I put the new work in the workbox.

As the girls finish each activity they take the number off of the workbox and place it on the chart on the side of the bookshelf.

When we first started I was using mini post-it notes that I had handy. However, when I ran out of those I found it to be more frugal to write the numbers on a little rectangular piece of card stock and use Velcro to attach them to both the boxes and the chart (Yes, this is an old picture that I took at the beginning of the school year. The bookshelf isn't quite this organized right now, but the system is the same.). 

When we first started the girls would work on their workboxes at the same time. However, just this week the girls began alternating working on their workboxes and having computer time.  I can rotate between them and have time with the younger children. We will see how this change works.

This organization system has become essential for me to keep some sort of order in our homeschool. Even when nothing else is going quite right, I can keep us moving along by filling the workboxes so the girls know what to do.

How do you keep organized in your homeschool?

I invite you to stop back tomorrow as I discuss another important essential for homeschooling, Hands-On Experiences.

As I mentioned, there are many more insightful posts to be found. Here is the link to the main post on the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog where you can find a list of everyone who is sharing. To get you started, I invite you to stop by these blogs:

Mary @ Winecup Christian Homeschool talks about Libraries
Jenni @ Conversaving discusses A Plan
Meghan @ Quiet in the Chaos discusses A Planner
Beth @ Weavings discusses the importance of Living Books
Tawnee @ Adventures in Homeschooling discusses Quiet Time
Karen @ My Harbor Lights discusses having a Sense of Humor
Amy @ Wildflower Ramblings discusses being Content with Her Role as a Mother
Kristi @ The Potter’s Hand Academy shares her "Absolute Favorite" homeschool company
Tara @ This Sweet Life

5 Days of Homeschooling Essentials- Day 1: Essential Supplies

Welcome to the first day of the winter blog hop brought to you by the Schoolhouse Review Crew. Today I would like to discuss what I consider essential supplies for our homeschool. What do I feel I need to be able to homeschool successfully on a limited income?

There are so many "things" out there that I would love to have. I try not to dwell on them and covet what my fellow homeschooling moms have for their children. Since we started home preschooling 5 years ago I have found that there are some things I just can't do without.

My computer with internet connection hooked up to a printer (with ink).

The computer has been the biggest help to me, but without the internet it wouldn't be nearly as helpful. Yes, the printer is somewhat separate, but what good would all the goodies I find online be if I couldn't print them out. How do I utilize the computer for our homeschool?

• There are many resources online for homeschoolers, some of them are even free. A while ago, I started a blog page for Free Resources. I do have to work on it some more, but there are many helpful sites for homeschoolers. 
• I use Google Images to pull up coloring page images to print off for our lessons. The children love the coloring pages, mazes, dot-to-dots and color-by-number activities that I add to our day. However, I also shrink them down for our Letter of the Week lessons. The children have all colored and cut pictures to include in letter/sound books and collages. 
• There are also many sites that have printables such as handwriting sheets, Do-a-Dot activities and cutting skills pages. Some are free, others do have to be paid for. As of now, I haven't used any resources that I have had to pay for, but if you are able to pay there are many that look wonderful. The other concern about some of the printables is that they will use a lot of ink. When ink is an issue I try to only print off pages that are black and white outline pages. 
• We also use the computer to research the topic we are learning about. We have found some wonderful videos of animals to help the children really see what we are learning this past year.
• I am blessed to have a wonderful library system that has an extensive inter-library loan system. Unfortunately it is 20 minutes away, so I can't just run down there whenever I want. Thanks to the computer I can get on their system and put books on hold from any of the libraries in the system. When the books are available I will receive an email notification.

Paper

Of course, without printer paper the above would be useless. However, it isn't just printer paper that I have come to rely on. We also use:

• Cardstock- There are some printables that need to be on heavier paper, so I will use plain white cardstock. I also use it to make our word/picture flashcards and our picture cards to go along with our Letter of the Week. 
• Construction paper- We may not always be able to get all the craft supplies I want, but there is no way I could do without construction paper. I use it for the above mentioned picture cards and for our letter/sound books and collages. We also need it for projects.
• Spiral notebooks- When notebooks are on sale at the beginning of the school year we stock up. The children will use them for coloring/doodling and journals. During school time we use them for our handwriting, spelling and Spanish. Of course, as they get older they will be using them for other subjects. 

File Folders

I have found a few important uses for File Folders

• File folders have been essential for keeping our curriculum organized. You don't even need a filing cabinet to file papers in. We have a box that is the perfect width to hold file folders lying on their sides for easy access of the contents. 
• We have used file folders for lapbooks quite a few times. It is nice to have the colored folders to make a really nice presentation, but regular file folders can be used in a pinch. 
• In addition to lapbooks, I have also created some fun file folder games for the children. You can Google "file folder games" for some great ideas, though I try to make my own to go easy on the printer ink. These are great for hands-on learning.
• As the children get older I will also be using file folders to keep our papers organized as we will have to report to the school district. 

Craft Supplies

In addition to paper there are some essential supplies we need for crafts. And crafts are big in our house of hands-on learners. 

• White glue and glue sticks
• Scissors
• Crayons
• Pencils (both #2 pencils and colored pencils, though we have been known to go without the colored pencils)
• Scotch tape
• Paint (water colors and tempera paint)

Miscellaneous Supplies

There are a few additional supplies that I need for myself in order to get lessons and crafts ready for the children

• My paper cutter
• A stapler 
• Packaging Tape
• Clear Contact paper for "laminating"

Finally here is a list of things I like to have but we do without when money is tighter than usual. These things I try to buy when we get our tax refund, but I never can buy enough for a year and the children go through them fast. 

• Markers
• Pompoms
• Craft Sticks
• Straws

Though I may not have every thing I want or think I need, the Lord has made it possible for us to homeschool on our limited budget with the items listed in this post. 

I invite you to stop back tomorrow as I discuss another important essential for homeschooling, Organization

As I mentioned, there are many more insightful posts to be found. Here is the link to the main post on the Schoolhouse Review Crew blog where you can find a list of everyone who is sharing. To get you started, I invite you to stop by these blogs:

Mary @ Winecup Christian Homeschool discusses a few of her favorite things
Jenni @ Conversaving discusses A Prepared Heart
Meghan @ Quiet in the Chaos discusses Planning
Beth @ Weavings discusses the importance of The Bible
Tawnee @ Adventures in Homeschooling discusses The Library
Karen @ My Harbor Lights discussed Community Service
Amy @ Wildflower Ramblings
Kristi @ The Potter’s Hand Academy shares an essential science program
Tara @ This Sweet Life shares her ABC's of Homeschooling Essentials (A-G)

Penguin File Folder Learning Activities

We have been focused on penguins for a few weeks now and I wanted to finish up with some cute file folder games for the girls. There is one for Color Matching, one for Word Families and one for Math Facts as I wanted each girl to have something to help them at their level of development.

Here is how I made the basic folder:

I printed out pictures of penguins. As always I Googled "penguin coloring pages" and found one that I liked and then inserted it into my Word processing program to adjust the size. 

And I printed out some buckets/pails.

If you are wondering what the staples are all over the pages for, this is one of my time-saving strategies. I take several (up to 5) pages and staple them together so I can cut them together without the pages shifting.

Each file folder needs 6 penguins and 12 pails.

I cut the top off of 6 of the pails so I could tape them together to make a little pocket.

I taped the sides and bottoms together to do so.

Then I glued both the pails and the penguins into the file folder.

For the color matching folder I colored the front (cut) part of the pail before I taped it to the back.

Also, for the color matching game I wrote the colors on the penguins in the coordinating colors.

However, the other two folders are going to be slightly different. I attached Velcro to each of the penguins so I can change their bellies depending upon what word families or math facts we are working on.  I just cut additional bellies out of card stock.

I am going to have Amelia work on some /a/ word families to start with.

Tabitha will be starting with some simple numbers.

I found a simple fish pattern and cut them out in the 6 colors of the rainbow.

Hannah will match the fish to the correct color. 

Amelia will have to think of and write several words for each word family.

And Tabitha will have to find the sums and differences that make each number.

The older girls will write their answers right on the fish. If they want to write more I will give them more fish.

When we are ready to move on to other word families or math problems I will just cut out new white ovals for bellies.