Littles Learning Link Up: October 10, 2017- Two-Sided Paper Plate Apples

 Each month you will find:

• A seasonal round-up (usually toward the beginning of the month)
• Posts where I share what I have been up to with my 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?

Co-op has started back up! That is the big thing. Because now my Littles Learning Link Up posts can feature the crafts we are doing at co-op again. I will have to go back to sharing about our personal homeschool happenings on a weekending post I think. This week we are on our first week-long break for the year anyway. We couldn't believe we had already done five weeks of school!! I'm taking this week to relax a bit and then I will get organized a bit better. Of course, I can't relax too much as I have two reviews due this week. 

Let's take a look at that review schedule real quick:

Two weeks ago I posted my reviews for Captain Bayley's Heir from Heirloom Audio Productions, and The Secret of the Hidden Scrolls (Books 1 and 2) from Worthy Publishing. Last week I posted my reviews for Super Teacher Worksheets and Channie's Easy Peasy Cursive Workbook. The reviews for CTCMath and Brinkman Adventures will go live this week. I then have only two more reviews for the Crew this year. They will be posting at the beginning of November. Look for reviews for The Pencil Grip and The Magic Stories. I can't believe our Crew year is already coming to a close for 2017.

Moving on to this week's craft:

In the preschool co-op class we made Two-Sided Paper Plate Apples. A couple of years ago we made Two-Sided Paper Plate Pumpkins, which is where I got my idea from.

If you remember, last week I shared my Apples Apples All Around Literature and Craft Round Up. I thought the following book from our pile was a great one to go with this craft.

This craft was quite simple. Which is perfect for a group that includes 3 and 4 year olds, plus a one year old. I worked with the children two at a time, instead of in a big group.

Here is what you will need:

Per student:

1 paper plate with a hole punched on the edge

1 green pipe cleaner

4 black construction paper apple seeds (or real apple seeds if you have them)

Brown construction paper stem

Tape

Red acrylic paint

White school glue

Red marker

Paintbrush

Brown crayon or a pencil

The egg carton is what I use to hold the paint.

They started by drawing a line down the center, then I added four drops of glue for them to see where to glue on the seeds.

Then they threaded the pipe cleaner through the hole and I helped them shape it into leaves by folding each half into half and wrapping it around the hole again and around the pipe cleaner. Then we pressed it into a leaf shape. The stem was then taped onto this side of the plate. The pipe cleaner was taped down with the same piece of tape to secure it.

Then they took the marker and colored the very edge to represent the skin of the apple.

Some of the children didn't quite get the idea of coloring the very edge. I allowed them to make a circle the way they chose.

They then painted the other side of the paper plate:

Here are the finished apples. Unfortunately I couldn't get a group picture of all the insides as they paint was still drying.

 

Some things I would like to share with you:

For more Apple ideas check out my Apple Fun Round Up.

And don't forget about my Apples, Apples All Around Literature and Craft Round Up.

Those autumn leaves are starting to fall down. If you are looking for some ideas that focus on fall leaves, I invite you to check out my Fall Leaves All Around Round Up:

Pumpkins are popping up all around. Though we don't celebrate Halloween, I do love pumpkins. A couple of years ago I posted my Pumpkin Fun Round Up.

Finally, as it is Fire Safety Month, don't forget to check out my Focusing on Fire Safety Round Up

Now onto:

Littles Learning Link Up Features

On my last Littles Learning Link Up post, there were 10 wonderful posts linked up. I will be picking one randomly selected post to share, plus the top clicked-on post.  

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:

Lisa from Syncopated Mama shared Latticed Learning Weather.

And here are this week's top clicked on posts.

Mommies Reviews shared Fun Shape Learning Activities for Preschool.

Mommies Reviews also shared Color Learning Activities for Preschool.

The Disguised Supermom shared Keeping Your House: Weekly Cleaning Schedules.

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.

No button currently, and there won't be one until I can figure it out seeing as Photobucket has changed things. Feel free to still share the picture in place of the button. Just link it to my Littles Learning Link Up permalink please.

An InLinkz Link-up

Practicing Handwriting with Easy Peasy Cursive {A TOS Review}

I decided I wanted the children to work on their handwriting this year. Not only are we working on neatness in print, but we are practicing cursive as well. I've always felt that it is very important for children to learn to write in cursive; however, I haven't been very consistent with it. So, when the opportunity arose for us to use the Easy Peasy Cursive Workbook from Channie's Visual Handwriting & Math Workbooks, I thought it was perfect timing. As the workbook is designed for children in 1st through 3rd grade, I decided Hannah (my 2nd grader) would be the recipient of this review product. 

We received this 80-page Easy Peasy Cursive Workbook. 

This soft cover book has pages that are 8.5" x 11" in dimension. It is one of several workbooks that Channie's has available. They also have different writing pads and notebooks. All of these products have been developed during these last two years since Channie's was born. As is typical, this company began with a need. Specifically, when Chan Bohacheff realized her son needed something different to practice his writing because he was getting too frustrated with what he was using. 

She developed this uniquely designed paper for practicing handwriting. There are three sections for each letter, with the middle section shaded green while the upper and lower sections are white. Each letter is then separated by a small space or divider line. These guidelines are meant to help the child form consistent letters and spaces between the letters. With the Easy Peasy Cursive Workbook that we received, the guidelines are slanted to help the child get that angle needed for cursive letters. 

Let's look at a sample page, so you can see what I am talking about.

The majority of the workbook is comprised of double-sided pages for learning the letters. Each letter has two tracing pages and one writing page. The child learns the upper and lower case forms at the same time. After all the letters have been introduced and practiced, the child can practice some words on the last two pages of the workbook. 

How have we been using the Easy Peasy Cursive Workbook?

Hannah has been easing her way through the book. I don't have her do an entire page in one sitting. Instead, when she first starts a letter, she traces one full line of that letter and then she writes one full line of the same letter. The next time we work on handwriting, she starts by reviewing the previous letters, tracing and writing a few letters each, and then she moves on to her full lines of the new letter. There have been times she was struggling with a letter, so we spent our time focused on that letter, instead of moving on to the next letter. 

What do we think of Channie's Easy Peasy Cursive Workbook?

I do have to say, it took some time for Hannah to get used to forming the letters and filling in the spaces the exact same way the examples show the letters. While the first tracing page with the dotted letters does have red arrows to show how to start forming the letters, it is only one stroke that is shown. Most of the time it is only the first stroke, but sometimes, such as in the lowercase f, it is a stroke in the middle of the letter. Additionally, there are some strokes where it isn't actually clear how the line is to be formed. Thus it is imperative that the parent demonstrates how to form the letter correctly prior to the child trying it on his or her own. There are a few letters where the formation was a bit strange to me (the lower case e, the upper case H, and the upper case I), so I just demonstrated the way I had been taught to form the letters. 

We also hit a bit of a snag when she reached the letter f, which is the first letter to go below the line. For some reason, she wanted to form the entire letter in the two top spaces. 

I do wonder if the spaces are too big for her, and if smaller lines would help. The normal handwriting paper that she is used to working on doesn't have such big spaces between the lines. It might also be that she is used to the dotted line separating two spaces and having three spaces is confusing her. I'm not exactly sure what it is, but when I look at the lower case f, it takes me a minute to realize how it would be formed on "normal" dotted lined paper. So, it may have to do with having difficulty transitioning from the one type of paper to another. 

While she struggled at first with the spaces, she has begun to get the hang of it now. I feel it does help that we work on a little of each page a day, instead of doing all of one letter before moving on to the next letter. That way she gets to start fresh each day, which is great if she had begun to get frustrated the day before. 

One other thing I would like to mention is that I wish there was more practice of word formation. I think it would have been neat if the bottom line of each page had the child using the letters learned to form words. After learning c, the child would have known three letters and could write "cab" for example. In fact, I may just go and add such words in myself, now that I think about it. 

All in all, I do think that Channie's Easy Peasy Cursive is quite the intriguing handwriting workbook. It might take a child some time to get used to the different kind of spaces. Or it could just be that Hannah is alone in this struggle. I do love the idea of the slanted lines to help get that correct angle, as that is something Amelia still struggles with. So, if your child is having some frustrations learning to write in cursive, this workbook might just be the answer. And if your child needs more practice, they even sell packs of the specially designed paper. 

If you have younger children, Channie's has an Easy Peasy Alphabet workbook for learning and practicing print letters.

In fact, this was one of the other workbooks some of my fellow Crew Mates got to review. The others are: Quick & Neat Alphabet Pad, My First Letters, and One Page a Day: Double Digit Math Problem Workbook.

You can find Channie's Visual Handwriting & Math Workbooks on Facebook.

Don't forget to click on the banner below to check out all the great reviews of the various workbooks from Channie's Visual Handwriting & Math Workbooks. 

Throwback Thursday Blog-Style #172: October 5, 2017

Welcome back to... 

I know, I know, Throwback Thursday seems to be all about sharing pictures from the past, great memories that mean something to you, that you would like to share with others. At least that is how it appears to me. Throwback Thursday wasn't something I was participating in, and then I came up with an idea.

I thought it would be great fun and a help to my blog to share old content, but not just any old content. Each week I will share an old blog post from a previous year, any year, BUT it has to be from the current week (for example, something I've posted around October 5th, from any previous year)  I will go in, edit the post if needed, add a pinnable image if I don't already have one, and share it on Facebook.

Last year I focused solely on recipe posts for the posts I wanted to share, and the year before that, I shared past review posts. It was fun remembering some of the recipes and reviews I had forgotten about. This year I will be sharing random posts.

Would you like to join in? You do not need to edit your past post in any way, you don't need to create a pinnable image, though it couldn't hurt, in fact it will help your blog traffic to add quality pinnable images to your posts.

Just go into your archives, choose a favorite post from this current week from any previous year, and link it up below. (If you don't have anything from this current week, it is still okay to link up with a post from a previous year around this time. And if you haven't been blogging for a full year, feel free to share any earlier post.)

Please make sure to share from the past as instructed above if you would like your post to qualify for the Featured Post. Most weeks I find that there is a wonderful post, but I can't feature it because it is a current post, not from the past. I love reading the current posts, if you want to share them. However, I am not able to feature them, because the spirit of Throwback Thursday Blog-Style is to share posts from the past.
Thank you

I will be pinning posts to my appropriate Pinterest boards and will be randomly selecting a Featured Throwback Thursday post to share next week. Just a note, I will be sharing a picture from your post if you are selected as the featured post, but I will link back to your post. I will ALWAYS give credit and link back. By linking up you are giving me permission to use your picture in the post. 

Here is my Throwback Thursday post:

Originally posted October 4, 2016
Littles Learning Link Up: Focusing on Fire Safety Round Up

Here is this week's randomly selected

Featured Throwback Thursday:

Mommies Reviews shared Autumn Science & Sensory Activities.

To participate, link up below. It would be great if you could visit several of the other posts that have linked up. Stop by, comment, and pin images so we can help each other.

No button currently, and there won't be one until I can figure it out seeing as Photobucket has changed things. Feel free to still share the picture in place of the button. Just link it to my Throwback Thursday Blog-Style permalink please.

Happy Throwback Thursday!

An InLinkz Link-up

Supplementing Our Homeschool With Wonderful Printables from Super Teacher Worksheets {A TOS Review}

A couple of years ago I was introduced to a wonderful site called Super Teacher Worksheets thanks to being on the Homeschool Review Crew. Due to finances, we did have to let our membership expire, so I was thrilled when we were given the opportunity to review the site this year. We again received access to the Individual Membership, which gives us unlimited access to all their wonderful worksheets for a year. In order to use this site, you will need internet access and a printer (with ink) for printing out the worksheets. 

There are multiple worksheets available for many different subjects, and more are being added all the time. When you are on the site, you will see the list of all the kinds of worksheets running down the left sidebar. 

The main subjects are:

• Math
• Reading & Writing
• Phonics & Early Literacy
• Handwriting
• Grammar
• Spelling Lists
• Chapter Book 
• Science
• Social Studies
• Holidays
• Puzzles & Brain Teasers
• Teacher Helpers
• Pre-K and Kindergarten
• and a Worksheet Generator

And as you can see from the screenshot above, there are many topics underneath the main subjects. When you click on the topic you are interested in, you are then directed to another page with either the lessons listed or more links to more specific lessons. 

In the above screenshot, you would need to click on one of the blue highlighted titles to find the specific lessons. This seems to be the case for the math and phonics topics, and possibly others. Other topics, such as the Reading Comprehension, go directly to the list of worksheets. 

When we used Super Teacher Worksheets before, I had a preschooler, so we were using a lot of the phonics worksheets and the word wheels. We have definitely moved beyond the need for those now. Thankfully this site is great for multiple grade levels. The majority of the worksheets that I have looked at appear to be suitable for elementary school ages. Though I have seen some that go into early junior high age (seventh grade). Fortunately, my oldest is only 10, and in fifth grade, so all of the children have been able to utilize these worksheets. 

When we first gained access to the site, I decided to use the cursive handwriting worksheets, as I want all the children to learn cursive this year. These worksheets were perfect for Tabitha and Amelia, which worked well as Hannah already has a workbook. The font was a bit small for a 5 year old, so I did have to find another option for Harold, but it wasn't a problem at all. I do understand that it isn't as common to teach a kindergartener cursive. 

They have two worksheets for each letter of the alphabet, one for upper case, the other lower case. Each letter gives ample opportunity to practice the letter, both with tracing dots and without. Then there are words to copy on the bottom of the page. I decided we would come back to the words once we had gotten through the entire alphabet. 

I then decided I wanted the girls to work on some reading comprehension. There are a wide variety of selections for 1st-5th grade. The 2nd grade stories include fiction, nonfiction, poems, reader's theater, short passages, and compare & contrast exercises. The older grades are quite similar, though there are no compare & contrast pages, and they add in biographies. The child is to read a passage and answer questions. 

Here are some completed stories.

As Hannah was learning about sentences in our core curriculum, I decided to have all the children work on sentences for a while. The girls have been able to practice figuring out if a selection is a sentence or a fragment. Plus we have worked on subjects and prepositions.

Of course these are a bit advanced for Harold, so I found some "Build a Sentences" worksheets for him. He really loves these things. He has to cut out the words, glue them in order, write the sentence neatly, and then draw a picture to illustrate it. 

I was also thrilled to find Book Report forms. I don't require the girls to write book reports all the time, but I have decided they should do so occasionally. In fact, they were able to use these forms to write a book report of some review books we recently read.

My main use of Super Teacher Worksheets this time around is the grammar/literacy/reading comprehension. I can see using this for our language arts this year. As we have something else we use for math, I have decided to use the Super Teacher Worksheets math section for supplemental purposes. So far I have had the children practice some addition with it.

There are also math problem generators that we will utilize later on for math drill time. 

In addition to math worksheet generators, Super Teacher Worksheets gives you the ability to create games, puzzles, quizzes, and more.

Lastly, I wanted to share the fun Scavenger Hunt game I discovered. We have been studying light with our core curriculum, so when I saw "light energy" was one of the offered science topics, I grew excited. 

These Scavenger Hunt games are available for different topics. There are fact cards, that I printed out on card stock, and a double sided worksheet with questions. The question number corresponds to the number on the fact card. 

As we were learning about light, I thought it would be fun to have the hunt in the dark. The children worked in pairs, so I could have one older child with each of the younger children, so they could read the information on the card and write the answers.  I hid the flashcards out in the open, but they had to use flashlights to find them.

The children have already asked to do a scavenger hunt again. 

I absolutely love all of the resources that are available from Super Teacher Worksheets. As you may be able to tell, we only just scratched the surface. I couldn't tell you how many worksheets are available in total; however, there are a lot of them. There are many worksheets that we will be able to use to supplement our curriculum this year. I also appreciate that I can print off some worksheets for them to work on if I am not feeling well, or if  have work to get done. It is definitely a wonderful resource that can be used by homeschoolers to supplement their curriculum. 

You can also check out my review from two years ago to see what different printables we used back then.

You can find Super Teacher Worksheets on Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and Instagram.

Don't forget to click on the banner below to see what my fellow Crew Mates had to say about Super Teacher Worksheets.