School Time: Week 9 (Tt)

This week we started the letter/sound Tt.  However, on Sunday, we ended up doing another S project, at the request of Tabitha.  She had been talking about making an S book and I came up with an idea.  We made an S Hand Print Book Sunday night.  Knowing how much the children like to paint I thought it would be a cute idea.  I was a little unorganized and ended up running back and forth to the kitchen to get wet paper towels to clean the girls' hands between each picture (you'll understand why in a second).

boy was the black hard to clean off

This is the collection of the 4 Amelia did.

The following close ups are Tabitha's 

(trying to share both of their work without making such a long post)

Sun

Snake

Spider

Skunk attempt

Then on Monday we actually started our Tt lessons.  Our words this week were:

tent, tiger, top, truck, trumpet, and turtle.

I couldn't believe it when Tabitha sounded out "trumpet" with out any help.  And it wasn't "t...rr...uuu...mmm...p..eee...t" either.  She looked at it, hadn't seen the pictures in advance and said, "trrruumpet, trumpet."  I'm just so amazed at her reading, decoding skills.  She loves reading the Bob Books and I want to start trying the McGuffey Eclectic Readers I bought a while ago.  And maybe the ABeka level 1 books.  I am SOOO excited!  Just gotta remind myself to take it slowly and not push.

Okay, sorry, off on tangent.  

Monday we had our Tree/Leaf/Harvest Muffin Tin meal

And the girls made their T collages

Tabitha decided to copy Amelia's way of gluing on her pictures.

I think the bottom one is her's.

We read Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert and made our own leaf men.

 And we read Fletcher and the Falling Leaves by Julia Rawlinson.  We worked on changing our tree's leaves to autumn colors and had them falling down.

To see the details of the book tie-in projects check out our STart/Read,Explore,Learn/Kid's Get Crafty post.

In addition to the Muffin Tin Meal this week, I also made them a Forest-of-Trees lunch.

My idea was to have chip and pretzel trees because the bbq chips reminded me of fall leaves.  Unfortunately I didn't have enough whole chips left, so the trees were made out of a variety of foods: a chip, a pierogie, and two quarters of their pb&j sandwich.  The broccoli became little bushes and the cheese represents the fall leaves that have fallen on the ground.

On Friday we went to Story Time.  I love the Little Acorn Brown song, so I thought I would share it:

(the motions are in red)

I'm a Little Acorn Brown 

(lay head on folded hands on side of head like sleeping)

Lying on the cold, cold ground

Everybody steps on me (lift foot and stomp down)

That is why I'm cracked (tap side of head) you see.

I'm a nut (tap side of head 2x and cluck tongue)

I'm a nut (tap 2x)

I'm a nut (1x), nut (1x), nut (2x)

I didn't know this one, but I think hubby might have.

This week we were supposed to collect fall objects and bring them in.  We were provided a brown bag (which they decorated last week).  We actually used some of the leaves we'd collected to make our Leaf Man above.  Then, yesterday at Story Time they made these:

"My Fall Things 2010 " plates

And today we started another project.  The girls' first step was to paint tubes: toilet tissue and paper towel

They turned out really pretty. Stay tuned: next week I will share what we made with them!

I'm am linking up to

Giveaway Opportunity at Always Around Boys

Emy over at Always Around Boys has quite a few giveaways going on.  One that caught my eye is a kit of Carmex products valued at $52.  I love the sound of the Healing Cream and Healing Lotion that she reveiwed (which is included in the kit). Head on over and check it out.  If you join in on the Welcome Weekend blog hop you can earn 5 more entries into this or any other giveaway she has going.

Welcome Weekend Blog Hop

I just found this new blog hop called Welcome Weekend Blog Hop hosted by Always Around Boys and Purple Froggie Clay Stuff.



Hop on over and link up.  You will have a chance to be chosen as a co-host.  If you post about it and add the button you will get two more chances to be a co-host.

While you are there, check out their giveaways and this week if you link up they are offering 5 more entries to a giveaway of your choice!!

Fall Art

 

 

Last week I chose two fall books from the library.  Of course I like to try to have all my projects connect around our letter of the week.  It wasn't too much of a stretch to say that our leaf projects were because tree starts with Tt.  I loved that our muffin tin meal theme was trees, leaves and harvest this week.
We read Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert.  I love the drawings of the leaves and the great detail of each individual leaf that she then takes and uses to form, not just a leaf man, but a wide variety of animals and other things as we join the author in wondering where the leaf man may have gone after it flew away.  You really need to check out this book to see how creative the author is.
We decided to make...what else? A Leaf Man. We gathered leaves last week, it was an added bonus that we were supposed to be collecting leaves to take back to story time today.  I placed them between layers of newspaper and flattened them with some books for a few days.  Unfortunately they were still quite brittle.  I know there is another way to do it because the older children did a leaf project years ago in school and I know the leaves weren't that brittle.  Here are the girls gluing their leaf men together.

I offered them the leaves and had them pick a head, a torso, legs and arms.  Then they reminded me the men needed hands.

We also read Fletcher and the Falling Leaves by Julia Rawlinson.  This story is about a sweet, young, caring fox, who is concerned when his friend the tree begins to change in the fall.  He is so concerned as the tree loses his leaves he tries to put them back on.  This story just tugged on my heart watching the lengths the fox would go to help his friend.

We decided to make fall leaves for our tree in the playroom.  We had made the tree with leaves and apples back in September (check out the lesson here) and I thought it was due time it changed for the season.

The girls paper towel painted (because I had no sponges) with crumpled paper towels held by clothespins.  

Then I cut them out when they were dry and the girls hung them on the tree and blowing off of the tree and in a pile under the tree.

The girls love both of these books and I would strongly recommend them.

Friday Blog Hops: November 5, 2010

  Let's go blog hopping!





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Mommy Madness Friday Blog Hop!

Our theme of the week is

Show Off Your Children.

I decided I wanted to share a little story today.  Tabitha asked about her Grandpa Piccione today, wanted to know where he was.  I told her he was with Jesus in heaven, but one day we would go to see him.  It became quite the discussion and I can't remember it all. But she is now saying randomly throughout the day that she wants to go home to Jesus in heaven and that will be her new home.  This house will be her old home and her play group friends will live here.  I had mentioned about Jesus calling us home, so now she is expecting a phone call from Jesus when our homes are ready.  And she is very concerned that it will have a toilet so she can go potty.  That's my girl.

I know I am looking forward to visiting new blogs this week.  If you stop by I invite you to take a look around, see what I am about, make sure this is a blog you want to follow.  I will try to follow you back as soon as possible.

Check out my weekly link-up: Words of Wisdom Wednesday

This week's linky is open til Nov 10th.  Come check out this week's question!

Okay, I am a day late, but I have been trying to get so much done.  So, here is this week's Words Of Wisdom Wednesday question:

Why is the weather getting colder?

Tabitha: Because it's going to get snowing.  Snow is very cold so we need to get mittens on and when we get mittens on we put our fingers together.  But we need a snow suit on too and boots and hats and scarf. And then we get everything on  to go outside.

Mom: But why is it getting colder?

Tabitha: Because it's going to snow.

And then dad asked Amelia:

Amelia: 'Cause 

Daddy: 'Cause why?

Amelia: 'Cause

Daddy: What makes it get colder?

Amelia: The sun came out.

Okay, she's a little confused. Oh, and "'cause" is her favorite answer lately.

What about your children?  What would they say if you asked them why the weather is getting colder?  If you decide to ask them, don't forget to post about it and link back up here in the linky below with your Words of Wisdom Wednesday link URL. Please link back here in your post and grab the Words of Wisdom Wednesday button from over in my sidebar, spread the word about Words of Wisdom Wednesday.

Muffin Tin Monday: Trees

This week's theme for Muffin Tin Monday is:

Trees, Leaves and Harvest

This was the perfect theme for this week.  We are on the letter Tt!

We had hand cut tree shaped peanut butter and apple butter sandwiches.  We used apple butter instead of jelly because apples grow on trees.

Spinach leaf salad with avocado/tomato dressing

Fall colored/leaf shaped Jello Jigglers

Oreo dirt (because trees grow in soil)

The girls crushed their own cookies.

Pretzel stick twigs

Broccoli Trees

Pineapple sun to help the trees grow

And they had water to drink because the trees also need water to help them grow.

The girls actually did very well eating everything in their tins.  And that was after eating the Jello, Oreo crumbs and pineapple (i.e. the sweet stuff) first