It's A New Year's Thing

Among my other "things" I have a thing for starting traditions and New Year's Eve is the perfect time of year to create those family traditions.  Because we live the crazy life we have fondue and a dance party every year.  This fondue recipe is sure to be a hit with your kids and you.  Throw in some homemade party hats, homemade noisemakers, and party decorations and you can party in style - have kids who get up early style.

The Party Preparations!

The Set-Up

The big box is our glittering box.  

The Progress

I drew lines for Mister and Ladybug to cut so they would know where to stop, but I encouraged them to make additional cuts if they wanted more curls.  

The Results

The Fondue and Kiddie Cocktails! 
We ate the entire pot of fondue plus 12 pieces of sushi and 3 mini desserts!

Fondue Dippers

• Steak
• Shrimp
• Broccoli
• Bread
• Sweet Peppers
• Cucumbers
• Mushrooms
• Tomatoes

The product of going to school is raising your hand at the table. 

She drank it all before the fondue started!

The Party

The noisemakers had lentils on the inside with pony beads attached to ribbons for an extra loud factor.  Stringing the pony beads was a good exercise in fine motor, too.

It's not a party without a lot of noise!  

America's Best Dance Crew, er, stop, collaborate and listen.

A Wishing Tree
This was one of our newest tradition this year.  I plan to keep it out all year (maybe paint the branches, get a new holder, you know pretty it up) so we can revisit our wishes.

I used my Cricut to cut the ovals.

We also did some goal setting and talked about resolutions, but not until breakfast.  I have a tendency to plan a little too much, but I consider it a bonus from my teaching days.

T is for Teeth - What's on those teeth?

I have been lagging on posting this month because I have been so busy wood working (a new thing for me) and sewing Halloween costumes.  The kiddos and I have been over at my parent's house almost everyday, so that has left little school time.  We have been able to fit some in and the Wee One and I are on the letter T.  No, I didn't miss on posting the letters between A and T, but we are doing them out of order in one of the different suggested ways.

Before we carved our pumpkins, I drew a face including teeth.  On the teeth I put gross black that needed to be brushed.  I included a toothbrush and some water.  The first time the Wee One did it I threw it together to see if she would like it and that's the only picture I have.  I found that yellow paint worked a little better than dry erase marker.  Mister and Ladybug enjoyed brushing the jack-o-lantern's teeth also.

Happy Brushing!

Candy Corn and Holiday Cards

We are still struggling with sorting out the Wee One's activities from Mister and Ladybug's activities.  Te Wee One wants to do Mister and Ladybug's activities and they want to do her activities.  Of course what child would pass up the opportunity to work with candy corn?

Simple activity for practicing transferring and a lot of smelling, and probably some tasting too.

Another quick activity:

The kiddos like to put together picture puzzles rather than greeting card puzzles, but we have an abundance of greeting cards.  

A is for...

My husband is really good at fixing large manly type of things, like a motor or a bathroom.  What he isn't so good at is fixing delicate things, like Mister's glasses (hello warranty) and my camera.  Two things you  never want from your camera is a flash and a boom and those two things I have heard.  The good news is that I have a few things I haven't posted from last month, but I have a really cool sensory bin that I am itching to get to.  In the meantime, here are some of the Wee One's letter "a" activities.

Math - Scented apple stickers on dots to work on one-to-one correspondence.

Literacy - Letter A recognition and beginning sounds Letter Book

Apple stamping - she chose to use make yellow apples

Stickers - fine motor

Finally, we did a lot of dancing to Animal Actions.

Toddler Challenge

The Wee One's fine motor skills are pretty good and she enjoys working with small objects, so when I saw her doing Mister and Ladybug's math activity I set her own set of pony beads and pipe cleaners out.  This activity took about 2 minutes to put together and she has worked on it a few times.

The basket had one white and one blue pipe cleaner with blue and white pony beads.  When I introduced the activity I showed her the matching colors, but she decided they looked better all  on one pipe cleaner. 

Our Abandoned Activites

We have spent very little time in our Learning Room this month, but we have been so busy enjoying nature and summer.  These are the activities we have dabbled in this month.

Literacy and Language - We are still working on beginning reading, sight words, and handwriting

Sight word sentence strips

Picture to word matching

Ladybug loves Benjamin Franklin, so we celebrated the postal service by writing a letter about one of Benjamin Franklin's accomplishments.

Math - We are continuing our study of patterns and simple addition and subtraction.

 

Sensory

Sun faded paper key matching

Practical Life

Mister and Ladybug traced a diamond, cut it out, punched a hole, and added a string to make a kite.

Maybe next month we will back into our routine, but in the mean time we are having so much fun!

Pinwheel, Pinwheel

I put this activity on the shelf for Mister and Ladybug last year and set it out for the Wee One this year.  She covered the cube and loved blowing on the pinwheels to make them spin.

Holy Frijoles - Part 1

We have only done these activities a few times this month.  So far they have seemed to enjoy them.

Math

Mister and Ladybug put the correct number of links on the soccer ball and then add (join) two of them together.

Roll a graph - Mister and Ladybug rolled the die six times and added a sticker to the correct column.  

Literacy

The -et family

Ladybug is very excited to write and for a dollar I made her day.

Practical Life

We are still working on Mister's pencil grip, so I put out "Things from Mexico" pushpin.

Cultural/Geography

The Wee One

This work was first presented to Mister and Ladybug as an introductory lesson to colors in Spanish.  We did a group lesson on the rug and took turns matching and saying the colors.  Also, it's on the Wee One's shelf for color matching.  She finds is really easy and has attempted to say the Spanish words a few times.

There you have it.  Next month I really want to study Mexico and I have plans to include an artist study among other things.

Open and Shut Them

The Wee One, like most kids her age, love to open and close things, so on her shelf is a farm animal open and close.  She likes to open all the boxes and put the animals in one container and then move the animals to another container.

Farm - Part 2

Last week was all about chickens!

Science - Life Cycle of a Chicken

Modified from here

Gross Motor/Fine Motor - Egg Race and Egg Toss

March was hot, well hot for March at least, so when I planned my egg activities I wanted to use real eggs outside.  However, Mother Nature decided to throw me a few curve balls and I just couldn't bring myself to use real eggs inside.  I am learning to tolerate messes, but that was out of my comfort zone.  Also ignore the clothing...my children picked their outfits out alone.

Walk the line.

She might do better with her eyes open.  We used hard boiled eggs from Easter.

Math

Find the correct sum for each equation.

Match the equation in pictures to the equation with numbers.  I want Mister and Ladybug to be able to represent equations in more than one way.  Unfortunately this didn't last too long since the Wee One removed all the stickers.

Literacy - We did a lot of reading in our sight word readers, brainstormed the -EN family, and read Little Red Hen, Where Do Chickens Come From?, and many other books.

Life on a Chicken Farm

Piggy Says What?

An easy and quick activity to put together and do, which kept the Wee One happy for some time. Each time she put in a coin she would let out an "oink" and a snort.

Farm - Part 1

We started our farm study with talking about pigs.  We read If You Give a Pig a Pancake and I Like Me.

Art

Pig in the mud

Math

What's the sum?

The equations were writtin with numbers on one side and dots on the other. 

Literacy



Practical Life

Cow squirter water transfer

Putting on a washer and screwing onto the butterfly.

Mister needs a lot of work on correct pencil grip (he still hasn't decide if he is lefty or a righty yet!) and this tweezing activity helps develop those fine motor skills.  The Wee One liked to tickle herself with the feathers.

Sensorial

Farm babies puzzle

I mixed in a few Easter activities for no other reason than they are fun.