There's More

I was looking over my blog and realized that in February I had a bad case of "Mommy Brain" because I didn't post some of the activities on our shelves.  The pictures were taken and uploaded, but they have sat unused.  So in an effort to play catch-up here are a few more left-overs.

Math

One-to-one correspondence - The Wee One put one heart on each of the stickers.

Mister and Ladybug covered their board with hearts and subtracted the number rolled.  The first person to clear his or her board was the winner.

Make a stamp pattern.

Art/Literacy

Mister and Ladybug folded their paper make a heart, traced the pattern, and cut it out.  They designed a valentine for a friend.  We also took dobbers and made designs on our paper using the doilies.

Word list created by the kiddos for their valentine cards

Practical Life

Cutting out hearts

After reading "It's Raining Hearts" they punched and glued their own hearts.

Valentine pony beads and pipe cleaner bracelets.

The Wee One Shelves

Another goodie from last year - It's Raining Hearts tree

Strawberry hauler for one-to-one correspondence

Okay, I think that's it...really.

All About Money - Part 2

Here are the final activities for the month of January.  Overall I think it was successful and challenging for Mister and Ladybug.

Math

This was done as a group activity because it involved mixing coins.  Often kids will count all the coins by 5s or 10s without looking at each coin.   We started off with easy, single type of coin counting before moving onto two harder coin counting.  

The next are activities are either independent work or one-on-one work depending on how Ladybug or Mister's knowledge.

3-part matching

File folder game matching sticks to the correct pocket.  

Money Mix-Up.  Each coin bag had a slip of paper with an amount and the correct coins had to be matched to each bag.

Literacy 

We put literacy on the back burner to focus on math.  While Ladybug hemmed and hawed all month, Mister was very excited.  The next two activities were done in order.  The first was matching words to pictures and it became increasingly harder from there.

Fill in the missing letters and stamp.

Stamp and write - two challenge words

Practical Life - Penny Cleaning

• Dirty pennies
• Salt
• Vinegar
• Water
• Paper towels

Mister and Ladybug enjoyed sprinkling salt on the pennies after they were dipped in vinegar and rubbing to see the changes.  You could also mix 1 teaspoon of salt in 1/4 cup vinegar and drop the pennies in for about 10 seconds.

Art - Design your own money

I hope you found something you liked and can use this month!

Halloween - A Few More

Here are a few more activities on the shelves for Halloween.

Art

Frankenstein example

Mister's Frankenstein

Literacy - Ladybug loves to make cards for people, so I put a Halloween card template on the shelf.  I asked them to practice writing the first part of the sentence "It is a" and stamp Barnyard Boogie.

The stamp is from the #1 spot at Joann.

Practical Life - We have put a lot of effort into our cutting this month after I saw some less than stellar preschool cutting projects.  These shapes range from easy to a little harder.  After they cut the ghosts were glued onto black paper, shredded cotton balls were added and the words "Boo" and "Halloween" were added.  The Wee One glued shredded and glued cotton balls on her ghost.

Ghost cutting

Math - Draw a card and match the number on the hundreds chart.  The pumpkins are erasers I have had for years.

Happy Halloween!

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 Activities

Mean what you say and say what you mean.  I am not sure how many times that phrase has passed through my lips and now I can't help think, do as I say not as I do.  Just a few days ago I said that I wasn't going to put together many activities for Mister and Ladybug and I lied.  

Math

Mister and Ladybug can self check by looking on the back of the apple.

Literacy

Word families - Dot all the word families that belong together

Mister and Ladybug color the apples and cut it apart to make a book

Pages 3 and 4 of their apple book.

Practical Life

You may be thinking this doesn't look like a lot, but there is more to come and I have the Wee One's activities too.  Sometimes it just all comes together...

From One Desert to Another

The Wee One still gets  kick out of pouring and transferring, so I put together sand pouring for her shelf.  She spent two fifteen minute intervals pouring on her mat.

She preferred the mismatched pitchers.

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!

Preaparing the Molcajete

I have had my molcajete and tejolote sitting as a display piece for a really long time.  For some reason it intimidated me although I am a pretty good cook.  I made a resolve to use it, so I enlisted the kiddos to help me prepare and use the molcajete for the first time.

First, I set out the molcajete and we inspected it.  I had Mister and Ladybug guess what it was and from what material it was made.  Also, we watched how a molcajete was made.

Then it was time to prepare and make our guacamole.

Ladybug grinding up salt.

The Wee One seasoning the molcajete with garlic gloves and cumin.

Mister grinding up avocados for the guacamole.

Our finished guacamole.  I didn't get a single drop of the guacamole because they enjoyed it that much.    

My molcajete was relatively smooth and didn't need much work, so we sped up the preparing process.  We also made baked tortilla chips and had frijoles.

Our Easy and Kid Friendly Guacamole

2 avocados
1/2 Onion
Tomato
Cilantro
Lime