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Monday, March 29, 2010

Letter Ff



Handwriting -
letter Ff worksheets found here
finger tracing paint bag

Phonics -
letter Ff mini book found here


beginning sound picture sort (f and k)
scavenger hunt


Ff fish sorting game found here

Math -
fish patterns found here


pattern blocks and flower mat found here

Art/Crafts -

letter of the week


fish handprint

Other -


Ff blends

Wednesday, March 24, 2010

eggs-actly



Another behavior booster that I've tried with my kids deals with obeying. For a couple of weeks, it seemed like I was constantly repeating myself to the kids to get them to do or NOT do what I asked them. After trying a few other discipline techniques, I remembered my book of Behavior Boosters. I placed 12 eggs in an egg carton. My girls love gum, so I put a piece of gum in each egg. If my girls obey right away and all the way, then I will occasionally let them get an egg for obeying the fist time I asked them to.

"Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord." Colossians 3:20

Friday, March 19, 2010

Letter Ss



Handwriting -
letter Ss worksheets found here

Phoniccs -
scavenger hunt
letter Ss mini book found here
letter Ss worksheet found here
beginning sound picture sort (s and c)

Math -


snowman graphing with marshmallows found here


snowflake matching game found here


snowman pattern block mat

Art/Crafts -


letter of the week

Other -
listen to The Snowy Day online here
story sequence cards for The Snowy Day found here
dot-to-dot worksheet found here


letter magnets


snowman puzzle

encourage one another

In January at my MOPS group, I had a lady come and do a workshop on Behavior Boosters. She did an awesome job! You can check out her website and she also is willing to come to your church or MOPS group to present her workshop. She shared ideas on how to motivate positive behavior in children and how to incorporate scripture throughout your day. I ordered her Complete Collection of behavior boosters and love it!

Here is the first behavior booster that I have tried. I had to adapt it a little because I don't have any ABC blocks. I used Word Art in Microsoft Word and spelled out the word encourage. As one of my kids encourages another (mainly during school time), I color in a letter. When the whole word is colored in, they will get to pick something out of the treasure chest.



"Encourage one another and build each other up".
1 Thessalonians 5:11a

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

Letter Vv



Handwriting-
letter V worksheets found here

Phonics-
letter V mini book found here


beginning sound picture sort (v and w)

letter V worksheet found here
scavenger hunt
computer game found here

Math-
patterns

Art/Crafts-


letter of the week
made valentine's cards


Other-
letter maganets
dot-to-dot worksheet found here
number recognition bean bag game

Thursday, March 11, 2010

Letter Hh

I started homeschooling in January of this year and February was the first month that I really started planning out my lessons.

Our first letter was Hh-



Handwriting -
letter Hh worksheet found here
push pin tracing
finger tracing paint bag

Phonics -
letter Hh scavenger hunt
letter Hh mini book found here
beginning sound picture sort (h and f)
phoncis computer game found here

Math -


number matching hearts


numerical order

Art/Crafts -


letter of the week


frogs and ladybugs made from hearts

Other -
Jesus loves me sequencing hearts found here
letter beads


number recognition bean bag game

this is how we homeschool

This is how we are doing homeschool right now. Each week, we focus on an alphabet letter and do other activities to along with that letter. Gracelyn is learning to write her lowercase letters and Ella is learning to write her capital letters. This works out kind of nicly! Since I only use 5 workboxes for each girl, I break my lesson plans down into 5 categories: handwriting, phonics, math, art/crafts, other.


We mostly do school 3 days a week on Monday, Wednesday and Friday for about an hour. I feel that pretend play, dress-up, and unstructured play is very important for little ones. But, I also believe that children learn very quickly at a young age and are eager to learn new things and need to be exposed to new things.


One advantage of homeschooling is that you can broaden learning to other times and places. Learning can take place in the car, on a nature walk, helping with the garden or at the grocery store. Teaching and learning doesn't have to be a structured sit-down kind of lesson. That's my two cents anyway!

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

this is why I homeschool



We've decided to homeschool or 3 children! I'm excited and overwhelmed all at the same time. We've been doing school work 3 days a week for the past 8 or 9 weeks now. I really enjoy planning and teaching my kids. I graduated from college with a degree in early childhood education and loving getting to pour what I learned in school into my children. I haven't decided on a curriculm yet, so for now I'm focusing on pre-school skills and pulling material and activities from different places.


Each week we focus on an alphabet letter and do other activities that go along with that letter. We are using the Workbox system designed by Sue Patrick and I love it! I have one 10 drawer cart that I got from Jo-Anns's that I use for my 2 girls. Gracelyn uses the top 5 boxes and Ella uses the bottom 5 boxes. Each school day I fill their boxes with different activites. The girls really like the workboxes and I love how organized and easy it is to use.


I'm by no means an expert on homeschooling, but I would like to share with other homeschooling moms what we do each week. In fact, I'm learning a lot as I go along! Like what works and what doesn't work! I hope this blog will help in your planning!