Category: Homeschooling

Hermie Tot Book

I have not made any lapbooks but I am researching them and a super-sweet friend is going to give me a tutoiral. For practice I decided to try a Tot Book, it’s a mini-version of lapbooks. We tried this one today it’s another great idea from the 1+1+1=1 blog. It is a Hermie Tot Book from the Tot Section of the blog. I intially had my youngest in mind but as I was going through it I think my 4 year will have fun with it too, I will try after I laminate the pieces. My 2 year old jumped right in and was super eager, we must LAMINATE. He liked it a lot and played with it for about 10 minutes! Thanks Carissa!

Top Left – Bug book, Bottom Left – Accordion Counting Book, Bottom Right – Colors

Oliver liked the lapbook so I’d say it was a success!

These were for a book that shows the names of the characters and then has a blank one for the child. I improvised and laid them all out and glued them to the inside. Sam liked seeing all of them, he was excited… it was so cute. Thanks again to 1+1+1=1, I have been so inspired and motivated!

September 5, 2010
Learning to Count, Add & Subtract

This is a great idea from one of my favorite blogs, the
1+1+1=1 Blog

When I was learning to count my teacher showed me this method, not sure what it is called but it helped me tremendously when learning to add and subtract. I saw this and thought it would be great for Oliver. I hand wrote the numbers and he is using cylinder shapes from the Dollar Spot at Target. On a side note, the Dollar Spot also had packs of squares and triangles, great manipulatives!

Each number has the corresponding # of dots on it.

September 4, 2010
A Day in the Life

Homeschool Blog Hop – THIS WEEK – Day in the life

I am participating in a blog hop hosted by heartofthematteronline.com – this week’s subject is …. A DAY IN THE LIFE – we started today, perfect timing.

YAY! We did it, we really actually did it! We completed our first official day of Homeschool! I really had no clue about how it would go, I even expected the worst, but I was pleasantly surprised. We started off with French Toast, OJ and Yogurt – yum!

Then off to the school table… I will list our schedule below (not really a schedule, just a list of things we did). I didn’t time subjects or even look at the clock, I didn’t want to stress about time. Oliver, my preschooler, sat right down and was ready to go to work, I was so impressed. I showed him his workbox and schedule he pulled out his first worksheet and completed it! I would love to say that he moved on to the next folder with worksheets, but that was just about for him.
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We did call him back for calendar time. We did it all together, which went really well. They checked the weather and recorded it, colored in Day 1 of the 100 Days of School chart, Oliver had to find items with the color of the day while my 1st Grader recorded the date. After that the preschooler went on his way. I decided I wouldn’t over-worry about him sticking to it… He is only 4.

Preston and I sat down and I showed him his workbox and schedule. Then we jumped right in, together. It flowed, it worked, it was really enjoyable! I am thankful to God that it went so well. When we finished I thought I missed something because it was fast and smooth – but we covered everything! The toddler went about his business almost the entire time, playing with centers all around us.

Preston's Desk – Workbox, schedule, decorate a mug

Oliver "Desk"

Oliver's "Desk"

toot toot playing with pompoms

Oliver the Preschooler

Getting Started – yep one kid is shirtless… ugh!

We started at 8:30 and finished at 11:30. We had Calendar, Bible, Character training, History, Geography, Reading, Spelling, Phonics, Math, Lego Center, Art. For Art we bought the boys their own mug to color, they loved them!

Thanks for stopping by!

August 23, 2010
Preston’s Desk

The clock is ticking. Can you hear it? I couldn’t either until this week, now the ticking is getting louder and louder. I am getting very excited and very nervous. So today I am going to just blog about my 1st graders desk, that’s easy. Hope you like. I would have loved this setup when I was young.

Preston’s Desk

1st Desk Drawer

Middle Desk Drawer

August 19, 2010
School Pictures – My Super-Cute Students, ok so I am a little biased!

Homeschool Blog Hop

I have been participating in the Not Back to School Blog Hop that is being hosted at http://heartofthematteronline.com. This weeks topic is School Pictures. So I haven’t really had a chance to cut the boys hair and get them all “spiffy” so I pulled some pics that were taken while we have been enjoying our summer the past couple of months. Also, here is a video we made of our kids and other family, I hope you enjoy!

1st Grader Preston

Preschooler Oliver

2 year old Samuel

Sam

Be sure to come back, next week’s topic is “A Day in Our Life”.

August 15, 2010
More Classroom Ideas

Earlier this week I joined the Not-Back to School Blog Hop, so many homeschoolers participated, it was inspiring! Who doesn’t love a peek into someone else’s life and home. After looking at other blogs I decided to share my room, in more detail, so that others can get ideas, the way I have been getting classroom ideas.

Two blogs that played a huge role in giving me inspiration for preschool activities, classroom ideas, preschool lesson plans, and more are http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com and http://homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com/ – a huge thank you to Carisa and Jolanthe. They have helped me so much, hope this helps someone else!

Classrooom Ideas, Morning Board:
Color of the Day – Preschooler will need to pull cards from the color folder and choose the correct one, also locate 3 items with that color.
Bible Verse of the Week – I will write the verse out and I will use Dictation to have my 1st grader fill in Book, Chapter, Verse
Weather Card – Preschooler will have to find the correct weather card for the day and hang it, while the 1st grader checks temperature and records it.
100 days countdown – I will have them alternate coloring the days off
Today’s Date – I plan on filling one option in and having my 1st grader fill in the remaining ones

Morning Board Color of the Day — Color of the Day wall pocket

Preschooler Weather Board ideas — Preschool Weather Board

Hope this helps with your own classroom ideas. Enjoy your day!

August 12, 2010

After looking at this site and her ideas for a Calendar board I was completely inspired. Thank you Homeschool Creations for the wonderful ideas! Here is our Calendar board:

Our Homeschool Calendar ideas from Homeschool Creations blog

We have: Todays Date, with different ways to write the date, make the date in money, color of the day, weather for temp. (1st grader will fill in daily), weather for the 4 year old to use picture cards. We also have letter of the day and verse of the day. I will also be adding the skip counting pages.

For calendar I plan on having all 3 boys participate in one way or another. I have also been looking around for center ideas, things to keep the 2 little ones busy when I need to work with my 1st grader. Carissa has so many excellent ideas on her blogs. One of them is Tot Trays. I loved all her ideas and will be using them and creating more inspired by what I have seen. Here are some things we have so far:

Preschool Centers — Basket #1 (white) – for the 2 & 4 year olds, basket #2 – Base Ten set – 1st grader

basket #1 – Pompoms for sorting, pouring, gluing, scooping, measuring, tongs, ice cube try for sorting, clothespin centers (see below), poker chips to sort and stack, pipe cleaners, eraser center (see below).

Toddler Center - erasers — I cut a square in the lid of a take n go container, then added erasers

Toddler Center — He puts them and then tries to retrieve them

colors and numbers center — Different games to play with these both toddlers and preschoolers

Preston gluing pasta and glitter — Pasta, glitter and glue

Still on the lookout. Excellent places for centers: the Dollar Tree, Walmart, Big Lots. You don’t have to spend a lot and your children will learn, play and love it!