Claire in Kindergarten: November 2011

This has been a busy month for Miss Claire!  The reading is finally started to click and I really think the extra sight words activities we have been doing is making the difference!  Thank you to Carisa at 1plus1plus1equals1 for creating the You Can Read program and sharing it with us!

You Can Read Unit 2 activites ... our words were: I, can, me, you.

Some Thanksgiving activities from her Abeka curriculum.

Pilgrim hats (David got the boy hat).

Handprint turkey.  She drew this all by herself.  Even tracing her hand.  (The house was another Abeka project and the gift was a Wednesday night church activity.)

Praise pumpkin patch.  (The turkey was made at church one Wednesday night.)

You Can Read Unit 3 ... our words were:  like, it, is, my. 

We used a new activity with this one ... rice sensory box.  The sight words are on small pieces of paper in different fonts and Claire has to find and sort the words.  She loves this activity and we do it 2-3 times per week.

We used or playdough mats to sort the words. 

Another use for the Bingo cards ... roll a word.  We used our Education Cube printables with our 4 sight words and Claire marked each word she rolled on the Bingo cards.  

Sight word graphing ... another of her favorite activities. 

We always do our playdough activities together ... Claire's sightwords and David's letter of the week. 

I finally got our word board ready too.  Except that Luke pulled off the Q and W.  I'll have to get those put back on!  This is a good way for her to review our past words too.  We take them all off and put them all on each week (new words and old words). 

Making words with beads. 

You Can Read Unit 4 ... our words were: love, mom, dad, at.

We also made this awesome nativity scene as one of her art projects in her Abeka program.  She is super pumped to use it to tell us the Christmas story on Christmas Day.  She mentions it frequently.

You Can Read Unit 5 ... our words were: go, here, up, down. 

Ok.  I think that is about it for the month of November.  I really do some extra number work with Claire.  She can count to 100, but we are having trouble with number recognition.  Any suggestions?

This post is linked up to these great blogs:

Menu Plan Monday: December 5

 

Monday: roasted turkey sausage, peppers & onions, mashed sweet potatoes, green beans

Tuesday: Eat out for Will's birthday

Wednesday: grilled cheese sandwiches, tomato soup

Thursday:  Spaghetti, garlic bread

Friday: black bean & corn quesadillas, chips & salsa/cheese dip and salad

Saturday: AM: french toast casserole, sausage, fruit, PM: turkey & dressing casserole, green beans & rolls

Sunday: lunch out with a coupon, PM: chicken enchilada soup, chips

Check out Laura's blog for more Menu Plan Monday.

Preschool Corner: B is for Batman!

Letter B week!  So many great things start with B ... bugs, balloons, butterflies and Batman!

(David is 3 years, 7 months old)

David working on a coloring page with our Bible verse for the week ... "Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God."  (All of our bible verse printables came from Raising Rock Stars Preschool.)

Tracing our B words from RRSP. 

David loved all of the Batman printables from 1plus1plus1equals1!

Size sorting Batman. 

Batman letter matching.  At first, I called out a letter and David placed his Batman character on the letter.  

Then, we matched clothespins with the corresponding lowercase letters.  This was a little trickier for him. 

Claire was more than happy to help.  She is super-nosy about everything David does. 

Batman number matching.

I love how he just stopped by to listen to Claire read.

Batman coloring.

Batman pre-writing practice. 

Batman color matching. 

Batman playdough mat. 

Other "B" activities.  Butterfly uppercase/lowercase letter matching.  (The butterfly printables came from our LOTW curriculum.) 

Putting various ball stickers in a sticker album.  (I picked this up at Dollar General for $1.) 

Butterfly magnet page. 

Balloon stickers on B.  I think he was mad I was taking his picture here. 

 Letter Bb writing practice. 

Bug watercolor painting.  (I also got this at Dollar General for $1.  FYI ... the picture did not turn out great but he really enjoyed painting.) 

Butterfly puzzle. 

Sticker mosaics.  Claire made a Ballerina and David made a Bus. 

Other great resources: Berenstain Bears books, Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle, Bob the Builder, Blues Clues and Barney videos on Netflix.

This is linked up to these great blogs:

Ballerina Girl

Claire had these ballet pictures made back in September.  We missed her group photos this year (where they wear their recital costumes) because we were in Disneyworld.  This photographer had photographed at Claire’s studio before and he was leaving the area to do travel photography, so he offered one last shoot at the studio. 

I couldn’t be happier with how they turned out.  I love the simplicity of the black & white photos with the plain black leotard and white tulle.  They even had a fan to achieve that wind-blown look.

While I love these photos, she sure does look so grown up, I almost can’t stand to look at them!

Advent Update

I don’t plan to give you a daily play-by-play of our advent activities.  However, I just wanted to let you know that Day 1 was a success. 

Here are pictures of the kids with the advent calendar and Claire looking at the clue for Day 1.  She actually “got” the story and enjoyed the craft.  David was in a pretty funky mood this morning.  I read our scripture from The Message but later realized the Claire’s bible (given to her by Will’s dad) is a Children’s International Version and much more kid-friendly, so we will be reading from there the rest of the time. 

Here are the kids with our advent tree and their ornaments.  All I can say if you do this craft is “go easy on the glue”.  These things took most of the day to dry.  I bought this little tree at Target for $8 and plan on having Will add a strand of lights.  I need to find a place to put it where baby brother can’t get his grubby little hands on it!

Our fun activity today was visiting Santa Claus.  That is why the kids are all dressed up in their Christmas finery.  I’ll get our photo up soon, but let’s just say Santa has gotten pricey … and they don’t let you take pictures with your own camera now even if you buy their photo too (which I always do).  All the kids did great and no tears were shed, which is what I call a successful visit to Santa.  The big kids even told him what they wanted for Christmas. 

We stopped by here on the way home and the kids were so excited.  David was crying when he went to bed tonight because he wanted to look at more Christmas lights.  I have that planned as one of our “fun” advent activities … lights, pjs and hot chocolate.

All in all, it was a busy and fun day and a great way to kick off the Christmas season. 

Our Advent Calendar

This year, we are doing something a little different for advent.  In the past, we have read our Advent book each night beginning on Dec. 1st.  By the time we get to the end, the kids have heard the entire story of Jesus’ birth from the book of Luke.  (The story builds on itself each night, so the children learn it well.)

This year, since we are home so much, I found something different to do.  We are using Truth in the Tinsel: An Advent Experience for Little Hands.   Each day, we will read part of the Christmas story from the Bible.  Then, we will make an ornament related to that part of the story and hang on a mini Christmas tree I bought the kids at Target ($8).  We can talk about the story while we make the craft.  The crafts are really simple and age appropriate for my 3-year-old and 5-year-old.  (Luke will sit this one out this year.)

So, here is a picture of the advent calendar I made last night.

I used cardstock bookmarks from Joann's folded in half.  Then I punched the scallop circles from scrapbook paper and punched out the circles with the numbers that I printed here.  Each “day” has a clue about our story and craft for that day, and a fun Christmas activity on a sticky note (so I can change them out each year or move them around as necessary … like tonight, we plan to go see Santa at the mall, but that may or may not actually happen depending how our day goes).

The calendar itself is an 11x14 flat canvas that I had leftover from a previous craft project (they came in pack of 3) and I covered it with the red/white gingham from my scrap fabric bin.  The cards are attached to jute twine that I hot-glued to the back of the canvas.  Pretty simple.   

And just to keep it real, here is my “work station” late last night while I was putting this all together.   And for the record, I suffered a pretty bad glue gun burn on my thumb.

I will try to post our progress through the month.  I think it will be fun to have a tree full of handmade ornaments when we are done.