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A Behind-the-Scenes Tour of the Circus ~ PreK and Kindergarten Community

Preschool and Kindergarten Community at Homeschool Creations

The circus came to town this week and we had a friend who took us on a behind-the-scenes tour. We met Chips the Clown and the Ringmaster who talked to us about all the hard work that goes into getting the circus set up – and for just 2 short days before they have to pack up and move on to the next city!

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We learned about the generators that power the entire circus, the cook hall, met the elephants and tigers, and had some fun trying to juggle and hula hoop with the clowns. The group travels for almost nine months out of the year – and some of the families even homeschool!

Somehow the rest of the week managed to fly by. We had some fun with the new Circus Theme Math and Language Printables and will work on a few more circus crafts next week as well.

The kids have all been looking forward to family visiting from Holland {arriving Friday and staying for almost 2 weeks}, and our Disney vacation countdown chain has officially passed the less than 2 week mark – so there are some EXCITED kids in the house {and a mom scrambling to get things done!}.

Fun Ideas from Readers

Here are a few ideas from readers linking up last week. Be sure to stop by and leave a comment and say hi! A few of those linking up are not just homeschoolers – which in truth is fun. I love that we all have ideas to share that help our little ones learn! Keep encouraging each other along the way!

Tractor Painting

If you have little boys, consider pulling out any tractors that you have on hand and use them to paint with – head over to How to Run a Home Daycare to learn more. Our kids always loved the different tracks and prints we made doing this!

activity 2

If our girls were little…oh a Fancy Nancy Tea Party would be way too much sweetness to handle!! The Homework Diaries shares the fun party she put together {with many of the supplies from the dollar section at Target!}

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The Swimmy Stamp Activity from Mama Jenn is super cute – and a fun go-alogn when reading the book by Leo Lionni. Love it!

That’s it for this week – what have YOU been up to this week with your kids? Leave a comment and link up below – be sure to visit someone else on the link list as well and leave a note to encourage them this week!

Ready to Link Up?

Share what you are doing with your kids! Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below and link back here too! Grab a button for your post below and be sure to take a minute to visit the person who linked up before you. You can read more in the updated guidelines for Preschool and Kindergarten Community. By linking up, you are granting permission for me to share your wonderful ideas and pictures with others in periodic show-and-tell posts.

Be specific in your ‘link title’. Leave either your blog name or theme and provide an age range for your activities. Something a little like this:

Police Officer Theme {ages 4-5}

 

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The Final Stretch of School ~ PreK and Kindergarten Community

Preschool and Kindergarten Community at Homeschool CreationsThis week I pulled out the last few weeks of school work and the kids were almost giddy with excitement at how LITTLE there is for us to do. Granted there are a few other things to work on as well {history, reading, etc…}, that aren’t as easy to visibly measure.

BUT…Kaleb’s desire to read this past week has been amazing. It’s like watching another little something ‘click’ in his brain. He actually keeps coming to me with his book from All About Reading and asks if he can read me a story.

I will sit down ANY DAY with him for that.

We won’t talk about how long it took him to finish a story one day this week – thanks to the multiple, multiple interruptions from siblings all.the.time. {I may have almost fallen asleep too thanks to the warm sun shining in on us at the window seat…ahem}. And yes, I just admitted that! {grins}

I have no exciting pictures to share this week with you all. We did take a field trip and went on a great nature walk, worked some more on our Nancy Larson Science {we’re growing and comparing plants right now}, made some great progress and finished up the second book in All About Reading, built a fun derby car with our Simple Machine pack from LEGO Education ®. All in all a fun week with lots of learning squeezed in!

Ideas from Readers

Here are some fun ideas that readers have shared when linking up over the last few weeks. Be sure to click over and visit their posts to say hi!!

montessori water pollution

With Earth Day coming up, you might be interested in some of the hands-on ideas that Every Star is Different shares, including this visual example of water pollution.

W is for Water - science experiments

If you are looking for some fun water science experiments, be sure to visit Train Up a Child. Not only does she have some great pictures, she shares quite a few experiments {W is for Water} that you can work on with your kids.

Spring Yarn Tree

Cassie from 3 Dinosaurs shares a fun spring tree yarn craft that she worked on with her girls. Love the pink – reminding me of all the beautiful cherry trees in bloom right now!

And I just love, love, love this Arctic sensory tub from Learning at Play. It’s cute, fun, and just makes me want to put one together. Enough said.

If you {or someone you know} is having a baby soon, share these fun learning ideas from Mama to 4 {soon to be 5!!} Blessings. She put together some hands-on learning ideas for the older siblings to get them excited about their soon-to-arrive sibling.

 

What have you been working on with your kids this week? Are you getting close to finishing up your year? Link up this week with your posts or leave a comment and share with us!

Ready to Link Up?

Share what you are doing with your kids! Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below and link back here too! Grab a button for your post below and be sure to take a minute to visit the person who linked up before you. You can read more in the updated guidelines for Preschool and Kindergarten Community. By linking up, you are granting permission for me to share your wonderful ideas and pictures with others in periodic show-and-tell posts.

Be specific in your ‘link title’. Leave either your blog name or theme and provide an age range for your activities. Something a little like this:

Police Officer Theme {ages 4-5}

 

Were you featured?

If you were featured in one of the weekly posts, feel free to grab the button coding below and display it on your site!

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Katy No-Pocket Unit ~ Preschool & Kindergarten Community

Preschool and Kindergarten Community at Homeschool Creations

The past two weeks we’ve been slowly {and I mean slowly} working our way through the book Katy No Pocket. Based on the fun we had making the bag book to go along with the Legend of the Easter Egg, Kaleb wanted to make another one for Katy No Pocket {directions on how to make a bag book are in that post above}. We used quite a few of the printables from the Homeschool Share lapbook and a few additional ones that I had from an Australia and kangaroo teacher’s guide sitting on our shelf.

This book was a lot of fun to read and we both noticed that there was something in the story from a past book we read together – the Hotel Bellevue from The Red Carpet!!  In addition to reading the story together many times, here are a few of the things that we did to go along with Katy No Pocket.

Math

As we read through the story, we counted the animals on each of the pages. On the last page of Kaleb’s bag book, Kaleb made a tally mark for each animal he found in the story. It was a lot. And he did a fabulous job with the tally marks! Yay!!

We counted ears on animals, babies, pockets on Katy’s apron, tools that fell out of the box – you name it, we counted it! We also measured the distance that we could each jump and compared it to how far a kangaroo could jump. Can you guess who could jump longer?

Geography

Little Passports Australia

This was a great story to talk about the continent of Australia and get a little geography time in. We happened to also have a packet from Little Passports for Australia that we hadn’t opened yet, so it was the perfect time to use that. Kaleb loves the online activities that Little Passports offers {it’s not just the packets in the mail!} and the best part for him was creating some Aboriginal artwork of a kangaroo. We had this on our list to do, and I had no idea it was a part of the online special treat – so it was a win/win!

During our geography time we also talked about islands and the flag of Australia, as well as the different cultures in Australia. Kaleb cut out a small version of the Australian flag and then taped it to a straw.

Science

Our science time was spent learning a LOT about kangaroos. We talked about marsupials, the parts of a kangaroo and how a baby kangaroo develops and grows, the names of a mom/dad/baby kangaroo, what kangaroos eat – and so much more!

Art Fun

 

Drawing a Kangaroo

Drawing is always fun, so we added a page in our bag book of simple directions on drawing a kangaroo.

kangaroo toilet paper craft

Kaleb also made a fun kangaroo pop-up out of a toilet paper roll. This boy loves his crafts and I so often tend to overlook that!! {this was from one of the Evan Moore books – so I don’t have a link!}.

Some Helpful Links for Katy No Pocket, Australia and Kangaroos

Here are some great links for you to check out that might help you along in a study on Australia and/or kangaroos:

Ready to Link Up?

Share what you are doing with your kids! Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below and link back here too! Grab a button for your post below and be sure to take a minute to visit the person who linked up before you. You can read more in the updated guidelines for Preschool and Kindergarten Community. By linking up, you are granting permission for me to share your wonderful ideas and pictures with others in periodic show-and-tell posts.

Be specific in your ‘link title’. Leave either your blog name or theme and provide an age range for your activities. Something a little like this:

Police Officer Theme {ages 4-5}

 

Were you featured?

If you were featured in one of the weekly posts, feel free to grab the button coding below and display it on your site!

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A Field Trip to the Air and Space Museum

Preschool and Kindergarten Community at Homeschool Creations

In our house this week, the camera was off during much of our school time, but we are having fun learning about Australia and kangaroos {I’ll be sharing more next week}. This past weekend though we did have a LOT of fun visiting the Air and Space Museum near Dulles Airport.

Air and Space Museum (35)

Kaleb was MOST impressed with the plane above and made sure that I had numerous pictures of it. I’m sure it had NOTHING to do with the video clip that they had playing nearby, showing the plane as a Transformer. {grins}

Air and Space Museum (40)

He also made sure that I had four pictures of the camouflaged plane. Just because it was cool.

Air and Space Museum (41)

Seeing the Discovery up close – very amazing.

 

Air and Space Museum (57)

Spending time together as a family and with friends we don’t get to see often was just as much fun though. It was a FABULOUS trip – and one that I’m glad we were able to make!!

From Others Linking Up

~ If you are talking about the days of Creation, Every Star is Different had some great Montessori trays and activities that her family used during their learning. She traced the Earth on a piece of construction paper and the kids poked through with toothpicks and then held them up to the light.

Earth outlined with toothpick holes from Every Star is Different

~ If you happen to have access to an old projector, here is a fun idea for your kids from Learning at Play. They used felt cutouts to project scenes on the wall.

projector play with Learning at Play

~ Have lots of rocks around your house? Check out the 30 different ideas that Fantastic Fun and Learning shares for rocks.

Learning fun with rocks

~ There’s Just One Mommy shares a cute puppet that they made to go along with the book Bear Wants More {and I agree – those books are all so very cute!!}.

bear-wants-more-activity-from There's Just One Mommy

 

Ready to Link Up?

Share what you are doing with your kids! Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below and link back here too! Grab a button for your post below and be sure to take a minute to visit the person who linked up before you. You can read more in the updated guidelines for Preschool and Kindergarten Community. By linking up, you are granting permission for me to share your wonderful ideas and pictures with others in periodic show-and-tell posts.

Be specific in your ‘link title’. Leave either your blog name or theme and provide an age range for your activities. Something a little like this:

Police Officer Theme {ages 4-5}

 

Were you featured?

If you were featured in one of the weekly posts, feel free to grab the button coding below and display it on your site!

Preschool Corner

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PreK and K Community ~ Week 1

Side Note: I may have accidentally deleted an image in Photobucket that many of you have grabbed for the PreK and K Community {ahem}. If you happen to notice that there is a missing image, would you be so kind as to re-grab the html? I’m sorry!!

Preschool and Kindergarten Community at Homeschool CreationsOverall, this week has been great and filled with all of our typical studies: math, reading, science, Bible, history, Legos, some geography, language, and handwriting. Here’s a quick peek into our week…

learning fractions with Saxon math 1

Kaleb has been working on fractions and also on counting by 5’s. While he has the tally marks down, that has been a bit more difficult to master. 10’s yes. 2’s yes. 5’s – not so much. We’re trying a few different things to help in that department {and welcome any brilliant suggestions!!}. Funny – I don’t remember the other kiddos having problems with this part. It may be pushed off to a backburner so he doesn’t get frustrated.

hundreds chart

Another new math concept this week was adding in multiples of 10 – to numbers other than 10. {sigh} We pulled out our 100’s chart so that he could easily see, but again – just a wee bit frustrating for him, so we stopped after a bit of trying and we’ll try again later.

 addition wrap ups for math

Our addition wrap-ups though – a huge hit!! I pulled them out this week on a whim {perhaps to keep him busy while I was dealing with a sibling} and he LOVED them!! Definitely using them again!!

mixing liquids in kindergarten science 

In science with Nancy Larson K, we had MUCH fun mixing different things together to see what would happen: sand and water, oil and water, as well as water with food coloring. Kaleb made predictions about what he thought would happen with each mixing and we talked about buoyancy of different liquids too.

That’s a quick look at our week, but I’d love to share a few things from YOU all now – are you ready??

For those of you joining up with us each week, a handful will be featured in the weekly post. If you’d like, feel free to grab a ‘featured’ button down below and share it with your friends!

A Family in the Land has been working on a garden unit with her children – and reading The Tale of Peter Rabbit to go along with it. Her study of plant roots and SO MUCH MORE will inspire you. And all of the pictures – gorgeous!

Root system study

 

– With spring hinting at actually being here, I loved this idea from Teacher @ Home. She used a circle punch with seed packets and made rainbows – how cute are they?? 

rainbow made from seed packets

 

Every Star is Different had a great week learning about fire safety and emergency helpers. This fingerprint activity would be a huge hit with kids and I love that it includes room to identify every finger.

Emergency Vehicle Learning Time 014

 

The Pinay Homeschooler shows how she has been repurposing old flashcards. She has a younger son who doesn’t care for flashcards so she used them as a ‘control’ card and made some extra go-alongs and they are a hit!

repurposing old flashcards

 

Angelicscalliwags has an AMAZING unit based on the book Goodnight Moon. Her food tins to go along make me want to row this BFIAR book all over again!!

Goodnight Moon muffin tin meal

What was your family up to this week? We’d all love to see!! Link up below and share with us and leave a comment to say hello too! Be sure to visit a few of the other moms linking up as well and leave a comment {we all love to hear from others}.

Ready to Link Up?

Share what you are doing with your kids! Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below and link back here too! Grab a button for your post below and be sure to take a minute to visit the person who linked up before you. You can read more in the updated guidelines for Preschool and Kindergarten Community. By linking up, you are granting permission for me to share your wonderful ideas and pictures with others in periodic show-and-tell posts.

Be specific in your ‘link title’. Leave either your blog name or theme and provide an age range for your activities. Something a little like this:

Police Officer Theme {ages 4-5}

 

Were you featured?

If you were featured in one of the weekly posts, feel free to grab the button coding below and display it on your site!
 

Preschool Corner

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The Joys of Tally Marks and Freeze Dried Ice Cream

Preschool CornerLooking at our school year calendar, I can hardly believe so much time has already flown by – and so little time is actually left in the year!! We are almost halfway through March now and {should we actually follow the rest of our school year plan} are set to finish up mid-May.

But this week we realized we will be changing our schedule a little bit in May to have some fun as a family. We have been saving up little by little over the past two years to take a trip to Disney, and this week we made the final plans for our trip. The girls helped me put together a paper chain to countdown the days until we leave, and we hung it up in the schoolroom to rip off one day at a time.

Disney paper chain countdown

The kids may be a little excited!! I am now scouring the internet for ideas on ways to make Disney not only fun, but also a big ol’ educational field trip. If you have any suggestions for me, please leave a comment!! We are planning to camp most of the time and very much looking forward to it!

Halfway Through Reading!!

All About Reading story

One of the big excitements this week was Kaleb officially being halfway through his All About Reading Level 1 program. A little incentive for him in making it halfway was a special treat – Astronaut Ice Cream {i.e. freeze dried ice cream}. We made a mark to show where he needed to be to get the treat, and don’t you know he was reminding me and ready to get to that point to try it?

Astronaut Ice Cream

The verdict? It was good – but one of the kids in the house has decided it isn’t enough to become an astronaut over. {grins}

More Math Fun

As much as Kaleb didn’t initially enjoy learning about tally marks a bit ago, the past week has seen a huge turnaround in his understanding of how tally marks work in counting {woot!}. The St. Patrick’s Day Math games have been fun to practice with too.

tally marks in Crayola Dry Erase board

This week we slid the tally sheet into our Crayola Dry Erase Activity Center, which made it so much easier to tote around the room. I’m also thinking it will come in very handy if/when we are traveling since it is very sturdy – and for the many other printables we use!

skip counting by 2's and 1's

Kaleb practiced skip counting by 2’s – both even and odd numbers. First he sorted them by even and odd numbers, I mixed them up a bit, and then he put them in order counting by 2’s.

Lego Learning

I completely forgot to add this to the post originally {oops!!}. Kaleb was so excited to share the merry-go-round that he made with our Simple Machine Legos set set and wanted me to videotape him. Here’s a quick video of him explaining the different gears and such that he put together.

The Joys of Homemschooling

reading with a sibling

One of the things that I definitely love about having all of the kids together is watching our kids work together and help each other out. While I was working with Zachary this week, Laurianna sat in the window seat with Kaleb and helped him read one of his Bob Books. It’s seeing a moment like this between the kids that just makes all those blech moments drift away.

Did you have a ‘moment’ this week that made you pause and count your blessings?

Links to Check Out

Ready to Link Up?

Share what you are doing with your kids! Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below and link back here too! Grab a button for your post below and be sure to take a minute to visit the person who linked up before you. You can read more in the updated guidelines for Preschool Corner. By linking up, you are granting permission for me to share your wonderful ideas and pictures with others in periodic show-and-tell posts.

Be specific in your ‘link title’. Leave either your blog name or theme and provide an age range for your activities. Something a little like this:

Police Officer Theme {ages 4-5}

 

Preschool Corner

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Time 4 Learning – combining technology with education to make learning fun for kids!