20 Best Tips

Hurricanes and Coming Back from Vacation

This week started out with a bit of a storm in our area. Schools were cancelledPreschool Corner in anticipation – so we took advantage of it as well and called it a ‘storm day’ and sat around reading our latest read-aloud, The Mysterious Benedict Society. We snuggled up under blankets, sipping hot cocoa, and waited for the power to go out…but it didn’t {thankfully}.

The plans were to start back with school on Tuesday, but early that morning my niece made her appearance in this world ~ and I was blessed to be there to welcome her…and then so very exhausted from the lack of sleep.  So we did some more reading…when I was able to keep my eyes open.

Lots of Drawing

Draw Write Now fish

And we did some drawing using our Draw Write Now books {have I mentioned that these books are out at our house daily??}. According to Kaleb, between his Star Wars pictures and the ones from Draw Write Now, he has drawn 89 pictures this week {give or take 50}.

Letter Writing Time

fall leaves for Compassion kids

We collected pretty leaves for our Compassion kids and laminated them to send as bookmarks to each of them. The kids went out in search of as many different colors as they could find – so much fun.

Handwriting on Paper and the iPad

Handwriting Without Tears app

Kaleb worked in his Handwriting Without Tears book, but also used the Handwriting Without Tears iPad app. {If you think Kaleb doesn’t look thrilled – he isn’t too fun with the letter G – grins}.

Math Facts Are Fun

Math facts more math facts

Kaleb l.o.v.e.s. the math fact pages from Saxon 1 {he’s the first of our kids to enjoy this part of math}. He is doing a great job and knows many of the facts – but you can see that he occasionally reverses some of the numbers {5 and 6 above}.

Calendar Fun

sorting calendar numbers November calendar

We’re still working on our Daily Calendar Notebooks and happy to start a new month {although we didn’t work in it a few days last month}. In addition to our notebook, we also work on our calendar pocket chart.

With a new month starting, we pulled out our November turkeys and spread them all out on the floor. Last month we were missing a few numbers, so Kaleb put them all in order from 1-30 for me before we started {sneaky me making sure he knows his numbers and all}.

Science Time

Pets fish 

In our Science K program, we’re learning about pets and how they are all different – and similar to us in some ways. We’ve been talking about the different senses that animals have {touch, sight, smell, feeling and taste} and how we care for different animals. This week we talked about fish, so McKenna shared one of her animals with us to be nice {grins}.

How was your week? Any backlash from the storm for you all? Praying for all of those that were affected by the storm!

More Preschool Links

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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Ideas from Readers ~ PreK and K Corner

Preschool CornerWe had a week off from school this week…it only took the kids two days to figure out that we hadn’t done anything and declare their complete and utter boredom. Until I threatened a house cleaning and they immediately found so many things of interest {grins}.

Although we don’t have anything to share this week,  I am excited to show-and-tell a few of YOUR fabulous ideas from last weeks link-up {I do stop by and visit you all!!}. Here are just a few of the fun things that you all are doing…

Runaway Bunny sensory bin

I love this Runaway Bunny sensory bin that Angelic Scalliwags put together for their Before Five in a Row unit – super cute! I keep finding these cute ideas that make me want to do our Runaway Bunny unit all over again!

map skills

Linton Academy made map skills a 3-D and hands on project with her kids. They used a road rug, hot wheels and buildings to create a town and then practiced giving directions and telling left from right. 

October2012 227

We have an Angry Birds unit coming up soon and this little pom pom bird’s nest craft from Our Little Monkeys makes me want to hurry up and finish up our plans! They were working on an N is for Nest topic – but just so cute.

This pumpkin seed counting project from Finding the Teachable Moments – definitely a teachable moment!! They counted out over 700 seeds from their pumpkin and worked on grouping the seeds by 5 and 10. Such a fabulous hands on idea {and I’m sure the kids loved getting their hands in the goop}!

Learners in Bloom was able to sneak in some fine motor practice along with 1:1 counting, number recognition, name recognition/reading and even place values – all with some fun pumpkin erasers. I love how a simple activity can incorporate so much!

Looking forward to seeing all of your ideas this week when you link up. Thanks for sharing what you all are doing with your kids. Please be sure to visit a few others linking up this week and leave a comment on their blogs! 

 

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 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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Truth in the Tinsel

The Week of Field Trips

We may not have had a field trip every single day, but it certainly feels like wePreschool Corner did! Two in one week was quite enough, but we all had much fun.

On Tuesday, the kids spent a few hours with a group of our homeschool friends taking a hike nearby, examining different fall leaves {the foliage is beautiful right now!} and having fun with friends. I am blessed to have friends that were willing to take our four along  – even though I wasn’t able to go hiking. {Thank you guys!}.

Fall foliage-1

Thursday was Zachary’s birthday, so as a family we took a v.e.r.y. long car ride so that we could take a long train ride.

Cass Railroad train-1

There was an older train at the bottom for the kids to explore and pretend on while we waited for our train to arrive at the depot.

train ride-1-2 rick with kids-1-2

 

Lots of time to look outside the train and see the passing scenery.

rick with kids-1

Or sit and stay warm with Daddy {and enjoy his day off}.

View from the top-1

And the view at the top of the mountain – amazing. Cold, cold, cold, but so beautiful!

View from the top-1-2

Seeing a deer  – close enough to watch it swallow apples and chestnuts and giggle when it happened – the best of fun!

That was just a fun peek into our week!

Helpful Preschool Links

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.

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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PreK & K Corner–Post Will Be Late Today

Preschool Corner

We had a long day yesterday and a tired momma here – so I’ll be sharing more a little later, when I’ve had some sleep under my belt, a coop class out of the way and a birthday party finished.

In the meantime, if you have a post to link up this week, go ahead and add your link below!

Ready to Link Up?

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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The Runaway Bunny Book Unit {BFIAR}

Preschool-and-Kindergarten-Community-Linkup.png

This week we read the book The Runaway Bunny and ‘rowed’ it {a Before Five in a Row book}. We loved reading Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown together and working on our Goodnight Moon Unit, so I knew that The Runaway Bunny book unit would be just as much fun. It’s been a few weeks since we’ve done a book unit, so Kaleb was very excited to see me pull out things for our study.

 

 

 

The Runaway Bunny Book

Here’s a quick summary of the The Runaway Bunny {in Kaleb’s words}:

“The bunny wanted to run away. He said he was going to be a fish. His mom said she was going to be a fisherman.  Then he would be a rock, and she would be a rock climber. Then he would be a crocus and she would be a gardener. Then he would be a bird and she would be a tree. Then he would be a boat and she would be the wind. Then he would be a tightrope walker and she would be a swinger. He would be a boy and the mom would be a mom. Then he wanted to be a rabbit. His mom said “Want a carrot?”

Comparing Pictures in the Story to Other Book

 

The Runaway Bunny Unit-1 The Runaway Bunny Unit-2

 

After we had read through The Runaway Bunny, Kaleb recognized a few of the pictures from another book. We pulled out our copy of Goodnight Moon and compared the pictures with pictures that were in The Runaway Bunny.

Some of the pictures hanging on the wall were almost the same, so we talked about the similarities and differences between the two. Pictures in one book might have been black and white, while others were color. The bunny mom sat in a rocker in both books and the picture of the mom bunny fishing for her son was hanging on the wall in the book Goodnight Moon. There are many other similarities, so you’ll have to see what you discover too!

Identifying Words in a Story

 

The Runaway Bunny Unit-5 The Runaway Bunny Unit-6

 

Kaleb l.o.v.e.s. using Do-A-Dot Markers, so we take full advantage and use them whenever we can! As we were reading the The Runaway Bunny together, Kaleb was on the lookout for words in the story {the find-a-word sheet is in the Runaway Bunny Printable Pack}. When Kaleb finds a word in the book, he uses a Do-A-Dot Marker to cover up the word {above you can see him finding the word carrot}.

Typically, I will read the words to him that are on the word sheet and he remembers many of them as we are reading through the story and then searches the page for the word. For him there is nothing more satisfying that stamping that word out!

Practicing Balance by “Tightrope” Walking

 

The Runaway Bunny Unit-4 The Runaway Bunny Unit-3

 

One of the things that the bunny says he is going to do is become a tightrope walker. Rather than string up a REAL tightrope, we put a jump rope down on the floor to see if Kaleb could keep his balance. Quite a bit safer than the alternative {and he had just as much fun doing it over and over again!}.

Making Crocuses From Handprints

 

The Runaway Bunny Unit-8 The Runaway Bunny Unit-9

 

This craft is thanks to Delightful Learning. We traced Kaleb’s hand on purple paper and then cut them out, rolled them up and added some leaves to make purple crocuses. He absolutely loved his flowers and stuck them up above his desk to save.

Find the Hiding Runaway Bunny

 

The Runaway Bunny Unit-10 The Runaway Bunny Unit-11

 

In the story, the runaway bunny hides in the flowers of the garden and his mom finds him. We used the Runaway Bunny Printables and our table top pocket chart to ‘hide’ our paper bunny and then Kaleb had to name a number and peek behind that number to see if it was the one hiding the bunny.

He had just as much fun hiding the bunny from me and would only give me three guesses to find the missing bunny. I would say a number and he would pull the number off the pocket chart to see if I was right.

Sequencing a Story

 

The Runaway Bunny Unit-13 The Runaway Bunny Unit-14

 

We used the story sequencing strips from The Runaway Bunny Printables for this activity. The first 2 days, I left all of the strips together so that Kaleb could put them in sequential order by number {i.e. 1st, 2nd, 3rd}. The last two days I cut the picture off the strip and he first ordered the numbers in the correct sequence. He then tried to remember the order the events in the story took place and would check the book when he was done to see if he put them in the right sequence.

Clap the Syllables

 

The Runaway Bunny Unit-7 The Runaway Bunny unit syllables

 

Part of The Runaway Bunny Printables have one and two syllable words from the story. I would read Kaleb one of the words and he would clap it out and then tell me how many syllables the word had and sort it under the right number.

Differences in Sketches and Paintings

The Runaway Bunny Unit-12

The artwork in The Runaway Bunny goes back and forth between paintings or watercolors and pen sketches. I picked one of the simpler pictures in the book and sketched it out using pencil and pen for Kaleb to look at and decide which looked more like what was in the story.

Helpful Links for The Runaway Bunny

More Early Learning Links and Printables

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.

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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Our Kindergarten Learning Area

This year before we started school, I asked Kaleb if he wanted to continue using the workboxes {we used the Trofast system from Ikea} or use workfolders like the others. He has been asking for awhile to use the workbox grid cards like the older kids, so this year we made a fresh start with his things.

Kaleb’s workspace is at the end of our homeschool classroom that is right near my desk. Both he and Zachary are closer to me so that we have a ‘triangle’ of sorts to work together, because they are the two that are most hands-on at this point.

Kindergarten workspace-2

Pictured above: Desk – Vika Amon birch tops w/ Curry legs and red Snille chair Pencil rack is Bygel rail with blue Bygel containers. Bins from the Ikea Trofast system.

When we moved the bigger Trofast system out of the schoolroom, it opened up some space next to Kaleb’s desk, so I re-worked the layout there to tailor it to what we’d be focusing on this year. Essentially, I just made it more fun for him {grins}.

Kindergarten workspace-1

Pictured above: A Guidecraft Nordic rocker, our monthly calendar pocket chartUS Wall Cling map, and our All About Reading Level 1 bag of goodies.

Kaleb is the one that primarily uses the pocket chart calendar, so that was moved next to his desk. Each day he figures out the color pattern {he chooses a new pattern each month} and will then count for me, tell me the full date, and explain the pattern is. {This is one of his favorite things to do ~ grins}.

On the wall right below, we have a US Wall Cling map {sometimes there is a similar one available on Amazon}. This year we’re talking a lot about where we live and the world around us, so the map has been a great hands-on tool for Kaleb.

We also keep his bag of All About Reading Level 1 books and the folder games in a bag on the floor so that we can pull it out when we are working on reading. Right behind the bag you may notice a few cookie sheets. One is for our Read! Build! Write! mat and letters. The other {red} sheet is a magnetic Kidboard from Barker Creek that we’re using to build sentences and read together.

Kindergarten workspace-4

Pictured above: Bygel rail with blue Bygel containers and 12” square corkboard tiles.

Kaleb’s desk area has all of his markers, pencils and more right within reach. Hanging right above his desk are pockets that we use to hang things that we are working on {currently a poem from First Language Lessons and our weather spinner}. We use it to also show off Kaleb’s artwork or other fun things. {shhh….Ziggy the Zebra is resting on the desk}.

Kindergarten workspace-3

Between McKenna and Kaleb’s desk is another Ikea Trofast tower. Kaleb stores all of his ‘extras’ in the bottom two bins. The white bin is for his workfolders and the red bin is where he stores his history binder and other large items so they don’t take up desk space. On top of the Trofast system, is a red bin {left} where he puts any of his completed work. The two binders between the two red bins {top} are his daily calendar notebook and McKenna’s.

That’s just a quick look at Kaleb’s kindergarten workspace. I’ll share a little more next week about how Kaleb’s overall routine is with his workfolders and weekly workbox grid and how we’ve tweaked the workbox system to work for our family.

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