Preschool Corner Archives - Page 50 of 84

Laid-Back School ~ Preschool Corner {& 5K too!}

Nov42011

November 4, 2011 by Jolanthe 13 Comments

After returning from the conference this past weekend, I was wiped…and apparently so was a little 4 year old. He spent the first few days of the week s.i.c.k., but still wanting to do some school things with me.

Our week consisted of a lot of reading together and then fun with some favorites and some new things too. As a family we’re using a new history curriculum and Kaleb has been sitting in on the lessons. As we read, he colors a page along with us. We also started using a FUN new Bible with him ~ My First Hands-on Bible. We have the older kids version of this Bible {the Hands-on Bible and we love it too!!}.

As we read through the stories, there are little ‘handprints’ that give little suggestions of things to do at that point in the story. The handprint in the text below you to the handprint in the sidebar which gives the following suggestion: “Pretend you’re a snake. Can you move around without using your arms and legs?”

The end of each My First Hands-on Bible story there are ideas {things to talk about, activities, a prayer, and a ‘Jesus connection’ that shows how Jesus is the center of all Scripture, even when He isn’t mentioned. Kaleb is so excited to have his own Bible so he can be a part of our school time too. :)

For math time, Kaleb is learning about time {to the hour} and wants to practice writing his numbers all the time and we’re occasionally using pages from our Abeka Math K book.

We worked on several more lessons in our All About Reading Pre 1 program {lowercase d and e}. Kaleb loves the letter crafts and ESPECIALLY Ziggy!

One of the things that we spent time reviewing this week were the syllables in words. Kaleb had Ziggy say the words we were sorting and then put them under the correct syllable number column.

Before you let this next picture fool you…Kaleb really does not know how to play chess. The older kids are trying to teach him…and I will admit that he knows more about it than I do! Rick sat down to play with him in the afternoon, and it was just too cute not to take a picture. Kaleb asks the kids each day to play with him. :)

Everyone is feeling better now and next week promises to be much more fun….how are things going in YOUR house?

More Preschool Links

ABC Printables
Color and Shape Printables
Early Learning Printables: Police Officers, fireman and more!
Math and Counting Printables
Phonics and Reading Printables
Preschool Planning Pages
Preschool Resources Main Page

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! The updated guidelines can be found here if you need them.

Visit these great companies!

Red Wagon Tutorials….Science classes for junior and senior high.

All About Learning Press ~ Spelling & reading programs that are easy to teach and easy to learn.

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Preschool Corner ~ Thanksgiving Pinterest Ideas

Oct282011

October 28, 2011 by Jolanthe 12 Comments

In gearing up for Thanksgiving {well, that just means thinking ahead!!}, I’ve been putting some of the cute ideas that I’ve found on my Pinterest boards. Since we also had much of this week off school because I am at the Relevant conference, I thought this would be a fun time to share a few of those ideas here with you all.

These are just a few of the fun ideas I’ve been gathering. Our house is going to be covered in Thanksgiving paraphernalia if I don’t stop soon!

Handprint Mayflower craft from Almost Unschoolers

Handprint turkey from Meet the Dubiens

Pilgrim Ships from 4 Crazy Kings

Popcorn paper bag turkey via One Charming Party

Pinecone and orange turkey leaf craft from Parenting.com

Indian Corn Button Napkin Rings via Family Fun {could be a great patterning activity!!}

You can see all of my Thanksgiving ideas on Pinterest here or just have fun browsing through the gazillion ideas there in general!

More Preschool Links

ABC Printables
Color and Shape Printables
Preschool Packs: Policemen, fireman and more!
Math and Counting Printables
Phonics and Reading Printables
Preschool Planning Pages
Preschool Resources Main Page

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! The updated guidelines can be found here if you need them.

Visit these great companies!

All About Learning Press ~ Spelling & reading programs that are easy to teach and easy to learn.

We Choose Virtues….tools for inspiring character in children!

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Police Office Preschool and Kindergarten Unit

Oct212011

October 21, 2011 by Jolanthe 5 Comments

This week ended up being more of a ‘spur of the moment’ unit after Kaleb saw some clip art on my computer and ‘helped’ me put together printables for him to use this week. Needless to say he was {mostly} thrilled the entire week {grins}.

This week was made especially wonderful because of the addition of glitter. I’ll let you in on a little secret…I am not a glitter fan or really the fan of anything that has the opportunity to linger for weeks to come. I tend to avoid it like the plague, so there was much excitement {from Kaleb, not me} when I pulled out the container.

Here are some of the helps we used this week:

This is how our workboxes looked for the week. The bulk of our printables were from my Police Officer Printables Pack and any other links to printable crafts are linked at the end of this post. Every day we read a bunch of fun police officer books together and reviewed our vocabulary cards.

Bible

This week we focused on how police officers protect us and keep us safe ~ just like God does too.

Language and Reading

We’re still working on the lowercase letters from our All About Reading Pre1 program and having fun with the crafts and activities in the program. Kaleb is definitely paying more attention now to the words we’re reading.

As we went through our ‘Read the Story’ part of the Police Officer printables, I let Kaleb use Do-A-Dot markers to stamp the words that he found in the story. This made it much more hands-on for him and he was having a great time with it.

Math

Counting Fingerprints ~ Pulling the ink pads out was a fun {but messy} part of the week. Kaleb read along with the mini book and then added in the correct number of fingerprints to the pages. This was great to really track how he was counting 1:1 {and hilarious since he kept trying to count the fingerprints and making more fingerprints when he touched the paper}.

Number Words ~ We used the police badges and lined them up in numerical order and then Kaleb tried to find the correct number word to match the numbers. He would start with the ones he could figure out easily with the beginning letter sound and work his way through them.

Science

After we traced Kaleb’s hands and added each of his fingerprints we looked at them close up through our magnifying glass and talked about how we all have unique fingerprints ~ God created us special and there are no two fingerprints alike! We also talked about how police officers use fingerprints to find the ‘bad guys’. :)

Personal Safety

We continued to work on Kaleb knowing his FULL name and other important information {his birthday, phone number and address}. We pretended that I was a police officer {Mommy put on his hat and badge} and we acted like he was lost and I was trying to help him find his home and family.

Cooking and Crafts

Cooking and glitter in one week ~ especially since the cooking involved food coloring and all four children. Not sure what happened to me over the weekend {grins}.

Stoplight Crackers – Super easy snack for the kids {and lots of sugary fun too}. We colored cream cheese frosting the three colors of a stoplight. The kids spread the frosting onto three vanilla wafer cookies and used a dab of frosting to stick them to a graham cracker.

Badge and Hat ~ We used the hat and badge printable from First School and added a construction paper band to make the hat. Just for fun, we filled the ‘P’ on the badge in with glue and sprinkled blue glitter on it.

Stoplight Craft ~ Rather than putting the red, yellow and green circles on a toilet paper tube {from the Police Officer Printables} we put them on our leftover black construction paper so Kaleb could hang it over his desk.

That was just a quick look at our week and the many things we talked about and did together. Here’s a peek inside the new Police Printable Pack!

The Police Learning Printables include two separate downloads, one geared toward Preschoolers and another for Kindergarten.

Links We Used

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Angus Lost Unit ~ Preschool Corner

Oct142011

October 14, 2011 by Jolanthe 15 Comments

Not a lot of pictures this week, and the few that I have are rather comical as it is since they show a not-happy camper during a few different activities we were doing.

Because “Scissors are NOT FUN, Mom!”

Kaleb can cut just fine, but the moment those scissors come out to be used, the whining begins. Who knows why, but it’s one of his triggers during the school day, so I try to be careful in my placement of any cutting activity.

This week we focused mainly on the book Angus Lost by Marjorie Flack and the last few days of the week we added in the book Angus and the Ducks by Marjorie Flack. Angus Lost is a part of our Before Five in a Row books and we use the printables for Angus Lost that I put together as well as activities suggested in the manual.

A Peek at Kaleb’s Work Area

Pictured above: ABC posters from All About Reading, trofast system from Ikea, Bygel rail with blue Bygel containers and 12” square corkboard tiles.

All of the Kaleb’s workbox sheets go into his Trofast system {we have 9 boxes}. Sitting on top of the boxes is a cookie sheet that holds all of the magnets for his Read! Build! Write! cards. We hang any crafts from the weeks prior above his desk and on the cork board we switch out his memory verses {sometimes from the printables we’re using} as well as his vocabulary words for the week. The three pictures hanging directly above his desk are his letter crafts from the All About Reading Pre1 program.

Our Week with Angus Lost

Everyday we did the following {before starting into our workboxes}: read the book Angus Lost together, went over our vocabulary words and talked about the animals in the story using our Animal Classification Cards. Here’s a peek into how our workboxes for the week:

Here are some more things that we did during the week together….not every single thing listed out, but just a few of the highlights.

Bible

Our verse for the week was Psalm 23:4 ~ “I will not be afraid, for you are close beside me”. The turtle in the picture just makes us laugh, but we talked about how Angus was probably afraid because he was lost in a snowstorm and needed to find his way home.

Language/Reading

We had fun looking through the book and talking about when the book took place {a milk wagon delivered the milk and the car was an old car}. We had a list of vocabulary words from the story that we reviewed {dog, cave, milk, snowstorm, etc….} and practiced those words and the beginning sounds of the word.

Rhyming words continue to be a favorite part of our week, so I try to include that as much as possible {thanks to All About Reading!!}. I absolutely love hearing Kaleb’s summary of the story…when he is ready to talk and not mutter to me.

Angus got lost. He met another dog. He met a goat. He went into a cave. It was snowing. Then he found the milkman. He followed the man from every house to house. He found his house.

The word family sorting {-og and –at} was another fun activity again this week, especially since Kaleb has figured out how to sound out words.

A few days into our week, we picked up Angus and the Ducks by Marjorie Flack and compared the two books together. We noticed that the hedge in one of the stories is also pictured in the other book, but the seasons are different {can you see the weeping willow/cherry tree in both books?}. This was a great way for us to look for things that were the same/different in the stories.

Math

We worked on counting up to the number 20 and used the numbered houses from the Angus Lost printables. Sometimes I left numbers out and had him write the missing number on a blank house with a dry erase marker.

Other things we did in the book: counted how many animals there were altogether in the story, sequenced the animals in the story, compared less/more for animals {how many ducks vs. goat and which is more}.

One piece of the printables that Kaleb has a blast with are the maze pages. Definitely going to have to pull some more of these together for him to work on!

Personal Safety

This unit was a great opportunity to review what Kaleb knew about himself ~ his full name, phone number, birthday, address and our names. He is still convinced that my name is Mommy, so we practiced by what Daddy calls me ~ Jolanthe. :) Kaleb then wrote down his information on a sheet of paper to practice.

And finally…tell me that this aren’t the images of a SUPER-thrilled little boy {not-so-much}.

More Angus Lost Links

~ Angus Lost printables

~ Read! Build! Write! cards for Angus Lost

~ Resources/printables from Homeschool Share

~ Angus Lost study from Hope is in the Word

~ Angus Lost study from Delightful Learning

~ Scottie Dog Grid game from Mama Jenn

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! The updated guidelines can be found here if you need them.

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All About Learning Press ~ Spelling & reading programs that are easy to teach and easy to learn.

We Choose Virtues….tools for inspiring character in children!

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Filed Under: Literature Based Printables, Preschool Corner 15 Comments

Blueberries for Sal Unit ~ Preschool Corner

Oct72011

October 7, 2011 by Jolanthe 17 Comments

So far I think that Blueberries for Sal has been one of our favorite books that we’ve done together this year. Maybe it’s because we took a fun walk outside and found a stump like the one in the story…or the blueberry playdough…or the ‘blueberry picking’ that we did. Whatever it was, it was a great week together. :)

Everyday we did the following {before we started into our workboxes} ~ read the book Blueberries for Sal together, went over our vocabulary words and talked about the animals in the story using our Animal Classification Cards. Here’s a peek into how our workboxes for the week:

Here are look into our week and the activities that we did {other than the ones listed in the Before Five in a Row manual}

Math

Adding ~ The blueberry pail addition was fun and we tried a few different things during the week. The first day we used it, we used the paper berries from the Blueberries for Sal printables. The next day we made Blueberry playdough and he had fun rolling the playdough into tiny ‘berries’ to use when adding.

Counting ~ We first worked on putting all of the numbers in numerical order and counting up. We also worked on number recognition by saying the word that was on the pail and having him place it on the correct number.

Puzzles ~ Kaleb isn’t super fond of puzzles ~ especially if I pull them all apart the first part of the week. One thing that I do is gradually cut the puzzle apart into smaller and smaller pieces. The first day I cut it into strips following the grid and then cut those pieces in half, etc… I’ve found that this really helps him to not get as overwhelmed with all the pieces and feel he CAN do it!

Language

In addition to using the Read! Build! Write! cards for Blueberries for Sal, we also worked on our vocabulary words, beginning letter sounds, and rhyming words.

Story Summary ~ Every time we do a unit, I have Kaleb retell the story in his own words.

Positional Words ~ The mini book of sorts has been great practice for understanding positional words like: behind, under, on top of, up, down, etc….

Fun Stuff

Making Playdough ~ Kaleb had MUCH fun helping make a big ol’ wad of Blueberry Playdough. I love the recipe that we use ~ you can find it here} and found a blue koolaid at the grocery store that worked great for it.

What Sound Does it Make? I found a little tin pail in the dollar section at Target and we used blue beads to fill it up. We compared the sounds that the berries made while we were filling it up to the sounds in the story. As it filled up higher, we talked about how the sounds changed.

Outdoor Fun

Berry Hunting ~ While the kids were inside, I went outside with a bag of blue beads and stuck them on branches for Kaleb to find. We both went ‘berry picking’ together and found all the blue berries that we could and then Kaleb found a ton of other berries on his little expedition. No idea what kind of berries….but he went picking anyway! {thanks to Lightning Bug Literacy for the idea!}

After we went berry picking we were wandering around and found a big ol’ stump. Kaleb remembered it in the story, so he climbed up on top of it to see if there were any partridges on the other side of it. :)

That’s a sum-up of our week. Here are a few links for you. I’d love to hear what you all have been up to as well!

More Blueberries for Sal Links

~ Blueberries for Sal printables

~ Read! Build! Write! cards for Blueberries for Sal

~ Blueberries for Sal resources from Homeschool Share

~ Delightful Learning’s BFIAR studies

~ Lightning Bug Literacy blueberry ideas

~ Blueberries for Sal read-aloud on You Tube

~ Living Life Intentionally ~ sums up many resources

~ Blueberry Council

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Filed Under: Literature Based Printables, Preschool Corner 17 Comments

Fall Fun ~ Preschool Corner

Sep302011

September 30, 2011 by Jolanthe 15 Comments

With the new Fall Fun Printables pack just staring at me, we had to work on them together!! If anything, it got us MORE excited for fall to really be here! The weather has been so nice and cool during the day and even at night, so it was a great week to talk about the changes that fall brings.

We had some fun fall books in our reading pile for the week and read several of them each day. Everyday we did the following {before we started into our workboxes} ~ read a book or two from our reading pile {see the carousel below} and reviewed our vocabulary words. Most of the printables were from my Fall Fun Printables pack unless otherwise noted {there are some more great links below too!}.

A peek into our Workboxes

Extra activities after workboxes

Monday ~ fingerprint tree {draw a tree trunk and use our fingerprints for the leaves

Tuesday ~ Caramel Apple ‘Nachos’: slice apples thin and drizzle homemade caramel sauce over them {and chocolate chips!}

Wednesday ~ Apple Wreath stamping

Here are a few pictures and look into our week of fall fun….

Language

The Read! Build! Write! mats are always a hit {there’s a fall themed set too!} and Kaleb is getting so much better at finding the letters now. It can still take a bit to ‘build’ the word, but he still works at it. We usually do only 2 words a day because of the time it takes to put it together.

The ‘Find the Word’ sheet isn’t always his favorite activity in the packs, but when we pulled out the Do-A-Dot markers…he was rather happy to participate. :) If it works….

Math

We used the apple seed printout out of the Apple themed pack from 2 Teaching Mommies along with some dried black beans to work on counting with 1:1. I pulled out our number/counting cards and would show Kaleb a number and have him put that many seed inside the apple.

We worked on adding simple numbers together with our apple addition. I would put two numbers on the mat for Kaleb to add together and he would make the right number of mini apples from playdough and then put the right number as the answer.

The connect the dot acorn ~ HUGE hit! He especially liked that he could color it in when he was done. The first day I slid the paper in a sheet protector and he used a dry erase marker to connect the dots. On the second day, he used a pencil and then colored it in to finish it.

Other Fun

Kaleb loved stamping the apples to make an apple wreath {something he will proudly be hanging above his desk this week. And the do-a-dot pages…pure happiness everyday. Where the boy gets satisfaction having every dot filled is beyond me {cough cough}.

That’s just a quick glimpse at our week and whirlwind look at fall. What have you all been up to this week?

More Fun Fall Links

Fall Fun Printables pack
My Fall Theme Pinterest board {some great links here!
Acorn tic tac toe
Fall sensory bin
Paper strip pumpkins
Pumpkin spice playdough

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Filed Under: Preschool Corner 15 Comments