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Learning About Venezuela ~ Lesson Plans and Links

Sep92010
September 9, 2010 by Leave a Comment

Venezuela is the northernmost country of South America and a little larger than the state of Texas and Oklahoma put together. It is home to Angel Falls, the highest waterfall in the world. Venezuela is also the wealthiest nation in Latin America because of the petroleum/oil reserves that are found in the country {second in size to those in the Persian Gulf area}.

There are several different areas in Venezuela: beautiful beaches, the Andes mountains, plains {llanos}, rainforests, and the highlands {tepui}. We talked a little bit about everything this week: Columbus, the first explorer to visit Venezuela in 1498; the religion and languages of the country; Angel Falls; and Simon Bolivar, the man that led the revolt that ended the Spanish rule of Venezuela.

You can view the other countries that we’ve studied from South America on my South America geography page.

Week 1 Layout

Monday

  • Review our South America song from Geography Songs {see words below}
  • Use atlas and globe to locate the country of Venezuela; read in the atlas about Venezuela
  • Read one of our books from our bookshelf about Venezuela.

  South America

    Argentina, Venezuela and Colombia,

    Ecuador, Peru and Chile and Bolivia,

    Uruguay and Paraguay, Brazil and Guyana

    and Suriname ~

    These are the countries of South America.

    The French have French Guiana.

    The British have the Falkland Islands.

    Brazil is the biggest country and

    Chile is the longest.

Tuesday

  • Learn {and review} some terms: mountains, beaches, plains, rainforest, tabletop plateaus
  • Independent reading from bookshelf
  • Filled out the map of Venezuela notebooking page

Mapping Venezuala   Click on thumbnail to download pdf file

Wednesday

  • Review geography song
  • Talked about languages and religions of Venezuela
  • Independent reading 

Thursday

Week 2 Layout

Monday

Flag of Venezuala 

Click on thumbnail to download pdf file

Tuesday

  • Learned about Jimmy Angel and Angel Falls
  • Watched this video of Angel Falls and also this one {amazing}
  • Read together one of books from bookshelf

Wednesday

Thursday

  • Summarized one of our reading books and copy summary/dication
  • Cooking ~ Platanos Fritos
  • Added our notebooking pages to our binder and stamped our passports!

Books & Resources

 

Resources and Websites

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Filed Under: Geography, Geography Printables, South America Leave a Comment

Perusing Peru ~ Lesson Plans and Links for Learning about Peru

Sep72010
September 7, 2010 by 4 Comments

I know…it’s a bad title. But can you blame me? :)

One of the last countries that we learned about in South America was Peru. Peru is the third largest country in South America and nearly half of the country is covered by the Amazon jungle. There are many plants and animals found in Peru that are not found anywhere else on earth. The Andes mountains also run through the country of Peru.

You can view the other countries that we’ve studied from South America on my South America geography page.

Week 1 Layout

Monday

  • Review our South America song from Geography Songs {see words below}
  • Use atlas and globe to locate the country of Peru; read in the atlas about Peru
  • Read one of our books from our bookshelf about Peru.

  South America

Argentina, Venezuela and Colombia,

Ecuador, Peru and Chile and Bolivia,

Uruguay and Paraguay, Brazil and Guyana

and Suriname ~

These are the countries of South America.

The French have French Guiana.

The British have the Falkland Islands.

Brazil is the biggest country and

Chile is the longest.

Tuesday

  • Review geography song
  • Learn {and review} some terms: mountains, mountain pass, lake, desert, rain forest, jungle
  • Independent reading from bookshelf
  • Filled out the map of Peru notebooking page

Mapping Peru  Click on thumbnail to download pdf file

Wednesday

Thursday

Week 2 Layout

Monday

Flag of Peru Click on thumbnail to download pdf file

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

  • Summarized one of our reading books and copy summary/dication
  • Added our notebooking pages to our binder and stamped our passports!

Books & Resources

 

Resources and Websites

 

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Filed Under: Geography, Geography Printables, South America 4 Comments

ABC Phonics Coloring Pages

Aug242010
August 24, 2010 by 1 Comment

While we are trying to get back more into a school routine, I put together some phonics coloring pages for Kaleb to work on each day. I’m trying to assess what he knows for beginning letter sounds so we’re reviewing several each day and talking about the sounds of the letters.

There are 26 pages in this pdf set ~ each page is 8 1/2” x 11”. Here’s a quick peek at a few of the pages:

phonics coloring page

phonics coloring pages 

Click on either of the thumbnails to download the A-Z Phonics Coloring pages. Have fun coloring!

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Filed Under: Alphabet Time, Early Learning Printables, Preschool Printables 1 Comment

Preschool Chore Charts

Aug192010
August 19, 2010 by 64 Comments

NOTE: The preschool chore charts have been updated! You can see the new version with updated clip art and additional chore cards here. Feel free to read the post below too!

Our chore charts for the older kids are working well, but since Kaleb can’t read yet I made his a little more ‘preschool’ friendly and used picture cards to help him see what he needed to do. The cards are the same size as my workbox activity cards, so if you want to mix and match those cards with this grid, they will work together.

Kaleb’s chore chart is broken up into three parts: morning chores, afternoon chores and chores to earn money. He earns minimal money, but we’re working on starting early with the giving, saving, spending concept. The boy gets excited with pennies…so it’s all good! :)

The chart is laminated and there are velcro dots in each of the squares below. This chart is also the same size as his daily workbox grid and is on a jump/key ring along with his workbox cards. Each of his chore cards attach with the velcro.


I do have to re-stock his chore chart every morning and for now we are just pulling off the cards when he completes his chores {until I come up with a better plan. I am keeping track of the chores he has earned by writing on the back of the chart with a Sharpie and erasing it weekly.

Preschool Chore Cards 1
 
Preschool Chore Cards 2
Preschool Chore Cards 3

We are keeping it pretty simple for his ‘chores’. Here’s a peek at some of the things that we have on his chore chart. Some of the chores rotate throughout the week, but there are several that are consistent on a daily basis.

Kaleb’s daily chores: make bed, clean room, brush teeth, pick-up clothes, pick up shoes/hang up jacket, set table, wash table, devotions.

Kaleb’s extra {paid} chores: trash, vacuum, laundry, wash windows, dust, sweep, water plants, weed garden.

He loves helping wash dishes….

IMG_6606

And helping make his bed…

IMG_6610

You can download a copy of the preschool chore charts by either clicking the thumbnail picture or on this link. The chore chart file has five different colored charts: blue, green, pink, purple and white {so you can print on colored cardstock if you would like} and also includes chore cards. If you have any questions, feel free to ask. :)

In case you missed them before, you can also download a copy of our Chore Chart Printables for our older kids and see how we’re implementing that system in our house. There may also be extra cards for you to use in the workbox activity cards that I also posted earlier.

Hope this helps you out!

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Filed Under: Chores, Early Learning Printables, Preschool Printables Tagged With: 64 Comments

Preschool Corner ~ Planning Forms

Aug132010
August 13, 2010 by 23 Comments

This last week and a half has been spent planning, organizing, re-organizing and pulling together ideas for what our upcoming year is going to look like. Overall, it’s finally beginning to ‘click’ and I’m getting an idea of what the year will look like for Kaleb ~ and that’s exciting for me.

In all honesty, I feel that he gets the leftovers when it comes to learning time, especially as I’m trying to fit in all that the older three need to do. I really wanted to have something in place for him that he would be excited about, I would be excited about…and that would be fun! Cindy from Along the Way has been busy working with me to come up with some literature based units that we can do with our boys and it has been FUN!!! We’re working on some fun printables and lapbook-style units that we’re so excited about!

This week we brought home some monarch caterpillars and have a new space {thanks to my re-organizing} to watch and observe the caterpillars up close. Wednesday morning the kids woke up and were able to watch Kaleb’s caterpillar go into its chrysalis ~ SO much fun!! We were able to video tape it too and Kaleb was so excited about the ‘dancing’ that it was doing. :)

I’ve posted about the planning pages that we used last year, but this year I’ve revamped them a little bit and focused it more toward literature-based studies. If you would like to download the 2 page Preschool Planning form, just click on the thumbnail images below.

Preschool Planning Form 2010Preschool Planning Form 2010 2 

We try to get all of our ‘school time’ done Monday through Thursday. The first page has room for planning daily activities in the following areas: reading {related to something in the actual book}, doing {something that we can do that relates to the topic: lapbook, gross motor, math, etc…}, song/game, Bible {verse/song}, and crafts. The second page gives me room to expand my ideas and jot down notes for the following areas: Bible/Character, Language, Science/Nature, Math, Gross/Fine Motor, Arts & Crafts, Songs & Games.

At the bottom of the page, I also have room to plan what the basic layout of Kaleb’s workboxes will be for the week. I have 9 planning spaces {the workbox unit that we’re using has 9 boxes overall} ~ but we’ll be using only 6 of the boxes, with 3 as more some fun ‘extras’ for our day. I’ll be sharing more soon with pictures of our school area layout for this year, so stay tuned for that!

Are YOU getting excited for the upcoming year??? Link up what you’ve been doing and what you are planning on doing. :) Can’t wait to see what you ladies are up to with your kids this year!

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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Filed Under: Early Learning Printables, Planning Forms, Preschool Corner, Preschool Planning Forms, Preschool Printables 23 Comments

Preschool Corner ~ Pledge of Allegiance & Lord’s Prayer

Aug62010
August 6, 2010 by 6 Comments

When I taught preschool in our school system, one of our morning routines was reciting the Pledge of Allegiance together…and really, nothing is sweeter than hearing little ones try desperately to pronounce the word ‘indivisible’. :)

Our older three know the Pledge already, so this year {especially since the older three will be studying American History} Kaleb will be learning the Pledge as part of our Morning Calendar time. The printable also has the Pledge of Allegiance printable in landscape format too {that’s how it’ll fit into our calendar}.

Pledge of Allegiance

The Lord’s Prayer is another printable that I just put together for one of you all this week. There are two pages to the Lord’s Prayer printable ~ one with a boy and one with a girl.

Lord's PrayerLord's Prayer 2  

This weekend I’ll be finishing up our school planning and will have much more to share with you all about our overall schedule, things we’ll be learning this year and our school area setup. We haven’t had much school-related structure during our week and are slowly working our way back into a school-like routine ~ getting the kinks worked out of our chore system, keeping the tv off {period}, and putting the house in ‘order’ as much as is possible.

What have you been doing this week? Share with us the crafts that you are doing, fun you are having, and plans you are making for this upcoming year.

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! I don’t like to feel mean, but if your post doesn’t link to the Preschool Corner, it will be deleted. I’ve had some strange links lately and am checking the links when I can. :) The updated guidelines can be found here if you need them.
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Filed Under: Early Learning Printables, Preschool Corner, Preschool Printables 6 Comments