School Room Make-Over

Remember that time I said we were re-doing our school room and I'd post pictures later? Well, now is later. But I didn't take any 'before' pictures, sorry, you'll just have to be satisfied with the 'after' ones. I know I am.

The first and most important thing that happened, to make everything else possible, was that my amazing husband built me many more shelves in my school room closet. Happy day!

Then I was able to organize the closet. This was a huge deal. Because I organized the closet, we were able to get rid of a large cabinet on wheels that I had previously been using to hold art supplies and other school things. Now everything has a place. Hazzah!

Because everything has a place, and because we got rid of the art cupboard, we were able to buy a double desk from IKEA, and make Lincoln and Ivan a work space.

Once we had a work space for the boys, we decided we didn't really like the layout of the room, and took the opportunity to rearrange all the furniture, get rid of two toy bins, and just generally make the room even more awesome.

Aaron must love me very dearly, because he also bought me the biggest white board I've ever seen. It's magnetic. (And if you know me well, you know I go weak in the knees for all things Office Supplies.) Which means I have room to lay out my spelling tiles AND write things on the board if I want. It also means that I can use my smaller magnet board for it's original intended purpose of holding the letter magnets so my younger kids can play with them on a whim, and also it provides a space for us to do pattern blocks and Imaginets. Yay!

I could scroll up and down through these pictures for a life time, and still give a contended sigh at the end. NOW we're ready for the school year. :)

Mini Preschool: Weather

As usual when it's my turn to host preschool, I find so many fun ideas I want to use, and then have a hard time narrowing them down. The theme for this month is Spring. And I decided to do weather using the saying, March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb.

Last week at Suzy's, she had music activities for the kids to do as they arrived to keep them busy until everyone got there. I thought this was such a brilliant idea, so I copied. As each child arrived, I gave them a cotton ball, which I told them was a cloud, and a straw. I told them they had to make wind using the straw to try and move their cloud across the floor. I think it worked really well. Thanks for the idea Suzy!

Once everyone was here. I sat everyone down behind a masking tape line on the floor. I did this because sometimes when we read a story, the kids crowd around the story teller so tightly that no one gets to see. So I thought I'd try getting them to sit behind a line. It worked ok. We did a hello song to get everyone focused up front. Then I asked if anyone knew what month it was? I told them it was March and that march is important because it's the month where the weather outside changes from Winter weather to Spring weather. We talked about what Winter weather was and what Spring weather was, and how it March we often get some of each, with no particular rhyme or reason to it. I told them that some people say that March has lion weather and lamb weather. Then I asked them what sounds a lion makes. They roared for me. And we talked about how lions are kind of fierce and wild. Then we described some weather that is fierce and wild. Snow, hard rain, cold strong wind, sleet, etc. are what we came up with. Then I asked them what a lamb says. The said baaaaa. And we talked about how lambs are gentle and quiet and soft, and came up with some types of weather that are like a lamb. Sunshine, warm gentle breezes, light spring rain, etc.

Then we went into the kitchen and made lion and lamb paper plates. I got the patterns for those here. The lamb kind of turned out looking like a rabbit in my opinion, but oh well. I didn't mention this specifically to the kids, but I think at our house for the rest of March, every day I will ask Linc and Ivan if the day is more like a lion or a lamb outside, and then we'll hand the appropriate paper plate up.

Next we came back out into the living room. I played a weather song and we did actions to it. The tune is to Oh My Darlin' Clementine.

Sunny, sunny
Sunny, sunny
It is sunny in the sky
S-u-n-n-y sunny
It is sunny in the sky.

And the same over again with cloudy, rainy, windy, and snowy.

That was our wiggle activity, although it was kind of low key. Then I had the kids sit down on the floor with their metal cookie sheets that they brought (as we soon found out, I should have specified magnetic, instead of metal, because some people brought aluminum and it's didn't work as well for them) I gave them a stack of small magnet (which you can buy a pack of 50 at Walmart for a couple buck) and a print out of the sun with holes. The objective was to put the magnets in the holes and "stick" the sun to the cookie sheet. This idea is good for learning one to one correspondence, and I found it here.

While the kids were working with their magnets, I read them the story It's Raining It's Pouring by Kin Eagle. It adds on different weather situations the the old man finds himself in. Some of them are kind of a stretch, but it's a cute book. I decided to read while the kids had something to do with their hands as an effort to eliminate the mass crowding of the story teller that usually happens. I think it worked pretty well.

After that we played Dress For the Weather. I'd taken two paper people and taped them to my flannel board, along with all kinds of clothes for different weather. Each kid got a turn to dress a person, and then we talked about what kind of weather it might be outside to make the person choose to wear that. It was a little stretched. I don't think the kids cared as much about dressing for a particular kind of weather as they did about dressing their person in whatever looked the coolest to them. I was actually really surprised how into this the kids were. Tears were shed and fits were thrown because we weren't taking turns fast enough.

We did weather boats next, which I thought would be the favorite activity, but we'd spent a lot of time on dressing for the weather, so we kind of had to rush through this one. Everyone got a little boat made out of a piece of Styrofoam, a tooth pick, and a square of construction paper. The kid whose turn it was would come up and put their boat in the ocean (a 9x13 pan full of water). Then they would roll the cardboard dice (made with love, by Aaron) to get either a picture of a sun, the wind, or a rain cloud. And then they would have to perform that specific weather on their boat. So if they rolled the sun they got to shine a flashlight down on their boat. If they rolled wind, they got to use a straw to blow on their boat. And if they got rain they got to spray their boat with a squirt bottle (this was the obvious favorite).

And last we made snacks. We made our lions out of a rice cake, peanut butter, chow mien noodles, and raisins. The lambs were a half an apple covered in marshmallow creme with Kix stuck to the back, a big marshmallow for the head, raisins for the eyes, and two mini marshmallow stuck onto four tooth picks for the legs. I think they turned out pretty cute, and they even tasted good. I got the ideas for these here and here.

For those of you who ask, here's a copy of my lesson plan:

March Preschool- In Like a Lion, Out Like a Lamb- Weather

Waiting Activity- Give each kid a cotton ball and a straw and let them be the wind, while you wait for everyone to arrive.

Introduction- Does anybody know what month it is? It’s March. March is important because it’s the month where the weather outside changes from Winter weather to Spring weather. Who can tell me some different kinds of winter weather? Spring weather? March is kind of a funny month because the weather goes back and forth, back and forth a lot. Some people say that March has lion weather and lamb weather.

Explain Lion and Lamb weather- ask them questions like “What would make the weather ferocious like a lion? (rain, cold wind, storms, sleet, etc)” and “What would make the weather gentle like a lamb? (sunshine, warm breezes, etc.)”

Lion/lamb paper plates- divide kids in half so one group does lion plate first and the other does lamb

Song about weather- have the kids act out the different kinds of weather in the song.

Story/Magnets- Read It’s raining, It’s pouring to the kids while they place magnets on their pictures on cookie sheets. If they haven’t finished the magnet page at the end of the story, read them The North Wind and the Sun.

Dress for the weather- Have the kids dress paper dolls for different kinds of weather

Weather Boats- give each kid a Styrofoam boat. They take turns rolling the dice to get different kinds of weather. They have to create that weather for their boat. (Flashlight for sun, blow with a straw for wind, squirt bottle for rain)

Lion/lamb snacks- Each kid gets a rice cake, some chow mien noodles, raisins, half an apple, a handful of Kix, 8 mini marshmallow, 1 big marshmallow, 4 tooth picks, and a plastic knife. Adults will give each child a scoop of peanut butter on their rice cake and a scoop of marshmallow creme on their apple.

I was exhausted after preschool today. I don't know if the kids were a bit more rowdy than normal, or if my late nights have been catching up to me. I love our preschool group. I think it's good for so many things. One of the things that's hard for me though, is that I want all the kids to be able to do everything hands on, for as long as they want, which just isn't possible. Ideally every kid would have had their own set of paper doll and clothes and they could have all happily dressed and redressed to their hearts content until they were tired of it. Or they would have all gotten to create every different kind of weather for their boat, and had time left over to come up with their own kinds of weather. But I know that's not reasonable or possible in the hour and a half time limit. But it does make me grateful for the decision we've made to homeschool, because in a lot of aspects of our kids' education we can do those things. If Linc wants to play with stacks of magnets all afternoon and find out what they'll stick to besides the cookie sheet, or experiment with why they push away from each other when you turn them a certain way, or how tall he can stack them before they tip over, or whatever...then he can. The freedom of it. That's the aspect I love most about homeschooling.

Seeds for Science

The past week, during our home school preschool time (aka Ivan and Adelia's afternoon nap) Lincoln and I have been doing science experiments with seeds. We are getting really excited about the fact that our new house will have good sized, raised, planter boxes for a garden, and have been anxious to get started with that. Lincoln and Ivan have caught on to the excitement as well, and so I decided to try an revolve this week's activities around seeds.

Monday- First of all, I wanted to start with an explanation of what spring is. We made this cool seasons wheel by taking an empty Cheerio box and cutting a large circle out of it. Then we divided the circle into four parts, one for each season. Then I printed out pictures of things I thought resembled spring off of the internet and let Lincoln cut them out and glue them onto our seasons wheel, while we talked about what spring is. For now, I've decided to leave the other seasons blank, until we get to them, and then we'll fill those in too. I made sure to make a point that one of the things you do in spring is to begin planting the seeds to grow a garden.

Then for FHE we went to Home Depot and picked out the seeds we wanted to try planting this year. We came away with snow peas, green peppers, onions, green beans, regular peas, corn, carrots, and watermelon. We bought some little indoor plant starter containers, and soil. Eventually we'll probably go back and get some tomato and strawberry starts, we'll see. We didn't have enough time left before bed to plant the seeds though.

Tuesday- Since we hadn't planted our seeds yet, I decided it was the perfect opportunity to do some seed sorting with Linc. I opened the packets for watermelon, peas, beans, and corn, and dumped all the seeds into a bowl together (I chose those because they were big enough and different enough to tell them apart). I printed out pictures of the different full grown plants with the fruit on them. Linc and I examined the seeds and made guesses about which seeds might go to which plants. He got peas and corn right. After we determined which went with which I spread out four different bowls and put one plant picture next to each, and let Linc sort the seeds into the bowls. He had a great time, and kept asking to do it again once he finished.

Wednesday- Today we did an experiment with bean seeds. I took a few of the bean seeds out of the packet and gave them to Lincoln, along with three different glass jars. I told him to put the beans into the glass jars however he wanted as long as there were some seeds in each jar. While he did that, I took a piece of paper and drew the three jars (obviously, I'm not the artist in the family). Then we labeled the jars 1,2,3. Then we counted the number of beans in each jar and drew them in the jars on the paper. Then we decided to find out which jar had the most beans in it. On the back of our paper I made a graph. Each bean got it's own box, and we made sure the boxes for each jar lined up, so when we were done we could see which jar had the most beans. Lincoln actually had a pretty hard time with this when it was just the beans. So I assigned each jar a different color, and we colored in the squares for each bean. Then we turned the paper sideways and I asked Linc which tower was the tallest. After that he could pick it out. I don't know if he understand that each block in the tower stood for one bean, but that'll come eventually. Right now I'm more concerned with him understanding the concept of more and most, bigger biggest, small and smallest, etc.

The we put all the beans back in their respective jars. We talked about what seeds need to grow, and one of the things we came up with was water. In the first jar we didn't put any water. In the second jar we put a half inch of water, and the third jar we filled half full of water. Then we colored the amounts of water in each jar onto our paper drawing. We'll have to wait 8-10 days to see which jar will sprout the beans. Lincoln loves coming into the kitchen to check on it every second of the day. :) I hope it works. (It's supposed to be the middle jar.)

That night we finally got around to planting our seeds. We let the boys use spoons to scoop the dirt into the little holder things. Then we each took one child and very carefully helped them plant the seeds. And last, we watered them. The boys thought the watering was great fun. Ivan even tried to help by using his sippy. :)

Thursday- Co-op Preschool day! It was Suzy's turn, and the lesson she chose to teach fit right in with what we'd been talking about all week...seeds!

It was a beautiful day, and she took us all out back and we talked about seeds and what they need to grow. Then she gave each kid an egg carton with three sections in it. She let them put dirt in them, and then they each got to choose three types of seeds to plant. Ivan chose onion, green pepper, and tomato. Lincoln (who I was not supervising, so he was pretty much on his own), I think chose a tomato, lettuce, and something that will be a surprise when it comes up (in other words, I have no idea). Then the kids got to water their seeds. Suzy did a great job of explaining how to know when the seeds needed more water, and when they'd gotten too much water.

Friday- One more experiment with bean seeds. It's very similar to the one we did Wed. except on Wed the focus was on what seeds need to grow, and today's the focus was on the roots and how the seeds sprout. We took three plastic baby food containers with the lids and Lincoln crumpled up enough paper towels to fill the containers and put them in. Then with a medicine dropper, he got all the paper towels damp. (Thoroughly soaked through, but without puddling at the bottom of the container.) Then we "planted" a seed between the wall of the container and the paper towel. (So you could see the seed through the side.) Then we put the lids on and put the containers in a dark place. They are supposed to sprout in a few days, and as we watch them we'll be able to see the roots, and we can talk about roots and what the roots do for the plant. Cool!

I should probably mention that I did not come up with these activities in my own head. :) The only one I can claim is the graph for the bean seeds. Everything else I got out of the book Science is Simple Over 250 Activities for Preschoolers by Peggy Ashbrook.

Oh ya, and some supplemental things we've done this week to go along with all of the above.

-read books about spring and seeds

-gone on a spring walk to look for signs of spring (buds on trees, flowers pushing up through the ground, snow melting, birds coming back, etc.)

-pointed out on rainy days that the rain was good because it was water the ground and helping the plants to wake up.

-Talk about the different things we eat at dinner that have seeds.

-And I wanted to eat some different seeds, but we never got around to that.

Mini Preschool: Presidents' Day

This week was my turn to host preschool. The theme this month is supposed to be Valentines' Day, but I decided to switch and do Presidents' Day because my sub-theme was music/stories and I know the cutest song about Washington and Lincoln from back when I was in preschool. I've said it before, but I'll say it again. I am amazed how much I remember from my own preschool experience, just proves the Bev's Preschool was the best ever, because I remember almost nothing from kindergarten. (Hooper people feel free to agree with me here.) Anyways, I started planning this preschool day, even before I planned the one I hosted clear back in December. That's how excited I was about it. :)

I've had several people ask me how I go about organizing a preschool day. So I thought I'd share my method, but everyone probably does it a little bit differently. First I brainstorm. I just write down everything I can think of that we can possibly do, or topics I want to cover, or any other ideas that I have. Then I look at my topic and sub-theme again and see which ideas fit in the best or how I could make a certain activity fall under the category I need to. For example, this time I wanted to do some letter tracing, so I thought we could either trace the names of some of the presidents, or words related to the presidents (like log cabin). But I also wanted to talk a little bit about money and being able to identify different coins, so I decided to group the two together and we ended up tracing the letters to the names of the different coins and then doing coin rubbings. Anyways, once I have a few of those thing put together, I try to put them in some kind of order, and I make myself a schedule to follow for the preschool day. My schedule this time looked like this:

Presidents Day Preschool Schedule

1. Introduce Presidents’ Day
      a. Talk about who’s the boss in our house (mom/dad), then make the point that the president is the boss of our country
2.Read story of George Washington (pg 110)
      a. Have children hold pictures
             i. George Washington
             ii. Cherry tree
             iii. Hatchet
             iv. George and his father
3. Teach George Washington Song
     a. Give children a three cornered hat to wear
     b. Give moms a copy of song words
4. Cherry tree craft
     a. Paint arms brown and stamp
     b. Use sponge to paint leaves
     c. Thumb print cherries
    d. Glue hatchet and young George to paper and let dry
5. Wiggly Activity-Riding horses
    a. This Is the Way the Ladies Ride
    b. Pass out paper w/words on it
6. Read story of Abraham Lincoln (pg 117)
     a. Have children hold pictures
          i. Abraham Lincoln
          ii. Log cabin
         iii. Books
         iv. United States
7. Teach Abraham Lincoln Song
     a. Give children a stove pipe hat
     b. Give moms a copy of song words
8. Log cabin craft
     a. Glue pretzel sticks to picture of log cabin
9. Penny throwing game
10. Teach about different coins
    a. Listen to the Silly Songs song about money
    b. Give each child a penny, nickel, dime, and quarter and have them match to picture
    c. Coin rubbings
    d. Trace letter of the names of coins

I am not always that organized, but when I am things go MUCH more smoothly for me. I feel like the last couple times I've done preschool, things have been a little awkward at the beginning, like I'll start talking and trying to introduce the lesson, but everyone is still getting settled down, and the kids don't seem to focus on me right away even though I'm talking. So this month I tried something new. I stole the idea from story time at the library. We sang a hello song.

Hello everybody and how are you?
How are you?
How are you?
Hello everybody and how are you?
How are you today?

Hello everybody and clap your hands
Clap your hands
Clap your hands
Hello everybody and clap your hands
Clap your hands today.

Hello everybody and stomp your feet
Stomp your feet
Stomp your feet
Hello everybody and stomp your feet
Stomp your feet today.

Hello everybody and roll your arms
Roll your arms
Roll your arms
Hello everybody and roll your arms
Roll your arms today.

And I thought it helped things go much more smoothly. All the kids had been to story time before, so they knew once we were done singing the song, that I would have something else for them. I think I'll use that tactic more often.

I talked a little bit about what Presidents' Day is and why we celebrate it. Then I introduced George Washington and we read a story about him cutting down the cherry tree as a young boy. I got the story out of the book What Your Preschooler Needs to Know: Read Alouds to Get Ready for Kindergarten by E. D. Hirsch Jr. and Linda Belivacqua. Aaron got me this book for Christmas and I absolutely love it. It is what is says it is...it's a book filled with things to read aloud to your kids. It has different categories like poems, songs, stories, history, science, and art. And in ever category the read alouds have been simplified so that a preschooler can understand them. The preface talks about why each of these areas are important, and other ways for parents to get involved in helping their kids learn, which I really like. (It also kind of disses on home school, which I obviously did not like or agree with, but I still think it's a fantastic resource, and plan on using it to home school.) While I was reading the story, I had the kids come up and hold different pictures that had to do with the story. I was hoping this would help keep their attention, since the idea of a president is a little hard for 2 and 3 year olds to grasp. I'd say the holding up of pictures worked well for some kids, and did nothing for others.

After our story, I talked a little bit about what kinds of clothes George Washington wore in his day. I had made each kid a three-cornered hat out of construction paper, and I passed those out.

Then we learned the first verse of a song called Washington and Lincoln, which comes from  the book My Picture Book of Songs by Alene Dalton, Myriel Ashton, and Erla Young. I should just buy this book, because I check it out of the library every time it's my turn to do preschool. It has great songs in it. A lot of the songs are ones that I learned when I was in preschool. Suzy was a huge help, she brought over her keyboard and played the song for us, so that the kids could hear the music. I think they really liked that part. And the moms were good sports for singing along. (I gave them a paper with the words on it, so I didn't have to sing solo.)

After singing the song a couple times, we went into the kitchen to do a George Washington craft. The moms helped out and we painted each kid's arm brown and stamped it onto a paper, to make a tree trunk. We had a time out to wash paint off of arms. Then we used sponges to sponge on some green leaves. Then using our thumbs we did red dots for cherries. Last we glued on a young George Washington and a hatchet, so we could remember than even when we do bad things we still have to tell the truth, because being honest is important. I helped Ivan a lot, but Linc did his pretty much all on his own. Here's how our cherry trees turned out:

At this point I figured the kids would need a wiggle activity. I was right. :) We came back into the living room and I told them that another thing about George Washington was that he loved to ride horses. We stood in a line and played the game This is the Way the Ladies Ride. I found about 12 different versions of this game online, but the one I liked best is sung to the tune of Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush.

This is the way the ladies ride
Jiggety jog, jiggety jog

This is the way the ladies ride
Jiggety jiggety jog

This is the way the gentlemen ride
Gallop and trot, gallop and trot
This is the way the gentlemen ride
Gallop and gallop and trot

This is the way the farmer rides
Hobbledy hoy, hobbledy hoy
This is the way the farmer rides
Hobbledy hobbledy hoy

This is the way the cowboy rides
Giddy up, giddy up
This is the way the cowboy rides
Giddy giddy up

For each verse we did a different action. For the ladies we skipped lightly, for the gentlemen we did high knees, for the farmers we did wide legs and went from side to side really slowly, and for the cowboy we trotted really fast. The kids had a good time with this, and I was very much out of breath by the time we were done.

By this time, I think the kids were starting to loose interest, it was a little bit hard to hold their attention. I sat them down and introduced them to Abraham Lincoln. We read a story about him from the same What Your Preschooler Needs to Know book. His story was a little bit harder to grasp I think, it skims slavery just barely and talks about Lincoln living in a log cabin and reading books by the fire, but I still think it was a little bit hard for the kids to connect with.

We learned the second verse of our song, but first I talked about what Abraham Lincoln wore in his day and passed out stove pipe hats for the kids to wear while we sang.

Then we headed back into the kitchen to make log cabins. I had printed a picture of a log cabin for each of the kids, and I gave them a handful of pretzel sticks to glue on to the paper to "build" their log cabins. Here are ours:

Then I showed the kids a penny and how Lincoln's face was on the penny because he was a great president. We played a penny toss game. Each kid got 5 pennies to try and toss into a bowl. But the game kind of turned into chaos. We couldn't convince the kids to stand back far enough from the bowl, or to take turns tossing their pennies. But they had a good time with it anyway, so oh well.

For our last thing, I wanted to talk about money. I had a song for the kids to listen to, but we were running out of time and attention span, so I skipped it. I passed out a paper that had a picture of each of the coins on it. We talked briefly about which president was on each coin. Then I gave each kid a quarter, dime, nickel, and penny and a pencil so they could do coin rubbings. My kids pretty much got left on their own for this activity, because I was busy passing out supplies. Thank you Stephanie for helping Ivan out. And I was impressed with how well Lincoln did all by himself. His rubbings actually turned out pretty good. The last thing on that paper was to trace the letters in the names of each coin, but I think the kids were pretty much done by then, so I don't know how many of them actually attempted it. I know Lincoln did. He sat at the table in the midst of all the chaos and traced his letters. The kid hates to color, but he sure does love to trace! Either way, I'm just glad he's getting in the practice with a pencil. He's getting pretty good at tracing too. This is his paper. I did not help him one iota.

I think if I were to do it over again, I would have just sent the last activity home. I really do think the kids had had enough at that point. But as a whole I thought they did a lot better than I expected at grasping the concept of Presidents' Day. I guess it's never to early to start teaching history.

(Sorry, my preschool posts are always so long when it's my turn. Probably because instead of just saying what happened, I like to tell the whole thought process and what went in to every little thing, as well as anylizing my childrens abilities and learning styles. Oh well.)

Instead of Napping

Lincoln's nap has been going out of style for a while now. He will still take naps for me sometimes, but I can't ever plan on it. Lincoln has never been a self-entertaining child, which creates a problem during nap time because that is my only chance to get anything done during the day without a lot of extra "help". So, I've been trying to come up with activities that he can do at the kitchen table while I do dishes, that way he feels like I'm right there with him, and I can still get the kitchen cleaned at least.

Lincoln isn't a very big fan of coloring. He'll do it sometimes, if I suggest it, but he will never, on his own, ask me if he can color. And it never holds his attention very long. I've been looking for a way to "introduce" him to writing skills, ya know, get him to hold a writing utensil and make some kind of mark on a paper, the kind of thing coloring is great for, but it's been a little bit of a challenge since he's not really a colorer.

For Christmas, Aaron and I got Lincoln this really cool book called I Can Trace, which is part of the Big Skills for Little Hands series put out by Brighter Child. I've been eyeing the series for awhile, wanting to give it a try, and in our case, I think tracing is the best place to start. (They also have I Can Fold/Cut/Paste/Draw/Color). I really like their intro section, which is written to the parents, and talks all about fine motor skills and how developing them is a precursor to being able to write. It gives ideas for fine motor activities to do with your child. Also, it explains how tracing is not only a good fine motor skill, but helps the child develop tracking ability, which helps with reading and writing. The tracing activities start out very simple...straight lines...and then work through curves, zig-zags, loops, multiple lines that cross one another, shapes, letters, numbers, and some blank lines for the parent to write the child's name for him to trace.

I was really impressed with the book. I didn't want to let Linc draw on the pages, because I want to be able to use them again for Ivan and Adelia. Obviously, though, that kind of defeats the purpose. But then I came up with a genius plan! I tore the cover off the book and pulled all the pages out and three hole punched them and put them in a three ring binder. Now any time Lincoln wants to do a page we pull it out and put it in a sheet protector and let him use a dry erase marker to complete the activity, and then we erase it when we're done and it goes back in the binder. :)

Another thing I like about the book is that a lot of the pages have supplemental activities that go along with  them besides just tracing. For example one of the supplemental activities suggests giving the child some sort of object (pennies, beans, rocks, etc.) to use to place along the line they are tracing.  I think Lincoln actually like "doing the rocks" better than the actual tracing, but he gets really excited about both.

Another nap-time activity that was a big success, takes me back to my elementary school days and the Math/Science Olympiad. I gave Lincoln a handful of uncooked spaghetti noodles and a bunch of marshmallows (normal size and mini) and had him use his imagination to create something. He made a music tower, complete with tunnel. I was impressed. And Linc enjoyed being able to eat the marshmallows afterwards. This activity kept him busy for a solid hour. Wow!

Mini Preschool: Halloween: Craft

Today for preschool it was my turn to teach. We're still doing the Halloween theme this month, and today my sub-theme was craft. Craft is a fairly tricky subject when your age range is 18 months to three years old. I did my best to pick something that even the littlest ones could do, but that the big ones would still enjoy. I got the idea for this craft here. The sun catchers she did were apples, but someone commented on her post and said that it would be fun to do pumpkins as well. And I thought, if you can do apples and pumpkins, why not jack 'o lanterns? (Which for some strange reason Lincoln calls "pumpkin jackals") And so the idea was born.

But I didn't just want to do a craft and be done. I wanted our preschool session to be at least some what educational as well. And I spent about a month brainstorming different ideas on what I could do. It's funny how the pieces come together. At first I thought I'd just teach them a song about jack 'o lanterns along with the craft. I'd talk to someone about it and what they said would inspire a new idea, and then I'd feed off of that, and someone else would say something and give me another idea, and pretty soon it all came together. I think Aaron was the biggest contributor though, he's the one who suggested I use each part of the jack 'o lantern's face to talk about one of the 5 senses. So that's what I did. :)

I made each kid a bag with their name on it. Inside the bag were all the parts to make their craft: the outline of the pumpkin, two eyes, a nose, and a mouth. And two pieces of clear contact paper. And the lyrics to a song I wanted to teach them.

First I had them stick the outline, or "skin" of the pumpkin down on the first piece of contact paper. Then we talked about our skin and how it's all over our whole body and how we use it to touch or feel things. I took around a pumpkin and let the kids feel the different parts of it. The outside of the pumpkin had a smooth, cool feeling. The stem of the pumpkin was hard and rough and scratchy and prickly. And the pumpkin guts (which I had in a separate container) were slimy, gooey, and squishy.

Next we stuck on the mouth of the pumpkin. I asked the kids to point to their mouths. Then I asked them to tell me what they had inside their mouths. Then I had them all stick out their tongues. We talked about how we use our tongues to taste. I brought out four different bowls of pumpkins seeds. One where the seeds were cooked in soy sauce for a bitter taste. One where the seeds were cooked in lemon juice for a sour taste. One where the seeds were seasoned with cinnamon and sugar for a sweet taste. And one where they were seasoned with seasoning salt for a salty taste. I let the kids try a few seeds of each flavor, and talked about the different tastes they were tasting.

Then we did ears. I explained that we have something that the jack 'o lanterns didn't have, and that was ears. I asked what we do with our ears, and they answered that we listen with our ears. I had them get up from the table and stand in a straight line. We played a wiggle game, to change things up a bit. I would say, "If you can hear me touch your head, or turn around in a circle, or wave your arms in the air, etc." And the kids would do it. Sometimes I gave the instructions in a loud voice, and sometimes in a quiet voice, just to make sure they were listening. :)

After that I had them go sit back down at the table and we talked about how we can listen to songs with out ears. Then they listened while Lincoln and I sang them "Mr. Jack 'o Lantern", which is a song I learned in preschool. Here are the lyrics:

Mr. Jack-o-lantern
Is very round and fat.
He has a yellow candle
Tucked underneath his hat.
It makes his face look scary
And very, very bright
When he winks and smiles at me
On spooky Halloween night!
--Alene Dalton, Myriel Cluff Ashton and Erla Young

If you are interested you can find the sheet music in the book "My Picture Book of Songs" by Alene Dalton, Myriel Cluff Ashton and Erla Young. My preschool teacher, Bev, taught us quite a few songs out of that book that I still remember and can sing today. I checked it out of the library, it's got great pictures to go with the songs, and has the songs divided up into categories like Winter Songs, Fall Songs, etc. And Lincoln asks me to read it to him like a bed time story all the time. We just go through it and I sing the songs I know while he looks at the pictures. (I can't read music, or I'd give the ones I don't know a go as well.)

After ears, we did nose. The kids found the jack 'o lantern nose in their bags and stuck it on. Then I had everyone point to their own nose, and we talked about how we use our noses to smell. At Macey's the other day, I found scented jack 'o lantern candles for $0.39 each. So I bought a pumpkin scented one and a black licorice scented one. I lit those and walked around and let the kids smell each one, and had them vote on their favorite. It came out to be a tie.

Next we did the eyes. The kids put the eyes on their jack 'o lanterns. Then, in order for me to do the activity with sight, we had to finish the project all the way. I had little squares of orange tissue paper cut out. So the kids stuck those to the remaining sticky spots on their jack 'o lanterns, and then covered the back with the second sheet of contact paper. Then I went around with a flashlight and showed each kid how they could see the light shining through their tissue paper. It also works really well if you hold it up to the sun.

Since I don't own ten pairs of scissors, and because I thought it would be chaos having ten kids under age 4 trying to share the two pairs I do have, I decided to send the jack o' lanterns home without cutting around the edges. That'll be a good project for the moms to do one on one with their kids later. ;) But I think they turned out really cute, and everyone seemed to have a good time.

This is how ours turned out:

Sorry this picture is not great, it's a bit of a challenge to take a picture of your window without glare. This is the best I could do. The one on the left is Lincoln's. He wanted his to be a scary face, which is why the mouth is upside-down, he also put the eyes on clear up at the top, so they kind of blend in with the stem. Mine is the middle one, I made it for demonstration purposes. Ivan's is the one on the right. His does have a nose, but he put it clear down at the bottom, so again it kind of blends in with the outline. But over all I was really pleased with how these turned out.

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Mini Preschool: Halloween: Music/Poem/Story

Today was our first official day of preschool! (I only call it mini preschool because the kids are so young, and pre preschool would get really annoying to type.) We had it at Suzy's house. The overall theme is Halloween for October, and Suzy's sub-theme for the day was music/poem/story. She did such a good job putting it all together. In my opinion, it's one of the best days we've had. Suzy had the cutest apron with brightly colored pockets. And in each pocket she put a little halloween picture. The kids got to take turns each picking a picture out of one of the pockets.

Each picture had an activity to go with it, that had to do with music or a story or a poem, etc. Suzy did a really good job of mixing it up too, and it kept the kids' attention really well. Ivan had a bit of a rough morning and was throwing screaming tantrums all during preschool, so I was in and out with him, so I didn't get to participate as much as I would have liked. Anyways, to make sure I get it right, I'm going to copy off of Suzy's blog the info about the activities that went with each picture.

The candy: Each child got a piece of candy. We talked about knocking on doors and saying “trick or treat”, and then saying thank you after someone gives you a piece of candy. Then, while they were eating Suzy read a story called 10 Trick-or-Treaters by Janet Schulman.

Pumpkin: Suzy made pumpkin masks, and we did actions with them for two different poems.

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate (five fingers up)
The first one said “Oh my it’s getting Late” (Hands on Cheeks)
The second one said “There’s a chill in the air” (arms around self)
The third one said “But we don’t care” (swing pointer finger)
The fourth one said “We’re ready for some fun!” (hand in air)
The fifth one said “Let’s run, run, run!” (running motion)
So woooo went the wind, and out went the lights,
And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight!

and…

Halloween is coming soon I tell you what I’ll do (put pumpkin paper plate in front of your face) I hide behind my pumpkin face and then I holler BOO! (This one was Lincoln's favorite.)

Bat: Suzy showed the “batty-bat” song from Sesame Street.




Monster: We read “Monsters Don’t Eat Broccoli” by Barbara Hicks

Witch: We pretended to fly around the room while singing this song:


1 little, 2 little, 3 little witches.
Flying over haystacks, flying over ditches.
Sliding down moonbeams without any hitches,
Hi, Ho, Halloween is here!

1 little, 2 little, 3 little witches.
Flying over barb wire and tore their britches.
Had to go home and sew some stitches.
Hi, Ho, Halloween is here!

Spider: We sang with actions to the tune of the itsy bitsy spider:

A creepy, crawly spider is coming straight at me. Closer and closer he climbs upon my knee. Up to my shoulder the spider’s much too near, “Happy Halloween” he whispers in my ear.

Ghost: We sang/did actions to If You’re A Ghost and You Know It (to the tune of If You’re Happy and you know it)

If you’re a ghost and you know it,
Just say Boo
If you’re a ghost and you know it,
Just Say BOO
If you’re a ghost and you know it and you really want to show it…
If you’re a ghost and you know it just say BOO


If you’re a black cat and you know it
Just say Meow
If you’re a black cat and you know it
Just say Meow
If you’re a black cat and you know it
And you really want to show it,
If you’re a black cat and you know it Just say Meow


If you’re a skeleton and you know it,
Wiggle your bones (shake your body)
If you’re a skeleton and you know it,
Wiggle your bones
If you’re a skeleton and you know it,
And you really want to show it
If you’re a skeleton and you know it,
Wiggle your bones.


If you love Halloween and you know it
Do all three (all 3 actions in order of appearance)
If you love Halloween and you know it
Do all three
If you love Halloween and you know it
And you really want to show it,
If you love Halloween and you know it
Do all three

Haunted House: Suzy used a CD called Wolfman Jack’s Halloween Special Monster Mash Bash. On it there’s a song called Haunted House that’s a lot of fun. She had the children dance to the music for this one.

Skeleton: We talked about how everyone has bones inside their body and how they are the hard things we feel when we touch our arms. Suzy had the kids help her put the skeleton together. Then we sang this song that tells what each bone is connected to.


With the toe bone connected
to the foot bone,
and the foot bone connected
to the ankle bone,
and the ankle bone connected
to the leg bone.
Oh mercy how they scare!

With the leg bone connected
to the knee bone,
and the knee bone connected
to the thigh bone,
and the thigh bone connected
to the hip bone.
Oh mercy how they scare!

With the hip bone connected
to the back bone,
and the back bone connected
to the neck bone,
and the neck bone connected
to the head bone,
Oh mercy how they scare!
With the finger bone connected
to the hand bone,
and the hand bone connected
to the arm bone,
and the arm bone connected
to the shoulder bone,
Oh mercy how they scare!

With the shoulder bone connected
to the back bone,
and the back bone connected
to the neck bone,
and the neck bone connected
to the head bone.
Oh mercy how they scare!

And that was preschool. It was so fun. The kids LOVED all the songs and activities. Lincoln talked about it for the rest of the day.


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