What's in the Box - Preschool Workboxes

We've been learning about Thanksgiving this week. I'll post more about our Thanksgiving unit later this week, but here is a look into Lexy's workboxes for the week. I didn't get many action pictures. She wasn't in the mood for her picture to be taken.

Writing/Language Arts

I printed this sheet off from childcare land. Lexy is going to use it to write what she is thankful for.
Fine Motor/Language Arts

Lexy and Josiah each made there own set of turkey stick puppets after hearing the poem, "5 Little Turkeys." The printables also came from childcare land. After making and numbering their puppets, they used them to make their own puppet shows for me.

Math


We are still working on counting/number recognition to 100 with Lexy. She counts well up to 50 and then sometimes gets lost. She can count by 10s to 100 pretty well, so I think she could count to 100 if she really wanted to. However, I really like the "Uncle Wiggily Game" for counting to 100. It's a fun for her to practice the numbers without it seeming like a drill.


Memory

I printed off this concentration game last year. It has pictures of Thanksgiving symbols: cornucopia, turkey, mayflower, pumpkin pie, squash, pilgrims. We had fun playing concentration and talking about what the different symbols represent.
Handwriting


A friend let me borrow this handwriting books. Most of our nomral handwriting practice is done in her Explode the Code books or just everyday use. This book has been an "extra" that has been lots of fun for her. She practices writing the letters on the dry erase board. It also has puzzles to put together for each letter and letter tiles to make words that start with each letter.



Cooking


Josiah got in on the action for Lexy's cooking project. We made cut-out sugar cookies shaped like turkeys. Then the frosted them brown. It was a messy project!






Bible


Our Bible story this week is from Matthew 19, "Jesus loves the Children." Lexy's workbox contains cardboard figures of children. We will decorate them with fabric, markers, googly eyes, yarn, etc. to turn them into children. Then, we'll string them together to for a "Jesus Loves the Children" banner.



Reading


Lexy practiced her CVC and two letter words on these turkey cards also printed from childcare land. I would say a word, and she would make the word out of wooden letters.



Phonics
I put this castle game from "Happy Phonics" in to review vowel sounds. This is one of Lexy's favorite Happy Phonics games.
To find out more about our Workbox System read this post.

See what others have in there workboxes at Confessions of a Homeschooler! Check back in a few days to see the fun we've been having learning about Thanksgiving!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We just want to wish anyone who wanders this way a Happy Thanksgiving. Alexis and Josiah made these cute Thanksgiving cards this week to hand out to family. I found the idea for the handprint pilgrims at Almost Unschoolers and just decided to turn them into cards. Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Pumpkins

We had so much fun with pumpkins that we had to take an extra week to get through it all! Unfortunately, I had to cut the pictures short because uploading them was taking way too long. Here's a snapshot of our unit...

Math:

We opened up pumpkins and took out the seeds. After cleaning them, we estimated how many seeds we thought that we had. Then, we used our Hundred Chart to count the seeds. Lexy would place a seed on each number. After the chart filled up, she put the 100 seeds into a pile. Then she would say whether she thought there were more or less than 100 seeds left. We continued on with this until all the seeds were counted. Our final number...601!


Science:

We did 3 different science experiments.

1. After reading From Seed to Pumpkin, Lexy created this pumpkin sequencing activitiy. She enjoyed showing it to people and explaining the process of a seed becoming a pumpkin.

2. I gave Lexy a pumpkin to explore. We opened it up and observed the outside and inside. She used her 5 senses to explore it. Then, she dictated a poem to me for her journal. She described what she saw, felt, smelled, tasted (imagined taste), and heard (when she tapped on it). Then, she drew a picture to go along with her poem.

3. We also observed how plants drink water. We used blue food coloring to tint a glass of water. Then we put two celery stalks in the glass. After a few hours, we saw how the leaves of the celery had started turning blue. Then, we broke the celery to see that the blue was inside the celery as well. Plants drink their water up through tubes much like we use straws!

Pumpkin Patch Trips!

We visited two different pumpkin patches. The first time we were visiting family in southern Indiana. The weather was great! The second time back at home, it was freezing! They enjoyed the hayrides, mazes, slides, and of course, picking out pumpkins. Both times, Josiah went for the smallest, greenest pumpkin that he could find....Silly boy!

Fine Motor Skills

One of my favorite activities was making a pumpkin seed necklace with Lexy. I poked holes in the pumpkin seeds. Then, she used a children's plastic sewing needle to string seeds on the thread. It turned out very cute, and she has enjoyed wearing it!

One of Josiah's favorite activities was hammering golf tees into the pumpkins. He's gone back to this several times, and it entertains him for a good long while :)

Pumpkin Decorating

They both enjoyed a Fall playdate with our MOPS care group. Then painted minature pumpkins.

After carving pumpkins, I told them The Pumpkin Patch Parable just as we did last year. Lexy was able to understand this much better than last year. She asked questions about the "yucky stuff" that Jesus takes out of us and the light that he puts in us.

Another book that we read going along with this was "Halloween, Is it For Real?" This book was a little over their heads, but I was able to modify it for them.

Other:

Lexy made a mosaic pumpkin.

Josiah made a felt pumpkin. Isn't it cute!

They also decorated pumpkin cookies. I gave them red and yellow icing to mix together on their pumpkin to make it orange.

Books We Read:

1. From Seed to Pumpkin - Wendy Pfeffer

2. Pumpkin Day, Pumpkin Night - Anne Rockwell

3. Pumpkin Fever - Charnan Simon

4. Autumn Orange - Christianne C. Jones

5. It's a Fruit, It's a Vegetable, It's a Pumpkin - Allan Fowler

6. The Pumpkin Patch Parable - Liz Curtiz Higs

7. Halloween Is it For Real? - Harold Myra

Poem:

The poem we used for our Weekly Board was 5 Little Pumpkins:

Five Little Pumpkins sitting on a gate

The first one said, "Oh my it's getting late."

The second one said, "There's a chill in the air."

The third one said, "But, we don't care!"

The fourth one said, "Let's run and run and run."

The fifth one said, "It's time for some fun!"

Then woosh went the wind,

and out went the light.

And, five little pumpkins rolled out of sight.

I've enjoyed making memories with my children this Fall and during our pumpkin unit. Coming up next...Fire Safety (yes, a month late).


See what other preschoolers are up to at the Preschool Corner!

Fun With Leaves!

Our theme for the last two weeks has been LEAVES! We've read lots of books and had all kinds of fun with leaves! Here's a glimpse of some of our activities:

Creating a Fall Fun List:

My plan was to make a large tree out of butcher paper to put in our school room. Then we would add the leaves to that. I never got around to that so we improvised. We used die-cut leaves and wrote some Fall activities that we wanted to do. Then we put them on the trees that are already in our playroom. As we do each activity, we will take the leaf off the tree. We will watch our leaves "fall" as we have Fall fun. Some activities include: hayride, roast marshmallows, visit the cabin, pumpkin patch, etc.

Leaf Art/Science:

Lexy painted some leaves to make leaf prints. We pointed out the veins in the leaves and discussed their job. Then she had fun painting her own Fall tree. Science: We read "Leaves! Leaves! Leaves!" to learn about the reason that leaves change colors. Then we picked several fresh leaves off of trees, found out what kind they were, and observed them over a period of 5 days. Each day, Lexy would color a leaf to show the changes. She would come up with words to describe it. She used words such as: smooth, crinkly, hard, crumbly, spots, etc. This was a great learning experience!

Fall Cookie Decorating:

My plans were to make leaf shaped sugar cookies and let the kids decorate them in Fall colors. However, I couldn't find my leaf cookie cutter anywhere. So, instead, we went with a general "Fall" theme. They still had fun cutting out the cookies, decorating, AND eating them. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pictures!

Patterns: I gave Lexy materials to make her own leaf hat. She had many small die-cut leaves and a large die-cut leaf to use on the front. She made a pattern out of the small leaves. To make it slightly more challenging, I had her make a pattern using the type of leaf rather than the color of the leaf.

Leaf Math: I printed this game off of Childcare Land. She matched simple addition problems with the answers.

PLAYING WITH LEAVES!

I wanted the kids to have a chance to play with leaves so we went to Grandma and Grandpa's house (they have LOTS more leaves than we do!).

First, they made sure the birds would have plenty to eat. Then they used their dollar store rakes to rake some leaves. They were much more excited about the rakes BEFORE we got to the raking. It only lasted a few minutes, then they were on to other things.

Of course, we had to make piles to jump and play in.

Lexy had fun making some leaf angels.

Then, we sat in some leaves and read "Leaf Man." Afterwards, we broke into teams to make our own leaf men. Here's me and Josiah sitting next to our leaf man. I was suprised out how much he was into this. He really helped to find the different parts of the body.

Here's Grandma and Lexy with their leaf man. They used leftovers from the garden to add a little character to theirs!

Leaf Rubbings

You can't do a study on leaves without doing leaf rubbings!

Song:

With each unit, we learn a poem or song that we do each day during calendar time. Our leaf song was sung to the tune of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." As we sang it, we threw some fake leaves up in the air.

Leaves are falling all around.

Watch them fall right to the ground.

Autumn's here; it is true.

Winter's coming just for you.

Leaves are falling all around.

Falling, falling to the ground.

Book List: I was very pleased with all of these books for our study.

Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert

Autumn Leaves by Ken Lobbias

Leaves by William Corderoy

Leaf Man by Lois Ehlert

Leaves! Leaves! Leaves! by Nancy Wallace

The Seasons - Fall by Nuria Roca

Ruby's Falling Leaves

Nature Walk/Leaf Sorting:

I still have plans to take the kids on a nature walk this weekend at a local park. We will look for leaves and sort them according to type/shape/color/edges.

We've had so much fun studying leaves. I even learned a few things, too! I'm looking forward to our pumpkin unit. To see other things that we did this week, check out this post. One major milestone was reached...Lexy began reading CVC words! Also, to see what other preschoolers are up to, be sure to check out Preschool Corner!

A New Fall Tradition

I am new to blogging and sometimes get very overwhelmed when I see what others are getting done on their sites. However, I have found so much inspiration from reading what other moms are doing with their kiddos at home. One of my favorite blogs to read is Homeschool Creations, especially the Preschool Corner section. I have decided to join up with Preschool Corner where many other moms place updates on what they are doing each week. I haven't been very faithful with my weekly updates, but hopefully this will motivate me. So, here's my first link up...although it's not really a weekly update of what we did for "school." I'll try to catch up with the updates next week.

We have had so much fun together as a family this fall. One highlight that I know will become a new tradition each harvest season is "The Pumpkin Patch Parable." We incorporated this very cute, simple book into our normal "Snack/Bible Time" that we do each night. Instead of our normal routine, Alex and the kids cleaned out a pumpkin and designed their own face for it. Alex and Peaknuckle did the carving. Then we headed outside to light our pumpkin and read "The Pumpkin Patch Parable" by Liz Curtis Higs. I read to each child individually and we prayed together. Then we just enjoyed some time in the cool Fall night on the porch, watching our pumpkin and taking pictures.

Here is a description of the book from its back cover:

"This charming story for children illustrates how a loving Farmer can turn a simple pumpkin into a simply
glorious sight. In the same way, God's transforming love can fill each of our hearts with joy and light.
Liz Curtis Higgs created this parable as a way to share the Good News with her own precious children
each harvest season...and now with children everywhere."

I know that there is controversy over carving pumpkins; however, I like how the author stated "Since the Lord Himself created pumpkins, it seemed appropriate to redeem this familiar symbol of the harvest season for His good purpose."

Here are some pictures of our evening together...

cleaning out the pumpkin

our little pumpkin

reading the parable to Peaknuckle

reading the parable to Bean

studying

love it!

to the scarecrow: "stop looking at me."