Today

Our day today:

• We found a caterpillar on the living room floor (from a toy that was outside) and put it in a jar
• listened to soft music while making and eating lunch, so peaceful
• Took pink flyer to gymnastics
• Made vegetable/hamburger soup, and Green flyer helped the whole time
• Watched toy story while Green flyer pranced around in his Buzz light year halloween costume
• Worked on adding candy corn pieces to pink flyer's witch costume
• Pink flyer made some homemade Christmas gifts all on her own
• And a lot of little things in between (reading, talking, dancing around)
  

What a great day!


This picture was from a few days ago when we made flubber. I needed a good amount of time to get some stuff done, and this kept 'em busy just long enough. They love this stuff!

stART: Bone soup

I love doing activities that relate to books! One of my Green flyer's new favorite halloween books is Bone soup by Cambria Evans. So, I really wanted to come up with a craft/art project to go with it. At first glance this book might look a little creepy (I wasn't so sure about it at first), but it's really a fun story and parody to Stone soup.

Here is my green flyer telling me what's in the "bone soup" so he could make sure to include it in his "bone soup" creation:

Here is a picture of the book and his creation complete with bones, frog legs, eyeballs, bat wings, and moldy cheese.
He really loved this activity:
I had his complete attention, a pretty monumental task for this 3 year old:
To see more stART activities head over to A Mommy's Adventures to see what others are doing and reading.

Today

Our day today:

• Went for a walk
• Collected leaves (lots of them, it's fall you know, and oh so beautiful)
• Ended our walk at the library
• made it to story time
• Looked at books while Green flyer took (unexpected) nap because we couldn't walk back home until he was awake
• Found only 2 books about squirrels
  
• Walked back home
• Made muffin tin meal for the kids
  
• Did some housework
• Made flubber with the kids
• Kids played with flubber
• Blue flyer fell asleep in high chair while watching older kids play with flubber
• Took Pink flyer to gymnastics
• Came back home and let Green flyer ride bike outside because it was a beautiful day
• Picked Pink flyer up from gymnastics
• Rode bikes some more because 2 very cute kids were begging to ride a little bit more before dark
• Made dinner
• Helped Pink flyer with math lesson while making dinner
  
• Made a rainbow cake
• Baths and story time
• Ate a piece of rainbow cake
• Green flyer and Daddy played "goodnight moon" matching game
• Everyone off to bed and out in less than 10 minutes (amazing!!!)

A reminder to myself that we do have days full of "learning" even though we may not get around to doing "school".

Monster sensory tub

We've been doing a lot of monster-ish, halloween, and fall activities in our school lately. This is one of our favorites this week, monster fur sensory tub. I came up with this one because we have been doing some monster things (books, games, playing) as part of tot school. Green flyer loves to touch and feel, and this was definitely no different as you can see below. There's yarn bits, puffy balls, googly eyes (some big and some little), and some colored beads. The googly eyes were my favorite part, and his too, he did all kinds of things with the googly eyes. Yes, I know you can't see them in the picture, they sink. Everything else is too fluffy.

Materials needed:

• yarn

• pom pom balls (fuzzy balls)

• googly eyes (different sizes and colors)

• beads

• and anything else monster-ish

I also started putting together the Monster pac from 1+1+1=1, it's very cute. Mr. Green flyer really enjoyed the cute little monster's. I'll add games to the folder as he works on it through the week.

Another one of our favorites this week is a new book we've added to our collection "J is for Jack-'O-lantern. I'm thinking about making a lap book to go along with it, we'll see if I get the time. I really enjoy making new learning materials, but don't often have the time. I'll keep you posted on that one.

This is a great book with some great pictures. Not too scary, has some great poetry, and gives some great ideas and explanations about different things having to do with halloween and fall. I think the picture on the front is adorable. We're definitely enjoying it!

Tot school 4

Green flyer is 14.5 months
Blue flyer is 40.5 months

Tot school is wonderful! It has helped me to connect better with my tots in so many ways, and really helps me to see the world through their eyes. I just love these little boys so much!

Here is G. flyer playing with the cookie tray. It's a Melissa and Doug cookie set, both boys just love this.

Here is B. flyer cutting the cookies, his favorite thing.

We made monster masks.

This activity was a hit, sorting fall marshmallows. Surprisingly he wanted to sort the whole bowl, he usually isn't interested in sorting.

Here's the sorting action, a skewer, and 3 sectioned container.

okay, so he asked his sister if he could do her hair with the curlers, and I thought it was funny at first, but after watching him doing it for a while I was amazed at how focused he was. Look how evenly he got her hair in each curler. It was cute.

Here is one of our new tot school tools. My Green flyer is starting to get real interested in the days. He was starting to ask me every day, "what day is it?" and "what number is it today?" I was a little surprised at the number thing because before we got this calendar I never really pointed out the date to him, I don't think. He must have just picked it up. Well, anyway, I decided that it must be time to start adding the calendar to our daily routine. So, here it is! I'm very excited about it, but still trying to figure out what else to include in our Calendar time.

To see what others have done for tot school go visit Carisa over at 1+1+1=1.

Weekly workboxes 3

Miss Pink Flyer had a good week of workboxes this week, and let me say these things are STILL wonderful. If I can get them filled up she happily does her work each day and getting through it all isn't like pulling teeth anymore. In fact, she has been completing them almost too quickly, and I have to keep telling her to slow down and take her time and do her best work.

Here are the un-edited pictures from the week because honestly I can get the post up faster if I don't have to edit all the pictures. Also, that is why they are sideways. I'll have to remember to take the pictures differently this week so they don't end up sideways.

Here she is working on a monster puzzle. I went ahead and put it in her work boxes one day because she saw her brother doing it for one of his tot school trays and wanted to do it. It is a bit easy for her, but still a little challenge and definitely fun!


Here is her "fun" spelling book. I include this for a change in spelling work every once in a while.
Her Daily Grammar work book.
We had a Madeline week for "five in a row", so she made a Madeline lap book to go along with it. In this box she was to decorate the front of her lap book.
More of the Madeline lap book, where is France? We learned about Paris, France because that is where Madeline lives.
Another Madeline lap book box, finding and coloring the flag of France. She sure did love reading Madeline all week, and learning about it. Over the weekend she even got to watch the "My fair Madeline" movie. It was very cute.
Daily Paragraph editing from Evan-Moore, she really likes it. She has to find the mistakes in a short paragraph and make the marks to show how to correct the mistakes. I really like some of the Evan-Moore books.
Another Evan-Moore book, Daily Handwriting practice. This was one of the first ones I bought for her last year when she expressed an interest in writing cursive. I heard several people say that you don't have to wait for a child to master regular writing to start it so we just got it and she got it!
She also worked on Kumon Multiplication. I am really wanting her to memorize her Multiplication this year, so I am using several different methods to help her everyday.
Workboxes in action: She puts them to the right of her desk as she finishes them. I was going to take a picture of the shelves empty, but you get the picture right?
Here is another Madeline box, and actually this is a picture of the completed box. She made a get well card for somebody (we haven't figured out who yet) because Madeline gets sick and has to get her appendix out and has to spend 9 days in the hospital so the other girls come to visit her. So, we will be giving service to someone who might be sick or afflicted in some way. I thought it would be nice if we knew a child who was sick and stuck in a children's hospital, but we don't, sigh! I will have her write a message and maybe a plate of treats to go with it.
Some other boxes we did, but did not picture are:

1. Hershey's chocolate bar fractions book (I so wanted to get a picture of this one). She broke up a chocolate bar into different fractions to learn more about fractions. We'll definitely use this more as she gets better at fractions

2. Math Mammoth--clocks.

3. Choice reading: I put a collection of 5 or 6 books (chapter books in her case) and she picks one out to read each day.

4. A Think activity: Building or creating something out of just a few tools and objects, for example this week the challenge was to make a zoo out of a piece of paper and scissors, only. My Pink flyer really loves this box every time. She has come up with some great ideas.

To see what's happening with other weekly workboxes head over to My Two Happy Homeschoolers.