Pre-K - Letter 'L'

My little man has finished his first week of PreK!  He loved it!  I'm hoping to post every week to share ideas with other moms who have preschoolers and also to give the grandparents peeks into our days!

This year we are using Raising Rock Stars Preschool (RRSP)- "Shine like a star with your foundation on the ROCK!" from Carisa at her blog.  She was a public school teacher for years before giving it up and becoming an intercity missionary with her husband and family.  She offers SO many things for free, and charges close to nothing for some fun extras so I love supporting her.  She has created a great program, and we love it!  Her blog revamped so much of my homeschool day, from calendar time, to our workboxes, to our theme for the month to tot school.  Even if you don't homeschool and have a tot at home, she has great ideas and printables for you!

So on to our first week!  It was letter L.  This progarm does not go in ABC order.  It goes according to a different style based on what's easier for little to write first.  My mister already knows all his letters, numbers etc, but needs more reinforcement before kindergarten.  There's always a bible verse to go along with the letter and a story pretaining to it which we read every day.  It was great because we even referred to it when discipling this week and it hit home (he was acting like Bill and not 'letting his light shine'!

Here's our setup (with our RRSP board in back - popsicle stick props and everything!)

He cut apart his first book which has his sight word of the week in it (he read it every day!)

Practicing letter L's.  He did well with his grip this week and with not being too silly (typical problem for him)

His cutting is great, much better than last year.  Here's his beginning L sound cards and his using the pointer to read them.

Practicing tracing his sight word during calendar time.

He cut out his verse, which he has memorized so well (even the chapter and verse), and taped it all together himself.

He chose to paint for his craft.  He was very proud of his finished product which I didn't get pictured.

Besides all of the RRSP, I add in other little things in his boxes.  Some deal with the letter, some with religion, some with motor skills and some just fun!  Here's a few this week:

Matching nuts and bolts:

Just a little preschool book from Sam's Club:

Ladybug patterns:

Making rainbows (thanks Kristen!):

Playdoh letter mats:

One of his favorites was lacing L - easy to make with a laminator and hole punch:

Making L cookies (well, not exactly L cookies since mommy's batter was too grainy to roll out so we had to punch in the L after the fact...but we still loved it!):

For religion we're using a few things.  My Jesus and I from Seton (we have the huge wall poster hanging above his RRSP board), Who Am I? from CHC and putting the bible in chronological order.  To do that, we have two of the same bibles.  I tore one apart and laminated each picture.  The first day I read him the story while he holds the picture.  The second day same thing.  The third day...again same thing. Then the fourth day he tells me the story.  Next week we'll add in the next one while placing them on the floor next to each other.  My friend says that her little one could put the Old Testament in order across the floor by the end of the year - telling a little of each story!!! I'm excited to even learn the order! 

Whew! That's all.  I think I went overboard this week with pictures and explanations, but I really wanted to share with others doing the same thing.  I know how much I've gleaned from other bloggers and hope my friends can get a few ideas here too! 

God bless! Happy Labor Day weekend :)

Back to school and celebration!

Monday started the new school year for us!  I think we've done a little growing up since last year because I expected a lot more whining and complaining, but each day has gone very well!  Yeah!  I guess this is our 4th year homeschooling, even though it feels like I just started!  

I will be (hopefully!) be blogging weekly this school year.  I want to share what each child is doing each week - that's my goal!  I want the grandparents to see and for any other mothers who like to get new ideas.  I've gotten soooooo many from reading other homeschooler's blogs.  So expect more from me as soon as the tomatoes stop coming!!  We've been canning and canning and canning here....

I just wanted to share my dessert tonight for the Feast of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.  I saw the idea at  Catholic Cuisine.  Their cake looks much better than mine.  I couldn't cut the frozen/thawed strawberries into roses and I also made it peanut butter cake and icing since I didn't have much butter.  But....we all loved it!  I've seen other mothers celebrate our wonderful feasts and I've been wanted to for awhile.  I love bringing the feasts right to the dinner table!  The kids get so interested and learn so much from something so little.  We talked about Mary's heart being pierced by a sword - which they've heard so many times during the rosary at the Presentation in the Temple (Simeon's words to Mary). And they've seen the image on our wall since they were born, but I think something clicked a little more after seeing the cake!! 

I'm hoping to really bring the liturgical year into our home much more this year! 

Blessings

Preschool science - worm farm

We finished up our school year last week (yeah!) and I'm thinking about the summer.  With my oldest, we're going to do a 6 week little summer session just with All About Spelling and Story of the World (which he LOVES). 

With my preschooler, I'm thinking some little science experiments are in order.  I'm not sure what and how many, but I will post as we go...

Our first experiment was our worm farm.  He and I were left alone for the day with the tiny tot so we got to enjoy making it all by ourselves (with no older sibling trying to take over!)!  We made this pop bottle wormery.  Here he is getting sand for the worms.

After looking for about 10 minutes for worms under some rocks in the drizzling rain, mom decided it was much easier to go down the road to the Amish house where the little boys sell night crawlers! So we hopped in the car and came home with some huge worms!!

We let them in there for a few days to make tunnels and such, then did our experiments.  We created the cutest worm notebook for him out of paper lunch bags. 

Here we are doing the experiment to see if the worm would go to the dry or wet napkin.

We had to do the experiment 3 times, then chart (with a sticker) showing which side it went to.

Tiny tot was a little incredulous at the 'buggie wormy' on the dining room table...

After all the experiments, he looked at his book so many times and had to tell me the outcomes over and over again!  He loved it.  I can't wait to do more things like this with him!!

Wonderful Wedding Weekend

We just celebrated a most beautiful wedding this weekend.  My husband's brother Mike got married....to Aunt Missy!! We're so excited to finally call her Aunt Missy! My little ones can't stop saying it :)  Our middle one was the ringbearer.  I can't begin to say how proud I was of him.  He is such a beautiful little soul - and he did great!  Our oldest was the usher and he brought up the gifts.  They were sure handsome!!!

Here's some more pictures of our little tuxedo man...

The next morning he woke up and asked where his tuxedo was.  I said it went back to the store and he wanted to know when he could wear one again!

 Tiny tot was looking dapper also in his little suit! 

His favorite place to be was sticking his entire arm in the holy water font.  At one point his foot went in and I heard "Uh oh" (favorite saying of his).  Needless to say, the entire Mass I held him in the back so he couldn't go swimming.

 The handsome ushers!

My little men

At the reception, my ringbearer pulled out some dance moves that I've never even seen! 

He danced and danced and danced!

Our beautiful family...

Thank you God for my wonderful husband and these amazing children you've entrusted to us.

Tot school

      I'm been trying to do a lot with my little tot lately! I can't wait until he's closer to two to really start our 'tot school'.  He's been such a quick learner though - everything I tell him he picks up so quickly!  We worked a lot this week on his hand/eye coordination....picking up little things and putting them away! He loves this and will do it over and over again.

We pulled the sensory bin out again.  The balls were little again, we rehydrated it and ta-da...sensory bin back in action!  Little man did well with using spoons and transferring the balls.

He builds the greatest trains and will play for hours with them! I don't remember my other boys being this good at 15 months... Here he is at our oldest's first T-ball game.  I love how he lays next to them now and just watches them go (kinda hard on the grass)!

Putting away crayons at the game with those little pinchers again.

Having a wonderful time outside with his brothers playing playdoh!

...and lastly reading about dinosaurs with his brother :)

My 4 year old finished preschool last week, so I've just been doing little things here and there for him.  This week I made him a file folder game about letter sounds.

He really loved it and did well.  I think I only had to help him one time!  I didn't even teach him sounds yet...he's just picking them up on his own! 

All finished!