Evie Loves to Sew~

Over this last few weeks, I have noticed how much Evie LOVES to sew! Yesterday I found a website {The Activity Mom} that was just full of great stuff for kids. I made a long to do list and pinned a lot too. 

I knew one of the first things I wanted to make was a Button Snake and fabric swatches~

 Let's just say... SHE LOVED IT! So did the boys so I may have to make them one too. :)

To make:

Cut a long piece of ribbon and sew a big button on one end and I hot glued a triangle swatch to the end to hold swatches on. Use pinking shears to cut edges and make a slit in each swatch. That's it... a FUN way to build fine motor!!!

And just for your entertainment... SJ asked me to video her singing the presidents all by herself~

  Awesome SJ!

 

The Very Hungry Caterpillar Day~

Every spring when I taught school I always taught a huge Eric Carle unit and since SJ has been reading it for reading workshop, I decided we would celebrate on Fun Friday.

Here's a run down of what we did together...

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

I have a storytelling kit so we flipped up the piano bench seat and used it to act out the story as we read it for Language Arts~

 EK was the helper and called them up to put on the pieces.

For math we gathered the fruit pieces in a basket and drew them out one by one sorting them as we went. We counted and recorded the results on a graph. EK and SJ added a few skills to their sheet and the boys just colored and counted~

We worked on our patterning and fine motor skills as we made a caterpillar necklace with circles and pasta. This was definitely Evie's favorite thing we did all day!~

For writing we made a cute book of all the things the caterpillar ate and strung a ribbon through as if he were eating holes in their book~

{My dishwasher has been on the blink and the repairman showed up right in the middle of the morning... EK took right over and made sure everyone stayed on task coloring their pages!}

 

 Next was science and we made the life cycle of the butterfly~

 and little clothespin/coffee filter butterflies!

Here they are with all their treasures made and ready for lunch~

 in which we made Very Hungry Caterpillar fruit kabobs!

A VERY fun Very Hungry Caterpillar Day! 

Word Work {the fun way}~

The day began with two more desks being added to our school room (thanks Gwen!) and guess who claimed them?~

 The boys had turns too but weren't as impressed as the girls. :)

Now to the Word Work...

My sil, Amy made her kids a magnetic area using a huge oil pan from Walmart so Scott bought us one for our school room. He was able to hang it on the back of a shelf and the kids were thrilled to begin work on it today. SJ was first... she had three new words in her guided reading book so we took them to our 'Smart Board'!~

 I wrote the word for her to read, she wrote the words next, and then built them with mag letters... one hand to write and one to erase!

Next it was EK's turn. We haven't spent much time this year formally teaching/learning spelling other than editing in writing or work in her Explode the Code books but today I started Spelling Workout~

  Because the book cost about $15 and I will eventually use with SJ too, I just put a page protector over the pages she worked on so she could use a dry erase marker to work. She cleaned after we completed each page. I also do this with our math pages as well... saves money from buying more books and making copies. The lesson today had a word list so I sent EK to the Smart Board for a little pop quiz. I called the words and she wrote them on the board~

Then I had her write rhyming words beside each one. She made all the words with mag letters and cleaned once done. COOL that we can write on the board with dry erase markers and it comes off super easy!

All this time while working with the girls, the boys were working away with their ABC and numeral work~

   {Evie... having fun!}

After EK, it was time for the boys to get their Word Work on and what would be their favorite words??? Their names~

 They loved working on the board and did awesome!

I'm pretty sure this Smart Board is going to get a great workout... thank you Amy for the great idea!!!

Happy May Day~

Our day began with our Bible story and prayer then to calendar time. It is always SO fun when we start a new month and today was extra special because it was a holiday~ May Day! We read about it's history and began the big 'Flower Making' session! 

We started by reading Waiting for Wings discussing all the flowers in the book. We reviewed how a plant grows and the parts of a flower. We pulled out everything we could get our hands on from the Art cabinet and set to work~

 Our first projects were painting flowers with water bottles and forks  (on paper plates to be made into May Day baskets) then flower hand prints (to go on our wal).

We also made flowers from pipe cleaners and egg cartons~

 This day was right up Evie's alley... she LOVES everything art~ especially scissor, paint, and glue!!!

We had to let everything dry during rest and then we were off on the golf cart to deliver the baskets to our neighbors~

I can't tell you how thrilled they were to run to the door and greet each person... EK did very well saying, "We made flowers in school today and wanted to wish you a Happy May Day!" We are super blessed with our sweet neighborhood!!!

Luke 12:27
"Look at the lilies and how they grow. They don't work or make their clothing, yet Solomon in all his glory was not dressed as beautifully as they are."

 

Camping Day {Impromptu}~

The girls sparred a big interest in packing backpacks yesterday, spent the night in sleeping bags, and came downstairs ready to camp this morning~

 What to do but declare it Camping Day!

I had to get my brain pumping out some creativity... We pulled our Curious George Goes Camping book and had a read~

  It was a hit! We made a list of important camping rules and researched poison ivy on the Ipad. We learned a rhyme {Leaves of 3, Let them be!} and made our very own poison ivy plant~

 Don't you LOVE Evie's rendition of poison ivy!!!

We talked about all kinds of nature and animals we would see on a camping trip and decided we should take a hike. After everyone was dressed, we headed out~

  Over to our neighbor's HUGE pine trees and collected pine cones to make bird feeders. We lathered peanut butter all over them and when it came time to add the birdseed??? We didn't have any... so we loaded the truck and headed to the store... bought the seed, went home to roll our feeders, and hang in a tree outside our sunroom. They have been watching for birds ever since.

After lunch we made 'inside' smores and little littles were off for nap. The girls wanted more so I printed a few things to cover the 3 Rs (reading, 'riting, and 'rithmetic) and they headed into the tent to work~

Work came from Homeschool Creations and 2 Teaching Mommies.

It was a little young for my two so I just used their printables and made up my own activities~ 

EK read them Just Me and My Dad and then they sang a song~

SJ asked to sing by herself~

I printed a graph for them to roll and record then taking most, least, equal with some # sentences thrown in.

They read a story together and dot painted words from a word list then made a What Am I book of all the things they would need for a camping trip.

Still asking for more, I suggested they take a rest for a while and this is what I found~

A GREAT Camping Day! 

This weekend I found a beautifully written article Tidal Homeschool in which blogger Melissa Wiley describes her kind of teaching... it really touched my heart the way she described times of High Tide and ones of Low Tide.

Melissa wrote: "And we have low tide times when we amble along the shore, peering into tide pools and digging in the sand, or just relaxing under beach umbrella. The children wander off in directions of their own choosing; they dig and poke and ponder. One of them may crouch over a rock pool and stay there for days, studying, watching. Another will run headlong into the waves, thrilling to the pull on her legs, splashing, leaping, diving under and emerging triumphantly farther out. Or a child might prefer to stay close by my side, drawing stick pictures in the sand or building a castle. All of these things may be happening at once. Sometimes it looks as though nothing is happening: there’s just an array of bodies on beach towels. But oh, the nourishment there is in a time of quiet reflection while the soul soaks up the sunlight! "

 I felt like today was a day to run with THEIR idea for the day and make it a learning experience for all. Sometimes we just need to step away from the norm and go with the child's needs/ideas. Again SO thankful I have the opportunity to spend my day teaching, guiding, and nurturing the gifts God has entrusted to me!!!