Make a 'Mess' Soup~

I gathered a bowl, scissors, and lots of things to cut~

Steamers, straws, construction paper strips, paint swatches, beads, coffee filters...

the perfect items for good fine motor work.

I dumped it all out and said~ "Make me some Mess Soup"...

They are GREAT at making a Mess!!!

This lasted for about 2 hours too!

And the sunroom looked like it did as well!!!

LOVE everything about this!

They were happy and we all got lots done as well.

ABC and Number Work for Bitties~

I pulled out the big oil pan for magnetic ABC and Number work~

Keeping them busy with things they like is key each day during school

and today this was perfect!

They played worked here for about two hours!!!

LOVE how they are very protective of the letters in their name...

"That's MY letter!!!"

Learning like crazy!

Bitty Preschool Drawers~

I found with the trays, the girls kept pulling things out but not

placing back in correct place so I put all their activities in drawers too.

This week I changed their work out and in a week will trade it between the girls like I do with the boys.

Red~ Journals and a Workbook

Orange~ Bear Family Puzzles and Numeral Puzzle

Green~ Build a Word and Hot Dot

Blue~ Pattern Blocks and Dot Art

Purple~ Leap Frog Reading Game

 The bitty girls work as long as they want to and there is no pressure

to finish all the drawers.

I encourage and check them as they go.

I don't make them go in order either...

if they want to do something a second time, that is ok as well~

For the most part they work pretty well

and when they are ready to move on, I help them clean their area

so they can be off to their room for playtime.

Monday Fun~ {K Work Drawers}

So I had some time over the weekend to change out the work drawers for the K boys and preschool girls.

{Big girls' drawers stay the same pretty much}.

I took photos of the K drawers...

First up is WP's~

Red~ Journal and ABC work

Orange~ Explode the Code

Green~ Melissa and Doug Magnetic Boys 

Blue~ Match Mag letters to Board

Purple~ Roll a die and make an inchworm that long

WP was super diligent today~

He was able to sort his inchworms by length and talk to me about most, least, equal, longer, shorter.

Payne's~

Red~ Journal and ABC work

Orange~ Explode the CodeRed~ Journal and ABC work

Orange~ Explode the Code

Blue~ Roll the die and give the kids that many teddy bears

Green~ Match capital letters to capital letters

Purple~ Find an animal in book and choose letters to string onto a pipe cleaner to make the word

Payne amazed me with how many letters he knows~

He chose to make LOTS of words with the letters and pipe cleaners!

Best thing about the Boys' drawers~

I can move the activities to the other one's drawers and have things set up for two weeks or so.

For the bitty girls today I needed to give Holly a chance to use real scissors so~

I gave them 2 straws which they cut into as many pieces as they wanted putting them into a bag.

Then they threaded them onto pipe cleaners and we made a necklace.

Took Holly some time to get the hang plus she is still struggling with whether she is right or left handed...

continuing to switch back and forth~

And while all this was going on 

the third and first grader were working independently on their own work.

Monday Fun!

Bitty Girls again~

It is very important for the bitty girls to have opportunities to share

and be sisters.

Today I found a couple of ideas that reminded me to spend time showing them HOW to play together.

I brought our easel out of storage

{amazing how exciting it is for something out of sight to come back... like a brand new toy}.

I set up white paper, dot painters, and paint shirts~

 Loved watching Evie interact with Holly showing her how the painters work then lots of giggling.

They LOVE play dough and had just pulled it out when I remembered this post and printed the free mats~

Holly has been wanting to use scissors and you know Evie's history with them

but decorative scissors require just a little more precision so figured

they were safe for just play dough cutting

{and NOT hair!!!}.

Shot this little video to show a new little habit HM has begun~

Not long after we were home, HM figured out her Chinese was not working for her.

So when another sibling would speak to me she would come behind them and mumble in a soft voice then give me the biggest smile.

Knowing full well I still couldn't understand, we would both burst out laughing.

The video shows a tiny bit of it...

she has a very quiet voice and often she does it so quick I can't video it.

You can see her left handed work and diligence with scissors.

Bitty Work Drawers~

Along with the trays I introduced on Monday, all the kids have work drawers with activities in them~

The red drawer holds their journal which we do most every day.

I usually find their next page, date, and write their name at the top.

They copy over with a crayon and this day they wanted me to trace their hand then they colored.

The next 4 colors are there if they choose to do them~

NO pressure at all and sometimes they do it, sometimes not.

As they finish up one of the activities, they place in the finished basket for me.

After they have worked through the drawers, they move onto trays or free play in their rooms.

Bitty Preschool~

School seems daunting to most when you pair it with summer

but truthfully it makes our family life flow better to be in our normal routine.

It really isn't that big of a deal to our kids because they don't really know any different and they like what we do.

In order to school a 3rd and 1st grader with 2 Ks, 

I planned a few trays for the bitty two girls~

Top Shelf:

~Melissa and Doug Bear Family Dress Up

~Melissa and Doug Playdough Tools

~Egg carton/ping pong balls:

the balls were already programmed with letters so I just colored a dot with sharpies and they match color to color

Bottom Shelf:

~Button Art

~Beanbag throw into the basket {gross motor}

~crayons and stickers with paper... tracing feet and hands!

 Evie was amazing helping Holly know how to play~

I have a few free things sitting on top of the shelf~

~Number puzzle

~Magformers ... hands down the FAV toy in our house right now!!!

~Board Books

The girls also have a little activity book we can pull from

as well as journals to write/draw in.

Today went pretty well with them in and out of the school room.

I will change out their shelf probably every two weeks

and I will try to remember to share the new activities.