Rabbits

Josh is obsessed with Rabbits right now so I am taking advantage of it! Feel free to join us.
Rabbits vs Hares
Rabbit Tangram (scroll down)
Simple Animal Report Idea
Animal Report Graphic Organizers
Rabbit Parts and info
Finish the Sentence writing idea
Peter Rabbit etc activities (scroll down)
Assorted Crafts
Rabbit Lapbook!!!!
Rabbit cardboard tube craft
Geography video

Book Basket

Just popping by with a book recommendation!

Joshua borrowed Art Auction Mystery from our local library this week and it is A M A Z I N G!!! It is a game, a book, math and a fine art lesson all in one. The premise is that some art has been stolen and copied and you need to find out who did it. There is a search and find aspect to identify the fake paintings from the originals which is a fun challenge. But I also really love how they incorporate a math lesson by having you figure out how much the theives got paid and graph all the information to solve the crime.

Remember please that Josh is a "special" Kindergartener so I would NOT recommend this book for children so young. Amazon is saying 4-8th grade, I might go down to 2nd with help. Josh can read it just fine but I am helping with the writing aspect of the graph.

Wednesday's Website

Oh my stinkin' heck on Pioneer Woman talking about EDU-CATION! This is a nice take on homeschool vs sending your children to school.

How to Draw...

I thought we might enjoy doing some of these How to Draw lessons I have seen lately! As long as I am compiling...

Snake
Christmas Nutcracker
Penguin
Laurel Burch Cat Head
Cat
Buildings
Cow
Lion
Castle
Rooster
House
Scaredy cat
Bear
Interesting step by step online directions

Most of these are from http://www.artprojectsforkids.org/ !

Wednesday's Website

I am just loving reading through all of The Science Mommy's cool ideas for experiments to do with Big and Little Kids. Check it out for ideas to do with you Children!

Wednesday's Websites The Etsy Edition

Science Kit Love that this kit comes in a cute bag and seems to contain any necessary supplies!
Craft Kits Perfect for the Mama who is just not crafty! All supplies included.
Felt Story Sets Love these super cute sets.
Play to Learn -Felt clocks, letters etc...
Beautiful wood puzzles etc... Wow! I love the leaf shape one!
Montessori phonics activities etc... Really great jewelry too!

edited to add: Card Table houses etc... I LOVE THESE!

Wednesday's Website

I stumbled upon this cool site a few days ago. http://mathwire.blogspot.com/
It is the blog associated with the website. http://www.mathwire.com/
They are both filled with terrific math activities. The blog however highlights a timely item available on the website. Which is helpful since mathwire is jampacked full of activities and I for one find it very overwhelming to weed through!

Check them both out!

Penguin Unit

Sheesh, I love Penguins! I had so much fun planning this unit. We are going to read Mr. Popper's Penguins and a few other gems. We will also study Antarctica. We live in MI so snow will be here soon. We will launch this unit after the Christmas crazy!

Other Books
The Life Cycle of an Emperor Penguin
Penguins (True Books)
Penguins: Level Four (Usborne First Reading)
Antarctica (True Books: Continents)
Penguins (Animal Information)
Counting Penguins!

Other Penguin Unit
Mr. Poppers Penguins Book study (Funny, I found this after I did the rest of this post...nothing like reinventing the wheel. Oh well!)
Mr Popper's Penguins Lapbook

Science
Penguin Lapbooks Lifecycle and many other amazing resources. (ht- My Montessori Journey)
Penguin Puzzle and cards/book
Antarctica Website
Ice Melt Fun Game

Language Arts
Many Simple Penguin Literacy Ideas Dot to dots, easy reader book, name recognition, abc activities.

Math
Printable Penguin Counting Activity (scroll down for penguin activity link)
Penguin math Ideas Varying levels!

Geography
Penguin cards (Beautiful Cards from A Bit of this and that)
Cool Antarctica Website

Art
How to draw a penguin
Penguin art

Crafts
Penguin puppets
Handprint penguins
Potato print Puppets
Felt Penguin w/ printable directions

Misc...
Penguin song etc... cute ideas!
Penguin Memory Game
Save the Egg game

Wednesday's Website

http://www.iknowthat.com/com which is basically online educational games for pk-6th grade. You do need to log on but they do not even require your email address, just user name & password.


(ht: http://www.sarahsellers.co.uk/blog/index.php)

Another Wednesday Website

Free lifecycle Pumpkin Sequencing Cards

HT: My Montessori Journey

Wednesday's Website

Check out these FREE Geology Rock cards! They are really nice with great pictures and information.

November = Simple Machines

Books
Simple Machines (Starting with Science)
Simple Machines (Rookie Read-About Science)
Machines We Use (It's Science)

Videos
Bill Nye Simple Machines Video Episode 1 of 3 (other 2 on right hand suggestion list!)
Sid the Science Kid Simple Machines Cycle 5

Teaching Ideas
Step by step about how to teach about Simple machines

Activities
Simple machines Activities
Simple Machines Webquest including videos. (A bit advanced but worth checking out for videos and pictures!)
Great Simple machines Website! (Some info is subscription only)
Simple Machines Learning Site

October Seasonal Activities

I was looking for some ideas to make this rainy miserable Fall a little more fun and thought I would share what I found with you! We will not get to even half of these!

Crafts (mostly Halloween)
Paper Strip Pumpkins We did this! It turned out great and was fun and easy!
Tissue ghosts We made these and strung them on a plastic glow lace!
Color, cut & glue Jack O'lantern or Cut & glue Jack O'lantern or Jack O'lantern person (not scary!)
Lantern Orange or Black would look cool!
Bat Mobile
Cute paper Bats I would like to use these bats to make the above mobile!
Adorable Craft stick Mummy
2 liter bottle ghost
Fall Ideas
Felt Board Pumpkin Faces Thanks Melissa!
Fall Silly Putty
Easy yarn Apples and Pumpkins!
Spider Web Spin Painting
Fall Window Hangings We did this last year with wax paper, leaves, crayon and an iron!

Misc. Activities
Printable Halloween Games
Halloween Color Pages

Art
Line Art Leaves

Online Activity
Build your own Jack O'lantern

Recipes
Pumpkin Shakes
Ghost Sandwiches
Spider Pizzas
Ritz Spider
Witches Hat

Language Arts
Pumpkin Book
Several Links to Fall Poetry

Science
Fall Window
Skeleton from bottles Plan ahead for next year?

Math
Fall Tree Dice game

Pumpkin Ideas
Star Wars Pumpkin Stencils Links to other themes too!

Afterschooling

...or in our case beforeschooling, since Josh attends PM young 5's. School is going great for him. He is enjoying it, LOVES his teacher and is actually learning quite a bit! He knows more about frogs then anyone would ever want to know! However, we still feel the need to enrich his learning with more. He is way ahead of his class in both math and reading. They are currently learning to count to 20. He could do that at 3 years old. So here is what we are doing...

Science- (as previously posted!) We have chosen several areas to study and are doing one a month! (September Biology plans, October Physical Science plans)

Geography- Landforms and the Continents using Continent Boxes, Continent books, and any other resources I dig up!

History- Story of the World We are enjoying this but I am having a hard time preparing ahead. I just need to sit down and get things ready for the month in a basket or something so I can just grab!

Music- To our dismay, due to scheduling, Josh does not attend Music at school this year! Therefore, I ordered Story of the Orchestra : Listen While You Learn About the Instruments, the Music and the Composers Who Wrote the Music! and am really excited to get started. We plan to begin tomorrow. (Just got it Friday!)

Practical Life- Remember these? I plan to start back up working on Josh's cookbook. Today was my b-day so I am thinking of having him help make a cake tomorrow (good excuse, right?). We also want to continue working on skills such as...

• tying
• cutting with scissors
• cutting with knife
• pouring

Math- Our main focus right now is on addition and heading toward subtraction. On our shelf you would find...

• Addition Strip Board (info)
• Addition Snake game (info)
• Hundreds board (video)
• Other manipulatives such as counters, dice, etc...

Language- This is the easiest and most natural! We have a reading night planned for Tuesday where we all pile into my bed and read to each other until bedtime. However, he reads to us or we read to him every night before bed normally. So I am not really planning anything extra...yet!

Art- Want to work on a few drawing skills and of course we will do seasonal crafts. We are happy with his school's art program so just having fun here for now!

Really though, this seems like a lot. But we have the entire school year and all summer to accomplish these things. Some weeks we do a ton and some weeks (like last week!) we get NOTHING done. Either way, we are not stressing. Our intention is to have school for an hour 4 days a week before lunch. ...but sometimes...the Lego's just need more attention than the dining room table...ya know?

Wednesday's Website

If you celebrate Halloween, check out this site http://prekinders.wordpress.com/2009/09/28/getting-ready-for-october/!
It is a long list of activities to do with little ones.

October = Physical Science

Physical Science - gas liquid solid, magnets, buoyancy, surface tension, evaporation, volume, weight, measurement

• Matter- gas/liquid/solid and Evaporation Water
  Reversible Changes
  Material properties
  Melting points
  Gases
  Ice Cream Science FUN Celebration!
• Magnets Curious George Magnet Video
  Magnets and Springs
  Experiments
  Magnet Painting
• Buoyancy
  Pumpkin Float and Sink!
  Easy Buoyancy round vs flat sinking
  Float vs sink
  sinkorfloat ideas
• Surface Tension
  Penny Experiment
  Floating Paper Clips
• Volume - Weight - Measurement
  Pumpkin Measurement worksheet
  Many measurement ideas Sid the Science Kid Exploring measurement And of course cooking!

We never get to all the activities I list and I often take longer than indicated to do a "theme". It is just my intention to do these activities in October. Hope you find something here you can use with your family!

Free Resources

Animal Classification cards! For FREE! at Currclick from Teacher Bookbag.
Musical Instrument cards! For Free! at Currclick from Teacher Bookbag.

Yipppeee!

Falling into Fall!

In all honesty, I am struggling a bit right now trying to find a rhythm for our days. We have a lot going on.

Josh has started school. He is really enjoying it and thinks his teacher is hillarious. (his words!) What that means for me is that I am now spending 1 hour in the car everyday just getting him back and forth. That time does not include wait time. And I can not believe all the after school/evening meetings!

We are getting our home ready to be sold. Which means oh so many projects. Painting, cleaning, power washing, priming, sanding, etc...

Then there is the life happens category. Things like normal living... Which also includes our newish furnace leaking mysteriously, and my new project of selling all our unwanted stuff on craigslist.

So what is suffering? Oh, you know... dishes, laundry... the normal stuff.

We are doing pretty good at keeping up with our at home school. We are working along at our human body study. The Story of the World is also going great. I keep adding more and more to it because we are really enjoying it. All we have done for geography is put together our new NA geopuzzle. (love it by the way but more on that later!)

So that is what we are up to! How is Fall treating you?

September = Biology

Here is what I am thinking for Biology!

BookList

The Skeleton Inside You (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2)
Germs Make Me Sick! (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2) (Reading Rainbow book)
The Magic School Bus Inside the Human Body
Me and My Amazing Body
The Way We Work
What Happens to a Hamburger? (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2)
Why Do We Laugh? (Why Books)
Our Body (Child's First Library of Learning)
I Know Why I Brush My Teeth (Sam's Science)
Your Skin and Mine: Revised Edition (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 2)
My Five Senses (Let's-Read-and-Find-Out Science 1)

Other resources

Human Body Funstation
Beleduc Your Body - Boy 5-Layer Puzzle (Josh LOVES this...SOOOO worth the $$$)
Skeleton Floor Puzzle (much nicer than ours but that price is amazing!)
Talicor Somebody Board Game (LOVING this right now!)

Human Anatomy


Human organs coloring page

Human skeleton coloring page

Dr Pbody

Human Body - Power point of the body

3 Part cards

• simple but beautiful
• more body parts

Self Care

Dental Care ideas


The 5 Senses

neat intro for readers!

5 senses body cube game!

http://www.littlegiraffes.com/fivesenses.html

• Touch -mystery bag
• Hearing - Sound cylinders
• Smell - Spice jars matching
• Taste - compare sweet/sour/bitter/salty
• Sight - Magnifying glass activity

Simple reader!

Trace and color- fine motor practice.

Lapbook ideas

Science journal ideas

• Popcorn Experiment
• Play-doh experiment

WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE

I have been wanting to plan a Where the Wild Things Are mini-unit for a while now. With the new movie coming out it seemed timely and a great opportunity to make it extra special. (However...after seeing the preview I am not sure about taking Josh sight unseen! Going to have to read reviews!)
Nice read along guide with discussion ideas
Author info and some cool activity ideas such as

• Language Arts ~ write a story of their own adventure with a “Wild Thing.”
• Physical Ed. ~ Bring music to class and have a “Wild Rompus”
• Science ~ Grow wild thing grass in cup

Great cross-curricular ideas such as

• Language Arts ~ discuss how wild things change...becoming less scary etc...
• Math ~ grouping/sorting wild things by attributes (tails, horns, etc)
• Geography ~ Introduce concept of Island.

Would love to take this opportunity to introduce the Montessori imaginary island (although I am still not sure how to best create this....any suggestions????)

Practical Life ~ Wild Thing Pillows (Would obviously need help with this one!)

Science ~ boat sailing (maybe even do a paper folding boat like this!

Crafts ~Amazing idea for shadow puppets
Articulated Beasts
Where the Wild Things Are Masks

Finish up the unit with a celebration serving...

Chicken Soup with rice and several other goodies as found in
The Fairy Tale Cookbook: Fun Recipes for Families to Create and Eat Together and of course wearing jammies and crowns!