Wednesday's Website

Josh's teacher recommended this site for a good sight word list. There are even printable flashcards. He is in Kindergarten and is supposed to learn the 100 list this year. He can read through at least the 500 ( we have not tried the 600 yet) so instead we are using these as spelling words.

Also... Please HELP!!!
Anyone have any great resources for how to easily accelerate his work in class that I could pass on to his teacher? So far they have him using the computer on www.raz-kids.com during any phonics/reading instruction. For math they seem to be trying to just have him add 1 digits when the class is just counting. They seem to not understand he can do at least 2 digits and subtraction. I would like to have some ideas when we go in for conferences in a couple weeks!

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!

Space

Solar System project
Outer Space and Constellation Activities
Starry Night ideas
Solar System Activities including cool book
Montessori Astronomy Newsletter
Space Math Ideas
Fold and Snip Stars
Constellation Painting
Montessori Astronomy Lessons
Moon Phases Memory

If you Can't Beat 'em, Join 'em!

Just over 2 months left of school for Josh! It is hard to believe how fast it went, how smooth/easy it was for him, and how hard it was for me!

It has taken all these months but I think I have FINALLY figured out a better rhythm for meeting Josh's academic needs. Initially, I thought we would just do school in the morning at home since he was attending PM young 5's. But apparently, we are too lazy to actually get much done that way. I also did not really anticipate that he would have so much homework and extra little things to do.

Another part of this year that was unanticipated was that the curriculum was really MUCH better than I could have even hoped it would be.

So what has worked? Instead of just trying to do the subjects etc... we planned, I actually was able to just add to what he was already learning. Seems obvious, right? But I honestly was not expecting to have enough substance to work with.

When I read the themes they would cover before school began I totally rolled my eyes and laughed because we had pretty much already covered all of it. And of course when I discovered she was using Core Knowledge's Preschool edition I was just reaffirmed. We did that entire book in about 3 weeks over the summer. (By the way, I <3 Core Knowledge!)

But Josh's teacher is amazing and is super into science and challenging all of the students.

For example, right now they are studying oceans. She has taught them...

• Vertebrate vs Invertebrate (plus a bit with Kingdoms within)
• The 5 fins on a fish.
• Who lives where in the ocean and why.
• and much, much more!

So I have just added bits and pieces to it. I was able to dig out the fish parts puzzle so Josh could trace and label the fins. We put together a cool coral reef puzzle and pulled out the seashell cards. It is really allowing me to incorporate the Montessori activities that I want for Josh in a way that is natural and really comfortable for both of us.

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

Report Card and a question for YOU!

At Josh's school they do conferences a month or so before report cards so that a "turn around" is possible. I get the idea just not sure how I feel about it yet.

However, we are really happy with our school choice still. Josh loves his teacher and is really enjoying school. He is learning a ton because the young 5 class gets to do fun stuff like all the lifecycles and only inadvertently works on letters and sounds. Which is great for Josh since he does not need that. Having said all that...

Josh brought home his report card Thursday. It is a 5 page report that covers a ton of subject areas including math, science, language, social studies, and moral focus. Their grading scale is 0-4.

0 means does not understand skill or concept yet.
1 means beginning to understand skill.
2 means at grade level.
3 means at end of year level.
4 means exceeds expectations.

The included letter stated that we should see a lot of 1 & 2's at this time of the year.

Josh got 15 4's, about 18 0r so 3's, and 5 2's.

So I have a question, did we make the right choice? Should he have gone straight to Kindergarten? What do you think? I am too blinded by my utter fondness for his teacher to think it through.

I do want to say, we are really proud of him. We knew he was bright but we really expected to have some behavior issues. He can be a bit spirited! But he does really well...now if only he could extend that to his after school behavior....but that is for another post!

Another Wednesday Website

Free lifecycle Pumpkin Sequencing Cards

HT: My Montessori Journey

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!

School is...um...cool?

Well we did it! We survived Josh's first week of school! I tell you though, it was both worse and better than I expected.

The first day I dropped him off and for the most part it went fine. He was excited and happy...I held the tears until I got in the car. Sounds successful, right?

Pick up was a bit iffy. To begin with, the whole crazy pick up thing is CRAZY. There are no buses, so every parent is there waiting in line to pick up their child. CRAZY!

When it was finally my turn to get my kid...he was escorted to the car by his teacher... he jumped in and immediately burst into tears. I think he was a bit over tired. He is not generally that emotional. He had forgotten a book he made during Center time AND some little girl tore it and he had to tape it. It is still unclear to me which he was crying about...maybe both!

Anyway, then he says, "...and Momma, we did not learn ANYTHING today...you said I would learn something..." Oy, he has continued to complain about that everyday but at least now he is also adding that all they learned was about school rules...but nothing else! (Which by the way, is not true since he told me all about snakes on the way home today...BUT he wants to learn real stuff like math etc...) I just keep reassuring him that they will learn more as everyone gets used to school.

Which is only sort of true! He is not going to learn what he wants this year, and prob not next year, at school. But we are also continuing to work at home and he is loving that all of a sudden. Sort of a "you do not know what you have until you no longer have it!"


Right now at home we are working on

• Geography~ North America
• Science~ Human Body (esp. digestion this week!)
• History~ Story of the World (what is history/archaeology?)

Think I will add math to please Josh in the next few weeks, once we get a better rhythm in place.

I do want to add that I really like his teacher. I think she "gets" him. She pulled me aside already to talk about how SHE has the same sense of humor as him...hmmm??? And also, that he really is good at reading...uh, yeah...I noticed! I think when we had warned her she thought we were exaggerating.

So, any good advice about keeping him away from germs and mean kids on the playground? (He already has a runny nose and had a time out for pushing a boy who would not stop teasing him.)

Welcome to the world of school!

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!

Yep...More Books!

So, after reading this review on the goddess Pioneer Woman's blog, I have been shamelessly coveting the Explore and Learn Science books she mentions toward the bottom. (These!!!) I am seriously OBSESSED with all thing science and geography right now. I may need to soon be medicated...anyway...I was over at my neighbor's when she runs in the house to grab something to show me. Out she comes with that exact stack of books...still shrink wrapped and everything. She says she does not want them and are they anything I would be intersted in?????

What???????? To her defense we are not too close... I still hide most of my crazy from her family.

So, I snatched them up, tossed a ten dollar bill at her and ran across the street to my house before she could come to her senses. Have I mentioned all 6 still wrapped...as in UNOPENED?

Anyway...I love them....they are amazing and all MINE! Yippeee.

My favorite one is the Explore and Learn Volume 4 People in Place and Time. It is all about ancient people and will be perfect to use with The Story of the World: History for the Classical Child: Volume 1: Ancient Times: From the Earliest Nomads to the Last Roman Emperor, Revised Edition that I bought a few months ago on CD. The other Volumes are...

1. Earth and Space
2. Science and Technology
3. The Natural World
4. People in Place and Time
5. Me and My Body
6. Atlas of the World

What I really like about the books is they have super child friendly pictures and info, activities to do about the info and all kinds of extras.

I cannot wait to get started! I sure hope we can find time to do all that I have planned!

Book Basket

So, I was browsing the library the other day and found the most AMAZING ...uh...cookbook. I mean, it is a cookbook but it is so much more. Here, go check out this link...

The Fairy Tale Cookbook: Fun Recipes for Families to Create and Eat Together by Sandre Moore

The recipes are all based on different famous children's books. Everything from Where the Wild Things are to Alice in Wonderland. And they are intended for families to make together! The directions are really great with breakdowns of what you could let the kiddos do...oh and the recipes are for real food for real meals that you can actually make and eat. Like I said...it is AMAZING and is definitely being added to my wishlist!

Butterfly Lapbook

Our first lapbook! We really had fun making this and Josh is so proud of the "book" he created...showing it off to everyone who enters our home!









Cut and Paste Caterpillar! on our cover. I did cut this one out, it was the last activity and Josh was finished...WINK!

















Days of the week cards








Book Sequencing cards


















What's the Shape Book and many other ideas!


















Lifecycle Book

















Inside View!


















Size sequencing cards













Lifecycle Sequencing


Butterfly Pocket

















I am so sorry but I can not find where I downloaded these cards! (It was in 2007) If you or someone you know made them, please leave me a comment so I can give you credit! These are really beautiful and I would love to share them!




















How to draw a caterpillar!














Josh's butterfly!








Extra work


Math Mats













Butterfly grid work