Auditory Discrimination

If your child is struggling with auditory discrimination, then this list is for you!

• Make a Sound bingo - record different noises around the house (toilet flushing, dog barking, phone ringing), take pictures of the items and make a bingo game. (can be purchased as well Sound Bingo (Games) *)


• Play with this website Find Sounds and play a sound, have child guess what it is.


• Memorize nursery rhymes


• Change the beginning sounds of words like "let's have boop and smackers for lunch" Have the child guess what you are saying. (Soup and crackers)


• Check this game out for beginning sounds practice Behind the Lions game


• Play other sound games Sound game


• Play rhyming games rhyme game more rhyming games


• Check out all the great printable activities here Prekinders Rhyme activities


• Read tons of rhyming stories (esp. Dr Seuss!)

*affiliate link!!!!!

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

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.

Driveway Painting

We had a blast painting

on the driveway with this

paint!

Check out more ideas at We Made it Friday Showcase!

Our Amazing Butterflies

Here is a photo journey of our Painted Lady Butterflies!

Arrival Day

Caterpillars eating and eating and eating!

Caterpillars preparing for Pupa Stage!

Pupa (also known as Chrysalis) Stage

Chrysalids moved into Butterfly tent! (Somehow I missed the part in the info pamphlet saying they might shake around in defense to scare off any predator....sure did freak me out!)

Newly hatched and awaiting some dry wings! They did not really flap them like I expected...just seemed to wait it out.

Here is a good shot of the merconium (the blood like stain) that drips out, our info says it is the extra coloring from the wings. Looked a bit like a massacre after all the butterflies were hatched!

You can see one of our friends partaking in a bit of orange!

...and another...

Release day! Sheesh...they did not want to leave! We pretty much had to force all 5 out by tapping gently on the tent sides and shaking them out!

Bye dear friends...and thanks so much for sharing your short beginnings with us!

Josh and I also made our very first lap book about butterflies and I will be sharing the pictures ASAP!

Have you Seen This?

http://www.homeeducationresources.com/index.html


If you homeschool, go here now!

Summer Plans

Just a "quick" list for my own use, but feel free to browse!

• Finish Spring with a Weather unit (just a refresher!).
• Shoe Tying using Red Lace, Yellow Lace!
• Butterfly Unit when the caterpillars arrive using these ideas.
• Nature Study items we did not get to from last year!
• Keep reading!
• Keep working on addition. (Thinking of making Embroidery Floss Bead Stair to help with fact families.)
• Possible camping unit
• Where the Wild Things Are Unit (will post when it is ready!)
• Keep working on Vowels!
• Continue our Poetry study. (including Nursery Rhymes from http://prekinders.com/nurseryrhymes.htm)

Should keep us busy and out of trouble! Along with playing with friends, thrifting, outside play and lazy do nothing days...we should be all set.

Wednesday's Website

Shu-Chen Jenny Yen's On-Line Montessori Teacher Albums for 3-to-6 year old children

This is an invaluable Album I have used for years! I am re posting this link because it has been moved to a new web address!

If you have not checked it out...do so!

Shannon

Butterfly Study

Josh received a Live Butterfly Garden for his 4th Birthday and somehow I am just now, about a week before his 5th, getting around to ordering the caterpillars!

So I want to be ready for their arrival! I plan to just drop everything and totally do everything Butterfly as soon as we get the package.

General Information, Lapbooks and Activities

• Insect Lore
• Kid's Butterfly
• Kinderteacher Butterfly activities
• Monarch Information and activities
• The Very Hungry Caterpillar Tots lapbook VERY COOL!
• Butterfly Lapbook LOTS HERE!
• Butterfly wings info.

ART/Craft Ideas

• Watercolor Caterpillar!!!
• Tissuepaper butterfly
• Dryer sheet butterflies
• Handprint butterflies TOO CUTE!
• Caterpillar crafts
• Butterfly craft ideas
• Clothespin butterfly with beads!
• Hungry caterpillar Ideas
• Butterfly ideas

Lifecycle/Science

• Lifecycle
• Lifecycle
• Lifecycle Cards!!!! YIPPPEEEE!
• Feeding butterflies!

Practical Life/Fine Motor

• How to draw butterflies! Loving these right now!
• Maze
• Butterfly recipe
• Button Caterpillar
• Do a dot butterfly stamping
• Eric Carle Color Page

Culture

• Days of the Week activity

Math

• Roll a caterpillar game
• Butterfly Math Ideas
• Butterfly symmetry painting

Language Arts

• Butterfly Language Ideas
• Felt Board Idea
• Sequencing activity
  

Earth Day Activities

Plans for the coming week!

• Maze
• Earth Day Activity Book
• Jigsaw puzzle Practice coloring, cutting, and assembling!
• Earth Day Word book Handwriting practice
• Word search Might be fun to try since there are not too many words!
• Super simple Earth suncatcher
• Environmental Color pages Book???
• Color page
• Simple cut out style Sudoku Nice first attempt!
• Another Simple Sudoku
• Many Earth Day Craft Ideas
• Bird feeder Directions
• Crayon Melt Earth Craft (Better direction and template)
• Songs
• Create your own Dominos
• Create your own Memory game
• Earth Day Song I used last year

Tie Bunny

Here is a cute bunny project I used to do when I taught Kindergarten. We had fun creating them together today!
Materials

• ~tie (easily found at any thrift store or Daddy's closet...ugly is good!)
• ~Pom pom
• ~googly eyes
• ~yarn
• ~button
• ~construction paper scraps
• ~glue
  

All you need to do to make these is just cut off either end of a tie, depending on if you want a tiny bunny or a larger bunny. I made the blue tiny and Josh made the larger brown.

Cut off a bit of yarn for whiskers and place them in a puddle of glue on the pointy end of the tie. Add a bit more glue on top and press on the button nose. Add googly eyes, construction paper ears and a pompom tail. Allow it all to dry!








Josh's masterpiece, he only put one whisker...I was proud of myself for only asking once if he was adding more or was he ready to pick out a button for the nose...trying to not be such a control freak...

Landforms

I have been intending to make the landform work for Josh for well over a year now. I even bought the plasticine and store brand containers. Well finally this week I did it. I really like how it turned out. It was a bit more difficult than I expected...sheesh is that clay hard! But well worth the effort.




In the above picture you can see how a peninsula is just the cutout portion of a gulf.

All you need is...

• 10 containers


• Plascticine (but for a temporary set playdoh would work!)


• Knife to cut out the shapes


• cards like these
  
  montessorimaterials.org/Geography/LandFormCards.pdf
  
  http://www.montessoriforeveryone.com/Land-Water-Forms-Nomenclature--Photos_p_263.html $
  

I just divided the clay into 5 equal amounts and smashed them into 5 containers. Flattened it and used the cards to give me an idea of how to cut. I took out the unnecessary clay area carefully and put it into another container. (The landforms are all opposites like a lake is the opposite of an island. So you can use the clay you remove from the lake to be the island landform.)

I plan to present these soon having Josh pour a bit of water into each to show the actual landform. I also printed off cards https://edutccom.ipower.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=93 that show a more photographical picture of a landform. We will add small animals and fish to this work to further extend his understanding.

Landform Lesson!

Everything Easter

I was thinking of doing an Easter lap book this year but I am going to just print out and prepare everything and see how it goes. I am hosting, so things might get a little rough that last week!

CRAFTS
Bunny Napkin Rings These are adorable!
Transparent Eggs This is a great creative, do what you want activity!
Egg Carton Tulips To decorate the table, centerpiece!
Peek a boo Eggs

POTENTIAL LAP BOOK IDEAS
lap book cracked egg template
Easter Basket Grid

SCIENCE
Eggshell Plant Pots

PRACTICAL LIFE
Jell-o Jelly beans directions I already bought Jell-o, not dye free, so....
Maze

MATHS
I bought tiny Easter eggs to use for counting, adding, graphing, etc...
Rabbit dot to dot Josh just loves these right now!
Color by number and count eggs

MISC...
Blank Egg Shapes
Printable Egg Card Maybe he could write cards to a few people and send them out for a Writing activity?
Easter Egg Coloring sheets

CHRISTIAN ACTIVITIES (LAP BOOK IDEAS TOO!)
Christian Preschool Printables I teach Josh about Easter using the Resurrection Eggs every year so this has a ton of fun/useful activities...esp. the res. egg printables, cross math, etc...

BOOKS WE USE AND LOVE! (These are not showing up on your readers! Sorry for the hassle! You can see them if you click over to my blog.)



I highly recommend you checking out Benjamin's Box if you use the Resurrection Eggs (Parenting)! It goes perfectly!

Wednesday's Website

http://www.childcareland.com/teach.html

This site is packed full of fun stuff but my favorite is the 7 pages of teaching ideas that includes great pictures!

St Patrick's Day Leprechaun

Sorry about this but I wanted to make sure I did not forget that we had already made this and the easiest way is to put it on the blog!



This year for St. Patrick's Day we created these adorable little Leprechaun men. I am pretty sure the idea is from The Mailbox Magazine. I had a subscription years ago and had a photocopy of the idea but it did not have any publication info on it.

Anyway, the idea is fairly easy!

All you need is

• 3 green hearts(~2 in),
• 1 green rectangle (1x2ish),
• green strip for hat brim, 1 skin colored circle (~1.5 in),
• tiny black boot shapes,
• tiny yellow square for the belt buckle,
• black rectangle for belt, and
• skin colored hands.
  
  
  
  Josh cut out most of the pieces. I think I did the hands and one of the boots. Then just assemble as shown using the hearts as the arms and legs. Easy and so adorable!
  

St Patrick's Day Planning

I am planning our next couple of weeks and thought I would share it with all of you! We are going to do a fun Leprechaun/Rainbow unit! Besides, if I post it here, I can plan on my laptop and print easily at the desk top computer...since we still do not have my laptop "printer ready!"

As always, this is just the list of activities I will pick from... not a list of everything we will do. There is no way we could do everything on this list! Besides, we will probably add other activities on days we are not "feeling it!"

Circle Time

• Poems and Songs for St Patrick's Day
• Chapters from Shoefull of Shamrock by Mary Francis Shura (Prob. at bedtime!)
• The Night Before St Patrick's Day by Natasha Wing

Coloring Sheets

• R is for Rainbow
• Shamrock Hat (My Fave!)
• rainbow color sheet

Practical Life

• Shamrock trace and color
• Fuse bead rainbow!!! (oooh, definite!)
• Hole punch activity
• Lacing Shamrock (If I get to making! But we really need to take this further...real sewing?)
• Maze (Josh enjoys mazes...remember do finger solve first!)
• Handwriting a-z

Sensorial

• Dominoes
• Make a book of colors
• Patterning

Language Arts

• Minibook (Silly Leprechaun story! Not sure about this one)
• St Patrick's Day Riddles book (Josh loves riddles right now!)
• ABC dot to dot
• Sight word spelling with tiles
• Sight words
• Word book

Maths

• Roll and color dice game !!!!!
• 1-30 dot to dot

Crafty Ideas

• Dancing Leprechaun
• dot painters rainbow
• Rainbow mobile Definitely will do this one!
• Tissue Paper Shamrock

Science

• Milk food coloring activity! (Science Journal results!)

Please, let me know if you find something on here that you use! Or if you find a great activity you will do with your Children!

B-I-N-G-O and more games I love!

I just love finding fun ways to reinforce skills we are working on. I have found Bingo to be a great way to do just that. It really is a great game that can be played in a variety of ways depending on your needs! We own 3 different versions but have been able to use them since Josh was quite young and will be able to continue with just a few alterations to game play!


The first Bingo that I used with Joshua is the Colors and Shapes Bingo!

• The first use is just to work on colors, "put your dot on a red shape!"
• Next, working with shapes in the same way but still only using one parameter, "put your dot on a rectangle!"
• Finally, to work on both skills and as a great LISTENING activity, "put your dot on a red rectangle!"

We also own Alphabet Bingo!

• First use would be to just reinforce the letter you are learning, "put your dot on the letter t!"
• Next to work on sounds, "put your dot on the letter that says /t/ or tuh!" (Montessori style would have you do these 2 activities the other way around learning the sound before the letter name.)
• Another activity could be to help child to isolate sounds in words, "put your dot on the letter at the beginning of turtle or end of pot!"

Finally, and possibly the most flexible is Number Bingo!

• First for number recognition, "put your dot on the 16!"
• Addition, "put your dot on the answer to 8+8!"
• Subtraction, multiplication, easy division....
• Place Value, "put your dot on the number made from 1 ten and 6 ones!"

Also do not forget how easily the numbers, shapes and colors could be converted into a foreign language game, "put your dot on ocho, or verde, etc..."

Writing Workshop/Art Shelves!

So I never did find the shelving I was searching for, but it is always best to just make use of what you already have. Here is my plan http://sjbacb.blogspot.com/2009/01/my-latest-scheme.html

Here is what I did so far...What do you think???

I combined the art and writing shelves together since so many of the materials overlapped. It has been working really well for us so far. This shelf is in the dining room, underneath the bar that we have never used.

TOP SHELF~ Tray with letter stamps and stamp pad, sand tray with black sand, letter tracing with wipeoff pen, basket of assorted paper.

SECOND SHELF~ Stencils, Pencils and Pens, Colored Pencils, Sandpaper letters, Magnetic Drawing Board.

THIRD SHELF~ lowercase wooden pieces for HWT, basket of crayons, scissors and hole punch, markers, ruler.




FOURTH/BOTTOM SHELF~ Perler Beads Bucket and trays, Tackle box with craft items, notebooks on top of junk drawer.


I still have a few more things I want to add but it is sure nice to have it all up and running. When we do our Preschool time, the days we do not go down to the Montessori room, we do work at the dining table. So this set up works really great! SO what do you think? Any suggestions?

Montessori Monday

Taken from Montessori Read & Write by Lynne Lawrence

The question game for ages 3 and up.

After you read a book to your child or he/she reads it themselves ask questions like...

• Who was the story about?
• What do you know about them?
• Why did they....?
• How?
• When?
• Where?
• With What?
• What happened in the end?
• How did everyone feel?

This activity is great for language development, as well as checking for comprehension. Josh and I need to be more diligent about discussing books in this way. Especially now that he is reading them. It is easy to get caught up in the decoding of the words and forget about if he is actually "getting" the story!