My hair cut

So, it's been a while since my last haircut.

It's gotten so long that I knew it was time to do something. So at Dionne's house today, Kristi, Dionne and Jen helped me decide to try something shorter...and Jen made it happen! :-)


Before:

After:

Back:

My locks of love:

Preschool - Week 10 - Letter I

This week was brought to you by the Letter I and the Number 9. :-)

This was a weak week (haha) for me - I will explain more in another post. We didn't use many books this week.

Here are the ones we did read:
The Legend of the Indian Paintbrush
Dream Wolf
The Apache Indians (Native Peoples)
Tacky the Penguin

Language Arts:
- Letter of the week craft:
- Handwriting worksheets (ice cream, igloo)
- Initial Sounds worksheet (long i)

Math:
- Number 9 worksheets (bees, boxes)
- Inches
* Measured different objects to determine how many inches long they were and recorded the lengths on a note page:


Science:
- Ice
* As I alluded to above, I was having book issues at the library. So the closest we could get to a book on ice was Tacky the Penguin, which is mostly about being tacky, but did include the word "ice" several times. :-)
* We did several ice experiments this week in lieu of books.
   - First we did the old trick of using a string to pick up an ice cube (put salt on it).
   - Then we did some Ice Excavating (from Chasing Cheerios)


   - Finally, we made ice cubes in the freezer:


- Science Journal page:


Social Studies:
- Native American Indians
   * Went to a homeschool class on Plains/Woodlands Indians at the Children's Museum.
   * Had a discussion about Indians, viewed artifacts, watched a performance of drum songs and dancing, got to go inside a Plains Indian tepee, made a craft tepee:




Sight Words:
* In, It, Is, Ice

Snack:
* Ice Cream

Music:



Bible Stories:
* Abraham and Lot
* Abraham and Sarah wait for a baby

Preschool - Week 9 - Letter H

This week was brought to you by the Letter H and the Number 8. :-)



Here's what we covered:

Language Arts:
- Letter of the week craft:


- Handwriting worksheets (heart, hippo)
- H Sound worksheets

Math:
- Number 8 worksheets (ice cream, traceable 8)
- What Doesn't Belong worksheet
- Concept of Hours
   We made a clock and introduced the concept of telling time by looking at the hour hand and minute hand. Her favorite part was decorating it, of course!




Science:
- Horses
* Read books (see above plus: The Usborne Book of Horses and Ponies and My First Horse and Pony Book)
* Got to feed, groom and ride horses with friends!





- Science Journal page:


Social Studies:
- Hawaii (read some books, watched a bit of some travel videos, made a sticker page from the Aloha Hawaii Activity Book)

Sight Words:
* Has, Home, Had, Horse, Hand

Snack:
Honey

Music:
Putamayo Kids Hawaiian Playground



Bible Stories:
* Jesus Calms the Storm

Game/Activity:
Horseback Riding

Preschool - Week 8 - Letter G

This week was brought to you by the Letter G and the Number 7. :-)



Here's what we covered:

Language Arts:
- Letter of the week craft:


- Handwriting worksheets (goose, gorilla)
- G Sound worksheet
- Initial Sounds: Gg worksheet

Math:
- Number 7 worksheet (jar and apples)
- Insect pattern worksheet (I made 2 copies and cut out the bugs from one, then let C glue the correct bug to complete the pattern)
- Number Line (I made this chart from 1 to 7 in Word, then asked C to add the correct number of nuts under each number. This was really too easy for her UNTIL she bumped the paper and all the nuts shifted a little. Then it was a good exercise for her to go back, count each row, figure out which ones were wrong and whether she needed to add or subtract nuts to make the whole chart right.)


- Greater Than concept:
   * Used the alligator analogy to help explain the greater than sign.
   * Used buttons and flashcard with ">" for C to place and indicate which pile was "greater than" the other.
   * Greater Than worksheet

Science:
- Gorillas (read books and pretended to be gorillas)
- Gorilla Craft
- Watched a cute Gorilla story online
- Coloring page
- Science Journal page:


Social Studies:
- George Washington (read books and talked about George Washington. Some of the books I read were too much for her, so I used the pictures and paraphrased the story. The one about George Washington's teeth looked so fun - poor George loses a tooth during each major event in the story and at the end he has none left and gets some false ones. However, I forgot about how much C LOATHES the dentist and this book had too much teeth/dentist stuff in it for her to stomach. Oh well!)

Sight Words:
* Get, Girl, Green, Gorilla
* (I had decided to cut back to three sight words a week, but she really wanted to include Gorilla, so I added that in. She's doing great with them, but it's like pulling teeth to go through them all and at five a week, it takes a while to get through them!)

Snack:
* Grape Juice

Music:
* Edward Grieg

Bible Stories:
* Daniel in the Lion's Den
* Jesus Calms the Storm

Preschool Links

I decided to list some links that I've been using for my homeschool endevors:

Tracer Sheet Generator: DLTK Custom Tracer Pages

Alphabet, Numbers, Shapes, Themes: First-School

Free Reading Worksheets: BeginningReading.com

Language Worksheets and Activities: ESL Teacher Resources

Free Worksheets (Math, LA, Science, etc.): TLS Books

Dropdowns of free handwriting worksheets: HandwritingForKids.com

Letter of the week craft ideas: No Time For Flashcards

Many Free Worksheets: Kids Learning Station

Online Educational Games, Activity Ideas, Worksheets: A Kid's Heart

PreK - 5th Grade (All Subjects): Kidzone

Funny Faces Game

I was inspired by this game on Chasing Cheerios (and a Silly Faces Stick-Ons Game my mom has) and had the girls help me make our own version.

C and I cut out face parts (and necklaces) from old magazines and I printed out some flesh colored ovals from Word for the blank faces. Then I made a spinner (can't remember where I saw the idea blogged) and a box to sort it all away.



You take turns spinning the spinner and picking about the corresponding face part. If you already have it, then you lose your turn. (Kinda like Cooties - remember that one???) The girls REALLY like playing it. The faces actually do turn out pretty funny!

Preschool - Week 7 - Letter F

This week was brought to you by the Letter F and the Number 6. :-)



Here's what we covered:

Language Arts:
- Letter of the week craft:


* As a side note, I made the fish stamp myself! Will definitely save my jar lids in the future to make some more:


- Handwriting worksheets (Firefighter, frog)
- F color-by-letter page (was not a hit - won't do again)
- F sound worksheet

Math:
- Number 6 worksheet
- 1-5 handwriting review worksheet
- Fractions (worksheet and fractions with food)

Science:
- Frogs (read books & went to look for frogs at the creek)
- Frog Life Cycle Craft



- Science Journal page:


Social Studies:
- Firefighters
* Read books about firefighters and fire safety
* Made pictures and cookies to take to the fire station. The fire fighters were SO nice and gave us a little mini tour and some fun trinkets to take home. E got to sit in a fire truck and try on some boots (C was too shy). A funny moment is when E told firefighter Mark: "my daddy is faster than you." It was such a good experience and chance for the girls to say thank you to these brave heroes.



Sight Words:
Fire, Fish, For, Farm, Fun

Music:
Fryderyk Chopin

Bible Stories:
* Joshua and Jericho
* Daniel and Lion's Den