Friday, October 29, 2010

Thursday was a busy day for us!  We made some frosting for our sugar cookies.  Since they were pumpkin shaped, we experimented with red and yellow food coloring.  Amazing!  Those colors mixed make orange when you use food coloring just like when you use paint.  How did Mommy know that? I had planned ahead and made the boys smaller sugar cookies to frost.  There was a lot more eating than frosting going on on their part of the table.

We did a pumpkin cutting activity (fold pumpkin in half and cut only on black line) and a sequence the 5 pumpkin sheet.  These are Ryan's.  He obviously needed assistance, but he had fun and is very proud of his accomplishments.

 Justin did this sort by size sheet.  I think the large and medium are pretty close to the same size.  He initially made a mistake when sorting, but caught it and was able to self-correct before he glued them in place.  He wouldn't have been able to do that if I hadn't insisted that he sort first, THEN glue.  He didn't want to break it down into steps, but I knew that it was probably a good idea for him to do that.

 Justin also did the color the shapes the correct color.  He went through and did all triangles first, then circles, etc.  I thought he would do one pumpkin at a time.  He also added corn for the scarecrow.  He definitely will still have plenty of skills to master when he starts school.  He likes to color, but not in the lines. 

Friday the boys were so excited for the Embassy Halloween party that we voted to skip school.  AFN was showing some Halloween cartoons and the boys were into watching them, talking about the party, and making sure their costumes were ready.  Halloween has been fun.  I don't know if we will enjoy the Thanksgiving activities as much.  I will do my best.

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

We haven't been having normal school for awhile.  We all have colds and I was without my voice for two days.  That makes it kind of hard.  We did some of our projects though, which both boys enjoyed.

These are the scissors that I have been having Justin use.  (I have no idea why blogger keeps rotating this picture sideways, but I suppose it doesn't matter.)  The top pair are Fiskars and the bottom are from the dollar store.  They both spring back open after you squeeze them together to cut.  It makes cutting a little bit easier while you are learning.  The dollar store ones convert to regular scissors simply by folding up the little yellow thingy.  J cuts with regular scissors too, but I find these make things go faster and easier.  What you can't really tell in this picture is that I use a yellow highlighter to show Justin where he is supposed to cut.  Sometimes he gets confused when there are too many lines and he is concentrating on the cutting process.

I also had him do this color word sheet.  He can read his color words, but obviously staying inside the lines is not a priority.  He knows that is what people are supposed to do, but says he doesn't want to.  Whatever.  He is three.  Save something for him to learn in kindergarten, right?  Plus no one will accuse me of doing the work for him!  I love the way he colored orange AFTER yellow and then complained that when orange goes over yellow you can't see the yellow anymore.  Hmmm... maybe if he stayed in the lines...

We painted some paper sacks to give to people as Halloween treat bags.  I had each boy make three jack-o-lanterns.  I had the pumpkins cut along with the stems and face parts.  They had fun and got in some good gluing practice.  Just a dot, not a lot!

We made larger ones as well.  These were for decorations.  They are very unique.  The pattern I have was originally for a Halloween glyph that we did in kindergarten, but I didn't have them do the glyph, just make the pumpkin men.

I am very pleased that Justin seems to be able to sequence pictures without any difficulty.  He is even able to tell the "story" once he has them in place.  Yay!  I know this can be a hard skill for some children and I thought that my unobservant child might not notice subtle differences in the pictures.  He sure doesn't notice major things in life!

 We also had some fun with play dough.  Being the mean mom that I am, I didn't get out the press because I didn't want to have to clean it after they were done.  They had fun with the other tools and with the straws and sticks I let them stick in.  I didn't give them feathers like my mom does.  Just not feeling like it is worth the extra work.

We also did some finger painting.  Justin loved mixing colors.  Ryan hated getting it on his hands.  He said it was a mess.  This from the kid who eats yogurt with his hand when he drops his spoon.  Oh well. 

We started a children's version of the New Testament.  I thought it would be good to get it started now and then at Christmas we can play with our Fisher Price nativity set and already have that story down.  Last year Justin was a bit creative with it.

Thursday, October 21, 2010

Here are today's books.  Justin really liked Jeepers Creepers.  We read it many, many times already.

Justin painted the "Fall Friend" using watercolors.  I cut it out for him and he glued it together.  I think he did a pretty good job.  I was going to have him do some of the cutting, but he spent such a long time with the painting that I thought the cutting would be pushing his attention span.  Ryan had fun making his too.

 Justin also did a nice job sorting letters into groups of letters that are in his name and those that are not.  He wants to do it again with other people's names, so I guess that means he enjoyed it.  Ryan did one too, with help, and loved putting letters on the dots of glue.  Definitely an activity we will repeat in some fashion.

Tomorrow will finish up our week and I will have to plan again!  It is amazing how much time it takes me to plan for just the two boys.  It wouldn't take much more work to plan for a dozen kids.  I don't plan on having a dozen though.

Tuesday, October 19th and Wednesday, October 20th

Tuesday's activities included making a counting book of Halloween creatures.  Just a color, cut, and paste activity.  Justin is getting better with glue.  Ryan wants to use the glue too.  He is not getting better yet.

 We sang a spooky song that goes to the tune of "Wheels on the Bus" and both boys enjoyed that.  Justin quickly completed a Halloween counting worksheet.

 We did the "Five Little Pumpkins" poem yet again.  Justin has it down.  Ryan doesn't, but he enjoys it.

 We added three new books to our Halloween/Fall collection.  They were big hits and we read them multiple times.

 I was impressed that Justin could do this worksheet by himself.  He was even able to tell me why he put the pictures in the order that he did.  Yay, Justin!

Wednesday was field trip day and we went to the petting zoo.  I think it will be a Wednesday kind of thing.  We are out for about an hour and a half.  We get to feed animals and play on the little play structure that they have.  It gets us out of the house while Mathilda is cleaning plus the boys enjoy feeding the animals.

Monday, October 18, 2010

Did the whole calendar routine and then read a few books.  Showed the boys my finished copy of the pumpkin book and then let them color their own copies.  Ryan is cute "reading" his.

We put ghost stickers on black paper.

We also made spider webs by lacing yarn through holes in paper plates.



Justin completed some patterns and I don't know what he thought he was doing with the crayon.

Friday, October 15, 2010

Today after our calendar routine I put a screaming Ryan to bed and let Justin make his apple man.  He is very proud of it, especially of the accordion arms and legs.

 We read four new books.

 We colored the alligator stick puppet, but didn't cut it out.  Justin colored it with red and green markers "having a race" and it was hard to tell what was under all that marker scribble.  I am not sure what color won either.

Justin told me that he was tired and asked if we could take a break, so we ended early.  We cuddled on the couch and read a few more books and then watched Backyardigans before having lunch.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Regular calendar type activities today again.

Another new selection of books today for read-aloud time.

Today the highlight was definitely painting.  We mixed red and yellow paint to make orange.  The boys painted paper bags that will be part of a project at a later date.  Justin painted bags while Ryan painted bags, the easel, his smock, and cardboard.  He also had a blast playing in the clean up water.  I am not a big fan of painting, but I knew the kids would like it.  I used powdered tempera with dish soap mixed in along with the water to help with clean up.  It took more time than planned, but that’s okay.  We are flexible. J

 

We also had fun gluing pieces of aluminum foil on a lowercase a.

Wednesday, October 13, 2010

Today when I greeted the boys with “good morning” I was informed by Justin that you only do that at a real school and we only have a pretend school. Noted. We did the calendar/morning meeting routine. Today I have included a picture of the days of the week cards I use with the boys.

We did our letter A poem. Ryan’s finished product is pictured.

 We also made apple crisp. Yum! It took a very long time to make such a simple recipe. Justin and Ryan both LOVE to have their turns, so we measure things out in small measuring cups so each boy gets multiple chances to dump things into the bowl.


After doing his letter dot project, Justin set out making what he called his ant traps. He made dots over pieces of paper and then cut them up into various sizes. Sometimes he would cut straight lines, sometimes he would cut around the dots, and other times he would cut dots in half. He tried explaining the logic to me, but I didn’t get it.

I got out my color cards (I think this was the first thing I ever posted) and Justin sorted by color while Ryan decided that today all items were yellow. Oh well.

We had some more Halloween themed books today as well as an apple tree rhyme.

This afternoon we got to go to the fire station.  Justin got to slide down the fire pole.  Ryan begged for a turn, but I didn’t give in.  We all got to go on a ride in the fire truck with the sirens on.  Pretty cool!  Don’t think I can top that for tomorrow.



     Today marked the first day of us trying "school" at home.  I hate to say homeschool, because it really isn't intended to be rigorous or anything, just a way to better organize our mornings.  I think that structure will be good for the kids and probably for me too.

     We got off to a bit of a late start because we had to get menengitis shots first.  No, it is not a requirement of our school, there is an outbreak here.  Justin was excited to get back and start our day here.

     First we did a morning meeting/calendar sort of thing.  Our calendar board right now is really sad and empty looking.  I want to try a few different things and find what makes the most sense for Justin and allows Ryan to participate in some way if he would like.  Since I am tailoring it for one or two children instead of a classroom, I have a lot more flexibility.  Our featured vocabulary words this week include: yesterday, today, and tomorrow. 

     We have a significant amount of time alotted for read-alouds.  Today I introduced four new books.  We have kind of an apples/Halloween theme going on.  It is weird being the in the southern hemisphere and things not fitting well since our seasons are reversed.  This afternoon we are going to go out and swim in the pool.  Definitely NOT Fall here.  Justin always LOVES new books, so I think this will be a favorite part of each day.

     We will be going to the fire station tomorrow afternoon, so we did a Firefighter's Tools worksheet.  No, I do not think that 3 year olds need to be doing worksheets, but Justin begs to do them.  He thinks they are great.  He likes to color, but he does not necessarily like to use multiple colors on a single image and is completely uninterested in staying in the lines.  Whatever.  He likes it.  The inside of the booklet has pictures of things a firefighter uses.  THAT was the fun part of the paper.  Justin got to use scissors and a glue stick.

     For math, we got our apples out of the fridge and counted them, sorted them by color, and then made a bar graph.  We had some apples for snack. Luckily that was the plan because Ryan started in on a green apple right away.  He did a pretty good job with it too.  Tomorrow we will make apple crisp. 

     Justin finished off the morning with a little Trudy's Time and Place House on the computer.  Pretty good day.