I Love Homeschool - Letter A week

Self Portraits are done!
It was interesting to do a craft with the older kids that took a few days to finish.
I think they turned out great, worth the patience!

First, we learned about sketching a portrait



We outlined the sketches, and traced them onto clean paper



Then the kids made a water color painting.
I traced their drawings onto the glass of a frame using a sharpie marker
Lastly, we used the frames for their watercolors.




The Challenge for homeschooling this year
is how to balance the different ages of our children,
making classes fun, and follow appropriate curriculum
while maintaining high expectations for learning.

As a family, we go on school trips,
observe and work in our garden, sing and study the scriptures
Marigold has a math program, along with her own writing,
spelling, reading, typing and history assignments.
Caleb and Ashlynn are both Pre-K,
so we are doing a Letter of the Week focus for now.
They do, reading, writing, math, crafting and more every day.
Obviously, I'm not going to take pictures of every activity we do,
but I do try to share the ideas I find the kids really enjoy.

For letter A week, we had a different letter A theme each day -

ALPHABET DAY:

We sang the Alphabet song, and Caleb read two Alphabet books.

Stringing alphabet bracelets

Alphabet puzzle with pieces hidden in rice...

Ashlynn LOVED this, and did it three times

Upper and Lower case matching with stickers

I also use the day's theme for snack time:

ANT DAY:

We sang "The ants go marching" and read "I saw an ant on the railroad track"

We also watched a Magic School Bus episode about ants 

Ant sorting by color and size

Roll the die, use your thumb to stamp that many ants on your paper - 

The kids LOVED this!

We turned them all into ants and counted how many were

on their papers when we were done

Cutting practice...

Ashlynn will stay busy snipping at paper for 30 min or more

Math manipulatives for Caleb's addition and subtraction work.

More cutting and pasting too!

Hunting for ants in the yard

And, of course, snack was ants on a log

ALLIGATOR DAY:

We sang "Five Little Monkeys swinging in the Tree"

using our flannel board :) I Love Flannel Boards

We read "There's and Alligator under my bed"

and watched "Alligators all around"

Greater than or less than with Mr. Alligator

Pattern Block A and alligator - 

I highly recommend these as homeschool tools.

Kids love them, and they are useful on many levels - 

worth the investment

I baked alligator bread for snack time 

It was a hit

We made alligator puppets,

and watched some videos about the differences

between alligators and crocodiles

AIRPLANE DAY:

We sang "We are Flying in an Airplane"

Caleb read "My First Airplane Ride"

More pattern block sheets

Marigold found this dress up idea in one of her

Family Fun magazines...

we had the brown fleece in the basement, and the craft foam was $1.

The kids loved them, and they look so cute!!

We had "In flight snacks" 

peanuts, pretzels and juice

Airplane stamping

APPLE DAY:

We sang "Way up high in the Apple tree"

and read an assortment of apple books

We did a fun graphing assignment for Ten Apples Up on Top.

Adding apples on each character as we read the book.

Apple Alphabet match game, above

Letter A folder, below

This folder was from last year,

and had puzzles, a game, and dry erase letter writing practice 

We also went apple picking...

...at Mood's Farm Market with Papa and Grandma

It was the perfect day for it

Last time we picked apples here, 

Marigold had just turned five - she sure has grown!

Ashlynn could even reach a few on her own

Marigold got to use a ladder :)

We'll stay busy making applesauce, apple pie and apple muffins this weekend!