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Showing posts with label homeschool preschool. Show all posts
Showing posts with label homeschool preschool. Show all posts

Friday, November 7, 2014

"F" week

"F" week actually took two weeks to cover here at Planker academy.   We had some interruptions with travel, Halloween, doctor's appointments, etc.  That's the beauty of homeschool though, you can bump and roll without missing out on instruction that others received.  Here's a glimpse into our activities to learn the letter F. 

F is for fire...


...the cutting is great for scissor practice and the boys always love a chance to glue.  This one got two thumbs up from them.  

Our lowercase f was full of flowers...


...thanks to some leftover mothers day resources.  :-)




F is also for FRUIT which gets delivered to our house in this giant refrigerated truck every Wednesday...

 

F is also for FIREMAN pole...


...the boys had fun pretending they had to hurry down this pole.  I had fun getting in my run by taking them there on foot.  They impressed me and walked/ran most of the way back home on foot.  It's almost 2 miles to this park.  

F is for FUN which we always have a story time at Coffee Bar Blue Door...


...Colton was my big rug helper this week...


F is for FIELD trip to the museum.  Our favorites were the bus...


...the model military ships and planes...


....and the collection of old cars that could take turns being displayed on a turntable...



...big smiles all around at that exhibit.  

There was a lot of stuff that was completely over their heads but they had a blast just having a change of scenery and learning what they could from it all.  I had fun too!



F is for FOAM...




....this was much more exciting for Mason than for Colton.  Mason went all in while Colton stayed a chopstick's distance away from the mess.  

F is for FROGS...


...thanks Pinterest for the inspiration, and thanks to Colton for the idea to add legs.  :-) 

We also did a little study of FROG life cycles... 




...when cutting and gluing are included, the boys are 100% engaged.  We had read several books about frogs so we used this activity to review as well as to practice those cutting and gluing skills.  

I got the idea from The Preschool Journey...


...which I highly recommend by the way.  It's been a great starting place for me.   

We also did the FROG sensory sink that was included in the book...


...what a fun idea to color the water with jello!  We had fun testing things to see what would FLOAT and sink.  Next time I think we need a kiddie pool to really have some fun with this one.

We also had fun with the Fish and Tweezers math game from Angela Thayer's book...


...numbers are easy, pincher grasp needs some practice ;-).  

F is also for FIZZ... 


....just your standard vinegar and baking soda trick but stuff like that is ALWAYS exciting for little boys.  I need to get the BJs sized versions of both ingredients so we can do it over and over again.

F is for FOOD... 


...as if Halloween didn't provide enough sweets for our house, I treated the boys to cookies with my leftover birthday reward from Panera.   The boys were kind enough to share with me and we had fun enjoying the fresh air on the patio.  

They even made rockets out of the patio chairs... 


...I love their imaginations and I love Panera for not kicking us out :-)  

F is for FITNESS....


...this basketball court is one of our new favorite places to play.  We're still trying to master FREEZE tag and I'm afraid leapfrog will end in tears but we had a lot of fun running around and shooting hoops.  

We read lots of books about fish, frogs, and firemen as well as tons of others.  You know us :-)    This was one of our favorites this week...









Saturday, October 11, 2014

"d" week

This week at "Planker Academy," we're focusing on lowercase d.  It's been a fun week.  Take a look...

We made lower each lower case d with dots (Mason's had a dozen and Colton's got a little dirty)...


...the d had a door.  AND inside the door was a dragon...


...Colton's had a dog inside too :-).  

We've been having lots of fun with dominos...


...sometime we can stick with finding matches and other times we count the dots but to be honest, they spent more time this week just building and playing with them and I'm totally fine with that too.  Colton's really good at putting them away neatly :-).  

We also spent some time decorating pumpkins for the coloring contest at the Fresh Market...


...cutting was the biggest hit of this project.  I wasn't surprised.  

Speaking of decorating, the boys also decorated the house for Halloween a bit more...



...cute, huh?  Thanks Grandpa Teddy and Mimsy for all the goodies.

We had some sensory fun with a doughy dinosaur dig...


...thanks to the measured mom for the idea.  She's got tons of great ones over there.  You can find the recipe for the dough there too.  Cornstarch, old sunscreen, and green food coloring went into ours.

After we got bored with the dinosaurs, the boys decided to make some footprints.  Fun times...


With soccer season under way, we've also been working on our dribbling...


...and passing...


We also made some fun Pinterest-inspired donkeys...



...which ended up looking a bit more like pigs, especially with the legs that the boys insisted were necessary :-).  They sure do love anything that involves paint and didn't they do a lovely job with the smiles?  Fine motor skill development at work here for sure!

Probably the most fun thing the boys did all week was another "dig" for dinosaurs activity...




...we simply froze little dinosaur toys in water inside a pan and they had fun trying to get them free from the ice.  We seriously had to repeat this activity at least 5 times.  Who would have thought??

Other letter d activities included lots of books about dinosaurs, ducks, dragons, dogs, even doughnuts.  Oh, and we also had lots of play dough fun.  It was a great week!










Friday, September 26, 2014

"C" Week

It's "C" week over here at Planker academy.  Here's a glimpse into some of the C-focused activities we've enjoyed...

C is for CIRCLE...


...which we used to make COLORFUL CATERPILLARS...


Of course we couldn't stop with just one...


CUTE, huh?  Our alphabet books are coming along nicely.

We read the Hungry Little CATERPILLAR by Eric Carle tons of times this week too.  

C is also for CORK, which we used to paint fall trees...



....we had fun learning about fall trees as well.  There's a fantastic sesame street episode on deciduous trees which we enjoyed this week.  Made me want to get out of Florida for a bit this fall.  Anyways...

C is also far CAR.  We made a raceCAR of course and we've been playing with it all week...


Often the simplest things end up being the most fun.  Case in point...


...do you see that giant smile???  Love it!!!

Their favorite line is "Ladies and Gentleman, start your engines!"  


I see a trip to a race track in their future :-)
C is also for CUPCAKES, which we made for our dear friend and music teacher's birthday... 


These boys sure do love using the mixer...


...we made some banana muffins while we were at it too.  C is for CUP which we used to do our measuring.  Fractions were a bit advanced for us but we sure had fun dumping. :-)

C is also for CLOUD painting (just mix glue with shaving cream and have at it)...


...which we tied in with the book Little CLOUD by Eric Carle... 


And last but not least, C is for COTTONBALL races... 


...which we highly recommend.  SO FUN!!