Random

I have a confession. I don't like alphabet crafts. BUT Lakin has been seeming a little off lately, especially in the mornings while the others are doing their book work. And I will admit I have been seriously lacking in the preschool department. So....

P is for Penguin

D is for Dinosaur

B is for Butterfly


I think he will keep me accountable. He woke up every morning last week wanting to know what he was going to do that day.

Cale, Cohen and I made fingerprint critters....these are Cohen's. A cat, a butterfly, a couple little monsters....


Annika sat with Cale this day, she never took her eyes off of him. For over 15 min he sat there talking to her and making faces and noises at her.

And this one is just because I love her eyes.

I realized I had yet to take any of all of them together.

Rylan was being a little bit uncooperative. He wouldn't squish in with the group. We did interrupt him though- he's about 1/2 way through book 7 in the Guardian's of Ga'Hoole series. Cale's starting book 4. I am SO happy about this- the first time either of them have found something they will read outside of their 30 min a day required reading. I think it helps that their dad is reading the series along with them. Now I have about 7 more books to find an equally captivating series for them to read.

The Preschool Shelf

I've been rearranging our playroom/schoolroom lately. Like I always do before we start a new school year. Cohen will be a little more occupied this year since, which means Lakin is losing his partner in crime during school time. Last year, they ran amok. I when Cohen was in preschool I did very well giving him activities to do while I was working with the older two. Last year, not so much. So....this year I cleared off one entire shelf to dedicate to Lakin-aged activities. Everyone can use them, but the activities I choose have him in mind.

Here is our 9-cube, preschool shelf:


I've been putting them out slowly, taking off old ones and replacing them with new. I put this one out tonight and he loved it. 2 bowls, rocks and tongs.

I ordered a couple things from Montessori Services, one of which was this creamer set. They are tiny and cute and great for pouring.

And this I put out tonight, after the boys were in bed. This is Lakin's mini sandbox. I took out the sand and replaced it with birdseed, some spoons and scoops. I am sure the dump trucks will go back in tomorrow too.

This little pouring set has been out for over a year now, but they all use it. I did finally replace the old beans with chickpeas for something new though.

Counting bears and cards, up to 8

This is what I did with the sand from the mini-sandbox. Along with some shells and a straining spoon...

And finally the dropper jars. We have a set for color mixing, which they all use weekly it seems. So I got a couple more bottles and droppers to use for other things. This one is for filling up these mini-cups. Cohen worked on it for awhile tonight when I put it out...making his blue and red pattern.

My plan is to switch these out every week or so. Keeping with the basic themes of these. Pouring, transferring, math, language, sensory, small motor, etc...

Next up on my rearranging list: The "Library"
I have an idea on what I want to do, I just have to convince Paul to help me take all the books off and move the massive 6 ft long, 4 ft high book shelf to a new location. (And back if it doesn't look like I want it to....)

US Government Lapbook- Preschool Edition

The big boys have been studying the US Government for the past few weeks, and since they are making a lapbook to go along with our studies, I made Cohen his own version to go along with it.

Here's the inside with the flap closed:

On the center flap he has a constitution coloring book, a pocket holding president's names he wrote, and a person-shaped book about citizen responsibilities.

Underneath is this:

The 3 branches of government, a wheel of the Founding Fathers and a 'My favorite president..." book.

TN Government

Divisions of the Military

Money, Who Was the First President, and Our President Is...

Inside the Money book....

On the back is his Constitution

And a book on the Bill of Rights

His was a lot of cutting and gluing, handwriting practice, and listening to our discussions. A few of his books- like the Branches of Government and the Bill of Rights book were cut up from the resources I was using while reading.

The big boys should finish up their lapbooks on Monday, so I will share those then.

Cohen's Eggs

Cohen has been asking to learn to read. He has an amazing memory for stories and he can "read" word for word most of his favorites....and what he can't remember all it takes is a one word reminder....the first in the sentence to get him going again. He's been playing on Starfall a lot and listening to our Sing Spell Read and Write CD songs. I *think* he knows all his letter sounds...although I am not sure because his pronunciation is off on a lot...he's incapable of saying some of the sounds correctly.....

Last week I made these eggs for him....he finally used them this morning since they were sick with the stomach bug before and we all now have colds....

Inside are: an item, a word card, and the letters used to make the word. The goal being to sound out the letters in each word(item), and them spell it using the letters. The word card is to check the spelling when the word is completed.

He did really well sounding out the letters that made up the words. He does like to go right to left instead of left to right, but my goal was for him to hear the individual sounds within each word. He got the initial sounds no problem and when I said the word really slow he heard the rest and spelled them all correctly.

Here is his finished work- he did them 3 times. I only wish I had a greater selection of miniature items!

Preschool

I feel a little guilty each morning when I call the boys to come to the table. They all come, and every day I hear "Mommy do you have anything for me to do today???" from Cohen. He gets a little grumpy when I don't but will work at the table on something- markers, playdough, sticker books- then go off and play, but what he really wants is school. Like his brothers. Something made and planned just for him.

I've tried this week. Not pre-planned, but spur of the moment. So here's a run down of what Cohen and Lakin have done this week:

On Monday we made paper dragons for Chinese New Year

On Tuesday we shelled peanuts

and painted with the dot paints

On Wednesday Paul emptied his pockets before work; pulling out about 40 golf tees he picked up from somewhere. Cohen and Lakin (and Rylan and Cale) have been hammering, or pushing them in Lakin's case, into clay or playdough for the past 2 days.
Today Cohen worked on a counting file folder game, and while he was counting I got inspired and made this up for him:

Quickly drawn and cut aliens in need of eyes

He was very happy to have work to do

And at (every)night they have acted out thier version of the song Mr. Policeman by Brad Paisley (on my sidebar playlist)over and over and over....from Hey, Mr Policeman, I bet I can drive faster than you can with trucks; to Hey, Mr Policeman, I bet I can run faster than you can on foot; to I'm in the jailhouse now complete with laundry basket jail.

Go! Diego Go!

My 3 year old is obsessed with Diego. We've got books and 1 movie (b-day present) and he always picks Diego to watch when it's his turn to pick at their 30 min movie time. For a few weeks now he has been Diego. This is the first time any of my kids have pretended to be someone or something else for an extended period of time. So awhile back I was blog browsing and saw the Tot Books at Carisa's blog. I made up the Cars one for him, which he loved. So since the older boys are getting ready to do an animal lapbooks I thought I would work on one for him. Originally it was going to be small, but I wanted to add a bit more so the final product is a full file folder, but depending on the age of the child you could skip somethings if you wanted to make a Tot Book size.

It's fairly simple: pockets for upper and lowercase letters, shape tracing, beginning sounds, number 1-10 (with spanish words too), a simple maze and line drawing, a positional word book. He hasn't worked on it finished yet, but he discovered half the booklets last week and has been reading and counting with them all week. All files can be downloaded here .

***all images are copyrighted and can be found at Disney Clips. Files can be used for personal use only. To view more Tot Books visit Carisa's site.

New Additions

I mentioned last week that I have a new interest in the Montessori way of teaching. I love the preschool ideas and the practical life instruction. I have found in the past week that information on the elementary- or 6-12 class- is hard to find. There is a wealth of information on setting up a 3-6 classroom, but not so much on the older kids. So I have been adding things to our "classroom" and rearraging our existing items in more appealing ways.

One thing I have been making is this:

The beads are a major mathematics manipulative. And if you buy the ones through the Montessori stores they are ridiculously expensive. We actually don't really have much in the way of manipulatives. My kids have never used them much for counting. They just learned by counting things; while building, reading etc. I like it that way. Rylan was a natural when it came to addition and didn't take long to go counting objects to abstract problems. We own cuisenaire rods, but they aren't marked so it makes it hard to know which rod is 8 and which is 6. I can see a lot of uses for these beads. Montessori uses them for everything from counting to understanding higher numbers, to mulitplication and square root. So I went to Hobby Lobby- lucky for me the beading section was in the flyer last week and plastic beads were all 50% off. So I bought a bunch and used some wire left over from the chicken coop and started stringing. I made 10 sets of the bead stair (above) and I also am working on long chains- about 10 long- of each number for use in skip counting. Rylan need some work with that- esp since he will be coming into multiplication before too long. I set the beads out and they have loved "play" with them so far.

And Cohen has taken to these changes like a moth to a flame. He is at the perfect age for this. He's pouring and counting and scooping. I made him a salt tray to write in. He has actually been trying to write some letters- can do a c, o and i. He was so excited and ran to find his dad after each letter, yelling "Daddy, come see my "o"!!" Today I made this sorting set and he wanted to use it immediately. (excuse the smile, he's at the stage where he puts this grin on when he hears the camera...I tried to get one of him actually working but he would here the focus and look up with this smile)

Once he was done, I asked him to roll up the mat and put it away, which he did, but then he wanted to use the red mat. So I found an old counting game we made last year. An egg carton, numbered to 12 and enough beads to fill each with the appropriate number. I think for a not quite 3 yr old he is an excellent counter. He did all of them. A little help near the end keeping his 1:1 correspondance straight but overall he did it alone, counting the beads one at a time to put them in the right spot.