Week 7

This week we did a lot of Fine Motor Skills and my favorite subject:

 

MATH!

 

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When we decided to homeschool Emma 7 weeks ago, I told Brian that I really wanted to teach her about everything.  Not just stuff she would learn in a school setting, but things outside of the standard curriculum.  So this week, we did a lesson on how to properly set a table!

 

I just used an old, plastic placemat that we'd had in a drawer for YEARS and outlined each component.  Then let her "put the puzzle" together.  She loved it, thought it was a game actually.  And now she knows how to set a table.

 

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 We scored some great finds at Joann's this past week.  They had a ton of stuff on clearance.

 

Like these "dot" markers.  I'm not really sure if they are for playing Bingo or what, but we used them to put dots on Alphabets.  I found the template for each letter at this BLOG.

I love her blog!  So many great ideas!!!

 

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We also picked up some felt buttons and a plastic darning needle.  Since I've been crocheting a lot lately, Emma has wanted to "sew" as well.  I figured this was a great way to introduce her to needle work.  It's also great for those fine motor skills AND working on concentration.

 

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One last fine motor skill activity has to do with using tongs to pick up small objects and place them in a new container.  I used the same color but different shapes of beads and asked her to separate them into like groups and place each shape in a different bowl. 

 

At first she was really frustrated with this.  The tongs are a little too big for her hands to manage and the shapes kept popping out of her grasp.  I've been trying to find a smaller set of tongs, like the ones you use for ice cubes.  But I'm really proud of her for sticking with this activity, even though she was aggravated.

 

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This girl LOVES puzzles.  Of any kind.  And when I found this parquetry blocks set with puzzle cards, I figured she'd love it.  She spends most of her free/play time doing these. 

 

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So when I decided to start in on some math lessons, I knew this Binomial Cube puzzle, a Montessori product, would be a HUGE hit.

 

For now, all I ask her to do is to put the pieces together so they fit in the box.  Later on, I will be able to use this neat little puzzle to concretely explain the Binomial Theorem:

 

This picture explains what each cube represents:

 

 

Oh I can't wait to show her this stuff! 

 

Since I wasn't sure where they left off with the math at her preschool, I decided to just start at the beginning. 

I purchased a few things from https://www.montessorioutlet.com/ to help me.

 

And used the tutorials found on this blog:

http://www.infomontessori.com/mathematics/introduction.htm

 

TONS of great videos to follow on that site.  It's been incredibly helpful!

I even purchased a few extra sets of beads so that we could add/subtract/multiply/divide large quantities!

 

(Can you tell I'm TOTALLY geeking out over this stuff!)

 

After doing a few lessons with Emma, I realized she learned quite a bit from the teachers at preschool and we've been FLYING through the fundamentals!

She does very well with this activity.  I wish I would have video-taped her explaining how she uses the bead stairs to do these math problems to Brian.  It. Was. Awesome.

 

I think my little girl might be taking after me in her love for math!

 

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And last but not least, we've transformed our living room into a small town.  Complete with roads, a railroad track, a helicopter pad (not picture - it's on the far left of the top photo, but must have been cropped out), a parking garage, and the stepping stones have been imagined into stores.  I let her decide what stores were in her town.  And so far she's come up with:

Target

Grocery Store

Lowes

Joann's

 

Hmmmm.... can you tell where we shop most of the times?

bahwhahhah

 

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If you have a minute to leave your opinion, I'd be interested to hear how you would handle the summer months. 

 

Meaning, should I completely take a break from planned activities or should I just back off and not do so many?  Or do you have other suggestions? 

 

Please leave comments below and let me know.

 

Thank you thank you thank you!

 

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And here's a cute video of Brooklyn laughing at Emma faking hiccups:

So stinkin cute!

 

Have a great weekend everyone!

Thanks for stopping by.

Week 6

 

Exciting news!!!! 

 

Before we get to our regularly scheduled program, I just wanted to tell you about some new features to this blog.

First of all, if you notice on the right hand side you'll see this:

 

So now you can easily find my boards on Pinterest!

 

And secondly, if you *hover* your mouse over ANY picture, you will see this lovely little "Pin it" button appear so that you can Pin something you see on my site!

 

 

 

Ok, now that I've got my blog all snazzy with Pinterest buttons, let me show you what we've been up to.

 

The "school" room in our house needed a little bit of organizing and simplifying.  I found some great shelves at the local Salvation Army and bought a bunch of plastic tubs to store toys/materials that we aren't using right now.  I also added a mirror in the far corner for when she plays dress up.  I have a few more ideas for the walls, but for now I'll keep them plain.  I also really like having the open space in the middle.  Gives her plenty of room to work or play.

 

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This flashlight activity came from the eBook: 

 

It is a little over 500 pages and definitely worth the $10.95

You can purchase it HERE

 

I have read the entire thing, front to back, and have highlighted SEVERAL activities to do.

 

Emma really liked this flashlight activity.  She had it put together in no time at all.  I didn't even let her see me take it apart to start with, just handed her the tray with the pieces on it and asked her if she knew how to put it together.  Sure enough, all put back together and working!  Little stinker even put the batteries in the correct way.  Though, this was merely by chance.  When I asked her if she knew that they went in that way, she said no.  But hey, it was a good guess!

 

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Emma LOVES to button things.  PJ's, shirts, jackets, jeans, you name it, if it has a button, she'll button it.  So I came up with this colorful little button game.  I cut out different shapes from our felt stash and sewed color coordinated buttons to a long piece of ribbon.  Great for working those fine motor skills!

 

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Another fine motor skills activity I found in the eBook is place marbles on golf tees.  I think her favorite part is getting to use the rubber mallet to pound the tees into the foam brick.

 

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And the last fine motor skill activity we did this week, included slicing up her banana for snack time.  She did great.  I was nervous at first because I wasn't sure how she'd be with a pairing knife.  But she did great and still has all 10 fingers!

 

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I've been encouraging her to do more for herself in the kitchen.  Even though she's only 3 years old, she can confidently make herself breakfast and a snack.

 

She can be somewhat of a picky eater, but I've found that is SHE prepares the food, she tends to eat every last bit!

 

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I've been keeping Brooklyn busy too!  I made this little "Peek A Boo" game for her to find the disappearing egg.  Her face was so funny when the egg would hide from her below the purple paper.  Then when it rolled back out, she was like, "Did you SEE that!?!"

 

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I've also started introducing her to shapes.  I make a tray of objects of the same shape and let her hold them, throw them, chew on them, slobber on them, etc.   It's an easy fun way to learn what a sphere (cube, prism, cylinder, etc) is.

 

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Couldn't go through the week without a science experiment!  Since she's so crazy about the chemical reaction between vinegar and baking soda, I thought I'd try this Mom's idea of blowing up a balloon using those two ingredients.  She blogs about it HERE.

 

We made about 5 balloons that afternoon!  Emma could not get enough of it!

 

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And lastly, our big craft project for the week:

My friend Aimee sent me THIS LINK so we could make our own Rocket Fueled Jet Pack.

 

Emma thought it was beyond cool!

 

Hope you all have a great weekend!

 

Thank you for all your comments on last week's blog!  Please feel free to continue leaving me lots and lots of encouragement.  =D

 

Week 4 - Fine Motor skills, Sensory bins, and a Little Bit of Engineering

This week we visited our local Library!

 

We even attended their preschool story hour.

I was so impressed with this program.  Emma had a blast!  During the singing part, she kept turning around to tell me how fun it was!

I don't know how, but Brooklyn slept through the entire thing!

Afterwards, we headed to the main area to get our little reader her very own library card!!!

Now there is a special place in her room to keep track of all her books.

 

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We were super busy this week!  In between our field trip and two play dates, we managed to get in some great activities.

 

FINE MOTOR SKILLS

Top Middle: Use a toy claw to pick up small blocks

Top Right:  Arrange plastic flowers in foam block

Bottom Left:  Trace letters

Bottom Right:  Place tees in foam tray and balance a marble on each tee (idea from this BLOG)

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I had a friend ask me if I had a designated area for work activities vs just free play.

 

All of her toys are in one room.  So what works for us is placing 4 activities for the day that I think she might like to do in each of these corners outlined by the blue tape.  Then I just let her choose what she wants.

 

 

This is great because she is not so overwhelmed with EVERY. SINGLE. ITEM. that is available for her to play with.  Instead, she can see her options and pick according to her interests that day.

And I can put Brooklyn in the middle and keep an eye on both of them.  Once Emma finishes a project, she just moves to the next corner and continues her work.

 

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SENSORY PLAY

Top LEFT:  clean scratch pads

Bottom LEFT:  Different types of fabric in an old Kleenex box

Top and Bottom MIDDLE:  Floating feathers

Top and Bottom RIGHT: Easter eggs and grass in plastic bin

 

The floating feathers was definitely a favorite for both girls!  They enjoyed laying underneath and watching them fall.

 

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STOMP and CATCH

 Idea came from this BLOG and being that Brian and I are both engineers, we couldn't resist making this!!!

 

Emma chose what color to paint the board and what fabric she wanted her bean bags made out of.  Then we worked all afternoon getting all the supplies ready for when Brian got home, so he could assemble the board and pvc pipe.

Seriously. SO. MUCH. FUN.

I love the looks on both of their faces!  I highly recommend this game.  Cheap. Easy to make. And really fun.

 

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Brook-Brook is getting so big these days.  She's sitting in her high chair, eating rice cereal, squash, sweet potato puffs and giggling a lot when you hold her upside down.

 

Be sure to check in next week!  Lots of fun Easter activities planned and possibly another trip to the zoo!

Week 3 - Creativity at it's best!

Still finding our groove with this whole thing.  I've been trying to be creative with our lessons.  And so far it seems to be working.  She doesn't realize we're "learning", she just thinks Mommy is really bored and comes up with off the wall games for her to play.

 

Whatever works right?

 

So here we go.  This is what we worked on this week.  A lot of fine motor skills.  Emma can write her letters, but she certainly needs practice and more time for those muscles in her hands to get stronger.  And instead of boring her to pieces with just using a pencil and paper, we've tried these activities:

 

TWEEZERS and mini POM-POMs

This is such a fun activity.  She uses a pair of tweezers to place all the mini pom-poms in this tiny ice cube tray.  Great for working those hand-writing muscles!

 

FLY-SWATTER SIGHT WORDS

This game doesn't work any muscles.  BUT she loves it!

I let her be in charge of the fly swatter and I get to be in charge of where the fly lands.

Then she has to tell me the word it landed on AND read the sentence on the card.

Finally, her favorite part, she swats it. 

She's getting really good at recognizing her sight words!

 

MacGYVER TRAINING

The last time I had her match the lids to their containers, she did it in about 5 seconds.  I decided to blind fold her and let her try again.  She LOVED this!  I told her that I put all the lids to her LEFT and all the containers to her RIGHT.

She was SO proud of herself when she did it all blind folded!  I was pretty impressed as well.  I didn't time her, but I know it was less than 5 minutes from start to finish.   I call this her MacGyver training.

 

SCRABBLE SPELLING

I let her pick out one of her Your Baby Can Read books and spell the words with our Scrabble game pieces.

Cheap

Easy

and

Fun!

 

GRAPHING M&Ms

I have a feeling Gma Jacki is going to like this one. :D

So I gave her a bowl of M&Ms and made a chart on a big blank piece of paper and asked her to sort out by color.

 

Of course, she ate a few HANDFULS of these while I was tending to Brooklyn!  Sneaky little Sneak!

 

I could always tell when she was doing it too, because she'd start to giggling.  And then I'd ask her in a mockingly angry tone and she'd yell, "YESSSS!!!!"  And laugh even harder.

 

 

But the engineer/mathematician in me couldn't help but going all GEEKY on this exercise.

She tolerated it.  Though I think she just liked the fact that she got to eat part of the activity!

 

TRACING LETTERS in SAND

The weather has been so great this week, we decided to take one of our activities outside.  We grabbed some sand from our sand table and traced our letters!

 

SOLAR SYSTEM

I found these window clings of the planets and put them on the mirror in Emma's room.

Thanks to my clever cousin Lori, she suggested using dry erase markers on our closet doors that are all mirrors!  Brilliant!

She was so proud of herself.   She had learned all the planets by the time Brian got home from work!  She couldn't wait to recite it for him.

 

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Thanks to our awesome friend Casey, we have a bumbo! 

 

 Brooklyn LOVES it!

 

I didn't want her to feel left out in all the fun, so I gave her some NESTING CUPs and let her do her thing!

I think she likes to see how many times Mommy will re-stack the tower!

 

HARD at WORK

I love this picture.  Emma really likes the "Connect the Dots" worksheets.  And when she completes a picture, she holds it up to Brooklyn and says, "Brooklyn, look here.  See, I drew a bird."

 

SOOOOO Cute!

 

HARD at PLAY 

And not to give the impression that I just work my students all day long.  Believe me there is plenty of

play time

movie time

hide and seek time

ride bikes outside time

dance the sillies out

etc.

 

Her favorite movies right now are BRAVE and WRECK IT RALPH

 

For those who have seen Wreck it Ralph, you'll get a kick out of this.  After watching the movie, she came over to me and said, "Mommy, you're a dynamite gal!"

 

♥ It made me smile the rest of the day. ♥

 

Hope you've enjoyed this week's post.  If you have any suggestions, creative activities, or concerns, I welcome it all.  Please feel free to either leave a comment or email me at bevik81@hotmail.com

 

Have a great weekend everyone!