Creation Days 4 & 5

We had another great lesson today.  Abbie was a little bummed that she didn't have a friend to learn with today, but after a few minutes... she was over it!  We reviewed what we learned last week about Creation.  She remembered that Day 1 God created light.  She also remembered flowers on Day 3!  Our letter of the week is Bb, and we learned several words that begin with Bb.  "Brady, Baby, Brother, & Ball".  After our lesson was over I asked her if she could tell me a word that started with Bb, and she said "Ba Ba Brady", so I guess it stuck!  Our number this week is 2, and our color is orange, but we didn't do anything with those today.

We worked on Creation Poster Numbers for Days 4 & 5, and she really enjoyed it.  On day 4's poster number she glued on a sun and a moon, and stuck star stickers to it as well.  For Day 5, she placed birds in the sky, and (since we were out of staples) we taped them down.  We also made thumbprint fish.  I used an ink pad to ink her thumb, and finished them to look like fish!  She really enjoyed that part!

After we were all finished with our lesson, I made her a snack... goldfish, and she gets to enjoy it while watching Finding Nemo.  She was very excited to watch Nemo!!!

Today's Focus...

Circle Time with Abbie!  She was tracing the word yellow!

Baby Shark (do do ddddo :) 

Grandpa Shark...

Shark Attack!!!

Skidamirinky dinky dink, Skidamirinky do.

I LOVE YOU... she really liked that song!

Working on Creation Day 4 poster number!

Brady participated in school today too!  He LOVES the Baby Shark song!

Putting stars onto her Number 4.

I didnt get in pics of #5 in action, but they both turned out cute!

Goldfish snack & Finding Nemo... not a bad way to end the morning!

Creation Day 3 - Flowers & Trees

Today was another fun lesson!  We had some visitors with us today!  My desire to home school has been one that I battled with.  A great friend of mine, Elizabeth Norton, has been a great supporter and encourager, as she is also home schooling her kids!  We wanted to get an idea for how the other does school, so this week she visited us!  I hope we can continue doing school together once a week.  It is such a good feeling to know you aren't alone in a venture like this!

Elizabeth has 3 kids.  Kalli, who is 5, Wells, who is 2, and Collins, who is 5 months.  Wells was in and out of our lesson, but Kalli and Abbie did fabulous!  (Of course Brady & Collins were there and happy!)

Today, we focused on Day 3 of God's Creation.  We reviewed Days 1 & 2 since Kalli wasn't here for those.  We talked about flowers & trees and why they are so important, and after circle time... the girls colored their own flowers and put them on their #3 poster number!  Kalli is obviously more advanced than Abbie, being 2 years her elder, so she was allowed to cut her own flowers out!

After the poster numbers were finished we worked on writing their names.  I made Kalli a sheet like Abbie's for her to practice writing her name as well.  They both did a great job.  We also briefly discussed the color RED, and they each tried to find something in the room that was red.

When we finished name practice, we planted a flower in a small jar which I found at Target!  Then we finished our morning off with a fun snack!  Pear and apple slices from the tree branches and cheese sticks formed the trunk... snack trees!

We had a great morning, and the kids had a blast playing when the lesson was finished... have I mentioned how much I enjoy home schooling Abbie so far?!?!

Circle Time on the trampoline!

Sorry these pics are blurry, but they kept bouncing!

Singing their ABC's!

Abbie coloring her flowers...

& Kalli coloring hers!

Day's 1-3!

Adding water to the soil pellet.

Kalli helping me stir it up.

Healthy Apple & Pear, Cheese Stick Tree snack!

Our first week was a success!  Looking forward to finishing our lessons on Creation next week!

Creation Day 2 - The Sky & Water

Today we continued our discussion about God's creation.  We talked about how he created the sky & oceans on Day 2.  We worked on writing Abbie's name, and tried to find 3 items in the play room that were the color red.  Abbie is struggling with the color red.  She thinks that anything pink is red, so we are working hard at learning the difference.

She did a great job with her Poster Number craft today!  She painted the ocean and glued clouds into the sky.  We also read a Mercer Mayer book called "Just a Day at the Pond".  Abbie learned that water isn't only in the ocean.  We have water in ponds, lakes, pools, and many other places!  She had a healthy snack to finish up our morning... we had another fun and successful day in school!

Abbie chose to sit on RED today for Circle Time... 

I was shocked, as she and RED do not seem to be best friends!!!

Singing "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands"...

She loves to paint!

 Painting the ocean.

 Gluing on the clouds...

She did so great with this craft!

I cant wait to see all 7 numbers finished!

 Reading about a Day at the Pond!

I asked her what her favorite thing to do in water was... she said swimming!

Then she proceeded to show me how she swims!

 Working on writing her name!

 Having a healthy snack... pear slices & half of a banana!  She was elated :)
So glad she loves fruit!

Our 1st Day of School!

While our lessons are short, I try to fit in lots of information that is easily understandable!  Our lesson plans include a Letter of the Week, Number of the Week, Color of the Week, and a focus theme.  Our focus this week is God's Creation... Day's 1-3.  Our letter is Aa, our number is 1, and our color is red.  I plan to work my way through the alphabet, and up to the number 20, as well as work my way through the rainbow!

Our focus today was on Day 1 of God's creation.  We talked a lot about dark and light.  She colored her Day 1 poster number with a black crayon.  She colored the bottom half dark, and we left the top half light!  We worked on a 2nd craft today since her poster number was very easy.  She painted the earth on a paper plate!  We talked about how God created everything on the earth.  When we went to wash the pain off of her hands, we stood in the dark bathroom before turning on the light.  We talked about dark, and light using the light switch!  Abbie told me she likes night because she can sleep!  We read about God creating the dark and light in her Toddler Bible, and we read "Cant You Sleep Little Bear?"  Its a book about dark and light!

In addition to our plan, we also started our morning off with "Circle Time".  Our Circle Time consists of 3 songs, and then we talk about the day of the week today, yesterday, and tomorrow.  We also spell Abbie's name out loud.  The songs are "Good morning how are you", "Day's of the Week", and "The ABCs"...

All in all, I think today went well, and I think Abbie is excited to learn more Wednesday!  

Abbie's first day of school!

We are doing school in the playroom, and circle time on the trampoline!  She gets to choose the color that she sits on for Circle Time! 

She is looking over our daily focus!

Counting to 7 on our fingers because it took God 7 days to create all...

Reading "Cant You Sleep Little Bear?"...

She really seemed to like this book!

Talking about the Dark & Light...

Hard at work...

She colored the bottom half "dark"

Painting her earth...

We laid green tissue paper squares onto the wet paint to create the land.  She thought it was very pretty!

Stars & Shapes

Today, we discussed stars!  Abbie knows the shape well, and can pick it out by name, so she enjoyed this conversation!  We started off our lesson with Circle Time, and after Abbie led with her version of the ABC's, we read a book called "Apple Pie 4th of July".  We finally made it to the library yesterday, and while books about the 4th are hard to come by, I had searched and found 2 online that were great and reserved them for us!  This was one of them!  She enjoyed the book, and was a fantastic "page turner"!!

She of course was most excited about our craft.  She always is!  Maybe when she grows up, she will be crafty too!  I got the idea for our craft from another blog, and I thought it would be fun.  I realized recently that my daughter is 2 1/2 years old, and I have NEVER let her use paint!  Other people have, so she has been exposed to the medium, but mom just doesn't like messy paint!  I decided that I would put all of that behind me, and bought Crayola WASHABLE paint!  Abbie was beyond excited when I pulled it out of the box, and told her we were going to paint!  

I had a star cookie cutter in my cabinet, so I simply took 2 paper plates and put blue paint on one, and red on the other.  I had a smock that I put on Abbie, which she felt like was so kind of magically cape!!  

 I gave her a piece of white construction paper, and let her stamp it with the cookie cutter in the 2 colors of paint!  I think it turned out really cute, and Abbie was VERY proud of it!  

Since today is the 4th of July, and we have lots of holiday plans... we may skip our lesson this afternoon.  It will all depend on how much time we have!

This week... July 4th!

We finally picked our home-school lessons back up!  After planning for a few weeks, I decided that our theme this week would be July 4th!  It's completely appropriate being that July 4th is tomorrow!  

Our first lesson was yesterday.  We talked about July 4th, and how why we celebrate it!  We also talked about the flag, and we said the Pledge of Allegiance together!  It was more than adorable to hear her version of the pledge!  We didn't read a book with our lesson, because I haven't managed to make it to the library yet.  However, I am hoping that we can do that this afternoon!  

Abbie got to make a flag of her own!  I cut out the pieces for her, but she did a lot of the gluing herself!  The stars are actually glow in the dark stickers, and Abbie thought they were the coolest things ever!  We should totally convert the US flag to have glow in the dark stickers!!!

She really seemed to enjoy doing our "lesson" again!  She has been talking about "circle time" for over a week!  Since she did such a great job, she earned a little time on the iPad!   I think it is cute that she sees this as a "reward", being that she is actually using Apps that are learning tools!

This was also the first home-school lesson that Brady was a part of!  While I know he is FAR too young to learn or be taught... he did enjoy sitting in his chair and working on his fine motor skills!  He really seems to like Abbie's room, and Abbie really seems to like having Brady in her room!!!

Planning Again

I am finally working on lesson plans for preschool again!!  As soon as I get a month's worth of plans together... we will begin class!!