It's All About Me and Playing Games

This week I started an All About Me unit.  I actually started one of these last year, but ended up doing so much of it myself, that I decided to put it on hold until the boys were willing and able to complete a lot of it themselves.  I know this is a unit that is typically done at the beginning of the school year, but this seemed a good time to do it because I can segue into types of families, the new baby coming, caring and loving individuality in our friends, etc.

To start with, we are making All About Me books.  This seemed like a good time to introduce parts of a book to them as well.  So, we had book vocabulary this week:  cover, title, author, etc.  The boys each made a cover for their book with their photos, and they decorated them with stickers and coloring.  The pages they did for their book this week included:  Name and age page, Address page, I know my telephone number page, and a Height & Weight page.  For each page, I glued photos that pertained to the topic, and they each traced what I had written down.  In addition, we read two books about a little boy (tiger in one, Mercer Mayer's Critter in the other) growing up.  It talked about what they couldn't do and what they could do, and what they would be able to do when they got older.  After those books, we did a page on "When I Get Bigger" in which each boy would help me fill in the blanks of a paragraph I had written.

Sawyer's paragraph (his answers in green):

I can watch Barney and pet Sparky, but I can't mess with the remote control.
I still can't light the fireplace or climb up the slide, but I can hug Mommy.
I wish I was fourteen years old because then I could do P.E.
I am big enough to play Sonic & Sega, but not big enough to work out.

Hayden's paragraph (his answers in red):


I can play cards and cars, but I can't light the fireplace.
I still can't drive a car or cook dinner, but I can play with playdoh.
I wish I was nine because then I could play a different game system.
I am big enough to do puzzles, but not big enough to do some board games.

Tracing our address 

Learning our address by playing "Pizza Delivery"

Picking out the numbers for our telephone number

Once we have completed our books, I will post more photos of the books themselves.  This is a really fun unit, especially for this age.  

We also played a lot of board games and puzzles for our math and language arts this week.  I was trying to make a week of games because I knew it was going to be one of those weeks where sit-down work was just not going to cut it for us.  The pizza delivery game that I found for learning your address was loads of fun for the boys.  I was blown away by how much they enjoyed it.  I think we all took turns ringing the doorbell and/or answering the door and/or shouting out, "Pizza delivery for blah blah blah address!!" for at least 15-20 minutes.  

The other games we played were:

Match it Math Puzzle

Scrabble Spelling - Hayden spelled out his spelling words with the scrabble
tiles, wrote them down, said them, and then added up their sums.

Super Why ABC Board Game

Dominoes (Our Way) - We built off each other's dominoes by matching
the same number of dots.  The only rule was you couldn't have two different
number of dots touching each other in any way.

After the domino game, Hayden picked out two dominoes to copy onto this worksheet.  Typically,
you'd pick just one domino out and write the four problems in the fact family, but since we haven't
discussed negative numbers in detail yet, I had him  do one addition and one subtraction problem with each.

And finally, we finished up Hayden's magnet lap book.  The lap books require a lot of work on my part since Hayden is not completely writing independently yet.  He traces a lot of what I write, or he colors pictures.  Plus, I make sure he can answer certain questions before we put a new mini book in it, even though, I'm the one who makes the mini books at this point.  However, he's seeing how they're done, and he's enjoying the completed project.  So, I think that once he's able to start doing these on his own without my assistance, I'll start seeing a lot more individuality in his lap books.

Front of the Magnet Lapbook

Inside the lap book.  From top left to right:
Types of magnets mini book, My Experiments photos, Compass mini book
From bottom outside flaps to inside:
Magnetic vs. not magnetic experiment, Vocabulary flagbook, North & South poles pull-out.

Inside lap book with mini books opened.

Angry Birds Homeschool!

I don't know about you guys, but my boys are REALLY into Angry Birds.  To the point of obsession.  They'd rather play with Angry Birds on my iPad, than play Wii or any game on the LeapPad.  And the sad part is...my husband and I can get sucked into a game of Angry Birds just as easily.  I repeat:  sad.

So, imagine my surprise and excitement when I came across this Angry Birds Kindergarten Pack that focuses on literacy and math skills.  This blog is AWESOME.  She has so many ideas for different toddler, preschool, and kindergarten mini units, that I am blown away.  This lady has obviously been doing this for a while, and she is my new favorite "go-to" for resources and materials.

The boys and I had a great time this week doing this mini unit in addition to our routine lessons and activities and magnet science unit.


Math Lessons:

Using a number line.

 We used angry birds to cover numbers on the number line, and the boys
had to tell me which number was being hidden by the birds.

Then we created our own number line on the chalkboard.  The boys took turns writing
numbers.  I would tell them to write the number that came before, after, or in between
certain other numbers already written on the number line.

Greater Than/Less Than.

We learned that the hungry alligator always eats the bigger number of angry birds
and how to say the phrase correctly (i.e. 4 angry birds is greater than 1 angry bird)

Then, I put some sets of numbers up on the board for Hayden to put the greater
than/less than signs in between.  Of course, he had to give them alligator teeth.  

....and this is what the chalkboard looked like after both boys decided that
alligators were taking over.  

Identifying coins.

This was a great review for Hayden and a great introduction for Sawyer.  We
talked about the descriptions and the values of the 4 different coins.  Then,
they had to match them to the correct card.  Each time they made a correct
match, I'd reiterate the name and value of the coin and have them repeat it.

Here, they had to count how many coins each angry bird collected, what
type of coin, and how much money total (the last part being mostly for Hayden's
benefit).

Basic Fractions.

This was really a brief introduction to fractions for Hayden.  I made a copy
of this page and cut out the circles/fraction pieces after drawing examples
on the chalkboard and talking about equal parts, whole, halves, thirds, etc.
Hayden had to match up the cut out pieces to what was on the paper.

Then he used a dry erase marker to color in the fractions according to the
amount and the color code given.  After each one, he'd tell me whether he
was coloring in a whole, halves, thirds, or fourths.

Hayden also completed a cut-and-sort activity and ordered numbers 1-30.  I didn't get pictures of those, but if you go to the website I have listed above, you'll see those activities in her kindergarten pack.

Language Arts Lessons:

Color Words.

This was just for Sawyer.  He and Hayden have been listening to this CD
that has a lot of songs about colors, numbers, and letter sounds.  The singing
is atrocious (sp?), but they love it, and because of those horrible songs, Sawyer
could read the words "red", "yellow", and "white" with no prompting from me.

Easy Reading.

While Sawyer completed the activity above, Hayden traced the color words
on an easy reader that he afterwards cut out himself and I stapled together to
make a book.

Rhyming Words.

Hayden colored in the circles with words that rhyme with "pig".

Sight Words.

And he colored in the angry birds of all the words he could sound out on
his own and read correctly to me.

Matching Descriptive Sentences.

With this activity, Hayden had to match the color angry bird with the sentence
that described it.  He did a good job on this pretty much on his own because
like Sawyer, he remembered the songs about the colors.  After we finished this
activity, I laminated all the pieces and glued sandpaper on the backs so the boys
could use it later on the felt board independently.

The last Angry Bird activity we did was an art project.  We made Angry Bird magnets which was great because it also tied into our magnet unit in science.  Sawyer was a bit young for this project, and I wound up doing most of his for him, but he gave me all his input.  Here is what the boys finished up with:

There were several choices of felt colors, but the boys both wanted to do the same thing.  Since there are leftovers, I
definitely foresee more Angry Bird magnets in our near future.  Good rainy day project for sure!

In addition to all the Angry Bird madness, I managed to slip in some other writing/spelling activities as well.  We worked on our Letter W mini books and did some Cheerio Spelling with 'w' words.  Hayden also did sight word spelling with magnetic letters while riding in the car with me on errands.  

Cheerio Spelling - great for snack time!

Science Lessons:

For our magnet unit we learned what magnetic force is, and that it goes through things.  We learned how a magnet can help us if we get lost, and if we don't have a compass, what we can use instead.  We also did some Q&A Magnet Fishing with a follow up Yes or No activity sheet to see what all they (mostly Hayden) remembered from our lessons the past couple of weeks.  We didn't do as much with the lap book this week.  So I plan on finishing it up next week, and posting pictures of the final project.

Hayden uses a wand magnet to move a paper clip around in a wooden box
without touching the paper clip itself.  

Experimenting with compasses and magnets.  Future boy scouts!

Using magnets to discover how we can see something that is invisible.

A horseshoe magnet's lines of force.

Disc magnets lines of force!

Apparently, I didn't get pictures of them magnet fishing.  It was too much fun for me to stop and get my camera, I guess.  I will have to do this activity regularly along with the felt board activities.  They really get a kick out of those types of lessons!

And to end this week's blog, I have to post a picture of a piece of Sawyer's work that I am very proud of but take absolutely NO credit for at all.  Other than large "air letter tracing" and playdoh letters, I've never taught him how to actually write his letters with a writing utensil.  And yet, he can do it.  

He asked me how to spell these words, then he wrote them as I told him:  Mommy, Daddy, Hayden, Sawyer...(and Ema
off to the side there on the right).  I love his letter E.  

New Year, New Ideas

Well, we're finally back on top of things (for now), and I'm hoping that we can continue to stay that way.  After our break from the holidays, we started back to school with a bang.  The boys were really excited.  Sawyer didn't even want to go to preschool, and he insisted that we don't do anything "fun" until he got back on those days!

For the past year, it's sometimes been a challenge to begin our day.  Hayden is a little slow to wake up some days, and if the t.v. is turned on while they're eating breakfast, it takes them 10 years to finish, move away from the television, and get dressed.  It's always a fight to get them to brush their teeth (especially Hayden), and then, of course, all they want to do is continue watching t.v. or play with their toys or go  outside.  And, really, who can blame them?  They are 3 and 5 years old, they're boys, they can't be still.... they need to be active!

So, I changed things up a bit this year.  This week, I began morning chores for the boys that they start as soon as Daddy leaves for work.  By the time Daddy leaves for work, both boys will have eaten breakfast.  Once he's out the door, morning chores begin.  These chores are:  get dressed, brush teeth, make bed, and clean the romper room (aka playroom/schoolroom.  After that, we immediately begin our school day.

To start off our homeschool day, we've always said the Pledge of Allegiance, and then we'd do the calendar, a nursery rhyme of the week, and sometimes a musical activity with shakers, bells, or wooden rhythm sticks.  Again, I changed things up a bit.  We still do the Pledge and the calendar, but we pretty much exhausted the nursery rhymes, and the musical activity would just get them all worked up.  So, I decided to save the musical stuff for later in the day, I took away the nursery rhyme, and I added some new things to the calendar.

Calendar Wall

So, here's our calendar.

• Each month will have a pattern (this month it is AAB/red, red, blue).  
• We've also been keeping track of the number of days we've been in school, but now I have a place value chart so it's more visually appealing to them (see red pocket chart to the left of the calendar).  
• Below that is a clock, which is new for us.  The goal of the clock is to teach them the concept of time by changing the hour for each day of school.  After we get around the clock, we'll change to every half hour.  After that, we'll change every 5 minutes, and after that, we'll change every minute.
• To the right of the clock is a tally chart.  We add a tally mark for each day of the month, circling every 5 days, and writing the number 5 below.  Then, we count the number of days together.  
• To the right of the calendar at the top are the days of the week.  Yesterday, today, and tomorrow.  Sometimes, we go through the whole week saying the days of the week in order.  Sometimes, we take the laminated days, and I have Hayden put them in the correct order.  Most days, we just say, "Today is _________.  So that means yesterday was __________ and tomorrow will be __________."
• Below that is the season and weather, with a weather graph (newly added) below that.  We look or go out side to see what the weather is that morning, put the correct word on the weather chart, and now we also fill in a bar on the weather bar graph.  At the end of the month, we'll be able to see how many days were sunny, rainy, windy, rainy, and/or snowy.  I'm thinking that after a couple of months, I'll start changing up the type of graph we use just to keep it interesting and make them knowledgeable of the different types that there are.
• Last, but not least, we have a code date and the entire date written out on the chalkboard (which you can't see in the picture).  The code date is the month, day, and year written in numerical form (i.e. 1-9-12).  Then (as an example) I write out:  Today is Monday, January 9, 2012, and we say it out loud together.

This week in math we did:

• Days of the Week Sequencing.  Kind of like I mentioned above with the calendar.  We did a refresher lesson to start off the week after we did our weekly "Measure Mommy's Belly" activity.  Hayden is getting much better at recognizing the days of the week, although he's not able to spell them on his own yet, if you asked him.
• Feltboard Ice Cream Math.  I made a felt board activity with ice cream cones.  The cones have the numbers 1-10 on them, and the ice cream has either an addition or a subtraction problem whose answers equal one of the numbers on the cones.  I'm trying to do more felt board activities since they really enjoy them.  Plus, once we've done them together a couple of times, it will be something that they can come back to on their own when I have to do one-on-one with each of them.

Felt Board Ice Cream Math

• Word Fishing.  This activity kind of combined several subjects.  The boys had to "fish" for number words and color words using a makeshift fishing rod with a horseshoe magnet and paper clips attached to sentence strip words.  They loved doing this activity.  It was very hands-on, and they were pretty good at figuring out the words.  I had them "fish" for a word, and once they caught it, they had to tell me what the word was.  With Sawyer, I'd give him hints by telling him it was a color or number word, and I'd start to sing a song he was familiar with that had that word in it.

Magnet Word Fishing

Close-up of words

• Tangram/Shape puzzles.  Didn't get a photo of this one, but if you aren't familiar with tangrams, here is a page that explains what they are, what they look like, and examples of things you can create with them.  I let Hayden do these for a little while before completing a review of number words on the computer website, www.ixl.com.

This week in language arts, we did:

• The letter Vv Mini Book from First School Preschool Activities and Crafts.  We've been working on these all year, and a lot of them Hayden did last year.  This didn't happen to be one of those weeks, however.  When we do these books, we usually read a short story about the letter of the week first.  Then, we trace the letter with our finger (mostly for Sawyer's benefit), and we read the thumbnail pictures that go with the book.  They color the pictures while I cut out the pages that they will match them up and glue them to.  Hayden cuts out his pictures, but I do Sawyer's.  Otherwise they'd be mutilated.  I do let Sawyer practice his scissor skills by cutting out the large letter on the paper that we traced with our finger.  This week was the first time EVER he cut out the letter without hacking it to pieces!  I was very excited for him.
• Word Sorting Activity.  This was just for Hayden while Sawyer was in preschool.  I got this idea from LocalSchoolDirectory.com.  He had to sort out the words I had written out on sentence strip cards into groups of rhyming word families.  

This week in spelling/writing we:

• completed two other activities from the same website, but in our own way.  One was to write the letter that came after the one I had written down.  The other was to write the lowercase letter that matched the capital letter I had written.  This was kind of a review for Hayden and a helpful one at that.  Probably something we should do frequently.

And Sawyer put together the Alphabet Caterpillar on the felt board while Hayden did the writing activities.

• Word Scavenger Hunt.  For this activity, I placed some words around the house for Hayden to find.  Once he found a word, he also had to locate it on a piece of paper where I had them all written down for him to trace.  He traced the word, read it out loud, and then wrote it himself next to the traced version of the word.

Finding the word

Tracing, sounding out, and writing out the word

There was no art this week.  We started a unit on magnets for science.  With this unit, I started a vocabulary corner that we'd add a new word to each day.  Hayden began a new lap book, and the boys did a lot of exploring and discovering with the different types of magnets that Hayden got for Christmas and the few that I picked up from the School Aids store near our house.  I found a pretty good bundle of lesson plans on Teaching Magnets to Kindergartners.  It was pretty well laid out with concepts taught, materials needed, procedures to follow, and a few worksheets to go along with each lesson.  It was written up for a large class, so I made some adaptations to fit our little homeschool of two/three.  

• The first lesson was an introduction to magnets.  The boys learned some of the different types of magnets and drew pictures of each one.

Drawing the different types of magnets

Exploring magnets

• The second lesson was on learning what types of objects are attracted to magnets and what types are not.

Dividing the objects that magnets do/do not attract

Putting together a mini book for the lapbook

• The third lesson was to determine which type of magnet was the strongest.  There was a big debate about this one, primarily because the magnets we had were different sizes as well as different shapes.  We added nuts to each magnet to see which would hold the most.   I'm not sure if we came up with the right answer or not, but it was the right one for what magnets we had anyway.

The horseshoe magnet

The bar magnet

• The final lesson this week was about magnetic poles.  For this lesson, Hayden was given 2 bar magnets with the north and south poles labeled and one bar magnet with the north and south poles covered.  He learned that opposite poles attract and alike poles repel.  He also learned how to identify which end was which.  

This week was all about initial exploration of the magnets.  I plan on doing more experiments with them throughout the next couple of weeks as we also do a social studies unit as well.  Hayden will use the next week or two to finish putting together his lap book, and once it's complete, I'll be sure to post pictures of it.

All in all, this was a great first week back at school.  We all had a great time.  The boys really enjoyed their learning experiences, and they were good about cooperating every morning and throughout the day.  Looking to more fun weeks of school like this one!

January Books We Read

Victoria's Vacation and the Letter V by Klingel and Noyed
My "v" Sound Box by Jane Belk Moncure
My "w" Sound Box by Jane Belk Moncure
Walter in the Woods and the Letter W by Klingel and Noyed
Xavier and the Letter X by Klingel and Noyed

Magnet Power! by Shar Levine and Leslie Johnstone
Playing with Magnets with easy-to-make scientific projects by Gary Gibson

When I Get Bigger by Mercer Mayer
Leo the Late Bloomer by Robert Kraus

Puppy Dog by Sue Graves (emergent reader for Hayden)