Pinterest Fun Morning

I have at least 300 pins on my home school board. We have done quiet a few of them but there are so many that are just random or haven't really gone with anything we have done in the last year or so. I decided this morning that I would just start from the beginning of the board and if there was a pin we could do because I already had all the supplies then we would do it. 

 We started with paint bags to practice spelling words or just for drawing. Butterfly and Ladybug wrote each of their spelling words from this week and Dragonfly wrote words she knew how to spell.

 Then the girls decorated their construction papers with their name. These papers will hold rings for each book they read. They are very excited about this. I look forward to posting their progress.

 The last project we worked on was an art project using glue, salt, and food coloring.

I think they turned out great!

 This was a book that I read several times as a kid. I don't currently have the book but youtube had a video reading of it...PERFECT! So we watched the video clip and then the girls filled out their own I am as  worksheets.

They came up with some clever things. Butterfly is as loud as Papa....that one was my favorite.

We finished the morning with watching several other video clips that I had pinned. Topics covered were pronouns, time, George Washington, Martin Luther King jr., and writing lower case b and d correctly. This was such a great and creative way to spend the morning. I hope we will be able to do quiet a few days like this and I may actually get through all of my home school pins.

A Reading From Dragonfly

The Love of Reading

I just love this picture. I love that all my girls love books and love to read. We try to make it to the library once a week. This past week, we showed up to the library for a Thanksgiving program a bit early so we enjoyed over an hour of looking/picking out books. They love having a pile of fresh books to enjoy each week.

Book Projects

This year, PF has a list of books to read. After reading each book, she will be required to display her comprehension of the book in a creative form. So far she has completed three books: Christy, Dr. Doolittle, and a collection of Fairy Tales. She has made a giant book with summaries of each story, put on a theatrical presentation, and made a log cabin display.

File Folder Games

Dragonfly is really doing well reading three letter words. She was done with her lessons for the day so I decided to get out some file folders for her. The first two she worked on required her to read and match up words. Then she worked on a counting one. File folder games are a great way for kids to practice a skill you are trying to teach them in a fun way. There are several books full of games that I have used to make most of ours but I have also found some online doing a general search. Some games take a little while to create but they are well worth the time. My kids love to do file folder games!

Dragonfly Preschool

 Dragonfly keeps very busy during the day. She did very well staying busy with manipulatives for a few weeks while I got her big sisters on a good schedule. Now she has fallen well into her own routine. She is currently working on  the first book of Explode the Code, Teach your Child to REad in 100 Easy Lessons, and Handwriting Without Tears.

 She loves dressing up as Rapunzel.

 Playing with blocks.

Playing in her bean bucket and making mat man.

The most exciting thing to me is that she is starting to read and spell. We are on lesson 30 out of 100 in her reading lesson book. She is reading two sentence stories. The words are 1-4 letters each.

Diving into a Good Book

On Saturday, we headed to the local library. I was so impressed by how big it was. I loved our library in MD and was constantly checking out stacks of books. Our NC library is much smaller and we use it a lot less. I really enjoyed walking into a huge library again....packed with SOOOO many books. They had a great children's section. The kids all grabbed books and sat in the window seats to read. I was able to head upstairs to check out the adult selection. After making soap the other day, I wanted to see if they had books on herbs and gardening. I was not disappointed. I found some other interesting books as well.

The girls found books on cats...possible selected all the books on cats the library had. We checked out so many books that my friend had to use more than one library card. The kids have been curling up on bean bags and reading the books they checked out. PF has even written a report on cats without even being asked. I love that my kids enjoy reading so much!

Reading Fun Day

This is the second year that we have attended our mall's Reading Fun Day. All the local elementary schools set up a booth with a theme. Some booths have crafts, some of snacks but all of them have books they read to the kids that relate to their theme.



As you start the adventure, you receive a passport that gets punch at every station. After you have 4 punches, you receive a free book. This year selection of books was really good. I will enjoy reading the girls' selections to them.


Our first stop was the Circus Train. The girls made a clown craft.

Then we hopped on over to the Dinosaurs Once Lived Here booth. The girls made a dinosaur puppet.

There were dinosaur skeletons made out of milk jugs. They looked awesome!

Bears.

Habitats.

Tiger puppets.

Like most malls, ours has a spot with a bunch of kiddie rides. PF thought it was funny that she was too big for this one. She really has grown!

The Wild Dance. I loved this set up of Olivia.

Then we ran into some of our friends. The littlest is so precious. This is the first time that PF has been able to meet this precious little girl and she just melted at the opportunity to hold her.

All the girls!

Read your Lion's Share. Not sure why this station was called this since both the books the read were about chameleons.

I didn't get pictures at every station but they were all packed full of fun. We have origami books and a 3 little pigs project to work on at home one of these days. A reading fun day was perfect considering it has been raining for the last 3 days. I am ready for some sun and some time outside!

100 Club

PF has read over 36 books since school started in late August. She has earned enough points to be part of the 100 point club. Not sure what the school does with this but it is a big deal. This is PF first year in public school and minus a few adjustments she has adapted just fine to the school and is excelling. Just proof to me that homeschooling has been such a positive move in my kids life and I am so excited to return to homeschooling in a few months.

Flash Cards

I am always making flash cards for something. Lately it has been for sight sounds or easy reading words to help boost the girls in reading. Dragonfly is loving flash card drills too.

Flash cards are a great way to drill, play games, create sentences and learn to spell.

New Books

I picked these books up for Butterfly to get us through until I can order her Kindergarten curriculum. I was going to wait until January but she is so eager to learn now and has torn through most of my spare worksheets. I mentioned before that I really like this companies books and Butterfly loves them too. I let her work on the Alphabet book while I was helping to teach PF how to make dinner and she completed close to half the book. So I think these books will be finished by the end of next week when hopefully her new curriculum is in.

Animal Books

We started the morning out by reading a bunch of animal books including this one.

The girls enjoyed doing the movements on each page of the book.

Each movement related to a particular animal and a movement that each of these animals do.

-at Family

Today Butterfly worked on the -At word family. I had an "at" storybook that she colored and we read together several times. I had her point out certain words in the story.

She takes coloring very seriously.

Her finished book before we put it back together.
"In My Hat"
pg 1 The bat sat in my hat.
pg 2 The mat sat in my hat.
pg 3 The rat sat in my hat.
pg 4 The cat sat in my hat.
pg 5 Oh No! Scat rat! Scat cat!

She also did a cut and paste worksheet. She had to match up the letters to the right "at" for each picture. She did very well with this.


Proud of her final work.