Preschool Presidents’ Day Log Cabin

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February 18, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

Tori and Katie made little log cabins out of pretzels.

I found the printable at TeacherFileBox.com. We’re looking for some paper people to print to add to their pictures…

Here are the cabins so far…I layered a half sheet of blue construction paper on green for a landscape. We glued teeny tiny pom poms for flowers, cotton balls for clouds, and used dot paint for the sun, but that didn’t turn out so pretty so we’re going to add some other paint to make it more yellow later.

We worked on sorting animals. Here is our new bulletin board to go along with Expedition Earth.

I found a great lapbook at File Folder Fun. They struggled with this concept, so we’re going to work on it lots.

Expedition Earth Animal Geography Curriculum

They pulled out the felts playsets and played with that for quite a while. I buy them up at thrift stores and consignment shops.

We also finished up the letter Z. They worked on anatomy science with Big Sister Lizzie and loved it. I got a mini bulletin board set of the Food Pyramid and I made a board of some of it and a lapbook with the food sorting. We’re going to work on healthy eating habits this week.

We enjoyed watching snow and birds. We went to the Wild Birds and bought 3 new feeders and 3 bags of birdseed and we’ve laughed at these guys fluttering around. Not sure what they are cuz I’m from the East and these western and mountain birds are sure different! I think it’s a type of phoebe or junco…I need to buy a new bird ID book! We also have lots of sparrows and chickadees. They haven’t discovered the other feeders yet..

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Preschool Valentine Trays

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February 12, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

Our Valentine Preschool Trays

Here is our letter tray with little trinkets to identify the initial letter: M or N, that we worked on the last couple weeks…

Here is a fine motor transfer activity. They snuck and ate a few candy hearts in the transfer process.

This one was little heart boxes with candy hearts inside and they could eat them with the chopsticks.

Here is our rainbow rice and pasta in bins with heart spoons and scoops. I need to make lots more I am told.

Here are the little dears loving on each other and looking cuter than usual. :)

We did work on the Letter Z this week from Raising Rock Stars Preschool and Confessions of a Homeschooler along with Valentine’s activities from 1+1+1=1 and Confessions of a Homeschooler, along with Homeschool Share and Christian Preschool Printables.

They were little troopers as we took many of our more portable activities with us to two dental appointments for Elizabeth (she’s getting braces soon!). They worked diligently in the waiting rooms and were little angels. We did phonics and crafts from our a Beka curriculum too. We got lots of lovey books from the library (and are reading them and will maybe do a lapbook or two from Homeschool Share). They love playing on the iPods and get so excited with their games. We made Valentines for Daddy, Grandpa and Grandma, friends at church, and for a Valentine’s party on Monday afternoon. We’ll decorate our table and have a lovely meal later on, with candles and all!

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Schedule and Chore Charts

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February 12, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 5 Comments

A great schedule and chore chart system we used for a while this year.

I found this idea on Currclick. I think it will work better than any other chore system we’ve used. I must remember to remind the girls to utilize it.

I have acquired the cards from various sources…Homeschool Creations, Homeschool Share, Heart of Wisdom…I plan to combine school and chore activities on one page to save space. We really don’t need more than 16 squares each day between the 3 girls. They usually help each other with the chores. That can be good and can also cause problems when all 3 are in 1 bathroom trying to clean the toilet, for instance. :)~

I got the pocket chart and clock schedule at Target’s dollar spot over the summer. I cut the clock chart into strips and Voilà! I’ve just been lazy not getting to doing this until now.

Here is a close-up of Elizabeth’s chart. I made the titles on Publisher and I thought putting what they did today rather than “Lizzie’s Chores” would be more motivational. I put the cards on the white grid and they move their cards to the colored grid as they are completed. They love the color coding with their favorite colors. :)

They get $1 per week allowance, but they’re not good at remembering to ask for that and I forget to get cash for them. They each tithe 10¢ and give 10¢ to missions each week though.

Some recommend to put some little treats in a bin and if they complete their charts, they can pick one…daily? weekly? I’ve never been one to dangle the carrot, but they’re not doing so well lately, especially the 10 year old, and the littles follow suit! I’m too tired to do all the chores all the time!

Note: We no longer use nor condone chore charts, rewards, punishments. This system helped our kids learn to remember to do necessary tasks when they were very little.

How do you help young kids learn time management?

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Preschool Letter N

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February 4, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

Our Chinese New Year indoor “picnic” since it’s 26 degrees out.

We worked on Letter N for Nests this week. Yes, I realize there is no rhyme nor reason to the order I am doing our letters.

I started out with Raising Rock Stars and got sidetracked somewhere along the way. I’m trying to work the themes with the appropriate weeks and holidays, I guess.

I’m saving K for Kites for March, for instance.

I had a hard time getting any good pictures because I was either interacting with the girls, mediating arguments between the girls, or dealing with the baby.

Alex is almost ready for Tiny Tot School! He turned 10 months old on the 1st of February and he’s wanting some action now.

We enjoyed lots of music this week. We listen to Christian music and hymns. We love world music like Putamayo Kids.

We really love our new geography songs that go along with our curriculum.

We also have been getting some fun CDs from the library, such as Beethoven’s Wig. It is hilarious!

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A Charlotte Mason Education

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January 30, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 2 Comments

An Atmosphere, A Discipline, A Life…

A Charlotte Mason Education

I’m loving notebooking instead of worksheets. The kids can be so creative!

Bible Study

I believe in a good foundation and being open to questions and conversation about God and the Bible.

Here is Elizabeth writing her daily Bible journal.

I got this devotional for her. We have the Hands On Bible, but she uses her KJV. She’s been doing well with the readings and answering the question each day.

She just recently completed the kids’ version of The Bible in 90 Days. I introduced her to the SOAP journal method from Mom’s Toolbox. She loved that. She has a desk, but she always writes with her notebook in her lap.

Good Habits

Big sister is a mother’s helper.

Elizabeth spends much of her time with her siblings, helping with preschool and watching the baby.

She does well teaching them and often makes it more fun than I would do!

Here are Victoria and Alexander playing with the alphabet on our magnet chalkboard. Elizabeth is there mostly making sure that Alex doesn’t eat all the letters. He is Babyzilla. :)

I want all my kids to love each other and get along well and we instill good habits and love through free time and play. Good relationships are important.

We often have tea time to wind down in the afternoons.

Exercise

So, we went bowling one day…Victoria won! We are continuing ice skating lessons. The girls are all getting much better! I want the kids to be active and healthy.

Natural History

We went on a nature walk and were excited to see winter plants and birdies. We have never lived anywhere to experience winter before! It was nice that the temperatures have been in the 40s so we could get outside and look around.

Geography

We’re all loving geography…We’re studying Russia this week and working our way through the US states. We learn with books, maps, drawing and coloring.

History

We roughly use Ambleside Online for Elizabeth’s curriculum. She is in Year 4. She loves to read and loves history, so it’s a good fit. We love the reading lists for living books in history. It helps it come alive for us and I learn so much too!

Music

Liz takes piano lessons and we learn about composers, hymns, and folk music along with our history timeline.

Art

We love art and learn about artists and create our own crafts and projects.

Language

We’re learning Latin, and I introduce some vocabulary weekly in Spanish, French, and German. I feel it’s super important to learn languages.

Literature

I love poetry, Shakespeare, the classics. I have a degree in English, so I love to read and instill a love for reading in my kids. We can never have too many books!

We started off using The Well-Trained Mind and have felt more comfortable with the eclectic approach lately. I have much of Liz’s reading material on our new iPad and that’s working out very well that it’s so portable and we’re not worrying about carrying lots of books when we’re out and about. We have some really cool educational apps too!

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Homeschool Space in Utah

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January 22, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 6 Comments

We moved to Utah from Hawaii.

It’s a BIG change.

Here is our workbox wall.

On the left, our calendar/circle time “corner.”

Here is our desk wall and calendar. The clock is set to “Daddy Time” in Afghanistan.

Here is the rest of our school space that we finally cleaned up and organized.

We are so blessed to have a finished basement in our rental house to use almost exclusively for learning space. When we move, I have no idea what we’re going to do because I doubt we’ll have anything like the space we have here and we’ll have to downsize! We came from a small 3 BR 1-level house where we “did school” at the kitchen table or on the living room sofa to this great 6 BR 2-story with a basement. God made it all possible. :)

That corner wasn’t really working out, so here are our updated circle time boards on a pocket chart rack. They are two foam boards hooked together. (I am working on changing it up for the week so there’s blanks.) A word wall is in the red pocket chart on the back.

Our reading nook.

Our weekly preschool manipulatives are in the cubes (from Target).

I use the shelves (yard sale finds) to store pencil boxes, AWANA cards, felts, a Beka cards, big puzzles, our book of centuries, and nature journals. The tops of the shelves have our pencil sharpener, a basket of magnet letters, a portable DVD player, paper towels, Kleenexes, etc. The rainbow cart (had this forever) on the right holds magnets, push pins, do-a-dot pens, geoboards, cork boards, play doh…On top of the rainbow cart are our Education Cubes and tot trays.

Here is the same wall from another angle. I found this very sturdy table at a yard sale for $15 and the 4 chairs at another yard sale (on the same day) for $20. That was a good day!

I put our daily tools in little metal buckets on a lazy susan on the table. The bulletin board above the computer station shows off my 2 preschool daughters’ Bible crafts. To the left of that bulletin board, I have created pictorial timelines for my daughters with pictures of each of their birthdays to show their growth. They love it! Underneath those, a little blue pocket chart holds a weekly Bible verse.

The bookcase holds all my teaching materials and extra books that I want to keep nice. The bottom two shelves have some manipulatives like dry erase books and magnet dolls. The colored plastic drawers hold lots of Melissa & Doug and Lauri puzzles. On top of that is our bin of circle time stuff.

There is another set of folding doors to the right of these, but it’s still messy. I store board games in here. We have labeled plastic bins with all of our school and craft supplies like construction paper, paints, stamps, beads and baubles, pipe cleaners, feathers, etc.

We also are so blessed to have a separate play room for toy storage and another room that is supposed to be my personal sewing and craft room (right now it’s seeming to be storage!)…

We also have our TV and sofa behind the reading nook. It’s nice to have a not-so-central location so it’s not on very often. We use it more for the Wii anyway.

Our school room in the basement…

Maybe should’ve taken the picture before school time?

(Although, it looks better than most days! Notice I’m not showing you the play dough tables and accessories all over the kitchen floor! Nor the glue dollops and collages that are stuck to my plastic floor pad under my computer desk…)

We do workboxes, sorta. Love my cube unit for activities the 3 littles share. The girls are about to outgrow those little pink and purple desks! The bookshelf mostly holds Elizabeth’s books. A plastic crate holds board books. Bean bags and pillows are on the floor.

There’s another bookshelf in Tori’s room that holds the picture books and early readers.

Elizabeth has an entire setup in the room that should be a formal dining room. We turned it into her music studio and desk area. She has her keyboard, workboxes, a storage shelf, desk, and computer station.

This setup is working for us this year!

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5th Grade Curriculum

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January 22, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 3 Comments

Year 5 can be tough. Bodies and minds and attitudes change. It’s a hard time for a child, asserting her independence and discovering who she might be.

I try to allow for interests while guiding the curriculum for what I want her to know. She has a lot of freedom and few rules.

I highly recommend the books by Louise Bates Ames. A good guide to follow is What Your Fifth Grader Needs to Know: Fundamentals of a Good Fifth-Grade Education by E.D. Hirsch, Jr.

5th Grade Curriculum

Geography and History

This week, we started geography learning about Kenya. I bought the Expedition Earth curriculum and we love it! I’m teaching future missionaries with our new books and prayer cards!

We’re also studying a U.S. state a week with the Nifty Fifty states flash cards from A Beka and other U.S. books I’ve had since I was a kid. We did Alaska last week and this week we did Montana. Yeah, no rhyme or reason. They just picked those out of the stack.

We love the PowerPoint shows at 1+1+1=1. The membership is well worth it!

Literature

She loves to read, so I have no worries there. Just trying to find appropriate and interesting books to read and discuss can be a challenge sometimes. We love the book lists from Ambleside Online.

Music

Liz has studied piano for over 2 years and here she is practicing! She loves classical music and opera and adores Broadway musicals. We learn about composers and music all the time.

Math

Liz is working on Singapore Math 5B. She does really well when I can work with her, but does not do well independently in math. She loves reading and will do almost everything else on her own…Life of Fred is a great supplement that incorporates fun stories with sneaky math.

Latin

She did her Latina Christiana II lesson right after math with very little help. We have the DVDs and CDs for those and they’re great.

Notebooking

I love notebooking for assignments and narration and evaluation. I print notebooking pages as we need them based on our history and reading assignments. I don’t force writing formally.

Life Skills

Liz helps a lot around the house and with her siblings. She’s becoming a great mother’s helper.

5th grade is a fun transition year – before middle school!

My middle girls in 5th grade:

Singapore Math 5
Tapestry of Grace Year 2
Studying God’s Word F
Spelling Workout E
Apologia Botany
Latina Christiana I

The last time I teach 5th grade!

My son:

I can hardly believe my youngest is doing 5th grade work this year, y’all! He’s only 9 but keeps moving along at a quick pace and I won’t hold him back.

Singapore Math 5
Tapestry of Grace Year 4
Studying God’s Word D
Spelling Workout C
Apologia Human Anatomy
Latina Christiana I

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Preschool Letter M

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January 22, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert Leave a Comment

We did M for Monkeys this week. I found these cute finger puppets at DLTK and we did 5 Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed and the Monkeys Teasing the Alligator.

See our cool alligator? Big hit!

We got our monkey lessons from Confessions of a Homeschooler and a great monkey tot book from Carisa.

We got some great writing worksheets over at Home Grown Hearts.

We also went bowling, went to church, had an ice skating lesson, and went to story time at the local library.

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Ice Skating

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January 8, 2011 By Jennifer Lambert 1 Comment

This week, we learned about new beginnings for the new year. We did a snow theme. We worked on the Letter S for snow and snowmen.

We started ice skating lessons!

Tori LOVED it and was mad when it was over and we had to leave.

Katie did NOT like it. Here she is, wondering when she can quit.

We made some snowflake ornaments for our bulletin board.

We got many activities from Erica over at Confessions of a Homeschooler. Our Bible theme verse is the same as last year’s: Psalm 51:7. We did some fun snowman word recognition mats.