Boy Fun

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April 22, 2014 By Jennifer 5 Comments

Alex has been loving school lately.

I make sure I set aside at least an hour of uninterrupted one-on-one time with him every day.

We play trucks.

And we have to have an audience!

He recently announced that he wanted to do math.

So I got out the Unifix and Cuisinaire and we counted and colored blocks.

He loves All About Reading and we reinforce his learning with blend ladders and our movable alphabet.

I made this with Lauri letters and phonograms tiles similar to these letter tiles. I got the case at Wal-Mart, similar to this scrapbook organizer case.

These ladders are fun for reinforcement of the sounds.

I love the time we spend together, learning and exploring.

Recently, Alex has started saying to me: “When I was a boy…”

I asked him what he meant. What is he now if not a boy?

“Mama, when I was three, I was just a boy. I’m a big boy now.”

Linking up: Enchanted Homeschooling Mom, Crystal and Co.

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Preschool Homeschool

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September 11, 2013 By Jennifer 2 Comments

Alex had lots of fun this summer!

He went to preschool nature camp with Dad at Ogden Nature Center.

We learned fun stuff at library Dig Into Reading sessions. We learned about other countries, history, language, art, animals, and more!

Alex made mashed potatoes almost all by himself. That cool knife? They’re over here. We have 2 of that one and 2 of this knife and the kids love them!

Alex still loves Tot School and Animal ABCs and Raising Rock Stars Preschool.

He’s snuggly and likes to watch the iPad with sister

He gets so excited when our cat, Sinéad, allows him to pet her.

Alex helped in the garden lots. He helped dig up our potatoes.

He likes to help Liz with science. They do experiments together. He dropped the antacid tablets in the water/vinegar solutions to learn about concentration

A rare moment of peace between these two

Watching Tori play Reading Kingdom

Alex has a lot of freedom. I try to make sure he’s learning by all the everyday things we do. I want him to love learning and never get discouraged or frstrated. We limit our seatwork since he’s an active little boy!

Check out our Logic of English review…

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Spelling Work

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May 22, 2013 By Jennifer 2 Comments

We’re reviewing a fun unit study that comes with a spelling component and I thought we’d see how we do with this new thang.

I never had any large respect for good spelling. That is my feeling yet. Before the spelling-book came with its arbitrary forms, men unconsciously revealed shades of their characters and also added enlightening shades of expression to what they wrote by their spelling, and so it is possible that the spelling-book has been a doubtful benevolence to us.
– Mark Twain

They love the idea.

So, here we begin some new spelling work.

Liz and I are naturally good spellers and drills are just fun for us. I wonder how Tori and Kate will react.

We’ve about conquered reading with Kate. She’s on chapter books now! She still doesn’t write or spell well though yet.

They have a sheet each day to complete, but I realize that they need extra help in between since this is so new and they have no experience with spelling.

Tori still needs practice reading.

I chose ten words from the recommended list and they wrote them five times each and wrote them each in a sentence. I wrote what they said on the board for the sentences and they copied them.

It’s just not enough for such a new concept. Their pretest was 3/10. But I loved how excited and optimistic Tori was that she got 3 right! That’s the way we should think, eh? Not focusing on getting 7 wrong, but 3 right!

So we multi-tasked on the deck this afternoon. Liz quizzed the girls while they prepped juice for lemonade and limeade. I think the sun was in her eyes or she was mad at me. Not sure what I did! {whatever}

Tori and Kate loved the squeezing of the limes.

I printed these spelling cards on fun sherbet-colored paper and laminated them.

We will practice a few more and re-quiz on Friday.

Download your own Spelling Command Cards linked on this page. I love Montessori spelling.

One of our favorite apps is Montessori Crosswords. I just need to be more intentional about having my girls play it.

Looking to add Spelling City to our repertoire. and other apps and games to make spelling fun…

Alex loves Starfall and apparently, they have an advanced app: Learn to Read.

We’re using All About Reading Level 2 (we’re on the home stretch!) and I’ve heard rave reviews for All About Spelling. Probably a purchase in our future. It’s recommended by IEW.

Liz used Spelling Workout (recommended in The Well-Trained Mind: A Guide to Classical Education at Home) and she liked it well enough. I’m hesitant to go the workbook route right now with Tori and Kate.

I like the idea of notebooking spelling and want to do something more creative and kinesthetic than just workbooks, but if Tori and Kate like workbooks, I’ll get them.

A new adventure with both girls mandated to be in school this coming year.

Linking up: Living and Learning at Home, Living Montessori Now, Christian Montessori Network

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Africa Continent Box

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April 18, 2013 By Jennifer 2 Comments

I got 7 photo boxes at Michael’s last year during a major sale.

Alex used our Arctic and Antarctic box during our winter and snow unit a couple months ago. And you can see the girls in action with Kindergarten Antarctica last year.

Alex recently started asking questions about African animals, so I chose to capitalize on the learning excitement to create a unit for the kids!

We have subscriptions to Ranger Rick, Zoobooks, and all the National Geographic magazines. I found the ones that went with Africa and put them in a basket.

Here is the box in progress. I cut out all the flags for matching and we have more printables now, including the lovely paper doll above.

I gathered some fun books from the library and printed out some fun activities and coloring pages.

Alex loves playing with the animals and coloring.

Tori and Kate loved coloring and doing mazes and studying animals. Kate wants to work with animals when she grows up. She carries around an animal encyclopedia and just about has it memorized.

We’ve been watching Nature on Netflix and the girls love telling me what we’ve already studied – animals, climates, places. I love it.

Want some resources? Of course you do.

Printables (some cost)

education.com (I don’t have a membership here, but I get all sorts of great printables!)
abcteach.com (I do have a membership here and I love it!)
Montessori Print Shop
Montessori for Everyone (lots of great free printables)

Pinterest Boards…this is where I gather most of my ideas!

Continent Boxes
Africa Continent Box
Geography

Follow Jennifer Lambert (Royal Little Lambs)’s board Africa Continent Box on Pinterest.

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Back to Bubba Preschool

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January 5, 2013 By Jennifer 4 Comments

We got a bit of snow last week. Almost up to Dad’s knees!

Helping Dad remove the hideous pink and blue flowered wallpaper!

Then, he said, “No more pictures!”

rolling the winter clothing die and putting stickers on the chart is a favorite!

Alex really liked using Bananagrams to spell winter clothing words.

from Winter Fun Tot Pack

I tried to make it simple and lay out one card and the letters for that card.

He wanted all the cards and all the letters all out. I was super impressed.

Cutting out his jellyfish for letter J – from Animals ABCs

pasting on his jellyfish for the letter J craft – from Animal ABCs

To the right of our calendar is Alex’s theme board for the letter J.

He likes his Lauri ABC puzzles. He usually hammers in the letters.

Dad took Alex to the local nature center for a preschool winter class. They made snow paint with salt. They colored snowflake pictures.

And….

Oh my, just look at him in his little snowshoes!

Tonight before bed, Alex got so excited that it was essential oil time: “Ya gonna rub the oils on my foots?!” as I rubbed his “foots” with Thieves oil, he sighed like it was heaven: “Aaaaah!” He is precious. and hilarious.

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October Tot School Montessori Works

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October 8, 2012 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

Alex (Bubba) loved our Halloween sensory bin.

Thank you, Wal-Mart and Target! There are oodles of fun little things at their dollar spots right now!

Our October Tot School and Montessori Works:

Halloween Sensory Bin!

He copied my pattern with erasers and beads

Then he wanted to “stack” them

Sorting apples and leaves. He also told me their colors.

Coloring a pumpkin page from the Letter of the Week curriculum

Sorting hot and cold for fire safety

Matching shadow leaves. He thought this was great. Did he want to do it again? Nope.

Pin pushing a pumpkin page. How do you like that alliteration?

Floam. He wasn’t sure what to do with this.

Matching shapes. I named them for him. He knew most of them.

Words with Tots app. The only thing I don’t like about this one is their picture of a chimpanzee: they call it a monkey.

Dot painting an A with apples

Scarecrow tot pack. He did this letter maze finding all the S’s! I was impressed.

He loved cutting these fall leaves on their lines.

He was so happy with himself doing his school work.

He woke Daddy up super early this weekend and demanded to do his schoolwork. He cried when Daddy told him it was still dark and too early. It must’ve been before 5 AM! That’s my boy.

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Fall Sensory Bin and Light Table

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September 28, 2012 By Jennifer 1 Comment

Alex is busy, busy, busy!
He loves helping me make dinner and he loves to cut veggies with own little doggie knife!

He was SO excited to color with markers and watercolors with his sisters!

I finally found all the pieces to this Lauri shape and color sorter.

We tried to learn about seasons and appropriate clothing. This game lasted only a few seconds and he was “done.”

Our fall sensory bins. Alex loved playing with these clear plastic acorns and pumpkins on his light table.

I raided the dollar spot at Target. Lots of great stuff!

H is for hippo. We started I for Iguana. We watched videos on BBC about hippos and iguanas. He actually narrated to Dad what he learned!

These little beetles took over the park. They were all different shades and patterns of red and orange and black. I think they’re fire bugs. Perfect name.

Alex loves watching Abby and Dinosaur Train and Diego.

Alex says he’s DONE WITH NAPS. Lord help me.
Alex’s attention span is about non-existent. I hope that changes over the next few months. Our schedule has been crazy keeping up with him and trying to get the girls’ schooling completed and chores done. He begs for constant companionship. He will not play alone so someone always has to be with him. This makes for sporadic lessons. Right now, it’s barely working for us.
Tori, Katie, and I do morning school with Alex while Liz gets her math, Greek, and other work completed. When she’s ready, she takes Alex outside or somewhere to play while I get some reading and lessons done with the girls. Then we have lunch and we try to get “one more thing” done after that. Some days we do. Often, Liz completes some history or science and the girls play with Alex.
So, this means no rest time or alone time for Mama or the girls.

Can you say exhausted?

Linking up: Kids Activities Blog, The Resourceful Mama, Life of Faith, Written Reality, Kiddy Charts, The Educators Spin On It, ABC Creative Learning, Living Montessori Now, Simple Life of a Fire Wife, Los Gringos Locos, Growing Hands on Kids, JBMumofOne,

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Grade One Work

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March 31, 2012 By Jennifer 1 Comment

Grade One Work Weekly Update

Starting to do some more formal math with Tori and Katie…Today, we started Singapore Math 1B (This is leftover from Elizabeth and I haven’t gotten around to even buying workbooks yet.)…

We worked through almost half the book and got into place value. I brought out the cute little pipe cleaner bead strands I made a while back (they were totally unimpressed then!). I used shiny silver pipe cleaners and 10 blue plastic beads for each strand. I scrunched the ends of the pipe cleaners to hold the strands together.

I stopped at page 33. I got tired. My throat is sore!

$Place Value Math with Beads$ $Montessori Math Beads$

So, here’s the funny story. The equation was 15-3=? and I laid out 1 tens bead strand and 5 ones beads. I grabbed three beads and asked them what was left. Katie hollered out, “12!” I thought that was pretty amazing that they really were getting this. I asked her how she knew that, expecting her to explain how she got the answer using the beads or something…

With her head cocked to the side, she replied, condescendingly, “Mom, I just thinked it.”

Of course you did, Honey. How silly of Mama to underestimate you. Obviously, we need to move on to grammar and subject-verb agreement now.

We studied the phases of the moon this week. They had charts and matching pages. Check out my astronomy Pinterest board for fun learning ideas.

Tori working on her space workbook. (My dad is retired Army, hence the Tshirt.)

Eating purple grits! that big sister Lizzie made one morning. She’s been playing with food coloring lately. We have a different color of lemonade every day too.

Morning message writing.

I found some fun free pages and I plan to incorporate that idea into our morning work now since the girls loved it so much. The calendar notebooks weren’t working out so well. I’ve since updated our calendar yet again and done away with the notebooks altogether.

Our calendar board is two sided. I use the Calendar Connections for our monthly themes. On the other side, I just re-created all the focus points. I have our quarterly poet, composer, and artist at the top. I have our Bible verse and character trait and pledges and the Lord’s Prayer. I have a poem, song, and hymn on the bottom. The blue background has our word family, a French word, and a German word. I haven’t quite worked out what to put in that fourth quadrant yet. The blank space on the bottom will probably have our animal of the week to go with science. Always a work in progress!

We do Bible and calendar time during or right after breakfast in the little living room right by the kitchen and dining area. Then, the girls and I do other school activities in the basement.

Here are the girls’ shelves with Montessori works and the word wall above. In the shelves, I have a moveable alphabet with Lauri letters and silent E worksheets, a red basket full of Unifix cubes that they love to do patterns, some paper weaving seahorses, flower arranging, hot dots short and long vowels, some file folder games, a sentence dice activity, and an animal book with an animal fact learning wheel.

Katie’s green box holds her notebooks and personal school items. Tori has a blue box in the picture above, under the easel and beside her table. This has worked well for us the past few weeks. We used to use workboxes, but now we have evolved into work folders, kept in the colored boxes.

We’re doing 1st grade work now! **Exciting**

We’re now working through our word families. We’ve done –an, –and, and –ad so far. Those are in the blue pocket chart. The red chart holds Easter words and will have a theme each week or month or whenever we change.

Our read alouds:

We’re finishing Tapestry of Grace Year 1 Unit 4. We’re beginning Apologia’s Zoology 3: Land Animals of the Sixth Day. We also are reading Christian Liberty Nature Reader 1. We’re reading through Beatrix Potter and loving it. Dad even hopes he’s around for those readings – he’s a Peter Rabbit fan! History for Little Pilgrims is fun and simple and they love the coloring book with it! We’re working through First Language Lessons 1. We’re reading Green Thumbs and we’re ready to start a garden!

We’ll take off a couple weeks in July when we have friends and family visit.

Do you school year round or take a big summer break?

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Last Week in February!

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March 2, 2012 By Jennifer Leave a Comment

Where has the time gone? It’s flying by!
We’re loving First Language Lessons. The girls wrote the full names of everyone in our family. This took a little effort and explaining. The girls each have two middle names, to honor my family name that will not be carried on since I’m an only child. Bubba has three middle names since he’s the only boy. We had to honor grandpas!

Here are the sentence cubes I mentioned last week. We made silly sentences with them. “The happy frog shut his mouth.” “The green frog slides on the lily pad.” We reviewed nouns and learned about verbs and adjectives. I used the Montessori grammar symbol 3 part cards to help.

silent E sheets with a letter from our movable alphabet box I made with Lauri Toys Mini Alphabet Avalancheand an adjustable craft box from Wal-Mart (I think this is the one). Tori is almost a fluent reader!

Book about tails they colored and read. They loved the kites and girls’ ponytails pages. Unexpected!

Some fun activities from our homeschool co-op…

Balancing act activity from The Cat in the Hat

Snow paint (glue and shaving cream)

Tori lost her THIRD tooth yesterday!

We practiced reading, sight words, handwriting, sensory and practical life stuff too.

Tori is quite the helper: she swept and mopped the kitchen and bathrooms all by herself! She and Katie cleaned up the playroom (and now I know they can do it quickly and well!) Tori also helps out by playing with her brother when Elizabeth or I need to do something. I love her servant’s heart!

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Fun in February

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February 11, 2012 By Jennifer 3 Comments

Montessori Fun in February

I found the neatest little heart stencils at Wal-Mart.

The hearts had a spiral gear in them, very similar to the Spirograph! I showed the girls how to use it, and they were ecstatic!

Poetry work. We almost have these memorized.

We’re also memorizing “The Caterpillar” with First Language Lessons for the Well-Trained Mind: Level 1 (Second Edition) (First Language Lessons).

What’s in the box?

math FFG and weaving sea critters.

$Valentine Math FFG$

Play dough girls.

We made pumpkin pie (smells good!) play dough and “snow” (just add glitter) play dough. Get our play dough recipes!

We started a morning message page with calendar time and the girls really like that it’s personal. It encourages them to read and follow directions. Sometimes they highlight sight words or draw a

certain colored shape at the bottom. I always ask for a hug!

Nature art with contact paper and nature-y stuff…We still have snow on the ground, so they really had to hunt for things to make a collage. It was really bright out.

Tori’s finished collage. I love the lines.

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