The Peaceful Preschool - Letter C

Zeke had a great week learning about the letter C with The Peaceful Preschool! Our books this week were "Caps for Sale", "Corduroy", and "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" - three of our family favorites!

I'll post each activity under the book that we used for inspiration.

CAPS FOR SALE

Such a cute book about some mischievous monkeys and a cap peddler! I found a few printables to go along with this book. 

One of the activities in the Peaceful Preschool guide was to sort coins. I really wasn't sure if Zeke was ready for this activity yet, but I decided to go ahead and give it a try. I used this tray and some plastic coins (nickels, dimes, and pennies). Zeke was actually really great at distinguishing between the coins and sorted the entire tray! 

It also suggested painting a scene from the book, so I printed out a coloring picture of a cap and let Zeke use watercolors. He has started painting objects instead of covering the whole page, and I love the tie-dye look his cap has!

I also found a free printable of some peddler's caps. I shrunk them and glued them to clothespins. I drew some colored lines on a craft stick and Zeke had to clip the hats on the correct colors. This was a great fine motor activity! He also matched caps with the lowercase letters to monkeys with the uppercase letters (A-C onlhy).

He also put coin stickers on his letters. 

He loves feeling the glitter glue on his tactile flashcards!

THE COW 

This poem was included in the curriculum, so I decided to make Zeke some Montessori-friendly cow printables! He really loves worksheets that involve gluing, so I made sure to include one of those!

I created a dot marker letter sheet with Montessori fonts. He loves dot markers! I also used a cow coloring page and added some "C"s for him to dot. I used the same image of the cow to make the counting spots worksheet, where he added brown dot stickers to each cow according to the number. He can recognize numbers 1-5, so we've been doing plenty of activities with those numbers! I also had him count the cows and glue the correct number in the square. 

CHICKA CHICKA BOOM BOOM

Beat you to the top of the coconut tree! This book is so fun to read! I focused on the letters A-C since that is what Zeke has learned so far. I created these worksheets.

I made these cards with numbers and Zeke had to add that many "coconuts" (brown stickers) to each tree. He loves stickers!

I put the upper and lowercase letters for A-C on this tree and gave Zeke a basket with the same moveable alphabet letters. He had to match them to the tree.

I also added circles with the letters and called out a letter for Zeke to "dot" with his marker.

Zeke has always been excellent at tracing, so I made this tracing worksheet with the letters A-C.

We also played with the letters in his name using his moveable alphabet.

I used the same tray he sorted coins in and let him sort his letters A-C. This tray was $10 from Amazon, and I use it for so many different activities!

CORDUROY

Such a cute story! I knew we had to use buttons for these activities, so again I made some worksheets. I make my own worksheets because I can make theme just the level Zeke needs. 

Again, I used this tray and a package of wooden buttons in three sizes. We worked on the vocabulary for "small", "medium", and "large." Zeke was great at noticing the sizes of each button and sorted the whole tray.

He also used the counting cards from The Peaceful Press and small buttons. He put buttons on the numbers and color-coordinated them himself! 

I made a button shape matching worksheet and a coloring page for Zeke.

We are really loving the gentle preschool lessons from The Peaceful Preschool. 

The Peaceful Preschool - Letter B

 Zeke enjoyed another week learning all about bears, blueberries, and bunnies! The Peaceful Preschool is such a gentle preschool guide and we are really loving it. I'm not going to list each activity we did like I did for the letter A week. It's a free sample week so I didn't feel as if I were giving too much away by listing things out so specifically. Here is an overview of what Zeke did. He had such a fun week! His books were "Blueberries for Sal", "The Runaway Bunny", and the Creation story from the Bible.

Zeke counted "blueberries" (blue pom poms) into this tray. I placed the numbers 1-5 in the squares and he had to count out that many blueberries. He can recognize the numbers 1-5 by sight now and can count out that many objects. 

I also set out a tin bucket of blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries. Zeke sorted them into smaller bowls, and then taste-tested each of them. He loves strawberries, but is not a fan of blueberries or raspberries!

This was a free printable from Royal Baloo. He colored the letter "b" bush green, added dot marker blueberries, and colored, cut out, and glued the bear family by the blueberry bush.

These were all free cut and glue printables from Teachers Pay Teachers. He color matched the characters from Brown Bear, Brown Bear, sorted uppercase and lowercase Bs, and glued the bears in number order 1-10. I had to help with the numbers 6-10, but he did such a great job with 1-5!

He also sorted socks and tried folding them together. This is one the "practical life" skills in The Peaceful Preschool. I'm always tempted to skip these, but then I'm always glad when I don't!

Another sorting activity was sorting animals into pairs. I put a set in each basket and he had to find their pairs and line them up. He also loved this!

He used the number cards from The Peaceful Preschool to count out colored bears. He did all ten numbers on his own, and I was so proud of him.

He really enjoyed sorting the animals by land and water. He understood the concept and did such a good job. This was simply two pieces of felt I laid in an old wooden tray. I added a mix of land and water animals from our collection. He played with this for a long time!

These were two activities from The Peaceful Preschool. He had a great time making the bunny mask and gluing the "bunny tails" onto his letters!

He also transferred "bunny tails" using tongs. He has finally gotten the hand of using the tongs to transfer items. Cotton balls are a great first choice because they're easy!

I printed this bunny labeling worksheet for Zeke as an introduction to labeling. I would name the body part, he would find it, and then he glued the label in the correct box. He wanted to color the bunny blue!

I'm so excited about everything he is learning. Have you read these books?

Mid-Year Curriculum Review

I can't believe we are halfway through our homeschool year already! We have been so busy that it has just flown by. We just completed Week 18 out of 35. I thought I would give a mid-year review on our curriculum choices and how they are working for us this year. 

Silas and Titus (grades 6 and 4)

I thought I would begin with these boys because they are using the same core curriculum, Heart of Dakota Preparing Hearts for His Glory. This is a year-long overview of world history. We have used Heart of Dakota in the past, but have never finished an entire year. Thankfully I can say, we will definitely finish this year! 

We are enjoying so many things about Preparing Hearts for His Glory. The history lessons are really great - the book spines are "A Child's History of the World" and "Grandpa's Box." There are plenty of great books that flesh these out, like "Tirzah" and "Fountain of Life." I really like the way each week is laid out in a predictable routine - Mondays we have a research topic that introduces our week-long history project; Tuesdays we have vocabulary words; Wednesdays are for hands-on geography lessons; and Thursdays are for timeline entries. The history projects have, for the most part, been pretty neat. They have made Roman coins with a drawstring pouch, maps, perfume, and a flip-book. 

Here they are making perfume from rubbing alcohol and cinnamon sticks.

An air-dry clay map of the Fertile Crescent and Mediterranean area.

We read from one of the history spines each day along with a go-along literature book. The readings are not too long or too short; I find they're the perfect length to hold the boy's attention. They do oral and written narrations along with guided discussion questions each week. 

Titus made Roman coins for his drawstring pouch made from a coffee filter and twine.

The notebooking pages are beautiful! They're full-color with plenty of room for writing narrations, defining vocabulary words, and timeline entries. Silas is on the older end of the age suggestions, so I ordered him the Extension Package. He has an additional independent reading along with notebook entries each day. He enjoys the books he reads!

The science portion is on the light side, but we have just gone with it instead of trying to add to it, like I normally would. I just don't have the time or desire to add more to our days right now! Now even though I said it was light, I do still think it's a great gentle science. We read living books like the "One Small Square" books. Right now we are reading "Find the Constellations." They have really enjoyed the hands-on activities each week. The science also follows a predictable routine - Mondays they add to their notebook; Tuesdays are for oral narration; Wednesdays they answer questions in their notebook; Thursdays are for hands-on exploration. We have done some really neat activities, like making a star "twinkle" on our ceiling and made constellations from glass beads and toothpicks. 

They are making constellations from glass beads and toothpicks.

We don't follow the math and language arts suggestions, and we have actually quit the Bible lessons as well. The Bible lessons are mainly memorization, and the boys are both participating in Bible Drill at our church. They already have so much memory work with Bible Drill that I'm not adding to that. 

Our math curriculum for the boys is Math Lessons for a Living Education. We've pretty much used this since the beginning and really like it. Next year Silas will move on to something different since he's in the last level of this, but Titus will continue with the 5th grade book. I like the short lessons, although they do get longer in length with each grade level. Silas is 6th grade and his math takes around 30 minutes a day. Titus is in 4th grade and his takes around 15 minutes. I like the large font and the ample space to work out problems. My boys skip the stories each week and haven't missed out on much of the actual math instruction for doing so. They weren't interesting to the boys and they were long! I told them to skip it.

Titus is making a fraction flip book. There are several hands-on projects in these math books.

We have skipped around in language arts a bit - we started with Rod and Staff, swapped to simple workbooks while I researched different options, and finally settled on Abeka language arts - the worktext only. So far I like the simple and straight-forward lessons. There isn't so much writing and it doesn't move as fast as Rod and Staff. Titus has retained more from the three weeks we've been using this than the entire time we used Rod and Staff. I think we will stick with this for the remainder of the year and then evaluate this summer.

The boys are also both using A Reason for Handwriting, levels T and F. They don't like cursive, but it's an important skill for them to learn and have so I continue to make them do it. It takes around 5 minutes a day - not that big of a sacrifice for them!

They also have independent reading that goes along with Drawn into the Heart of Reading, but we don't use all of the worksheets in the book. We pick and choose, skipping some and completing some. The worksheets were making the boys hate reading time, so I decided it wasn't worth it!

We also just started Titus with A Reason for Spelling because he needed some extra practice. We're only on our third week, so I can't really speak much about it other than we really like the gentle approach!

They also have plenty of real-life experiences every day doing farm chores like feeding and taking care of animals and collecting eggs. Titus just started Tae-Kwon-Do and is enjoying it so far! Silas plans to play junior high football this year at our local school (he is allowed to play as a homeschooler). I'm glad they are pursuing their own interests. Sometimes it seems like they're the same person as far as hobbies and interests, and although I want them to be best frineds (and they are), I also want them to be their individual self. It's going to be good for them to have separate activities.

I'm really thankful that they have plenty of time to be outdoors. We're done with school by lunchtime, so they have the rest of the day to go outside for chores and free time. 

When did your kids start pursuing separate interests, or have they always?

The Peaceful Preschool - Letter A

 Zeke and I started using The Peaceful Preschool last week, and it was so much fun! He turned 3 the day after Thanksgiving. 

I love the simplicity of this preschool program. Everything is so practical (there is even a section each day for practical life skills) and engaging. Here are a few snippets of what Zeke did last week.

Our books of the week were "How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World" and "Ten Apples Up On Top." Our focus this week was, you can probably guess, apples! Instead of listing each day's activities, I'm going to list them by "subject."

 

PHONICS

We put red glitter glue on our letter A flashcards to make tactile flashcards. This is such a great idea, especially as I was considering buying a new set (I lost the set I had with my older boys).

He made letters in a salt tray. I dyed this salt with food coloring and put in in a Melissa and Doug tray.

Zeke made his letters with playdough. I showed him how to roll snakes, and he did this all on his own!

He also hunted for the letters in a cookie sheet full of pinto beans.

He stamped an apple with the letters.

COUNTING SKILLS

I printed out 5 green and 5 red apples and laminated them. We used these to sort by color and count. He is really good at counting objects to 5. I also printed out apples with the numbers 1-5 on them and taped them to Megablocks. He had to stack the apples in numeric order.

This isn't from The Peaceful Preschool, but I found these on Teachers Pay Teachers for free. We used the 0-5 puzzle cards. He did so good with counting the apples on the tree and matching them to the numbers. He needed a little help matching the numbers, but he did remember that "zero means none," which is a win for me.

FINE MOTOR SKILLS

Zeke transferred cinnamon sticks from a tray into the jar with tongs. This was really good for his fine motor skills, hand-eye coordination, and patience! 

He also used a glue stick to spread glue on his letters, then screwed the lids on and off of three spice jars and sprinkled spices on the letters (cinnamon, allspice, and nutmeg).

LARGE MOTOR SKILLS

We tossed a balloon back and forth, and this was one of his favorite activities! No photo because we were busy having fun.

I also placed red and green "apples" (pom-poms) around the living room and gave him a basket to collect the apples.

PRACTICAL LIFE SKILLS

Zeke practiced using a measuring cup with a small plastic tub of oatmeal, a measuring cup, and a small bowl. This was fun, simple, not as messy as I thought, and kept him entertained for a good while!

ART SKILLS

I printed out a tree coloring page and Zeke used watercolors to paint it. Then we added red fingerprint apples to the tree.

He also glued torn paper scraps to an apple outline.

There were some activities listed that we didn't complete, like making an apple crisp that I knew none of my kids would eat. A few other things he did this week that weren't from The Peaceful Preschool were:

dot marker apple patterns

color the apples 

dot marker "a"

apple lacing

apple puzzles

I found this Apple Picking game on Teachers Pay Teachers for free, and Zeke really had fun with it. I had to call out a clue like, "Pick a green apple with a worm in it," and he had to find that apple and put it in the basket.

 

Preschool is such a fun age!