T is for....

The week of Thanksgiving (and part of the week before) we learned that T is for....

Trains and Trucks - we read some fun books filled with trains and trucks and did these pictures building with shapes.
T is for Turkey - I had big plans of reading books all about thanksgiving, but our Library is well, sad, and the two books they have were check out, so I will plan better next year to get those books a head of time. But we did still do this fun craft together. I saw this idea on pintrest.
T is for Turtle - Here Ryan is doing some activities that I got from Confesstions of a homeschooler, we also ready I think a book about turtles, I had planed to do a turtel rock craft I found in family fun, and study turtle's more, but life happens and this did not go as planed. But I am sure I will have another change to do them another time.

T is for Thanksgiving- On thanksgiving day we went to visit friends, and headed out on our thanksgiving family trip, we talked about how how greatful we are to the lord for blessing us with such wondeful blessings, and trying to focus more in our prayers to thank the lord for specific things.

and as always we read chick-a chick-a boom boom and put the letter T and t on the alphabet tree.

Fall Activies

are you tired of me saying it I LOVE FALL!!!

and I am happy to see that Alabama does have a pretty fall, all things considering.

We took a walk and collected fall leaves of all shapes and sized, we studied about the trees and why they turn colors. Here is a GREAT video that tell you in case you did not know.

Click HERE for a Link

Here is another GREAT song that teaches photosynthesis - my kids were singing this for days! (but we did watch it a few times)

Click HERE for a LINK!

anyway- we made the snack place mats with our leaves, and construction paper and contact paper. We also wrote # on the leaves (once they were done- so they are covered with contact paper) and then they rolled acorns on them and would add up the #'s that the acorns would land on. They loved this, but got frustrated that the acorn would roll off easy- next time I will put then on a cook sheet.

the boys making there snack mats
Here we did some fall Q-tip painting I saw this idea on pintrest

We did this when we were still learning about that letter F as well... for fall

F is for....

Here is just a sneak peek into a few things we did this past week - giving a focus on the letter F, as Ryan is learning his letters, and what they say, and mean.

I chose to study both upper and lowercase at the same time. With my last two boys they were taught upper then lower, and I still struggle with telling them to write lowercase. So with Ryan I am teaching them at the same time. A mommy letter and a little letter, with a slight focus on the lowercase because it is used WAY more!

So far it's working well. Also- I pick what letter to work on, based on what will go along with what the other boys are learning. (so it is very random)

the older boys are learning about wet-land's plants, trees, and animals.

So we learned all about Frogs- and did this fun craft. The boys sat on my lap and pushed the petal and helped me sew these- they love them. I got this from a Animal craft book I got on ebay.

F is for Flowers .... we did this experiment in science this week, learning about flowers and how they drink and grow. We got this idea from the kids science book, a book that is part of our science curriculum
the boys working in their science note books drawing a picture of what happened and then writing about it.
F is for Fish... I got these cute printables at Confession of a Homeschooler - love that site. GREAT abc printables- I DO do them all for each letter- I just pick one two. I printed extra little fish so he could practice making patters too. He enjoyed that.
F is for FOOD! we did this really cute lace story hungry Caterpillar from confessions of a homeschooler, and then ate some fancy food that the kids never tried before, like apple-pear, star fruit, and persimmon. This was a great activity for counting as well.

We as always read chick-a-chick-a boom boom and put the letter F f on our alphabet tree.

I try to find books to go along with whatever we are letter we are learning about and if I can't we just keep our eye out for that letter when we are reading. I will say- "Ryan do you see any F's" as we read- it is fun.

Squirrels

we learned all about squirrels this week... and Here is a funny book the kids, like. It did not really teach them anything about squirrels but they laughed. They also liked a book called Those darn squirrels you can see it HERE - just a note I did not like the mans name in the book so I changed it as I read it :) WE did ready many educational books on squires too.

WE also did this experiment to be able to watch squirrels.

we used peanuts, pecans, pop corn and scrambled eggs (after reading about what they like)

it took a few days but we did get to watch many squirrels in our back yard, the most we saw was four at time, and now we see at least two almost every morning, we think they might have a nest in out trees.

P is for pumpkin

Each week we focus on a different letter of the week. There is no ryme or reason to it, but we try to cordinate it, so it will relate to what our over all theam is for the year. Animals and Nature.

This week we learned about the letter P
some things that we did this week

we started my reading chick-a-chick-a boom boom - and adding the letter P to our alphabet tree. This was inspired my this site - I have not taken pictures of mine yet.

HERE - for my tree inspiration

made pumpkin play dough- just use any home made kind and add lots of pumpkin spice to it, it smells sooo good.

painted Pumpkins - that was easier then I thought it would be

read about penguins

we did a pumpkin counting activity - found HERE

also - just made a point to point the letter P when it came up in our reading

O is for Owl

This week we learned about the letter O

Here is just a list of some things we did this week -

again we always start the week by singing chick-a-chick-a boom boom and putting that letter on our alphabet tree- inspired by THIS - I made my own- no pictures yet....

Then each day I try to something involving that letter...

We took a nature walk Outdoors

made the letter O in our squishy bags (see crafts with kids)

Made Orange Muffins - yummy (recipe to come) & played with Orange play-dough

we learned about Owls and made an owl craft. we used the kids hand prints for the wings, and Popsicle sticks for the back and "bones" of the wings. We also had a yummy owl lunch- PB& J with a cheese beak, apple and grape eyes and carrot stick feathers. The boys LOVED this!

Read about Octopus- and planed a game but did not get to it.

Squishy Bags

We made these it was fun, we use them to practice letters and numbers Ethan does spelling words. They are supper easy and all you need is gel, and a zip lock bag, we also added glitter because I had some on hand. I also duck tapes mine closed. The important thing is to get out all the air!! I did not go a good job on Ryan's, but it still works great. If you need more instructions just google or search pintrest for squishy bags.