Alphabet Match Game

My super smart kid has done really well learning to identify capital letters.  He knows just about all of them...when he wants to (there are days he just can't focus or be interested in actually looking at the letters in order to tell you which one it is.  On these days he prefers the "shout a random letter and hope it's right" approach).

I chose to introduce only capitals for the sake of simplicity, and in my opinion he is ready to start matching them up to their lowercase counterparts.  I have been intending to make an alphabet match game for him in order to accomplish this, but I currently am printer-less so it hasn't been done.

We have a set of alphabet flash cards already, but they don't work for what I have in mind because the upper and lowercase sets have different pictures for each letter.

I just happened to find myself in the value aisle in Target (crazy how that keeps happening)and found this set of flashcards which was just what I needed!

What I liked about these cards is that each card has the uppercase letter above the lowercase letter on one side, and a picture on the opposite card.

To make the match game I cut each card in half vertically isolating the capital and lowercase letters, and creating a puzzle-type game of the image side.  

I shuffled the cards and laid them out on the table with the letter sides up.  The goal of the game was to match the letters and check by flipping them over to see if the pictures lined up. So fun! He did great!

Top Mommy Blogs

I've just been approved on Top Mommy Blogs to be added to their Homeschool Moms category.

YIPPEE!

Please click the button on the right sidebar (or below) to vote for my blog should you feel so inclined.  My goal is to expand my readership and followers.  I always visit and nearly always follow blogs back, and this is an excellent way to connect with and bounce ideas off each other.  I just love the support you can get from other blog moms.  It can feel so great when you spend most of your time with kids and adult interactions can sometimes be few and far between!

Also, I've decided to give Bloglovin a try.  Follow on there too!

You Can Do It!

I'm totally a step-back and let them figure it out kind of mom.  Does that make me lazy? maybe.  But I defend my parenting style by choosing to believe I am nurturing independence, confidence and problem solving.

We brought the boys to the playground today and they were climbing, sliding, running and jumping to their hearts' content.

While I was watching the big one climb and slide, and my husband was pushing the little one around on his trike, a family showed up to... well I guess to play, but i hesitate to call it that... and it took all the self control I had not to shout "You're doing it wrong! Move, let me show you how to be the perfect parent!"

The first thing the little girl tried to do was climb up a chain rung thingy to get to the top of the play scape.  A fairly easy task for her age, she had to be 3 or 4, and this was no Everest.  Before she had one finger on the rung her father says "She can't do that.  Don't let her do that.  That's not for her." He saw some stairs for her to use instead and insisted she use those, the whole time calling for her to be careful and go slow.  She didnt quite lift her foot high enough and bumped a toe on the next step, and while it didn't bother her at all, dear ol' dad was quick to shout "don't run, take it easy"... a sentiment he repeated over and over during this most restricted playground trip.

Everywhere the girl turned she was followed by her father's instructions to mom: "don't let her do that, she can't, its too big, that's not for her, no more over there, she can't, she can't, she can't..."

NO KIDDING SHE CAN'T! YOU DON'T GIVE HER THE CHANCE!

Even my one year old was climbing up these things.  And I know in his head he was thinking that it was only because my kids are boys was I so at ease...or maybe he thought I was being neglectful, who knows.... But in my head I was thinking about how much damage he is doing by setting nothing but limits and declaring nothing at all positive in regard to his daughter's abilities.

I am my kids' biggest cheerleader.  I encourage them constantly.  Do they whine, yeah of course.  Do they get angry when they have trouble doing something.....oh yeah they do (and it drives me crazy)! But I do my best to offer instruction so they can figure it out, or model for them so they can have their own success later.

Yeah, sure, I sometimes sound like a crazy person "woohoo"-ing and "oh yeah!!!"-ing and doing victory dances with the kids.  But when they shout down "I do by myself, mommy! My strong have big muscles for climbin'! Don't need help, me big boy!"...well...how do you not?

Make Your Own Preschool Morning Board

I had this light bulb moment... maybe I can get the kids into a "school mode" if I engage them with something like this pocket chart to start the day.  Most classrooms start with a circle time and something similar right?  So let's give it a try.  

HOLD THE PHONE!!!  I don't have the money to drop on one of those fancy pantsy pocket charts! $50 for a good one.... $70 for an awesome one.  No way.  I am much too frugal.

So I made my own, (didn't see that coming did ya?  oh, you did?  yeah I figured).

I got a piece of foam poster board and calendar pieces from the Dollar Tree, bulletin board trim for $1 at Target, and a weather wheel for about $.60 on clearance in Walmart (but that is easily DIY too).  

The most expensive part of this was buying velcro for all the calendar pieces.

I covered the board with leftover pieces of felt, piecing together different colors to represent different circle time topics.  

Dark blue on top is all about the day.

Light blue is sight words for the week.  This is an experiment.  Not sure if he is ready for this at 3 1/2, but he's bright, so we'll see how it goes.

Green is for the letter and number of the week.  We will use worksheets from various activity books that correspond to these after we finish with our morning board gathering.

I got sick of cutting velcro squares for every piece, plus the word cards are double sided, so I opted to use clothes pins here...as if you couldn't tell.

The whether wheel is self explanatory.  It's actually my kid's favorite part.  He loves looking out the window and moving the arrow.  I did have to add velcro pieces to the arrow and each "slice" so that gravity would stop declaring every day "snowy".... we've got a heat warning going on here for Pete's sake! 

I used a hot glue gun around the edges of felt, now that it's all said and done I might have used something like Hi-Tack all purpose glue to adhere the entire piece of felt so it doesn't pull away from the board as you remove the velcro pieces from it.

The only thing left to do is decided whether I am going to mount it onto some wall space (shout out to command strips...holla!!!) or attach some ribbon to the top so I can move it around and hang it on door knobs or nails or whatever is nearby in whatever room we find ourselves in.

Now I just hope we use it!

Finding our Homeschool Groove: PART 1- The Home

My husband is too sweet and patient to complain... but I'm pretty sure this is what he's thinking:

Once the weather was nice I decided to makeover the basement playroom so there would be a distinct "classroom" area.  But I never got it totally organized so the kids took it back over as a play area.  In fact, it has become the "construction site"and if I attempt to re-home the blocks and miscellaneous work trucks that have landed in the middle of my classroom, I am thoroughly reprimanded.  Also, the kids are distracted by the play side of the room.  

The living room was toy free for only the briefest of periods.  I had visions a REAL living room... you know- one that looks like adults live there and we're not running some Lord of the Flies type establishment.  (Full disclosure: I have started that book so many times and just can't read it).

Lately though, I've come to the realization is that homeschooling is a lifestyle and our home is inevitably going to reflect that.  While the kids are young and homeschooling is new to us, convenience is going to be the main in factor in deciding the WHERE and HOW of it all.  It happens to be more convenient to transition right from breakfast to an activity with a quick swipe of the dishes in the sink.  It's more convenient to keep tossing toys into the messy playroom and set up lessons and more directed play in the living room.  A morning circle board and the kids art will fill our walls instead of one of those gorgeous Pinterest DIY portrait galleries.

Do I wish we had a room that was solely the school room?  Heck ya I do!  But right now our priorities are to live within the means that will keep me home with the kids so I can learn them good... and that means making the most of our small house; which, in turn, means that any and all available space shall be put to use!

I definitely need to figure out how to best stay organized, and to do that I need to nail down my homeschool style, which I haven't quite done yet.  We have good days, we have bad days.  I am becoming more accepting of the very good possibility that we are un-schoolers,  finding educational opportunities and teaching moments when and wherever they present themselves... yet I find plans and timetables so appealing that I haven't totally given up on trying to find a system that works for us.

Until I have all that figured out (if ever!) I will be constantly moving furniture and supplies from here to there in an attempt to create the best possible (and most fun) learning environment.  In the meantime, I have a couple of great, smart, happy kids... I must be doing something right.

Celebrating the Fourth of July- Popsicle Stick Flags

I bought myself a plan book last week to try and get myself to be more of an organized homeschool mom. I found it challenging to balance the desire to get a lot done, and the danger of overwhelming my little scholars.  As it turns out, it wasn't so hard after all.  

My subject goals for the day where speech/articulation therapy, math, music, and social studies. It seemed like a lot, and I thought it would be a matter of spreading out mini lessons through the entire day, when in actuality we managed to cover it all in the morning by incorporating it into a craft.

I set out popsicle sticks, red and white paint, blue construction paper, star stickers, glue, and an American flag.

So here's the rundown of what we did today:

Speech/articulation therapy: 

Using the words assigned by his SLP, Mr. Three-year-old Chatterbox received a silver star sticker for every correctly articulated word. He added each sticker to a small blue piece of paper to be a part of our flag later. Today he worked on /h/ in the initial position and did GREAT! So proud of the progress he is making.

Sticker play is also a great activity for fine motor skills.  The size of the stickers we used today definitely proved to be a challenge for my boys.

Math: 

We counted the number of red stripes on the flag and the number of white stripes. We counted the number of popsicle sticks in each group before he painted them either red or white. When he had finished painting all his sticks (which turned out to be the hardest part of the morning... for whatever reason the kids were anti-mess today, go figure!) we put glue on a larger piece of construction paper for him to mirror the ABAB type pattern (in this case red, white, red, white) of the flag's stripes. He did great with the pattern, better actually than I thought he would based on previous attempts at recognizing patterns.  And when telling Daddy about his day and showing off his art at dinner he used the word "pattern" which made me very happy.

Once all his popsicle stick stripes were in place he added the blue paper with stars from his speech work.

Social Studies: 

During the morning's activities, I explained that the flag was a symbol to represent the country we live in. I also mentioned the significance of the 50 stars and the 13 stripes, but I didn't expect this to resonate with him at all, nor did it. My goal was to start teaching him the pledge of allegiance line by line throughout the week. So far I have met resistance to this, but we can give it another shot before bed (oh the beauty of an open homeschool schedule!)

Music & Movement: 

After finishing our popsicle flag craft, the boys and I marched through the house waving flags and singing God Bless America. Only the 1.5 year old appreciated my singing and "sang" along... in fact, he wouldn't let me stop.

The little big kid is already too cool for me and wanted me to "stop that! just march" (which, by the way, adds gross motor activity to the list of areas we covered today!)

Mud Art

One messy, squishy Saturday I invited my kids to Get Dirty.

While they were enjoying their sensory play with mud, I invited them to create some art that would further demonstrate the physical properties of mud.

I put out some construction paper for them to splatter with mud.  They got to see what happened they dropped mud, threw mud, and stamped the paper with their muddy hands.  A great visual element to their sensory play.

Even the dog "helped".

While the art sat in the sun, they got to see the mud dry and become dirt once more.

What, exactly, do you DO with mud art?  Hang it in the mud room of course!!!!

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