Letter E and F is for Emergency Services and Firemen

We did some fun activities today with a focus on Emergency Services like Firefighters and Policemen. How can little boys not enjoy anything to do with fire engines and firefighters. Magaret Mayo's book "Emergency" is a great book to start with - it has vivid, bold illustrations, fast-paced rhymes and it covers emergency vehicles ranging from fire engines, ambulances and police cars to snow-ploughs, lifeboats and helicopters.

We focused on firefighters today and had a blast. My favourite activity of the day was when we put on his firefighter helmet and went outside to play a number game. Armed with a spray (which we later changed to a foam water gun for added power!), I would call out numbers 1-20 which I had written in chalk with fire around them and he would run to put out the fire by spraying them. So cute! I got the idea from Along The Way - some nice firefighter activities there.

I read him a few books about what firefighters do and about fire-safety :
















Afterwhich we practiced what to do if our clothes are on fire ("Stop, drop, roll") - we did that many times! In fact Adventure-man's older sisters joined in the fun and we all took turns screaming "You're clothes are on fire!" and everyone would fall to the ground and roll around. Yes, we looked very silly!

I also gave him a play mobile phone and as we were reading through "Emergency!", I would get him to dial 999 to call the police or firemen. It was good fun and by the end of that, there was no way he was going to forget what number to call in an emergency!

We made yummy fire-engine ladders snacks out of cream cheese, pretzel sticks and crispbread crackers. It worked well with peanut butter and Nutella as well.

I downloaded a number of activites from Homeschool Creation's Fireman preschool pack for Adventure-man's workboxes. It included a fireman puzzle, A fireman colouring page, sequencing cards and matching cards.

He also spent some time playing games and listening to stories on these sites:

www.Sparky.org 
http://www.storylineonline.net/ - "What will Firefighter Fran wear"
                                                      and "It's Time To Fight Fires"

We ended our day building Lego fire-stations and trucks.

Math Fun: Counting, Adding and Playing with Numbers

We've had lots of fun finding creative ways to approach math concepts such as counting, sorting, sequencing and even addition and I thought I'd share a few of those ideas.

The top picture show Adventure-man sorting his dinosaurs by colour using a pair of Thomas the Tank Engine trainer chopsticks.  They are really fun to use and great for enhancing motor-skills.

He worked on putting numbers 1-20 in sequence. We got this cute caterpillar to go with our Letter C theme from Confessions of a Homeschooler. She has a bunch of great resources like a Caterpillar dice game which Adventure-man loved, as well as a number of other sorting, counting and matching printables around the same theme.

We played a lot of grid games which he really enjoys at the moment. Prekinders has a nice selection of them to print off in different themes. The game simply requires us to take turns throwing a die, identifying the number and then placing the correct number of tokens (like beads, nuts, buttons etc) on the squares in the grid. One token per square. The first person to cover their board wins.

This was our favourite of the week - a math game called Add-it! created by Erica at Confessions of a Homeschooler (she's amazing!). It was a really fun adding game which Adventure-man seemed really ready to do. We used Dinosaurs and other fun manipulatives and just added them up. We played against each other - collecting number cards to see who could get the most. He particularly enjoyed it when he poached cards from me. So much fun! Download from Erica here.

We reviewed our shapes in various ways which included playing "Perfection" (I had him name the shapes as we went along). He also enjoyed a shape matching file folder games (here's a good one) and we just built with blocks and our Magformers.



Other number activities this week: I drew numbers outside on our patio and Adventure-man threw beanbags onto the numbers as I called them out. We also played hopscotch. And we practiced our counting to 20 as we threw a ball/beanbag/balloon back and forth.

We also practiced our number writing with these cute rhymes from Hubbards Cupboard. We used the whiteboard (most popular), flour, shaving cream (strangely not so popular - go figure!) and traced the numbers with crayons.

Here are some links to some other fun math printables for preschoolers:
Homeschool Creations
TLSbooks
Shirley's Preschool

Plans for the New Year: moving beyond intentional play

This new year I've decided that I need some kind of curriculum to keep me on track with Adventure-man. Last year, I was coming up with my own ideas and drawing resources together from the internet - this turned out to be too time-consuming and I'd frequently end up not doing anything at all because I hadn't had time to think about it.

I considered Five In A Row (FIAR) and decided that I would wait on that for awhile as I wasn't sure about it. In the meantime, I found a great free resource - an online Christian curriculum at Hubbard's Cupboard which has all the plans and booklists all ready to use and print out. The site has all sorts of great resources. For the preschoolers - it has a curriculum plan for 2 to 4 year olds. It is bible-based stories, with literature, art, science and music and movement suggestions and lots of varied activities for play.  I've chosen to use the 3 year old Bible and Rhyme curriculum even though Adventure-Man is pretty sure about his letters and numbers up to 10. I wanted to go through the bible stories and projects in the curriculum. The four year old Joyful Heart curriculum is based on biblical character and values. It seems well-thought through with a scope and sequence sheet, daily planning sheets and an weekly overview. All the resources, bible verses and printables are well organised and therefore are easy to implement. It merely requires me to gather the different materials together a day or two before which is not to difficult. It is a three day week programme that leaves lots of time for one to pursue other activities and play with my preschooler. The only thing I need to be organised about is getting the books from the library beforehand!

We're into our second week and so far I am liking it - I do enjoy not having to think too hard about what to do for the week.

This is a quick glimpse into how our week turned out. Week one and two was all about the The Creation Story with Genesis 1:1 as our memory verse.

In the morning, 15 minutes before our family devotions - I will have a little devotion time with Adventure-man. My two older girls join in for fun and that makes it really enjoyable for him. I read the story from the different childrens' bible versions over the week and I also use the Beginner's Bible devotional (I didn't have a copy of the devotional that was recommended, so I decided to use what I have). We would then sing some of the related children's praise songs, practice the memory verse and then do a craft (which, this week, was putting together a Creation booklet). We finish it all off with a song and prayer. Some days, Adventure-man will join us for the worship time at the start of our family devotions and some days, he'll want to play. I don't insist on him taking part while the girls and I pray and study the bible.

After family devotions, the girls will go off and do some independent work and I will have about an hour with him. We'll do the suggested activities which included singing/chanting/stomping the ABCs, talking about the days of the week and talking about the number or colours of the day. We'll then progress to other things like reading a story, going for a nature walk, art and craft and singing some songs. 

Here is a snapshot of some of our activities:

We made a edible creation story using whipped cream (light), chocolate chips (dark), marshmallows (sky), sprinkles ( stars), animal crackers (animals) and gingerbread men (Adam and Eve) - needless to say, that was a hit!

We started a creation book - all the creation activities are suggested in Hubbard's Cupboard.

We also learnt our colours and numbers using art, games and books.

Writing numbers in shaving cream

Counting and matching numbers

Making green with yellow and blue (after reading Mouse Paint)

For the first time, I have scheduled Adventure-man into our homeschool day - in the hope that our day will run a little smoother with fewer interruptions from him when I am teaching the girls.

So, as I said, after devotions we will have table time and playtime together while his sisters work independently. Afterwhich, they all have an active break together playing a game or going to the playground and we all have a snack. While they are playing, I'll set out some activities like the sand/water-table, his trains, paints, blocks or his playmobil farm and animals.  

I've adopted an adapted workbox system with him (using filing trays which I already had). So, immediately after the break, I'll encourage him to work through each tray. I fill it with different activities he can do independently. I'm teaching him to complete one tray and to return it before starting a new one. This is an example of some of the things I'm putting in them.

A little mismatched as I was working with trays I already had

Free play with stones, tongs and containers

Puzzles

Working on motor skills

Other things I'm putting in there: 

• beads to string 
• Playdough and cutters
• Worksheets -tracing, colouring , do-a-dot makers 
• Sequencing cards
• paper, glue, glitter, yarn, cut paper, foam pieces for collages
• stamps and pens
• animals with coloured rice (admittedly a little messy)
• Zoobs
• Magformers
• pattern blocks

This seems to work better in holding his interest than if I were to lay these same toys and activities out in front of him. He likes going through the trays in an orderly fashion. Afterwhich, ideally, I'll try and direct him to the things I've set up like the water play or rice in a tray with cars, Lego etc.

I've also allowed for computer time on something like Starfall (I've just joined More Starfall - which I think is really worth the money) or playing on the Wii, if absolutely necessary.

We read together during the girls break time and depending on the day he might take a nap. I've planned for independent play during our afternoon lessons but that has been less successful - probably because we are all a little tired and cranky! I have to work on a better plan to distract him.

I'm really pleased about being more organised and spending quality time with Adventure-man playing and learning. The mornings are sorted, it's just the afternoons that are still a little chaotic! Well, there's still some work to do but I'm sure we'll get there (hopefully with a big smile on our faces!).

http://homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com/

The first post: What we did today

"Where to start?" is running through my mind as I try to decide on my first post for this blog. There are lots of resources and ideas I want to share but maybe just sharing what we did today would be a good start.

Each day in our homeschooling life often starts with the competing needs of teaching my two older girls and occupying my young adventurer who is not quite three yet.

I have in the past few months decided to be more intentional in organising activities for him but truth be told, I haven't quite got to the point where we have a regular time together. There is the ideal plan and then there is reality! Focused playtime tends to just happens in the midst of the day when I can catch time with him, usually when the girls are working independently or involved in other lessons like piano or Mandarin (which I don't teach).

So what did our morning look like?

We woke up, stumbled half asleep to breakfast and then eventually, after chores were done, we congregated on the sofa for devotions. During this time, adventure-man insisted very loudly and persistently that he wanted the  "boogie worship". So, in tried and tested fashion, the loudest got his way. We played his favourite rowdy worship song (which we all love!) and danced around the living room while he used our big footstool as a trampoline shouting triumphantly at appropriate intervals. The only problem being that when we wanted to quiet down and start our devotions, he continued to insist on "boogie worship" and a large amount of my time was spent explaining why we need to be quiet and read our bibles together. By this time, my two older girls were  rapidly slipping into a state of sluggish stupefaction. ( Sigh. This was not how I pictured it would be when I first started homeschooling - but to be fair, this is not every day - we do have good days too!).We did eventually get to our devotions after concerted efforts to distract him with his trains.

It is a Monday morning and I actually had a weekend to dream up some ideas - so what you see following is a pretty productive day on our part in terms of play and learning.

I have been slowly working through the alphabet with him over the last few months. We started by reading Letterland stories and using their flashcards to familiarise him with the letters. It worked well with my two girls when they were in their nursery schools (long before we started homeschooling) and I decided to give it a go with him.

He loves the flashcards and we play lots of games with them - his current favourite game is one where I lay a variety of  cards out at the end of the room and we have to race to get the right one. He feels very sorry for mummy who never seems to win! ;) 

So this week we are up to LETTER N. All the printables I used here were from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Adventure-man started off with sticking "N for Noodles" on our letter Ns and then proceeded to dump glitter all over it. And why not!

He then sorted out Big N's and little n's in this activity.

And He used Do A Dot paint for this.

He practiced his fine motor skills sticking straws into small holes punched into a cereal box. (I got this idea from some of the Tot School blogs - sorry I can't remember where.) And he matched the number of beads to the numbers in his trays with some help from me.

The other things he got to do today were:

  Tossing bean bags onto numbers called out by me.                  

                               Playing with coloured ice (A BIG HIT!)
                                                      
I got these ideas out of The Toddlers Busy Book.

The rest of the day was taken up with general play with trains, reading before nap times, going to the playground and yes, (head hung in shame) watching some TV. It was a happy day.

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