Preschool - Letter L!

We're back! :)  Actually, this is a summation of pretty much the entire second half of December - we studied the letter L and had LOTS of no-school days due to doctor appointments, visits with friends, birthdays, and lots of other fun activities. :)  We did manage to fit the letter L in, though, and lots of fun Christmas activities! :)

Here is our circle time board for the letter L.  Natalie loves to play with the gumballs and the velcro weather clothes. :)

Here is our Bible time board - the song this week was called God Gave the Law, and it was an overview of the ten commandments we've already studied.  (website here)  We have one more song, one more week on this CD, and then we're going to move on to Sovereign Grace's To Be Like Jesus - again, one song a week with a corresponding verse.  I'm hoping to add a few more Bible activities into our school weeks next semester.

Here's Zachary doing a sequencing page - he's getting better at these as we go through the year!  I got this book from the Dollar Tree a couple years back.

Natalie coloring on her Log L.

Zachary coloring his Log L.

Making long lines for wood grain.  The circles he drew (he drew!!! He never draws!) are knots in the logs. :)

Natalie's finished Log L

Zachary's finished Log L

Natalie coloring a Color by Shape page from Carisa's Tot School website (1+1+1=1).

Zachary coloring by shapes, too.

Their finished pictures - Nat's is on the left, and Z's is on the right. :)

Tracing the number 12 - his handwriting (and willingness to TRY at handwriting) has improved GREATLY since we started in September.  He even tried (& succeeded at) writing a 12 himself on the empty bottom line!  Worksheet from www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com.

Tracing an oval, and the word oval.  

Showing off his work.  Shape tracer worksheets found here.

Zachary telling me something interesting while doing his blend ladder (found here). 

We studied candy canes this month - did you know the candy cane is really all about Jesus?  We read two books which I got from the library about the candy cane.  Zachary preferred this one...

but I actually thought this book did an even better job of explaining the candy cane & it's connection to Jesus.

We colored a page about a candy cane (from here).

And then, of course, we had to eat a candy cane. :)

Zachary ate one, too. :)

We did these puzzles.  I wish I could remember exactly where these came from, but I'm pretty sure they came from one of the links on this awesome list of advent activities. :)  

We made sugar cone Christmas trees on Christmas Eve- Zachary has spread frosting on his cone & is now eating some frosting. :)

I spread the frosting on Nat's cone for her, and now she's sticking candy on. :)

Here's Zachary's finished tree!

And my finished tree! :)  After we did our craft, we had three trees, so I told the story of the Three Trees (from memory, I failed to check out this book from the library in time). :(  Anyhow, I went and was working on something else when Z said, "It was actually a good thing that Jesus died on the cross."  I came back, sat down and talked with him about Jesus for a while, and after we talked for a few minutes, he said he wanted to ask Jesus to live in his heart!  And he did!  Every day since then, he has said, "Jesus lives in my heart now!" What a special Christmas joy! :)

Natalie's messy face after licking all the frosting off her tree. :)

Here is our Christmas countdown calendar - we did not do a great job of keeping up with this every day, but it was fun when we remembered to move the bear.  This was mine as a child, so it's neat to share it with the kids. :)

Zachary drawing with their Christmas present - these washable dot markers.

Natalie drawing with the dot markers. :)

Zachary was also in our church's Christmas program this month - he sang with the kids and also sat on the stage during the production (as a visiting neighbor kid).  He did a GREAT job, and took it very seriously, as you can see. :)

Here he is singing with the kids! :)

And Natalie celebrated her 2nd birthday!!!  She is such a joy, though she is definitely exhibiting signs of being two!  She wants to do everything herself, her way, and will not stand for being told otherwise. :)  Here she is getting ready to enjoy her dirt cake at her family birthday dinner. :)

And here she is enjoying dancing in her new tutu from her great-grandma! :)

Merry Christmas!

Hope you all had a blessed celebration of Christ's birthday! :)

Well, we're taking a few weeks off for a holiday break, then we'll be back towards the end of January with the letter M!  Hmmm...I need to do some school planning before then... :)  Hope everyone has a Happy New Year! :)   Check out what everyone else has done lately for Tot School and Preschool Corner! :)  

Preschool - Letter K!

We studied the letter K this week! I didn't take a ton of pictures, and we were busy with Z's birthday and some other things going on, but we did learn a lot, despite the fact that I don't have many pictures of it! :) Here is our K circle time board for the week:

And our Bible time board. We studied the commandment about coveting your neighbor's stuff. I think Z could define the word 'covet' now. :) I loved the point that we need to be content and not covet other people's things because God has given us everything we need. I can't say enough good things about this CD that we're using for our Bible curriculum! :)

We used construction paper and a glitter glue pen (and a googly eye) to make a King K this week. First, Z colored his royal robes. Then we punched circles out of yellow paper and glued them onto the crown, then painted the crown with a glitter glue pen - we squeezed the glitter glue onto the crown and then the kids painted it with paintbrushes. I am waaaay to wimpy to let my kids craft with actual glitter, they literally have never used glitter in any craft ever.

Nat made a crown for her King K, too. :) (I just print out one K per week for her & she colors, dot paints and crafts all on the same paper).

Zachary did a Kite cutting page from www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com 's Letter of the Week Curriculum. He has really improved in his small motor skills since the beginning of the school year! :)

The kids did these 3-part Christmas puzzles one day - Natalie couldn't figure them out, but they were too easy for Zachary. But he enjoyed them anyway. :)

I printed these smiley faces on colored paper a couple of years ago, and you can use them to match clothespins that you color, but this week we played a more active game with them - the kids jumped on the color that I called out. They really enjoyed this. Natalie knows the colors purple and brown, and is working on the rest of them. :)

We also played a Twister-ish version where we reviewed body parts, too - I would say "Put your elbow on the blue smiley face". :)

Natalie enjoyed jumping on the smiley's too. :)

We colored a Christmas tree color by number. I thought Z did a great job coloring all the little pieces, though he didn't color much in the green sections. :) Natalie did a lot of coloring on hers, too, so I was proud of her for that! :)

We made reindeer with handprints & footprints- sooooo cute! :) Z's is on the left, and Nat's is on the right, and they turned out so cute that I HAD to make a little teeeeny one to keep for Davey! :) I might never take it down, look how little his teensy widdle footeypwint is! :) :) Anyhow, I got the idea here.

As I mentioned, Zachary turned FOUR this week. Really? Oh, yes, really. He has been talking about it nonstop for a LONG time now, and was VERY excited about his big day finally being here. :) He got a lot of books and games for presents, so that was really fun. Here he is playing with a big United States floor puzzle from his Auntie Beth:

Daddy helped him put it together and it was SO cute to hear him pronounce (so badly) the names of all the states. :)

This is a present from his great-grandparents, a Crayola Glow Board. You can draw on two different plexiglass levels, and then they light up individually or together - it's really cool. Natalie enjoys drawing on this, too. And we did discover that the markers are washable. So that's good. :)

Zachary got this Mega Blocks Match & Build game from his great-aunt & uncle, and he LOVES it. We have played it several times. You spin a spinner and go around a board picking up pieces of blocks to make a little animal with - you have to see which blocks you need & then put them together like the card says.

He won the very first game we played! Here he is with his little bear!

He also got this GeoBingo game - he didn't understand the 5-in-a-row Bingo part, but wanted to fill his card UP, so we read through the state cards till his card was full. :) Again, I just loved hearing him pronounce the states so badly! :) He is really learning about the states from this game & the puzzle, though & can name many more of them than he could last week! :)


He also loved having a turn to read off the cards (and lots more hilarious pronunciations). :)

Here he is blowing out his candle!!! We will have a combined party with some friends for Z & Nat (who turns 2 in 2 weeks), but we had a special dinner with our family - he chose chicken wings, cottage cheese, olives, Doritos, and chocolate cake. :) All delicious & lots of fun. :)

Davey had rice cereal for the first time this week! :) He does better each time I give it to him, only 3 times so far. :)

Davey also pulled on his carseat toy on his own & can pick things up now, so that is really fun! :) He is going through a difficult sleep stage (I think he is just done with being swaddled, but he doesn't sleep as well unswaddled, so aaaaargh...)...anyhow, I am looking forward to him figuring that out. :) But he is SUCH a happy guy in between his sleep/nap issues!

And here's a super cute picture of sweet Natalie, and her eye-hanging hair. :) I have found some clips that work pretty well...she keeps them in for maybe 2 hours at a time and will bring them to me saying, "Bow!" so I can put it back when she rips it out. So that is actually a great improvement. :) She is talking more every day - on the way home from church last week she kept saying, "Dop! Dop!" and we could not figure out what she was saying until I was singing later in the week and she held her hand up to me and ordered me to "Dop!". Apparently it means STOP. :)

I'm not linking up this week since I'm SUPER duper late getting this post up, but you should really check out everyone else's great ideas at Preschool Corner and Tot School if you're interested. :)

Let's see...this is Friday, and at this point we have only had school ONE day this week (today), though we may have school tomorrow. Anyhow, the kids' birthday party is Monday, and I'm doing grocery shopping tomorrow, and um, CLEANING at some point...so probably not. And so letter L will probably be carried into next week and then I'll post about it after we get it done. :) My goal for the fall was to finish L before Christmas, and we are going to do that, and then take a couple weeks off of schoolwork to celebrate Christmas break & then vacation to visit our families around New Years! :) Then we'll come back and dive into M & the retreat season in January! :)