Wednesday 30 November 2016

November Preschool Activities


Hi guys! Today I wanted to share what my preschoolers been up to for the month of November(these activities are not November themed it's just what we did). He hasn't really been working on letter of the week, but we've enjoyed tons math, phonics, art/sensory, and read alouds.

Phonics:

Spelling 3 letter words using our Melissa and Doug puzzle

We used our alphabet flash cards to work on beginning sounds. I would pull out a card and he would tell me the beginning sound. I assisted him hand over hand to write the letter on our white board. 

Letter L sensory search. 


Math:

Ladybugs on a leaf number matching 1-20

Domino number and dot matching. 

 Kumon write and wipe number cards.

We also worked on some pages out of this book. 

Sensory/ Art:


Animals from the Rainforest with kinetic sand. 


S is for Snake craft. 

Books:

How to Wash a Wolly Mammoth 

This was his favorite book along with this puzzle.

We also read a few stories out of Best Little Golden Books Ever. 



We read a lot more and played but this is what I managed to capture.

Linked Up With:
Tot School Gathering Place

Procedural Writing: Pie In A Cup



Our writing units have been really fun this year the boys and I both enjoy them. This week we worked on procedural writing 'Pie In A Cup.'

We read a few mentor text and talked about the how the authors wrote the order of their procedure. We also talked about the importance of writing it in a logical order.


The boys practiced putting the ingredients in a logical order.

We worked together and made our pie the boys chose their transition words and wrote out each step as we made it.


Adding Descriptive words:

We talked about adding words using our senses what it smelled like, tasted like, looked like, and felt like.

I loved that this was so hands on. The boys would spin a sense and use the thesaurus and find a good adjective to add to our chart. 


Adding Vivid Verbs:

This was another great hands on way for the boys to add vivid verbs into their writing.


Once we gathered all our verbs the boys went through their writing and replaced all the boring verbs for more vivid ones. 

Editing and Final Draft:



They love editing their work and using all the different highlighters. They know exactly what to correct and how to improve their writing.

I keep their final draft in page protectors so they don't get ruined in the binders. 


We loved this procedural unit and the boys learned so much you can find this unit here. 

Morning Time Basket


Hi guys! Today I wanted to share with you what is in our morning time basket. I've seen this morning basket idea floating around for a while. Now that my boys are getting older they are no longer interested in circle time so I needed something to substitute that so I could still cover things that do not fit into our other school stuff. The morning basket idea was perfect so I just made our own twist to it and we've been enjoying ever since.

I put together a schedule for me to follow so I know what to cover on each day so I wasn't searching for ideas at the last minute.


I put our schedule in a page protector and write with a visa visa marker so I can reuse it. 
I stick in the basket for easy reference. 

Our Schedule:
Every morning we start with our read aloud and memory work (which is normally poems were memorizing) we move on to what ever activity is schedule for that day.Some times I add a word of the day that I've pulled from our reading.
Mondays-Character trait
Tuesday: Poetry
Wednesday: Fair tales/Fables
Thursday: Art History
Friday: Picture books


Character Building:
Our main spines are Children's book of virtues and The adventures of Mali and Keela.  
We usually have one virtue a month we cover and we supplement with picture books and hands on activities.



Poetry:


The Random House Book of Poetry and Where the Sidewalk Ends is two of our spines and I usually will grab books from the library to switch it up. We also use our poem PowerPoint presentation you can check that out here.


Fairy Tales and Fables:

The boys have chosen Aesop's Fables and Stories from Around the World. 

Art History:

I love this book it has a short summary about the artist and the technique they are famous for. It also gives instruction on how to recreate a piece from the artist.



I am also waiting for this book to come in the mail. I've heard great things about it. 

Picture Books:

I wanted to make sure I continue to read picture books to the boys because there are some great ones we've never read. Especially now that my eldest is reading novels and is interested in longer books. 

The boys loved this one!


Read Alouds:

 We're currently reading The Silver Balloon. 

That's it for our morning time basket. Do you have a morning time basket and what are some of your favorite books?

Linked Up With:
Weekly Wrap Up

Sunday 27 November 2016

Poetry PowerPoint Presentation


 Image result for Random house book of poetry for children
 Picture from Amazon

The boys and I have been memorizing poems using The Random House Book of Poetry for Children. So far we've only memorized three poems but we've been enjoying the process. To help with this task I put together a PowerPoint presentation. I recorded me reading the poems line by line with one of the presentations and the other is just a simple presentation we use once the poem has been memorized. I will be adding more poems as we go through them this year. I hope you enjoy it and don't forget check back for added poems.

Poems included:
Changing by Marry Ann Hoberman 
Two People by E.V. Rieu
The story of Augustus who would not have Any soup By: Heinrich Hoffmann
Maggy and Milly and Molly and May By E.E. Cummings
Me I Am! 
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxXjYZPOL0clNXRxNlk0WWFjN1k 
This is the presentation with the voice recording 
Click on the image to download.

https://drive.google.com/open?id=0BxXjYZPOL0clVERJNURwYmNPZEk
Without recording 
Click on image to download.
Clipart courtesy of My Cute Graphics


Linked Up With
Practical Mondays
Montessori Monday

Wednesday 16 November 2016

Expository Writing



Hi guys! This year the boys and I are really trying to make an effort to include lots of writing into their homeschool day. We journal in the morning but, I wanted them to be able to write a proper paragraph with all the elements needed. I tried IEW with my son last year although it is an excellent writing program he didn't take to it very well. I wanted to keep writing fun and include activities that would help them remember the writing structure.

I found a really simple program for my 1st grader over on TPT called Ready for Writing. I used ready for writing to help build a base for both boys and to bring more fun hands on I used Write On. A link for both can be found at the end of the post. Ready for Writing covers expository writing, narrative, and opinion writing. We started with expository writing. They learned the purpose and how to identify this type of writing using worksheets and living books. I loved that it walked them through each element (topic, details, examples, and a conclusion) in an interactive way.

This program is meant for 1st-2nd grade but, I included my 3rd grader because he hasn't had a lot of exposure to writing either.

Here are the boys going through some of our books and sorting them according to whether it is expository or just a story.

The program comes with a foldable that you assemble. We went through the purpose (to inform, give facts, includes procedural writing).

Here is my son identifying the examples in each paragraph.

Once the boys had all the elements of a good paragraph down. They got to put all they learned to practice.

After brainstorming ideas he decided to write about Orca Whales. We worked on a topic sentence, 3 detail sentences, and example for each detail, and a conclusion sentence. Because he worked on identifying and practicing the proper structure this was an easy process for him.

He also learned all about transition words to make his writing flow. He used this fun worksheet to practice putting transitional words with a detail phrase. 

We also talked about turning simple sentences into compound and complex sentences using conjunctions. 
This isn't part of ready for writing I felt like he needed a little bit more so I included some extras. 

Here are both boys working on their rough draft. 

Once both boys finished their rough draft. We did this really fun activity to check if their paragraph had all the elements (topic sentence, 3 details, example, and a conclusion).

They would receive a part of their "burger" every time they identified a certain element in their writing. 

here he is with his completed "burger" this was a fun activity. 

They helped edit each others writing using a editing guide. 

 Once they edited each others work they started on their good copy. 

I always try to include a craft it makes the process more fun. 

Final Draft. 

They were so proud of themselves and got to present their writing to their dad. I loved all the hands on activities! This was the first time we did writing and nobody cried. I can honestly say they looked forward to every step.


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