Owl Moon

I personally LOVE the book Owl Moon by Jane Yolen. I used it all the time in the classroom when I was teaching Readers' and Writers' Workshop. It has beautiful, rich language that greatly demonstrates wonderful writing. In addition, it tells a beautiful story of a little girl's simple adventure with her Pa (almost every kiddo has a simple adventure story to tell!) While I know the twinkies are too young to understand some of the poetic devices found in this book, I'm a big believer in exposure to great literature leads to great readers and writers! So I read the story aloud and we talked about the season and what the little girl was doing. We also talked about what sound an owl makes and where animals are hiding in the book (this will lead to another activity later). After we were done with the book, we made a shape owl with handprints (I'm a sucker for a handprint craft) and talked about all the shapes in the owl (we know all of these already, but reviewing is VERY important!)Here is a cute little picture of our owls!













And the finished product...













A little later, we worked on sight words by playing a fine-motor clothes pin matching game.












And finally we continued to work on our alphabet border for our "classroom."
This idea is from Totally Tots, which has amazingly cute ideas to do for all kinds of ages! My goal is to put Upper and Lower cases all the way around our "classroom." We have a ways to go, but I think it looks really cute already. When we are reviewing these letters we play the usual guessing games (What sound does it make? What are words that start with this letter? etc. We also practice writing that letter as well). Here we are working on the letters...




...and here it is up on the wall!



We also worked on some other crafty things around the house. I'm hosting a crafty night tomorrow night with my girls, so I wanted to get a jump start on my crafty list! (Don't worry girls, I didn't do anything we are going to do tomorrow!) I also managed to do three loads of laundry, made pork tenderloin and sweet potatoes for dinner, and read a few chapters in my book! All in all a very successful day!

Merry Christmas and January Fun!

Well I hope everyone had a marvelous Christmas! I know we did! We had a great time with family and all of us received WAY more than we could have ever wanted. We are truly grateful for all the wonderful memories that were made, despite the circumstances.
For Mommy School in December, we did a lot of wonderful activites (labeling Santa, making Santa hats, handprint Santas) and we did focus on the REAL reason for the season and made footprint manger scenes, labeled the manger, made the nativity out of toilet paper rolls, and did this AMAZING nativity pack from Over The Big Moon. I have lots of pictures to show from those activities, but I have been working in reverse for a few months now, so you don't get to see the things we are doing until after the "season" is already done, so I thought I would try to do things a little different this time. I am posting our January "schedule" for Mommy School now. Let me just tell everyone out there that, yes, I was a teacher for 8 years, but, no, that does not mean the same thing as homeschooling! I am very new to that part and since I have never taught the littles before, I really have no idea what I'm doing! A lot of our homeschooling is just like parenting-trial and error. I try something and see if it works. It might work one day and not the next. When I began this Mommy School, I was making plans for each week. That was WAY too structured for us. Part of the reason I want to homeschool is because I want to really slow down and enjoy things (family visits included!). So then I switched to just a daily list of things I wanted to get done, which worked o.k., except that I didn't really know what I had accomplished for the entire month and I couldn't remember which activities we had and had not completed. So this month I decided to do a "Monthly List," which just lays out the entire month, but things are organized by subject rather than by day (too much pressure to get everything in each day!). So I print this out and it is hanging on my fridge. I just mark off the things that we have completed and certain things I do EVERDAY (sing ABCs for example).
This month we're focusing on Winter/Snow/etc. and SIGHT WORDS!! So far, the kidlets know the following sight words : I, am , a, the, and. We're working on reviewing those and learning a few more (which I haven't narrowed down yet!). They can also recognize their own names and their sibling's names, and "MOMMY" so we usually include those too. The "Art/Craft" section will be done as a response to the literature that we read. It is pretty interchangable as to what book and craft go together, so I can just choose which one I feel like doing that day. I have a great teacher friend over at The Garretts who has taught the littles and I glean from her amazing knowledge from time to time to make sure the activities I'm doing are developmentally appropriate. Anyway...we've already completed some things on this list (even though it isn't officially January yet) as I would much rather have to add more things to do than to feel like we didn't get everything accomplished. Some things are a review (like the alphabet-mine already know all letters and sounds)but I wanted to throw them in so we can decorate our classroom!

January Monthly Mommy School

Hapy New Year to you all and kiss and hug your kiddos!

Party on Dude....Ummm, I Mean Dad!

We had such a blast at Dad's surprise birthday party! He turned 60 the weekend before Thanksgiving and retired from his job of 38 years in EMS. He secretly knew something was up, but we still managed to pull a surprise on him I think! We all dressed in our best 60's gear (get it? Since he was 60 haha)



We got a lot of our ideas from Pinterest like this picture idea:


and we all wrote him letters to tell him a fun memory that we had of him.


Even the cake was tie dye!


Of course the kiddos LOVED the balloons best!


Here is the present we got for dad, which he loved! I asked each kiddo what they loved best about Poppa and then I typed it up on a little sign for them to hold and took their picture. J said that he loves Poppa because he "tickles my toes and watches TV with me." E said she loved Popps because he "drinks coffee and chases her down the hallway." It turned out really cute and it was such a simple, but meaningful idea!


It's always fun when the fam all gets together! Happy Birthday Dad!

Thanksgiving Activities Continued

Well, sorry about E's silly face in this pic. Apparently she has had too much turkey! This is a cute little activity I made for the kids. We did so many activities with this one little mat. It just has turkey body on it and the feathers are separate. Here are some activities we did with just this one little guy!
-We made patterns with the feathers
-We counted the feathers
-We rolled the die and put that many feathers
-We put some feathers on the right side and some on the left. Then we compared the sides (which has more? etc.)
-We put some feathers on the right side and some on the left. Then we counted them altogether (this is really adding sets!)

So much math with just one little math mat! I LOVED this activity AND I will definitely be able to use it again next year for more complicated math concepts. I didn't get enough pictures of some of the other things we did, but here are some more. I took this turkey coloring page and put capital and lowercase t/T all over it. I also mixed in other letters (especially ones that look like T!) and the kiddos had to stamp the T. We also read This is the Turkey and Thanksgiving Day by Gail Gibbons. I'm a sucker for Gail Gibbons nonfiction! We did the typical art projects too (handprint turkey, mosaic turkey, etc.)

Hope everyone enjoyed their Turkey Day and didn't get hurt on Black Friday!

And now on to Christmas!!!!!

Yes I have two crazy turkeys in my house! We have been having fun with all our Thanksgiving activities. Here are a few that I wanted to share with you. Most of them I have found via pinterest (which, by the way if you are not pinning yet, you really should be-It's awesome!).

This is a beginning sounds game, which my kiddos LOVE! I thought this might be a challenge for them, but it was not at all. It was so easy for them that I'm going to have to make more!
So basically it is just a cute little seasonal pic (you could do whatever) and three options for a beginning sound. Then you punch holes in cardstock below the letters. The turkeys then take a pipe cleaner and put it through the one they think is the beginning sound. Then they can flip it over and look for the sticker to see if they got it right (I think that's their favorite part!)

We have also been doing a lot of matching with dry erase markers, which my turkeys are obsessed with! They had a matching activity at church the other day that was difficult for them, so I thought we should practice that! The worksheets can be found here

One big project we have been working on is a Thanksgiving Book. If any of you really know me, you know I'm a little obsessed with book-making. I loved to make books when I was in the classroom. I really think it helps students/kids love books that much more. So we've begun the book making process here!


Some days we get a lot done here (homeschool wise anyway) and other days.....

..... it's just too much to do homeschool!

We have a big birthday coming up this Friday for our Poppa! I can't wait to post some pictures from what we are getting for him! He will love it. P.S. Nona if you're reading this, don't say anything to Poppa!

Halloween Costumes and Sewing

Here are just a few pics from Halloween, Pumpkin Patch and a cute litle skirt I sewed for Sass!


These are of our trip to the Pumpkin Patch. That's brother giving the scarecrow a high five when he finished the little kid corn maze, which was neat. At each station the kids had to trace an animal print and once they got them all they were done. They did this one with Nona while Uncle Do and I did the big one, which was fun (but HARD!)




These are from Trunk or Treat at Nona's church where Sass and Brother were Raggedy Ann and Andy. I was supposed to be a housewife from the 50's, but it was raining and really I just looked kind of pitiful-HA! The second is from Halloween night. Everyone usually congregates at my Aunt Robin's. Usually we're not able to, since we lived too far away-Not anymore! SO we had chili and just hung out. It was nice to be with family. That's Brother and Sass and Baby Jonah in the middle. They just all happened to have their skeleton pj's one. Brother's pants have gone MIA though!



Here is the cute skirt I made for Sass! Super easy and CUTE!!! She wore it everywhere this season-Pumpkin patch, church, Halloween parties!

Halloween Activities

Well, we really didn't do too much for "Halloween" homeschooling per se. Not necessarily because I'm against it or anything like that. Time just simply got away from me. We spent two weekends at different pumpkin patches and we went to Trunk or Treat, so between all that, I just didn't have a whole lot of time to make any activities. Here are some things we DID get around to doing:

-We measured the pumpkins we got at the patch using our different lego blocks and unifix cubes
-We made a shape scarecrow, which was a lot of fun. I gave the kids a completed copy and they had to try and figure out how to put it together, which was surprisingly difficult for them (Note to self: more work on this later!)
-Our favorite activity was the candy corn match. We had the three parts of the candy corn with the capital, lowercase, and a picture and they had to line them up all correctly. They LOVED this activity and they were SOOOO good at it!




I also did some sewing in October. I made this cutie little skirt for Em and some scarves. I wanted to do a few fun things before the Christmas activities begin!
We also took a week out to do dentist activities because the kids had their first trip to the dentist at the end of Oct. I'll post some of those activities next! I can definitely say they were VERY well prepared. The kiddos also had their first trip to Dollywood this month! So all in all, very busy!

Apples Unit Plan

Being a teacher for seven years has really helped with the homeschooling of the twinkies! Although I have never taught in the lower grades have have definitely never taught Pre-K, I'm just trying to use what I know to plan the best activities for my kiddos! For the month of September, we focused on an Apple Theme. I started the planning by picking the books we would read. These are all books I had from my classroom collection. We read at least one of these a day. Many times we read two or three!

Then we worked on tree activities. Here are some of the tree activities we did:

• tore paper "leaves" for fine motor development
• matched colored stickers to the coordinating Xs on a tree to make the apples
• put different colored apples to match with letters (ie-capital letters are red apple stickers, lowercase are green apple stickers, non-letters are yellow)
• add the coordinating number of apple stickers to match the number on the tree trunk
• added apple rings to the tree using a toilet paper tube dipped in red paint

Back to Blogging!

Well, it has been an extremely long time since I did any blogging, but with a full time teaching job and twins, it was just way to hard to find the time. We've had quite a timultuous summer, which included a big move and a job change for me! During this difficult time, we found out boy twinkie is allergic to A LOT, which makes it a challenge to plan his meals. But some wonderfully miraculous things have happened as well. We've moved closer to family and I am working as an adjunct at a local college, so the twinkies no longer have to go to daycare! While I thoroughly loved the daycare we were attending, it has been my desire since the twins were born to stay at home with them. I am so blessed! God is good all the time and ALL things work together for the good of those that love HIM!