Wiggleworm's First School

Week in Review Week 1&2

2011-10-09T11:30:00.001-05:00

Reading About History

We learned that history is made up of true stories about many important people and events. We learned our lives have a history and made a mini family tree.

science discovery

We learned about light and all of the different colors, textures, shapes, and sizes of things that we see. We took a flashlight and beamed it around the room. We described the objects with words like numbers, colors, textures, shapes and sizes. We also discussed and described things that are outside in nature or in space.

Later in the week, we took 2 pieces of construction paper side by side. They were brown and blue. One represented the land and the other represented water. I called out different animals-both land and water animals. Wiggles had to jump from one to the other depending on the animal.

artistic expression

fine motor skills/phonics

Wiggles enjoys his R&S Preschool books. He is working on Do It Carefully right now. He still needs to work on his fine motor skills a lot. He is a young kindergartener (4.5 yrs old) and a boy.

His current phonics program is Reading Eggs. I got our subscription through Homeschool Buyer’s Co-op and it was well worth it. He is already through Map 1 and can read small sentences. He read I am a cat after completing the above page.

I originally purchased A Reason for Handwriting K for him. His older brother had used it and all of my other kiddos had learned traditional ball and stick manuscript. However, his worksheets for Reading Eggs are more of a Getty & Dubay Italic style. He gets handwriting practice with these worksheets. I also feel it is easier for him. I wish that I would have done this style with my older son who still has horrible manuscript.

storytime

Wiggles is really enjoying Reddy Fox and his attention span is doing well with it so far. Here is his warning to Reddy about being so bold. He wanted to tell Reddy not to go in the sunlight to catch chickens. The drawing on the top is Reddy Fox catching a chicken and a hen house and well I am not sure what else. He enjoyed it though.

math exploration

Wiggles is using Singapore Essential Math Kindergarten A&B this year. I chose this for several reasons.

I plan to have Wiggles run through LHFHG over 2 years. I did not want to start him in the Singapore Earlybird series as his fine motor skills are not ready for some of it. This is a nice compromise and the B book is comparable to the Earlybird series. The A book will get him some much needed coloring and writing practice.

I am not requiring him to write in pencil for anything. If he chooses to do so that is fine. He is mainly using very fat crayons. This is really helping him.

Wiggles also still switches back and forth for writing and coloring between his left and right hand. I am not giving any sway in this at all. I just help him with his grip and paper placement for whichever hand he chooses at the time.

Homeschool Group

We went to the corn maze and it was a blast. We belong to a great homeschool group. The kids all got to ride on the hayride to the pumpkin patch and pick out a pumpkin. There was an animal show, pig races, zip line, and much more….

We have a super homeschool Dad at the co-op that takes our school pictures for our co-op yearbook! Here are Wiggles pictures. They turned out great. My oldest dd, Spiritheart, is in the yearbook class this year and will help put the yearbook together.

This was our first Unit in LHFHG. We are taking it slow and spread it out over 2 weeks. It is a great start though and we are really enjoying it!

LHFHG Week 1

2011-09-24T22:15:00.001-05:00

Wiggles first week with HOD LHFHG has been great. He is doing really well listening and following directions.

I only have a few pictures of him doing his Hooked on Phonics on the laptop and in his workbook.

I will try to take more pics next week.

Long overdue update!

2011-08-16T14:00:00.000-05:00

This past year has not been without it’s hurdles to overcome. All of my plans for this year have ultimately changed for many different reasons. Ultimately, life changed.

We pulled Aaron from day school suddenly when my Mom was diagnosed with Stage 3B Colorectal Cancer. We spent from March through mid-June in Georgia. The kids and I stayed through her surgery to remove the tumor as well as her recovery and beginning stages of chemo treatment. My sister has been there for the chemo treatments. With lots of prayers, my Mom is doing well and over halfway through her treatment. Things are looking up and hopefully she will finish treatment in October and be cancer free.

During our time in Georgia, I tried to keep the kid’s lives as normal as possible. We signed up for soccer. They played outside often. We tried to school some.

When we returned home and I looked through Calvert’s preschool, it was too easy for Wiggles. Abeka’s k-4 was too intense for my taste. We settled on starting Wiggles as a young kindergartener with Heart of Dakota’s Little Hearts for His Glory.

I hope to keep up with the blog more this year.

Next Year’s Curriculum Decision

2011-03-10T18:10:00.001-06:00

I have purchased both Calvert’s pre-k and Abeka’s k-4. The plan is to start with Calvert and after it is completed to do Abeka’s k-4. Then I will make a decision about which works better for us. I may love Calvert so much that I will skip Abeka’s k-4. I don’t know.

Wiggles is finishing up his year of day school. He is enjoying it and it has gone well. I am looking forward to him coming home next year though.

I will probably keep his schooling on this blog until he starts 1st grade.

It’s been a long while!

2011-02-02T22:02:00.000-06:00

It has been a long while since I have blogged on Wiggle’s blog. He is still in day school and still doing well. He has had a chronic cough since about November and I took him in to the doctor and found out it is bronchitis. He started antibiotics today and hopefully will be much better soon.

He will be staying home next year with the big kids. I am debating what curriculum to use. I do have a short list though and it is down to Abeka or Calvert.

Ultimately, I am ordering all from one place this year so my decision weighs heavily on how I like the older grades as well.

Week in Review 11-19-2010

2010-11-19T14:38:00.001-06:00

Homeschool-LHTH Unit 3

Sandpaper letter-Cc

Coloring stripes on Abraham’s tent.

Painting stars in the sky.

Abraham’s tent in the night sky.

Mad Mondays Co-op

Crafts-

Pumpkin

Jack’o’lantern face

Turkey

ABC/123 Class

We are using Landmark Freedom Baptist Curriculum for our ABC/123 class.

We learned about Native Americans.

The color brown.

C-can

Day School

Invitation to Thanksgiving program.

This was a really neat corn project.

T is for Turkey

Wiggles’ day school uses the letter people curriculum. Here is Mrs. F. Each week there is a Family activity page to do with your child about the letter person they are learning.

Thanksgiving program!

Wiggles is enjoying day school, but still loves to do his LHTH work at home. He has a busy week though. He goes to day school M-F in the morning. He goes to co-op with us Monday afternoons and when he asks we do LHTH at home.

Next year, he will likely do LHFHG for kindergarten at home.

Wiggles goes to Day School!

2010-10-17T15:00:00.001-05:00

We have decided to put Wiggles in Day School. Home school and co-op is working beautiful for our bigger kids, but the offerings at the co-op for preschool is not what Wiggles or I need. Wiggles has also been demanding more attention during schooling the biggers. This is more often “bad” attention.

I didn’t think that we would find a spot for him, but we did. The director is also Big Sis’ previous pre-k teacher. I am very excited for him as he loves having something all his own. It is also helping him to be around kids his age. He is the youngest of 4 and everyone else is well past the preschool years.

He goes M-F for 3 hours. You would be amazed at how much schooling I can do with my 2nd, 4th, and 5th grader during this time. It has made a big difference in our home school.

I plan to start back our home school with him next week in the afternoon after he has relaxed and rested from day school. This is what we need for this season in our lives.

The fire dept. came and talked to them and gave them these wonderful hats. He is enjoying day school.

Next week, we will add back in our LHTH in the afternoon.

Week in Review 10/02/2010

2010-10-02T17:59:00.001-05:00

Well, we have been super busy lately as a family. We are selling popcorn with scouts on the weekends as well as playing soccer 2 days a week and practicing soccer 3 days a week. We also go to co-op one afternoon a week. As you can imagine, school has suffered.

We have completed about a week’s worth of work in 2 weeks.

Wiggles on his first day of co-op

Painting with watercolors

Cutting out pictures for our number page for LHTH.

Name activity for LHTH

All done!

There was more to our weeks than this, but we have really been pushing to finish school. There hasn’t been a lot of picture taking as much as just being glad we got through the day.

Week in Review 9/11/2010

2010-09-11T23:29:00.001-05:00

Wiggles has been sick a lot this week. From Wednesday on, he has been ill. Since Tuesdays are our first day of the school week that means he only did 1 day of school.

I am going to try again next week with him and just pick back up Unit 2.

Here are some pictures of some work he did last weekend to finish out Unit 1.

Tracing the letter Aa with a piece of ice.

Gluing…

adding Cheerios…

Voila! A perfect Aa!

Hopefully, next week goes better and Wiggles feels better soon.

Week in Review 9/4/2010

2010-09-04T15:00:00.001-05:00

We had a very good week. We are using HOD’s Little Hands to Heaven along with some extras. We did some color association, letter A, number 1, and read about Creation in our first Bible.

Color Association

Letter A

Sandpaper Letters and Wiki Stix

Math

Singapore Earlybird 1a

Gluing 1 tree onto our LHTH No. 1 sheet.

Bible

Pretending the scarf is a slithering snake.

Just for fun

Wiggles working on an old computer with his “tools”.

We had a pretty good first week.

First Day of School k-3

2010-09-01T06:36:00.001-05:00

Wiggles had a pretty good first day. We did the first day of LHTH. Then I schooled the biggers and then we went to a back to school party for our home school group.

I promised the kids french toast for breakfast and they enjoyed it.

Wiggles sitting prepared to start the day.

Saying A-A-Adam

His painting. He drew with white crayon and then painted over it with black tempera paint. I didn’t dilute it very well though so you really couldn’t see his shapes he drew.

Playing play-doh with Bubba while waiting for breakfast.

Thinking putty from Timberdoodle. This is really cool to let big ones fiddle with during read-alouds….

or letting little ones fiddle with while schooling biggers. :)

Getting wet at the party.

Eating at the party.

Scaling the climbing rock.

Finally playing in the sand.

He was exhausted after such a busy day. It all went well. Hopefully tomorrow goes just as well.

Getting Ready for School!

2010-08-30T16:12:00.001-05:00

We are doing Little Hands to Heaven with Wiggles this year. I consider this year his k-3 year. We have tried LHTH a few times and stall out each time. This year is going to be different.

Why is it going to be different? To put it simply, me. I am going to be organized and I am going to be prepared. Wiggles will school before the biggers and then he can do Montessori activities that I will have on trays set up for him.

The biggers will also rotate time spent helping with Wiggles during school. I am going to use Managers of their Homes and create a MOTH schedule.

I am also using something called the File Crate System. I have butchered my book and spiral bound it to be able to copy like a crazy person. Plus, I have put together a weekly supply list needed for LHTH.

Now for some pictures to back up my bold claim that this year will indeed be different.

My super organized bookcase.

This is the beginning of my file crate system. I have the hanging folders labeled at this point. Ultimately, I made 3 crates (Language Arts, Math, and Unit Studies/History/Science). Note-these are not the large size crates. These are the locker crates Walmart had been selling with 2 mini baskets inside them. I am teaching 4 kids this year.

This is my crate for Unit Studies, History, and Science. I have added my manila folders labeled by Unit for HOD.

My guide with the spine cut off and spiral bound. This is the best thing I could have ever done. I made my copies all in one sitting and it was super simple.

Here is my supply list for LHTH for Unit 2. I have stapled it to the top left of the inside of my manila folder.

Here it is with my copies inside as well as a ziploc bag filled with some of the necessary supplies for that week.

The ziploc bag is stapled to the bottom left hand corner of the manila folder.

We start tomorrow. Wish us luck!

Earth Day

2010-04-22T21:56:00.001-05:00

We went to Earth Day at the rec center. There was a local elementary school there. Wiggle’s Big Bubba was there for the Boy/Cub Scouts booth.

Wiggles is imitating the big kids. The teachers were trying to get the kids to sit and be quiet for lunch and a historian to speak. Wiggles did this in about 5 seconds…the 5th graders…well, the historian had to get on to them a lot.

Wiggles petting a gigantic snake and a ferret.

Wiggles also got to tour a fire truck.

We are on a break from school work with the big kids…so our reports are mainly life school for now with lots of field trips.

Weekly Report 4/16/2010

2010-04-16T09:28:00.002-05:00

Wiggles worked with his sandpaper letters this week. The big kids took their CAT test on Monday. The rest of the week has been super laid back.

Cubaree

Bubba is in cub scouts and cubaree was a few weekends ago. Wiggles got to go during the day and really enjoyed himself.

He is tickled pink learning to shoot a bow and arrow.

This is our lunch break at the camp site. Bubba was still at the bb range fulfilling his requirements for his bb pin.

It was a fun time. I can’t wait until Wiggles is a scout too. Our pack is very family friendly and all the siblings are included.

Weekly Report 4/9/2010

2010-04-09T10:33:00.002-05:00

Not much going on this week. Wiggles played with our math blocks a lot and several puzzles as well.

March Madness

2010-04-03T10:48:00.002-05:00

We joined a homeschool group and they meet once a month and usually have a theme and a craft. This is from the St. Patrick’s Day meeting.

Having a snack after making leprechaun traps.

Sitting in on the big kid’s science experiment growing crystals.

Working on our curriculum. Landmark Freedom Baptist Curriculum k-3.

Wiggles learned the number 1 and the letter A.

Having fun with all of his flashcards.

At the Easter homeschool group meeting. They were to put stickers on their cross to tell the story of Easter.

Working hard.

Wiggle’s story of Easter.

Week in Review 1-11-10 to 1-15-10

2010-01-16T13:17:00.002-06:00

This week went well. We tried to do a little more Little Hands to Heaven. This is our 2nd go round trying it. We stopped at the letter F last year. It just became too repetitive and Wiggles totally quit wanting to mess with it.

Well, we are only on week 2 of trying again with the older options. He doesn’t seem to be liking it anymore this go around, but I will keep trying for a few more weeks. I am adding in HOP Pre-reading and Singapore Earlybird Kindergarten 1a/1b this year.

So, here is our week…

LHTH Count on Me page with 5 caterpillars drawn.

First thing in the morning with bed head.

Playing with our Play-Doh Numbers, Letters ‘n Fun

You can stamp all the letters into the playdough. I got ours at Big Lots for $5. It has kept Wiggles occupied and learning for hours this week. It has the small containers of play-doh so it doesn’t get too messy.

Working on HOP Pre-Reading and our letter A.

A all done.

Yeah! We get to put a sticker on the poster!

Wiggle Worm’s School is Back in Session

2010-01-08T16:42:00.002-06:00

Well, we are using Little Hands to Heaven again after a long break and after completing our Abeka Nursery books. We are using the older options with it this time around.

Wiggles is actually participating in the rhymes and such and I think we will both like it better.

We only did 2 days this week though.

Riding Thomas the Train around our A. He was supposed to stamp a stuffed animal around it, but he loves Thomas so Thomas it is.

He drew on the paper in white crayon and was painting over it to make it show.

He also loves to stack and rearrange the pantry while I school the bigger kids.

Merry Christmas

2009-12-25T20:56:00.000-06:00

My very own train table!

Wiggles just can’t believe it!

Of course, there was some non-Thomas items.

Happy Birthday to Me!

2009-12-19T20:57:00.000-06:00

Of course, Wiggles cake was Thomas the Train

Make a Wish!

That cake sure was good!

Yeah! Presents!

Fall Fun

2009-10-08T22:30:00.001-05:00

We went to a pumpkin patch/corn maze that had a lot of fun things to do at it.

Wiggles pumping water to race ducks.

Big Sis pushing Wiggles on his “horse”

Big Sis and Wiggles on the cow train

Wiggles painting his Abeka Gg page.

Yeah! Wiggles cutting proper. I got new scissors from Montessori outlet that are perfect to learn to cut with at this age. They have a spring and a break. Just look at my southpaw!

Montessori Outlet Scissors link!

Throw Away Thursdays

2009-09-17T15:11:00.001-05:00

Wiggles learning to cut. We are working on just using 1 hand, but he has a hard time with it.

Doing color wonder with Buzz Lightyear. We love
Toy Story here.

Long time no blog

2009-09-15T23:27:00.001-05:00

Lots going on in the time since I last blogged.

Bubba and Wiggles with cuissenaire rods and other fun manipulatives.

Wiggles with this great shapes and colors manipulative that I got at Walmart years ago for Bubba.

Take a close look, a week later Wiggles folded the cardboard shapes and puzzles and shoved them down the air vents. They are forever gone and can no longer be purchased. :cry:

Lots of learning is going on and I plan to update the blog a lot more regularly now.

Life School

2009-07-29T02:10:00.002-05:00

Here are some pictures from the last 2 weeks of our life. Wiggles has been very busy.

Wiggles loves to put on his Big Sis’ skates (pay no attention to my laundry in the picture LOL)…he also loves his Thomas train sets….

We went to the lake and you can see how much Wiggles loved it…

We have been going to the ball field for the big kid’s baseball games and Wiggles plays on the playground. Here are a couple of pictures…

Busy Summer and found a Co-op for next year!

2009-07-27T15:34:00.002-05:00

We have been busy with summer baseball with the bigger kids and haven’t had much time for “school”. Wiggles has been learning a lot. I just haven’t had my camera there for “life” school.

I will try to sneak some pictures this week though as we are in tournament time for baseball and soon it will be over.

The great news is I was pointed in the direction of a local co-op and it does music, art, and drama. I am very excited. Big Sis is going to learn guitar. Bubba and Tadpole will have p.e., music, language arts, and art. Bubba’s p.e. is called Loco-Motion (it sounds fun). Big Sis will have individual guitar lessons, music theory, art, book club/drama, and p.e. So that takes a weight off of my shoulders for these extras.

Here is the really great news! Wiggles will be in the co-op as well for pre-school classes with music, crafts, story time, ABC-123’s, hands on learning and play group! They use a lot of Abeka resources and he will be used to the format.

I have been seriously debating whether to continue Little Hands to Heaven. It is a very repetitive guide and he already knows his letters and sounds and numbers and can count. I am out of printer ink and masking tape and have been too busy to get more with baseball going on. The amount of copying that the guide requires will suck your printer dry.

He had been getting bored with LHTH before baseball and not wanting to participate in any of it. He did start out liking it and enjoying the activities, but as the weeks have went on and it has been the same activities every week…he has shown a preference for the Abeka materials.

We have been doing Abeka sheets instead and it has just went so much smoother and he seems to enjoy it more. I’m not going to worry about it until baseball is over and then we will try one more week of Little Hands to Heaven and see how it goes before making the final decision as to whether to continue.

Mix and Match week

2009-07-10T14:45:00.001-05:00

We are still doing LHTH, but we are doing more Abeka at the same time.

Letter-F, Review E

Number-7 , Review 3

Bible-Young Moses

I am still without masking tape and ink for my printer so we kind of just winged it this week.

Sorting bears by color into their cups and sorting the cups on our Pooh color wheel.

Coloring

Wiggles trying to infiltrate the kitchen and Bubba in the background jumping on the couch.

My mischevious boys acting all sweet after being caught in the act.

Wiggles Ee Abeka page. We glued salt to our Ee’s for the snow.

Coloring out Abeka 3 page.

Finished page

Practicing Coloring

We love trains.

This is an activity from LHTH. We are studying about Moses and Wiggles had to glue the basket to the water (blue paper) and hide it in the grass.

That is it for our week. We had a good time even if we weren’t too organized about it.

gdiaper Winner

2009-07-10T08:15:00.002-05:00

Congrats to The Bluths! I will be contacting you by email to get your info and such.

Unit 7 (Sort of)

2009-07-05T22:26:00.001-05:00

We started Unit 7 this week learning the letter F, but we didn’t make it too far. I was out of masking tape and some other supplies…so we just worked on some fun Abeka coloring sheets.

Big Sis helping Wiggles with his coloring sheets.

This is Wiggles joining in on Big Sis’ BHFHG lesson. He is pointing to the North Pole and saying Nort ‘ol. LOL!

We are going to pick back up our lessons this week with Unit 7.

Unit 6

2009-06-27T20:11:00.002-05:00

Tracing our E with our sandpaper letters.

Relaxing with Bubba

Using tongs and pom poms to color sort.

Putting little pom poms through the tiny hole in a Cane’s cup.

Wiggles had a great week and we are really enjoying school again.

gdiapers Sweet Deal-(Contest Over)

2009-06-24T11:35:00.001-05:00

(Wiggle’s sweet little gbum when he was just a little Wiggles)

gdiapers is having a sweet deal right now. They are selling their everyday g’s 6-pack (3 orange/3 vanilla bean) for $70. That isn’t the best news. As a gmum, I am getting a $30 off code that I am going to share with you guys….which means…yep, you can get 6 gdiapers for $40!

Here is the code- g1014Taylor

To use your personal gMum/Dad coupon code, add one or more everyday g's six-pack(s) to your gDiapers.com cart, enter your code and click the "redeem" button. The price will automatically drop from $70 (regular price) to $40. What a sweet deal!

They are also going to start selling gcloth! I am super excited about this! So now gdiapers will offer both the flushable environmental friendly grefills and gcloth as options to “stuff” your gdiapers.

I love all the options!

I could go on and on gushing about gdiapers…here is a link for you to check them out yourself.

gdiapers.com

To celebrate this sweet deal, I will do a giveaway of one everyday g’s 6-pack. All you have to do is leave a comment to enter. This giveaway ends on July 10, 2009. I will draw a number and that comment number wins. So make sure to leave your comments by then.

I’m excited this is my first give away! gdiapers for a happy planet!

Marvelous Monday

2009-06-22T22:32:00.001-05:00

LHTH-UNIT 5

Letter-Ee

Number-6

Bible-Joseph becomes a leader.

Practicing tracing sandpaper letters for the letters we have learned so far.

I somehow skipped the Wikki Stix when we learned the letter Dd, but I remembered today when we introduced Ee. He loves the Wikki Stix and will do them proper for a few minutes then he piles more and more on until he grows tired of it and he will help pick them all up and place them back in our ziploc bag.

Here is our finished number 6 worksheet. We glued 6 pictures of pillows onto our paper.

LHTH Unit 5

2009-06-19T07:39:00.001-05:00

Believe it or not, we have actually done LHTH everyday this week including Tuesday and Thursday! It is going great. Normally one of the girls helps me teach Wiggles.

They take turns on Tuesday and Thursday helping him do Abeka pages while I am teaching the other kids.

This week was review from A-D. I didn’t get a lot of pictures, but we had fun. I am loving using Playtime Devotions as his devotional.

Riding our Thomas trains on the A. BTW, never use your husband’s double sided industrial tape (he is an electrician) on carpet and leave for more than a day. It is like cement. I had to pry the A from the carpet and you can see where it left a mark in the shape of A. Lesson learned. If you can’t find your masking tape, do not grab something just because it looks similar.

We learned about Joseph and his coat of many colors. Here Wiggles is making a rainbow of stripes like the coat on his coffee filter.

Tadpole helping Wiggles with his B project.

His finished B project.

This is from LHTH. We thinned some glue with water. Wiggles painted it on his B with a q-tip and then sprinkled decorating sprinkles on top. It turned out great and colorful.

This has been an excellent week and we are now moving smoothly through our day with all the kids and schooling.

Unit 4

2009-06-13T15:20:00.002-05:00

We finally finished Unit 4 of LHTH. It tooks us 3 weeks! Public school got out the last week of May so we had a lot of awards assemblies to go to as well as Bubba’s kindergarten program. Then, I started schooling the big kids at home. So finally Wiggles has finished Unit 4 and we are back on track schooling.

Here is Wiggles putting Tigger Tails (macaroni shaped like Tigger’s tail) on his Dd page for LHTH.

Big Sis helping Wiggles write D and d in cornmeal after practicing with our sandpaper letters.

Trying it by himself.

These are our art work from the local library’s storytime.

I also made a schedule to keep all of us on track. I color coded it by kid and the together activities are their colors together…their names are on it but I blacked them out for the web.

Still Learning

2009-06-07T13:25:00.001-05:00

We are still doing LHTH, but we have slowed down quite a bit since I have started schooling the big kids also. This week, I plan to get back into doing LHTH M,W,F with Wiggles.

This is some horrible picture taking on my part. Here Wiggles is jumping to “Rachel”. We are learning about Isaac and his sons. What you can’t see is the strip of masking tape that he was jumping from to his stuffed animal that was Rachel. Then we marked his jumps and compared them shorter, farther, and closest. As I said, horrible picture taking skills.

Here he is reading his Bible. He always wants to read it himself after we are through.

Here he is doing tiny pom poms through the straw hole of a Cane’s cup.

Pouring kidney beans from the bucket to the measuring cup.

I’ll just be honest. I don’t know what he is working on here. He is having snack and working on one of his sheets while watching Word World.

This is one of his extras. BTW, he shares a room with big brother (my 2 yr old does not have this many game systems). He does have a Little Leaps Learning System which is great. Here he is playing Thomas with some help from Big Sis. These aren’t video games and you (or one of your bigger kids) do have to help your child with it.

http://www.leapfrog.com/en/families/little_leaps/little_leaps_learning/lilps.html

Leap Frog, unfortunately, has discontinued these. They are much better than Vsmile baby. You can still find them on Ebay for a good price with the dvd’s.

Terrific Tuesday

2009-05-26T23:42:00.001-05:00

We got back into our groove with LHTH. We have had a hard time getting to going with it, but that should be over now. We are on Unit 4.

Letter D

Number 4

He was supposed to tiptoe around the D and instead crawled and traced it.

Reading our Children’s Bible

Gluing on our 4 worksheet

I actually started this unit last week, but we didn’t make it far. I had been watching a friend’s son who wasn’t into doing it with us. I tried to do it with both him and Wiggles together. He is 4, but he just didn’t want to do anything but ask to watch tv and play video games. Rather than Wiggles see the I don’t want to do this attitude and maybe pick it up, I chose to just put LHTH on hold until I no longer was watching the other child.

Summer is here

2009-05-26T13:27:00.001-05:00

We only have 2 more days of school for the biggers. Bubba is graduating kindergarten! Yeah! So this last week has been really busy and I haven’t really done formal “tot school”. I did do it today and have some pictures and will try to post tomorrow.

I am so excited to have all of my kids home with me finally. I have all my books for HOD LHFHG, BHFHG, DITHOR, and my Learn at Home Grade Series. I have spent several days compiling my reading lists for them and looking them up on the library catalog online. I found all but 2 I need. WOO HOO!

There will definitely be posts from Tot School and LHTH this week.

Throw Away Thursday

2009-05-15T11:52:00.003-05:00

Here Wiggles is tracing his Sandpaper Letters. He is doing super well at tracing and saying the sound of the letter. I think we are about ready to do some corn meal writing during review week with LHTH.

I had to put this one in. We didn’t have a Children’s Bible reading in our lesson plan for LHTH today, but I had already pulled the book from the shelf when gathering what I needed. Wiggles didn’t want me to put it up even though we didn’t “need” it today. He wanted Abraham as he tried to get the book. So I handed it to him. We have been reading about Abraham in it and he sat down and started to read it to me. I couldn’t make out much but all the men in the pictures were Abraham as he “read” to me.

Here is Wiggles using his Dr. Suess Alphabet cards. I love these. They are set up like the book. Big A Little A What begins with A. Alligator with a Dr. Suess pic of an alligator. Also, they are tactile. Similar to the way I teach him with the sandpaper letters.

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3239861

I love the Dr. Suess beginner cards. They have shapes, numbers, opposites. Lots and lots to choose from and they are fun. They have teaching ideas included. So far I have the alphabet and shapes but plan on getting more.

Wacky Wednesdays

2009-05-15T11:52:00.001-05:00

We did our Abeka worksheets today. I have kind of been doing some Abeka and some LHTH through the week. I was doing LHTH M,W,F and Abeka and Kumon worksheets on T, TH.

Our Cc cow sheet. We glued little squares of red construction paper to the Cc’s. This is too funny not to share. You see the cowboy in the right side of the picture? Well the list is of c words to look at and read to your child. Well, we are all Indiana Jones fans and the kids have the ps2 game and such…Well, when I brought out the Cc worksheet…Wiggles looks at it and I thought he was going to start saying Cow, Cow…Nope, Indy Indy Jones!

Here are 2 of our Abeka number 3 worksheets. I’ll be honest they have too many sheets for the numbers. It is overkill. I am going to quit doing all of them. We will do 1 letter and 1 number sheet on Tuesday and Thursday. The rest I will just ignore.

Here is our Kumon Let’s Sticker and Paste sheet. He had fun putting the animals on it.

Marvelous Monday (a bit late)

2009-05-13T11:25:00.001-05:00

I am a bit behind on my blog updates this week. We are steadily working through LHTH now that we have gotten the hang of it.

I love the neat little things we do in LHTH. Here Wiggles is being Abraham serving his 3 guests. We used Big Sis’s real tea set (shh! it is a secret). I actually had a hard time getting him away from this activity.

Reading in A Child’s First Bible is going so well. I am surprised at how much he understands for his age. He isn’t the world’s best talker so I was nervous about even starting a program this year. It turns out that it was the best thing we have done. He has really blossomed the past few months in the speech and language area.

Here is our Count on Me and Hide and Seek C pages. I know the picture is horribly tiny. My camera batteries are dead so the past few posts have been with my phone camera.

I think this was Unit 3 Day 3.

Our Mother’s Day

2009-05-11T12:25:00.001-05:00

We had a great Mother’s Day! We went to the air show on base and got to see Aaron Tippin perform! I had a blast and Wiggles enjoyed it as well as the rest of the crew and Daddy.

We got pictures with him and his autograph!!!! I didn’t have my camera but a friend had theirs and I am awaiting her sending me the pic of us with Aaron Tippin.

Here are some pictures I got on my camera phone.

Big Sis with Aaron Tippin! She was thrilled.

I just had to post about our fun Mother’s Day! We also went out for Mexican to eat. It was a great wonderful way to spend Mother’s Day!

Dale Earnhardt Jr.’s car was also at the National Guard part of the show.

Daddy took this picture of Tadpole.

I took this picture and have been criticized for not getting closer and my poor picture taking skills. Keep in mind this is a camera phone…

Hope this makes Daddy happy. I edited in PSP to make it look close up.

Up close.

Hope everyone else had a Great Mothers Day!

Wacky Wednesdays

2009-05-06T17:21:00.001-05:00

We did our LHTH Unit 3 Day 3 today. We made a letter C on the floor out of masking tape and Wiggles rode his Thomas trains around it.

We did an art activity after reading about Abraham and Sarah and God’s promise to give them a son. We made a tent with stars in the night sky to show God’s promise to give Abraham more children than there are stars in the sky.

I used our tray again and had our materials ready. We used tempera paint and were supposed to use wadded up paper towel…instead I used some of my HWT triangle sponges. It was much neater and he was practicing for pincer grip. He was to draw stripes on an index card to fold in half for the tent. I was lucky and our index card already had alternating highlighting for him to have lines to trace over already. We taped our tent to our stars in the night and we were done.

Tuesdays at Tinytown

2009-05-05T22:52:00.001-05:00

We went to Tinytown today. I have to say it was enjoyable and Wiggles is getting a lot of exercise and gross motor skills workout. I’m still not sure it will be an every week occurrence, but this week was fun.

We did Unit 3 Day 2 of LHTH. We were supposed to glue yarn to a paper with the letter Cc on it, but I had no yarn. So I cut up some tissue paper like for gift bags. It went pretty well. Instead of trying to do it on the fly, I made up a tray. I put the cut up paper in a bowl and the glue was in the tray too. Then Wiggles and I applied glue drops around the C and he was left to put the paper on the glue drops unassisted. This worked really well.

He also put spaghetti into the holes of our container. He has to concentrate on this one. Again I used a tray to keep it focused and contained in one area.

Wiggles loves Thomas the train and you will see Thomas in a lot of our pictures. Wiggles was working on sorting pom poms by color and he also sorted Thomas into the blue bowl with pom poms.

Wiggles Work

2009-05-03T21:55:00.001-05:00

We did a little more with the Abeka this week. Since Wiggles got a virus, we didn’t work on LHTH. This is from the day before he got sick. I printed out some papers from Handwriting without tears for Wiggles to start working on his name. I do think this was an exercise from LHTH Unit 3 Day 1. The only day we got to do this week.

I printed his name sheet off of Handwriting without Tears web site and printed the page twice. I wrote his name on both sheets. Then I cut up each letter on one page for him to match up to the other. One thing that HWT does is puts a happy face in the top left corner to teach where to start writing.

We worked on our sandpaper letters with Cc.

We are feeling a lot better and we will pick up with our Cc week starting tomorrow.

Naming a blog

2009-05-02T10:15:00.002-05:00

I want to start a new blog for my other 3 children as I attempt homeschooling this summer. I know that I don’t want to add them to Wiggle’s blog and that someday Wiggles will move to their blog.

I am having a hard time coming up with a name. It is much harder than I thought it would be to name a home school blog. How did everyone come up with their name and did everyone keep their real life names out of the title?

Sick, Sick, Sick

2009-05-01T13:19:00.001-05:00

Well, I thought that we would get back to Tot School this week. That is what I thought, but life has other plans. Wiggles has a virus and it is likely to last up to 10 days. So we are taking meds and rest for at least a week.

Terrific Tuesday

2009-04-28T13:31:00.001-05:00

I don’t know how many Tuesdays at Tinytown we will be having from now on out. It was very fun, but I think we will be taking an extended break from there.

Now on to Tot School!

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This is a really neat puzzle game for toddlers. I have the Classic Pooh hide & seek game. I found it on sale at Target. I can’t find it on their web site now, but Toys R Us has several different ones including Disney Princesses. Wiggles really enjoys this. You can click on the picture to follow a link to Toys R Us and the product. It is recommended for ages 18 months-3 years.

This picture is actually from the weekend, but I thought I would throw it in. Wiggles and Big Sisters were coloring on the driveway.

This week:

LHTH-Letter C, Number 3, God Blesses Abraham

Abeka-Letter C, Number 3, Finger play Clap with Me

Baby Signs-Mealtime Signs

I wanted to share our finger play for this week for Abeka. It is really cute and the little ones genuinely join in pretty quickly.

Clap with Me

Clap with me. 1,2,3

Clap, clap, clap, just like me.

(Clap hands)

Shake with me. 1,2,3

Shake, shake, shake, just like me.

(Shake body)

Roll with me. 1,2,3

Roll, roll, roll, just like me.

(Roll hands one over the other.)

Snap with me. 1,2,3

Snap, snap, snap, just like me.

(Snap fingers)

Fold with me. 1,2,3

Fold, fold, fold, just like me.

(Fold hands and lay them in lap.)

First we did our Wiki Stiks for the letter C. I gave no instruction since this is our 3rd letter and her did pretty good on his own.

We are cutting from our Let’s Cut Paper! Kumon First Steps Workbook. He had to cut down the middle (still working on cutting skills…he wants to use both hands for the scissors) then match the front to the back of the car.

This was our Cc page for Abeka today. You had to fingerprint paint the C. He did really well and we didn’t even get messy!!

Here, he is working on his concept cards for Baby Signs. I wanted to get a picture of him signing so badly, but every time I would get the camera and snap the picture it would always be just after he was finishing the sign. Baby signs is really great at building vocabulary and limiting frustrations in a toddler. I would recommend it to anyone with an infant or toddler.

Even though he is talking more and more…there are times when his emotions and temperament get in the way of his vocalizing what he wants or needs. Signs can be such a great benefit to the child and the parent.

Baby Signs

They also have a potty learning program to help train your child. I can’t recommend this enough.

Baby Signs Potty Training

Wiggles watching the Potty Train video by Baby Signs. Here he is getting on the Potty Train (choo choo).

We were supposed to color the cups, but Wiggles was having none of it so instead I numbered them and we counted a few times to end our Tot School day.

Marvelous Monday

2009-04-27T11:13:00.001-05:00

Okay, I am trying to get back on track with our Little Hands to Heaven work and Abeka work. We finally finished Unit 2 of LHTH!! Woo Hoo!

Here he is playing with the Melissa and Doug animal sounds puzzle. This is the first time he has really taken the time to match them up and listen for the sound.

We learned about the tower of Babel today. Our math activity in LHTH was to stack blocks one by one (counting as we went) until they toppled to show how God was unhappy with the people and destroyed their tower. Not really sure if we got all of that, but we did enjoy stacking blocks.

I tried to do some patterns with the colored blocks but he just wanted to stack and topple so I let it go for now.

We read in a Children’s First Bible for LHTH and it did a nice little overview of the tower of Babel.

We also did our sandpaper letters B and our finger play for B. Then we headed outside to draw B in sidewalk chalk. I drew the B and then Wiggles “tried” to trace over it. Since he is just 2, I am not stressing it.

Not to leave the girls out of the blogging, here are some pictures of them on field day…

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Blogging catch up!

2009-04-25T13:51:00.001-05:00

Well, it has been a busy week here in our household. We have done 2 full day field days with 3 different kids in 3 different grades…all while towing a 2 year old along for the fun ride.

We managed to do a little bit of tot school here and there.

Wiggle’s is holding up his blue gdiaper. I was folding diapers and Wiggles wanted to help…so I started calling out colors for him to find from my pile of unfolded ones and then would fold that color.

Here Wiggles is sorting his candied hearts by color on our pooh color wheel placemat. I really love this mat. I was needing to get some work done in the house and needed something he could do by himself without getting into a mess.

The color mat came from Walmart.

Here Wiggles is working on his transportation puzzle. He really likes to fly the helicopter to it’s place.

Here Wiggles is playing with his police station and fire truck. The 2 baskets in the background is all the toys we brought back from our visit at spring break! I have no idea where I will fit all of this stuff in the kids rooms. It is time to go through and give to Goodwill again or to the local women’s and children’s shelter here.

You will be seeing more pictures of Wiggles sans pants and just diapers or undies b/c we are going to start seriously potty learning starting next week!!

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Here are some pics from Big Bubba’s field day at school! He is 6 yrs. old and in kindergarten.

We are going to do a trial run with all 4 kids at home this summer and see if I can hack it teaching them all.

Back to Tot School

2009-04-21T21:05:00.001-05:00

We got back late Sunday and I chose to keep the biggers out of school Monday. I have so much to do. The kids got lots of toys while visiting relatives and more clothes too. I have to find room for the new stuff.

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These are some pics from before we left. I was cleaning the girls room and Wiggle Worm was busy checking things out. I found these great books that I had when the biggers were little hidden on a shelf in the girls room. They are my shapes book, my numbers book, and my words book. I am going to have to look up who makes them b/c they are really great.

Today, while I did dishes and tried to straighten my house…Wiggle Worm kind of did Tot School…

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We really just took it easy today. Wiggle Worm did the tiny pom poms through the straw hole. He also spent so much time dressing the elephant! He really liked that one. I wish I had more clothes for him than just the 2 outfits. He also did some tongs and pom poms in color bowls for color matching. I tried to do a pouring exercise with him and it was a fiasco. I used water to see if he was ready for liquid. Nope! He poured the water once from the pitcher to the bowl and back again…then…he decided the water would be better on the tray! What a mess! We cleaned it up together and I decided back to beans and rice for a little while longer.

We won’t be doing LHTH this week b/c the biggers have field day on Thursday and Friday all day. So I guess our Tot School will be on a field trip. I do have one lesson left in Lesson 2 so I will probably do it tomorrow then the rest of the week will be hands on field trip experiences.

Wiggle Worm was so excited to be back home and with his things. He toted his trucks around (almost all of them in both arms). It was almost like he had to touch it all to believe it was here still. He slept so much better too. He was awful at my Mom’s over spring break. He would not go to sleep at all there. I would have to hold him on my chest and get him to sleep in the “big” chair. I was kind of nervous that it would carry over when we got home, but nope he went straight to his big boy bed and went to bed no problem.

Tot School hiatus

2009-04-08T20:36:00.002-05:00

We are on a hiatus from Tot School this week and next. We have a horrible virus that is running through our family and now Mommy has caught the crud. Wiggle Worm and Big Sis have been fighting it since last week.

Next week is Spring Break and we are taking a little vacation. So Tot School is on hiatus until after Spring Break.

Hopefully, by then we will all be well.

Fabulous Fridays

2009-04-03T22:03:00.002-05:00

Well, it has definitely been a fabulous Friday for me. I got to have lunch with my good friend. Then Wiggle Worm and I picked up the biggers.

I also picked up an Acer Aspire One Notebook for myself. I am typing this blog on it now. I love it. It isn’t a regular size laptop. It is a mini-laptop. It doesn’t have a cd/dvd rom but I plan to get an external one to attach. Right now I will use flash drives. It does have wireless internet, 160 gb hard drive, lots of usb ports, a card reader that supports almost any type of picture card, a web cam…pretty much everything you need in a nice, neat little package and for only $298 it can’t be beat. I am putting a link for anyone interested. I am quite pleased with it. It is heaven for on the go internet and blogging. I just have to get used to the keyboard.

Acer Aspire Mini Laptop

Throw away Thursdays

2009-04-02T13:29:00.002-05:00

My house is a disaster area. Literally, it is a pig sty. I let Wiggle Worm work on several things while I did dishes. I still have to sweep and mop, but plan to wait until tonight when no little ones will dirty it right back up.

Okay, I just had to put this old pic of big brother Bubba doing this same exercise when he was 3…he is 6 now. They are 3 part cards for colors.

Here is Wiggle Worm being introduced to them for the first time! He did really well. I think I will start out with just the primary colors next time though. We got confused with orange and red and blue and purple. So we might start out with just three and work up.

This is an up close so you can see the exercise. The one card has the color and name of the color. The tot then matches the color to the color/name card.

I originally downloaded this file from childcareland.com. I can't find it in the free printables anymore. I am going to email and see if I can get a link to post here if anyone else wants to use this file too. I laminate mine. This exercise grows also b/c I have a set of cards that has a blank part at the top with the word for the color at the bottom and the child matches the color part to the word (showing they can read the color name and match it with the color without the control). I will take a picture of it soon. I will have my 6 year old do this as color words are part of his sight words.

I borrowed this idea from 1+1+1=1. I used a Cane’s kid’s drink cup and Wiggle Worm put those tiny pom poms through the straw hole. This lasted a while.

Close up of him pushing the pom pom through the hole.

This is big Bubba (at 3) doing his Melissa and Doug stacker. Alas, this stacker did not survive to be passed on to Wiggle Worm. I did buy a M&D round rainbow stacker the other day and wanted to get a pic of Wiggle Worm doing it to put with this pic in the post, but Wiggle Worm would not oblige me. Maybe I will get the pic and edit this post.

I am going to go through big Bubba’s pics from toddlerhood and glean ideas from them (insert evil laugh here). I had made so many Montessori style 3 part cards and have most of them laminated. I think it is time I pull them out and Wiggle Worm is introduced to them.

Wacky Wednesdays

2009-04-01T10:58:00.001-05:00

We had a pretty decent Wednesday. We did our LHTH today and it went really well after I found some masking tape. I bought some yesterday when I bought the construction paper. The house had eaten the first tape I used with the A. Well, today I couldn’t find the new tape and after searching like crazy…I found the first missing tape but not the new tape…Oh well, at least I have tape.

We put blocks all around our B.

Gluing our rainbow.

Our finished rainbow.

Abeka 2 Worksheet.

Coloring.

Our new Melissa and Doug triangle crayons in their case. I love these crayons. They have a great case with built in flip top lid. They are sturdier than the crayola triangle crayons too. Our crayola ones didn’t survive the day before Wiggle Worm had broken half of them. The M&D ones are very sturdy and hold up to a toddler’s grip and use.

We learned about when the flood ended and Noah came off the ark with the animals. We learned that God gave us rainbows as a sign that he would never cover the earth with water again.

We made a rainbow with torn up colored construction paper that we glued onto a piece of black construction paper. We are now using Elmer’s disappearing purple school glue sticks. I love these. It is so much easier and Wiggle Worm can actually do the glue! Regular glue in a bottle was too hard for him right now and too much of a battle to accomplish anything.

We continued our exploration of the letter B. I love the masking tape on the floor with the letters. Although B was a bit tricky for me to make well. B will stay on the floor until next week when C is introduced.

We reenacted Noah coming off the boat and it was fun. I pretended to be animals and tried to encourage Wiggle Worm to do the same. Alas, Wiggle Worm wanted to ride piggy back on all the animals. It was a fun and energetic exercise.

We counted to 2 with our Abeka worksheet. Wiggle Worm colored with his new crayons.

Tuesdays at Tinytown

2009-03-31T12:35:00.000-05:00

I am trying something new and using Windows Live Writer to write, preview, and publish my post. I am not sure if I will like this more or less than using bloggers dashboard.

We had a wonderful time at Tinytown and Wiggle Worm did the cutest thing. The little girl we visit with up there (she is almost 3) and Wiggle Worm held hands while climbing the slides and slid down together. It was adorable. I tried to get a picture of this, but they were too busy going up and down the slides.

After Tinytown, we went to a local education store and picked up some new Melissa and Doug products. We got the fish colors puzzle which he has already played with and loves as well as the stacker.

Things I like about Windows Live Writer

What you see is what you get! For real!
Picture upload is so much faster
Picture is put where I am typing not up at the top of the post each time
All the neat different plug-ins that you can use (except attach files)

Things I dislike about Windows Live Writer

I still can’t attach files (not really WLW’s fault this is a serious blogger issue)
….still thinking can’t find anything I hate

Marvelous Mondays

2009-03-30T13:39:00.005-05:00

While I was figuring out what we were going to do today. Aaron played with his paper trains.
We did our Kumon First Steps Let's Cut Paper!
Kumon First Steps Let's Color!
This is my other Prang watercolor set. These are for 2+years and are great b/c the watercolors are large and easy for small hands and they don't get all mixed up like Crayola's with the small watercolors.
We did our Abeka Aa page and watercolor painted with a q-tip. I personally love this much more than the paint brush for a toddler. I would recommend it over a brush any day.Our finished masterpieceFor our Bb page we had to glue white rice to the Bb. I did not like this. It was messy and Wiggle Worm wanted to put the rice anywhere but on the glue. The rice was too small for this activity. I like beans much better or cotton balls...anything but small, white rice.
Our finished Bb with rice. This was more me than him doing it and as said before there will be no more rice even if the instructions call for it.
We didn't do LHTH b/c I needed masking tape and construction paper. I had neither. So I decided to do our Abeka pages and our Kumon First Steps workbooks. I also have the Abeka fingerplay and poems book and we did a fun fingerplay. It has poems and fingerplays for every letter of the alphabet. It would work as a stand alone as you teach your child the letters or with almost any program.
I will pick up the needed items for LHTH tomorrow and we will pick up where we left off then.
We also read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. I am putting the tot book together for it now and plan to give it to him Friday after reading all week. He will get to work with the tot book all next week.
I am planning to do this with several other books and tot books. I am going to read the book for a week (while I am making the tot book), then he will have the tot book for a week. I am focusing on the literature based ones. I picked up The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Five Little Monkeys, and Brown Bear Brown Bear today.
Does anyone know how to make the pockets for the tot books? I have some extras for our tot books that I want to make pockets for but don't know how to make the pockets. If anyone has a template for a pocket for PSP, I would greatly appreciate it.

One Crazy Week

2009-03-29T12:04:00.008-05:00

This week has been crazy and really unscheduled. So we did Tot School on Saturday as well as give Wiggle Worm a hair cut. I didn't realize how long his hair had really gotten.
I feed him skittles so he will be good for the haircut. So he has a skittles mouth.
After the haircut...
We are mad and sad and very upset with Mommy. It isn't perfect but at least it is cut.
As a reward for surviving the haircut, we did a floating exercise from LHTH. We are learning about Noah and the Ark this week and we tried to see what would float. We tried a cotton ball (floated until soaked through), a popsicle stick (floated), and some pennies (sank). He really just liked playing in the water.
On to our Tot School work, we did our Hide and Seek B page from LHTH and he helped circle all the b's.
We did our count on me page. These are supposed to be blue ovals. I helped him with the first 2. He did the rest on his own. Then I helped him write the numbers. When I help, I put my hands over his and we write.He colored his Abeka Numbers with Button Bear pages. I just put them down in front of him and he colored them. The one for the number 2 you ask questions like how many eyes does the tiger have? how many ears? ...

This is his finished works of art.We also read out of A Children's First Bible every day with LHTH. It is a really neat little curriculum for ages 2-5. It's not expensive and it doesn't take a whole lot of time. I normally do ours M,W, and F. Carrie Austin has really put together an easy to use age appropriate guide.

Little Hands to Heaven is a complete preschool program that includes letter recognition and formation, letter sounds with corresponding motions, beginning math skills, Bible activities, devotional topics, art projects, dramatic play, active exploration, fingerplays, and music.
-excerpt from the introduction of LHTH

It really makes it easy for me to make sure that I am covering everything that I want to get covered with my little Wiggle Worm while we have a fun time doing it all. I do supplement with Abeka here and there and also use my Montessori Sandpaper letters and Wikki Stix. LHTH makes everything so easy for us. We get to go at our own pace and he will go through it again next year at 3 and get a little more intensive study. It has instructions for youngers 2-3 and olders 4-5 to do with each project.

The Heart of Dakota curriculum grows with your child and is something that I am so glad to have found. If you would like to check out their site, below is a link.

Heart of Dakota

Throw Away Thursdays

2009-03-26T11:20:00.004-05:00

We did our foam alphabet puzzle. I bought this for $1 at Walmart. I took all the letters apart and punched out the letter and we worked on one letter sound to its shape at a time. What does the M say mmm, what shape is the M, put it in Wiggle Worm...
This is my really cool watercolor set by prang for under 3's. It comes with a drape and a fat paintbrush. The watercolors are huge (as you can see) and very spread out so the colors don't get mixed up. I took a picture of it all pretty before we use it and it isn't pretty anymore.
This is Wiggle Worm looking at the butterfly and us talking about the b-b-b sound.
Finally, Wiggle Worms favorite part...we are painting. We are supposed to print out a B for him to watercolor paint with LHTH. I am using the Abeka Letters and Sounds N workbook pages for these exercises and just doing the instructions for LHTH. Last week was to put beans on the letter. This week is to watercolor.Our finished watercolor. He colored the butterflyand the B as best as he can.We were supposed to put the cups on the colors and add the bears. He kind of did his own thing.We sorted our colored popsicle sticks.Tot School went okay. He was kind of ornery and we both had allergies today. So it was short and sweet.

Wacky Wednesdays

2009-03-25T13:11:00.004-05:00

Well, as is fitting for this week, everything is not going according to plan. I needed new ink to copy pages for LHTH and while at Walmart decided to get Wiggle Worm's pics took. Then we went to eat and now are at nap...so Tot School is being pushed to Throw away Thursday this week. But ain't he just too cute?

Tuesdays at Tinytown

2009-03-24T16:20:00.003-05:00

Well, the first thing I should say is there wasn't a Tuesday at Tinytown today. Big brother, affectionately known as Bubba by Wiggle Worm, has bad allergies and our miracle combo of Singular, Zyrtec, and Nasonex (excuse the spelling it is probably wrong) has quit doing the job. So into the Dr. we went. So now we are getting rid of Zyrtec and starting Allegra (continuing all other meds).
Needless to say by the time we went to the Dr., ate, and went to the pharmacy...Tinytown time was long over. I'm sure the break from Tinytown will make Wiggle Worm even more anxious to go next Tuesday.

My First Blog Award

2009-03-23T18:43:00.011-05:00

Woo Hoot! I am so excited. My little old newbie blog has been nominated for a blog award by Adventures in Mommydom.

There are some rules to the nominating awards and my newbie self is going to try my best to accomplish adhering to them all.

Rules:
1) Add the logo of the award to your blog

2) Add a link to the person who awarded it to you

3) Nominate at least 7 other blogs

4) Add links to those blogs on your blog
5) Leave a message for your nominees on their blogs!

I am going to ask permission to link to the blogs I love first. So I will be editing this post as I receive permission from them.

1. Blissful Moments
2. ~There's More to this Life~
3. One of my favorite blogs is an award free blog that wishes to give all the Glory to God and I respect her so much for that. I am hoping that keeping this slot open and not including a link will be appropriate given her wishes.
4. One Child Policy Homeschool
5. Love's School
6.
7.

This is really a lot of fun and a good way to let other bloggers know that you appreciate their time and effort.
I have a mixture of favorites. Not all are Tot School blogs and some blogs don't have Tots at all. My children range in ages 2,6,7, and 8...so I am always looking at blogs that offer a little of this and that for my whole family. I hope that everyone enjoys reading my favorite blogs.

Marvelous Mondays

2009-03-23T12:22:00.006-05:00

Here is Wiggle Worm with his Dr. Seuss Alphabet cards. I let him just explore with these while I was getting ready for Tot School. If he sees me pull out the wikki stix, sandpaper letters, Child's First Bible, LHTH teacher's guide, and whatever else we will use that day...he drives me nuts and I am flustered and we are scatterbrained while trying to do the activities...so today I gave him something to occupy him while I got myself together. Also it is fun to see what they do without direction.We did our sandpaper letters first. We reviewed A and introduced B. We did trace these but I have no pictures of that b/c he spotted the wikki stix before I could snap a shot and he was quickly done with the sandpaper letters. In an earlier post, there is a guide to using sandpaper letters as well as the site of where I got my wonderful wood backed sandpaper letters. These are meant to last. No cardboard paper here. I will make a label as soon as I am done with this post and link all the sandpaper letter posts if anyone is interested. You can also make your own and I will link lots of free printouts and instructions to that soon also.
Once again, I decided less direction on the letter we had already introduced. He did Aa all by himself. B was guided b/c we hadn't had it before. I let him just do what he wants with the pictures. By the time we were through, the ant had about 30 legs and the butterfly was a wad of pink wikki stix.
If you haven't gotten wikki stix, they are great for fine motor skills and learning the formation of the letters. I don't separate ours, he has to pull each one apart from the stack. This is really great for the pincer grip. The cards that we use are the Wikki Stix Alphabet Fun Cards for Learning. I got mine at Therapro.com and they are well worth the money. They are only $13.95 and if you order $35 in an internet order you get free shipping. This is a great site. You can click on the Wikki Stix picture below and it will take you to their site.
We also introduced the number 2 in LHTH today. We were supposed to find in a magazine or print out 2 hands to cut out and glue. Wiggle Worm was not wanting to leave the wikki stix and he isn't that great at cutting and gluing yet...so instead I traced his hands in 2 different color crayons and wrote 1 and 2 in them. This was much better and engaging for us b/c he got frustrated last week with the cutting and gluing. He really got into it being his hands and we counted the hands on the page and his real hands several times.
We will be going back through LHTH as a 3 year old next year and I think we will do more cutting and pasting then. To save stress and frustration on his part and mine. I will cut out or adapt the lessons for his level of ability for now. We will be practicing our cutting and pasting with our Kumon First Steps workbooks. They seem more on the level of a 2 year old boy.

Fabulous Fridays (a few days late)

2009-03-22T16:15:00.006-05:00

We did our LHTH work this morning and all was fun. It called for us to say in different voices...I'm mad, I'm sad, I'm glad...and so on with different emotions. We were learning about Cain and Abel. I brought out an emotion exercise that really helped us to visualize and understand emotional faces to go along with my different exclamations.

Wiggle Worm really liked this exercise and had fun making the scared face as well as the surprised face.Here is the exercise up close and below is an up close of the "scared" face.

If you would like to get a copy of this file. I downloaded it from childcareland.com. Here is a link to the file. http://www.earlylearningactivities.com/PDF/feelingsfacesc.pdf

We actually finished Tot School for the day after this and went to a Reruns are Fun sale at our mall. They fill the old Service Merchandise with items that are in good used condition and I made some real finds besides clothing.

$4 chalkboard and dry erase board with stand
$4 Melissa and Doug animal sounds puzzle
$4 Montessori n Such parts of the grasshopper puzzle
$3 Dress the elephant magnetic dress up
$4 Pound the ball toy
$3 Crayola paint sponges and rollers (butterfly, leaf, house...)

Later, when I was trying to do the dishes and the rugrats were all away at sleepovers, Wiggle Worm was very much under foot. He didn't know what to do without his siblings. I took down the beads and pipe cleaners and he stayed occupied for a while.
Then I took out the tongs, pom-poms, and pinch bowls for the first time. He really stayed at this for a while and got the hang of the tongs pretty good. And he practiced color matching at the same time. I showed him once and let him be. He was doing it wrong at first but corrected himself naturally. I almost corrected him but it must not have been comfortable or working well the way he was doing it wrong and he corrected himself. He once again switched back and forth between left and right several times. Left is dominant though.
While our official Tot School time ended @ 10 am Friday morning. We did several more things during the day.

Throw Away Thursdays

2009-03-19T21:04:00.002-05:00

We didn't do a lot today. We worked on our flash cards at our own pace. He loves the touch and feel cards. We have several sets of Baby Einstein and he will happily sit and pull them out and say the names of them or ask me if he doesn't remember. These are neat b/c we talk about the touch parts. The fur is soft, the elephant skin is smooth,...We also did a lot of outside time today with our big brother and sisters.

Wacky Wednesdays

2009-03-18T22:23:00.004-05:00

We did some puzzles after having some M&M's for a snack. Wiggle Worm is a messy eater.
These are our sheets from Abeka books. We were supposed to glue beans to the Aa page but it really was hard to follow the little dashed lines on such a small Aa and Wiggle Worm lost interest fast. He liked coloring the duck though.These are our Kumon sheets. We did some cutting, coloring, and stickers. We gave up on pasting and just used the stickers for now.
We went outside for some play but wouldn't look at the camera. We found one of the big kids bouncy balls in the yard and he liked just holding it. We were starting to get ready for our nap around now.
This is a great little toddler size napsack. I like it because it has the zipper, snap, button, and velcro for them to practice with.
This was our Wacky Wednesday this week. We did our LHTH also. I think we won't do as many Kumon pages in a day from now on. I think Monday will be coloring, Wednesday will be sticker and paste, and Friday will be cutting with our Kumon books.
I need to get more of the motor skills we do on camera. A lot is done without us even realizing it and we don't get pics of it at the time. I have some great ideas for next week with painting and can't wait to see if they will work. I have to get some supplies first.

Tuesdays at Tinytown

2009-03-17T19:58:00.004-05:00

Here are some pictures of our Tuesday at Tinytown. It is a really good time and Wiggle Worm has a blast. I enjoy myself too. There are lots of Moms and Dads to talk to while the little one roams and plays.
It was a good Tuesday for us. Tinytown, Target, Chili's for lunch...

Marvelous Monday

2009-03-16T22:10:00.005-05:00

Here is our LHTH worksheets for Monday. It really is a fun program. I was nervous that this program would be too much for him but it is just right.

We also used our new ice bucket and scoop for some pouring practice.

We got bored pouring and decided this was more fun.

Hope everyone else had a marvelous Monday!

Fabulous Fridays

2009-03-13T23:56:00.004-05:00

We got off to a rocky start by having to go to Walmart after dropping off the rugrats at school. Wiggle Worm was in no mood to sit in a buggy or to walk "with" me. The one good thing out of the trip is that I found this really neat placemat with pooh that I thought would be perfect for sorting our colors (it was only $2.97).
So while I was unloading the bags, I set Wiggle Worm down with his new toy and voila...

We also did our LHTH reading and activities. This was a fun one with cheerios. He loved it but I have to admit getting the cheerios to stay on the little drop of glue was kind of hard for his stubby little fingers. He could get it on there but everytime he pulled his finger up after placing the cheerio on the glue the cheerio would come up too.

Our finished A

What could be more fun than a project that you can eat the supplies when finished. We had an impromptu snack of cheerios and capri sun for all of our hard work.

Baby Signs

2009-03-12T19:36:00.008-05:00

I don't know how many of you have heard of baby signs, but it is a wonderful program to teach your child to communicate before they can talk. It really, really makes those terrible 2's much less terrible.

You can start way early with your infant. By the time they are 8-9 months, they will be signing back at you and letting you know...hey, I want milk...no, I don't want a cookie...I'm wet...all with just their little fingers.

Wiggle Worm has been signing since he was under a year and still learning signs even though he can talk with words now.

I will be posting a lot about baby signs as it is part of our Tot School. We use signs every day with Wiggle Worm as well as words and he picks up more words (verbally) every day that we sign.

Throw away Thursday

2009-03-12T19:18:00.005-05:00

We may as well have skipped Thursday this week. We did absolutely nothing Tot School or really tot productive today. We did go out to lunch with another Mom and her son, 4. So I guess I could stretch that into being a playdate of sorts.
It wasn't a total waste though. I found lots of good buys at Target and Big Lots and took pics of my latest additions to our Tot School "curriculum."

This is my new stuff

After looking at all the blogs using these items, I decided now was the time to buy.

These are neat little "pinch" bowls I found at Target. I think I may use them with pom poms, tongs, and color sorting...This is one of my good finds for $8 at Big Lots...It is an ice bucket with scoop and lid. The white bucket comes out and I am planning to use it to practice scooping and transferring beans.

My 2nd favorite of the day, this was $9 and it is so neat b/c the lid has a slit like a piggy bank and the child puts the "cookies" in and then pulls the lid open and dumps them and closes the lid to start again. The "cookies" are numbered 1-5 so you can teach counting and number order once they have moved past the motor skills of the toy.

We threw a fit to have this one right away. Big Sis is helping Wiggle Worm out with it. She wanted to teach the numbers and number order right away...but contented herself to just helping Wiggle Worm figure out the basics.

I have pretty much decided that we will only do LHTH on Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. This keeps my Tuesdays open for Tinytown and possibly my Thursdays open for some Mommy time with my friends and their kids too.

So, I guess we will be doing Tot School on M,W,F and Tuesdays at Tinytown and Throw Away Thursdays from now on out.

Wacky Wednesdays

2009-03-11T13:33:00.012-05:00

Wacky Wednesday with Wiggle Worm...and it went pretty okay. I do not see how all of you blogging Mommas get your pics while working with the little one. I took lots of crazy pics today and not many that I really intended to get and the ones I wanted...well, they escaped my grasp...
But on to today's Tot School....

We are walking Pooh on our A (we say aa instead of ay). We are focusing on the sounds of the letters instead of their names right now. He was supposed to walk the A after Pooh...but we had an A stomp instead. Much more fun for a boy.

Here we are doing our circles of color to start our color hunt. The circles at the top are my example circles. Yet again, today we are a lefty.

We found the color red. Alas, being the firetruck lover we are...the rest of our hunt was more or less Mommy hunting and showing and Wiggle Worm towing the firetruck with us.

We have started doing our Sandpaper Letters and there is a wonderful site with instructions on using and introducing sandpaper letters.

http://www.montessoritraining.net/preschool_kindergarten/courses/language_arts/sample_lessons.htm

Here we are doing our counting caterpillars page for LHTH. It went well and we counted to five (six actually...he didn't stop when we were out of caterpillars). And I have no clue why his tongue is out in this pic either.

All in all, a good day.

Wiggle Worm's stuff and area

2009-03-11T12:56:00.008-05:00

I thought that I would show everyone what we use and where we store it. We are a works in progress tot school. I haven't quite gotten it all figured out how to keep stuff separate from our toys and keep his little hands from getting into some of it.

This is a simple less than $20 bookshelf I bought at Family Dollar (no tools required). The top shelf holds my teacher's manual for LHTH as well as the books that I don't want his little fingers into.

This is a little $1 metal basket I got in Target's $1 section as well as about 8 Sesame Street books on colors, letters, shapes, night time, bath time, numbers, body parts...(also from the $1 section in Target). If you have a Target or a Super Target, check out the $1 section it is a gold mine of resources.

I absolutely love this metal CD bin that I got at Target (not in the $1 section but less than $6). I use it to hold my flashcards. As you can see before Wiggle Worm had gotten into them and tore the boxes. This is a great way for me to have all my cards in one place and organized.

I am going to shamelessly plug another site now. These are my sandpaper letters (wonderfully made) by Polliwog Learning. And held in yet another of my $1 baskets. The numbers didn't fit so I will have to get a bigger basket.

They have more than just the sandpaper letters and numbers. Their site will do them more justice than my raving about them endlessly.
So, check it out...
http://www.polliwoglearningproducts.com/index.htm

Yet again, I will give Target free advertising...This is my puzzle keeper thing...and yes, I am sure there is a real name for the thing...I just don't remember what it said on the package, lol. This is just $20 and comes with 6 puzzles. It is a super buy for any toddler and helps to keep the puzzles neat and without missing pieces. It did take about 1 1/2 weeks for my little one to start putting it away properly, but now we are golden.

This is a picture that shows how I keep some of my stuff out of little hands. The sandpaper letters and his box of colors, markers, paints, glue, scissors...go on the mantel. I learned this lesson the hard way. I may post pics of my mural in the hallway that Wiggle Worm so graciously presented me.

Tuesdays at Tinytown

2009-03-10T19:58:00.005-05:00

Tuesdays are our play date days. We go to a local church that has a really neat inside gym similar to the slides and climbing in some of the McDonald's and Chuck E Cheese stores. We have been going with another Mom who has an almost 3 daughter.
I wish I would have took my camera so I could have posted pics of our fun time. They even give a happy meal style box when you leave that has some fun stuff for the kids and a lollipop.
It is a real good time and they open it up to anyone...not just church members.
I will remember our camera next time to get some pics of how great a time we have there.

Our Official First Day

2009-03-09T13:23:00.008-05:00

Okay, I have bit the bullet and created a blog for my little wiggleworm. I think this will be fun. I hope that I can figure it all out. Anyway, here are some pics from our 1st Official Day!

This is our Hands-on Fun from A to Z Wikki Stix Alphabet Learning Cards. Wow that was a mouthful.

Still checking out the Wikki Stix

Our Finished Aa Ant Wikki Stix Card (our ant has some issues :) )

Coloring with our Kumon Let's Color book (look I'm a lefty)Wait I am a righty

Well, those are some pics of the stuff we did at our table today. We also started HOD's Little Hands to Heaven, but I didn't have the black tempera paint for the art activity.

If any of you like the prang coloring and art supplies, Therapro.com has them on sale right now. They have a really good watercolor set for toddlers that comes with a drape. It is discontinued and on sale for $5. Plus if you buy $35 worth of stuff shipping is free. It is definitely worth a look. I bought the marker sets, coloring sets (their crayons are wonderful), and the watercolor set. I also got the wikki alphabet cards from them too.

http://www.theraproducts.com/index.php?main_page=product_therapro_info&products_id=321239

BTW, the green on his chin isn't from trying to eat the wikki stix...we had had jellybeans before starting. :)

Tot School!

2009-03-09T12:57:00.005-05:00

After reading everyone's blogs and enjoying all the ideas that come from Tot School, I can't wait to jump right in and get started. To learn more about Tot School click on the link above.