Homeschooling ~ Week 7

Ok, I wanted to go ahead and start writing this post on Monday of this week and try to post at least daily what we're up to! This blog thing is so new to me, I'm just not sure how to organize everything yet. I'm not even sure why I'm titling the posts "week 5, week 6, week 7"... that just seems to confuse me more than clarify anything! =P

So... this week's homeschooling post! :)

Monday, August 8th

So as I posted in last week's homeschooling post we decided to plan a trip to the Tennessee Aquarium. I made some Montessori Nomenclature cards and a matching game I found at 1+1+1=1 and this morning was the first time the kids saw them ~ they LOVED matching up all the different animals to their correct habitat (some ocean animals, pond animals & rainforest animals ~ many they might see at the Aquarium in a couple weeks!) 

In other news, I am actually using a lesson plan for the preschoolers this week! This is totally new for me, I've always just had a master list of things we can do, adding new activities as I find them. Last week, I was lucky enough to be able to preview the Raising Rock Stars Preschool bundle created by Carisa at 1+1+1=1. One of the "extra's" in the Preschool bundle was an editable .pdf to create a lesson plan for the preschoolers. This is what ours looks like for the week:

Nothing too fancy, but it gives me something to check off as we go, and I find that lists motivate kids, even if they can't read they can certainly see everything we've accomplished and that helps motivate them to continue learning more! So I'm excited to implement this planner and wanted to share it with you guys! You can purchase the RRS preschool bundle from Carisa at 1+1+1=1 for only $10 and it comes with an awesome Letter of the Week type curriculum that incorporates bible memory verses, handwriting practice and early phonics for young learners, ages 2-5. The printables are free on the website, but to receive the whole bundle at once, it's a $10 fee ~ which is a steal of a deal considering all that is included and the work that she has put into it! 

We use RRSP for our letter of the week printables, and we also use Carisa's You Can Read! program for sight word practice. She has some cute color-by-number sight word cards we're going to try today ~ I think Caleb will enjoy them! 

She also has lots of different printables for the You Can Read Program too! I think of all her printables, those are my kids' faves. :) I love her idea of creating a "Word Wall" when learning sight words and I think I'll make us a portable word wall this week.

So far today, we've worked together on our morning board, worked through our Nomenclature cards in preparation for our trip to the Aquarium and Julie and I played with Caleb's new Melissa & Doug Alphabet Puzzle cards:

We played a pillowpet matching game I created for them the other day ~ they have a thing for pillow pets & this helps Julie learn her colors, too! :)

I made them each a play mat out of some art they created and added their names so they could practice writing their names (with dry erase crayons or markers).

I made extra letters so they could see & spell with those too! :) 

They were super excited when they saw these set out for them this morning!!! I think having their own artwork "framed" makes it super special for them! =)

Ooooh, Bray is studying prepositions in Grammar and we watched a few videos on youtube this morning (trying to find a good way to memorize the long list of prepositions) and found one that I really like. I wrote down her website and want to check it out further as well! 

www.engish-grammar-revolution.com 

Ooooh, and we really liked this one too! :)

HTH Someone out there! :)

Alayna