Numbers and Noise

Today we talked about numbers. During circle time I filled a net with magnetic numbers. I let the boys choose a number and tell me the name. Then I let Sawyer help me make these number cards. Yesterday I cut out pictures and glued them to index cards. Sawyer counted the objects and put the corresponding number sticker on the cards.
He did pretty well with this activity. I had to help him count the pictures with objects of more than five.

I also helped the boys make noisemakers. Sawyer filled sour cream cartons with dried beans and noodles. Then they covered them with stickers and shook away. I could have covered them with paper and tried to make them cuter.


Other activities we may do for N week are play with the nativity set, read nursery rhymes, and talk about names. Justin will be home the next two week, so we will take a little break and enjoy our time with Daddy.

Noel

We are talking about the letter N this week, so I had Sawyer paint the letters Noel with green and red paint. I told him that the work Noel means Christmas.

He said, "Mommy, see the l, it says yesel not noel."

Noodles

This week we are learning about the letter N. Today we did activities with noodles. Sawyer enjoyed painting with cooked noodles.
It was messy, but lots of fun.
Next, I had Sawyer count and sort different types of noodles.
Even Jax enjoyed putting noodles in the ramekins. He liked the noise it made.

Then Sawyer glued his noodles on a letter N.

Still Learning

We have been busy, but we haven't stopped learning. Last week I was busy trying to get things back in order from being gone, so we didn't do a letter. We did decorate a very cute card holder, but I haven't hung it yet. I will take a picture once I hang it.

I had a hard time deciding if we should just do Christmas crafts or work on letters this week. We are doing a little of both. I traced the boys' hands and feet to make this reindeer. Sawyer insisted Mickey do one too.


We talked about the letter M and thought of as many words as we could that start with M. I cut out pictures and words that started with M and Sawyer made a collage. He did a good job and filled up the whole paper. I also talked about the manger and read a book about baby Jesus. We played with the toy nativity scene. Sawyer thinks it is fun to throw the characters and say "Super Mary" and "Super Joseph."

Today I let the boys decorate Christmas trees with markers, stickers, pom poms, and glitter glue. They had a good time! If you look closely you will see that Jax took a bite out of his star.

More fun with leaves

Here are a couple of crafts we did yesterday. I took a couple of different ideas I had seen and created this turkey. Sawyer colored the paper plate, but he wasn't able to do much else. I had to do the cutting and the gluing. I had to use a glue gun to get the leaves to stay. He thought it was pretty fun when it was finished.

The next thing we made was a group project. Sawyer colored the green part and the orange leaves. Jaxon colored the red leaves and I cut everything out and glued it together.

I have it hanging in the hallway and the boys love it. I taught them a song about falling leaves and dropped leaves as I sang it. We did this over and over and over.

L for Leaves

This week we are learning about the letter L. Our theme for the week is leaves. I am also incorporating fall and Thanksgiving crafts, since Thanksgiving is a week away. I have found so many cute ideas. It has been hard to decide what I want to do. I keep reminding myself that we have many more years to do fun crafts together. I don't have to teach them everything this year. Sunday I took the boys to the park to collect leaves. Sawyer kept picking up leaves and saying, "this is a great one" or "look mom, this one is perfect." We talked about the colors of the leaves and the sound they make when we walk on them.
Monday we went to the zoo in the morning and did a fall craft with our friends in the afternoon. We decorated corn with glitter. Actually, I decorated the corn. Sawyer was too distracted by the snack and his friends. He helped a little, but I did most of the work. Tuesday he decorated a letter L with leaves.

Then I had both boys decorate place mats for Thanksgiving. I let them decorate a paper towel with markers. Then I covered it with contact paper. Sawyer wants to eat on his all the time now.
Yesterday Sawyer painted leaves that I had drawn. After they dried I cut them out. I glued clothes pins and the leaves to make a Thanksgiving garland. I saw this idea on notimeforflashcards.com. I also cut out other paper leaves and asked Sawyer to name some things he was Thankful for. Then we clipped them to the clothes pins. I hung it by the dinner table, so that we could do this every evening before dinner. I probably should have done this earlier in the month. Oh well! I will save it and hopefully bring it out next year.

I really haven't talked to Sawyer much about the details of Thanksgiving such as pilgrims, indians, and turkeys. I wish I had a good book or play set to teach him about it. We will probably talk about it a little, but I am focusing on being Thankful. He likes to thank God for things and it makes me so happy to hear him talk about God. The other night when I was tucking him in bed, he told me "God's word is true." So sweet! Then he told me "God made me" and he sang the song.

Kangaroos, Koalas, Kites, and Kings

Well, we finished up K week today. Unfortunately I don't have pictures of all of our crafts. The boys broke the camera on Wednesday. Tuesday we read a book about a kite contest. Then Sawyer colored a kite with markers. I wanted him to tear and glue paper to it, but he wasn't interested in that. Jaxon joined us in coloring.
Sawyer started sorting these cards into piles. I showed him how they had numbers on them and he sorted them in rows from 1-5. Then I would tell him to hand me the card with 2 eyes or 5 fish. He loved this little impromptu learning game.

Wednesday we read the book, "Can you cuddle like a koala?' The boys acted out all of the animals and it was too cute. Then Sawyer made a koala puppet while Jaxon colored a picture of a koala. These are the last pictures I took before the camera broke. I was dumb and didn't put it in a safe place.
Today we talked about Kings and I read Sawyer a story about King Josiah. Then he decorated a crown. It is very cute, but you will just have to take my word on it since I don't have any pictures.

Little Bit of J and K

Last week we talked about the letter J. During circle time we talked about words that start with J like jar, jelly, Jaxon, Juice, and Jungle. We took turns calling out commands like Jump, Jiggle, and Jog. I printed out Jungle Scenes and Sawyer glued the animals on. He was proud of his work.

This week we are learning about the letter K. I don't really have a theme picked out. We will just talk about different things each day. Today I read the boys a book called "The Blue Kangaroo". I read it twice in a row because Sawyer liked it so much. I actually read it in the bathroom, because we are working on potty training. Sawyer glued parts of a kangaroo onto a paper sack today. He loves kangaroos especially the baby Joey. That didn't take long and he wanted to do something else, so I let him glue kernels onto the letter K. We used sunflower kernels, because that's what I had handy.


I read The Blue Kangaroo one more time before nap and I will read another book about a kangaroo who can't find her cookies when the boys wake up. Then we will have milk and cookies.

Spiders and Ghosts

Here are the ghosts and spiders we made last week. The ghosts are foot prints and the spiders are made by tracing their hands and cutting off the thumb. I saw both of these crafts on Barney's Halloween movie.

The top ones are Sawyer's and the bottom one's are Jaxon's.

Jaxon has tiny feet, size 3 at 13 months, but you wouldn't know it from the picture.

Letter I

We did another Halloween craft last week. I helped the boys make spiders by tracing their hands. I cut them out and Sawyer glued on eyes. They are hanging on their bedroom doors, but I don't have a picture. My battery was out, but I am charging it and will post a pic soon.
We talked about the letter I last week. I didn't have many good I ideas, plus we were busy with Halloween festivities. I did help him make an ice cream cone on Thursday. I cut out the pieces and he glued them together. He was supposed to glue on a pom pom for the cherry, but he wanted lots of cherries on his ice cream.

He also decorated a card for his Lulu's birthday.
This week was supposed to be the letter J. This week really hasn't been that busy, but last week and weekend were so busy that I didn't plan much and I am tired and not feeling well, so we just haven't done anything. Maybe we will start tomorrow or just wait until next week. I haven't decided yet. There is no way I could home school. I am not organized enough.

H and Halloween Crafts

Last week we talked about the letter H. Our theme was Halloween. First he covered the letter H and a treat bag with Halloween stickers. I also let him color and decorate a mini pumpkin.

That same day he painted a pumpkin orange. When it dried I glued on the stem. On Wednesday the boys made ghost prints with their feet. I painted their little feet and helped them make prints. When they dried we glued on googly eyes and drew a mouth.
Saturday Sawyer helped me make and decorate chocolate cupcakes for the church trunk or treat. He helped me pour in the ingredients and mix the batter. I let him decorate two cupcakes, one for him and one for me. I decorated the rest for the cake walk.
I had more planned for the week, but we were all sick at least one day last week. It was not fun! We will talk about the letter I this week, and continue to do a few halloween crafts.

Go Go Go

This week we learned about the letter G. Our theme was go. We talked about different forms of transportation all week. We really started on Wednesday and finished up today. Wednesday we talked about things that go on land like cars, trucks, tractors. We read his big truck book. In the morning he helped me glue together a car craft. It was hard, even for me, so I did most of the work while he colored a G picture and I let him glue the wheels on.
That afternoon he painted with cars. He loved that and did not want to stop.

Yesterday we talked about things that go on water. I did an activity with him to teach about things that sink and float. I had a tub of water and different objects. First I showed him how some sink and some float. Then I had him guess if it would sink or float. His guess was always float, no matter what it was. He was running around the house getting all kinds of things to throw in the water. Jax helped too. I found some stickers that I had in the cabinet with cars, airplanes, boats, etc. and let him stick them on his road he painted the day before. I drew a picture of water and sky and told him to separate the stickers by things that go on land, sky, and water. He didn't really get this at first, but he starting catching on towards the end.

This morning I helped him glue together a sailboat. This lesson taught about wholes and halves. He folded all of the pieces in half and then we glued it together to make a boat. He also colored pages to make this book.

E and F

Well, we haven't completely stopped our lessons, but things have been a little crazy around here. We have been so busy with our normal stuff, plus Jon and Kelsey were here for 2 weeks and we had Jaxon's birthday. We ended up spending 2 weeks on E and 2 weeks on F. I really didn't have much planned with E and we just didn't have time to do much. One day he made a toilet paper Elmo, but Jax tore it up before I had a chance to take a picture. We talked about exercise and did stretches one day. I also let him color a picture of capital and lower case e and glue eyes on it.

With F I had too much planned and we didn't get too it all. We did a farm theme. One activity I did with Sawyer was I let him put cotton balls on numbered sheep cards. I had him use tweezers and tongs to practice fine motor skills. He had fun with this.


One day I put on a cheezy little puppet show with a cow puppet named "Gladys". She taught the boys about all of the yummy dairy products that comes from cows. Then they got to try different foods. Even Jaxon liked this activity. After this Sawyer made a dairy basket by gluing pictures of dairy products on a basket.
The next day he made a pig puppet.


Jax's birthday party came in the middle of all this and was farm themed. Then yesterday we took the boys to Green Meadows petting farm. They were able to pet and feed all kinds of animals, milk a cow, have a hayride, and pick a pumpkin from the pumpkin patch. It was a good way to end our farm theme.

We are so busy most mornings that I am really just fitting things in where I can. I have been more intentional about his learning which was my goal, but I am definitely not as organized as I would like to be.

D for Dinosaurs

The letter of the week was D and the theme was dinosaurs. Once again, we had a very busy week. I have a feeling this will be the norm. Monday we talked about D and read a book called, "Dinosaurs Big and Small." We did a color activity that I had planned for the previous week, but didn't get to do. I put shaving cream in ziplock bags and let Sawyer put food coloring in the bags and smush it all around to make red, blue, and purple shaving cream. I was going to let him finger paint with it, but he wasn't too interested in doing that. He just wanted to smush it in the bags and that was fine with me.
Tuesday I had Sawyer color a color by letter picture of a dinosaur. It had Ds on it and I told him to color all of the D's green. He liked naming the different letters and coloring the pic although he didn't keep it in the lines.
Wed. we read a book about dinosaur bones and put a dinosaur puzzle together. He painted a plate and I cut it in the shape of a dinosaur. I found the pattern here.


Sawyer chose to make the flying dinosaur and paint it purple. I know it looks a little bit like a bird.
I don't even remember what if anything we did on Thursday. I kept his friend, Bobby again and he wasn't feeling very good, so I just tried to keep all of the boys happy. Then Jaxon started running a fever that evening.
Yesterday we went to the doctor and I told Sawyer that d is for doctor. I asked him what other words started with d. He remembered daddy starts with d and then he said "Dax starts with D." He has a hard time with his J sound, so he pronounces it with a d. I guess he was right that dax starts with d, but I had to tell him that his brothers name is Jax, not dax. I helped him make a dorothy dinosaur with a toilet paper tube. I found this activity here.

Cows

Friday, we went on a little field trip. Aunt Jessica asked us if we wanted to go to the stockyards. It was a perfect end to our C week. We saw cowboys, a cattle drive, and got to sit on a cow named Big Jake.

C is for Crazy

The letter of the week is C. Crazy is not really our theme, but we have been so busy this week that we haven't had much time for our lessons. We have been talking about colors this week. Tuesday we reviewed the letter c and then read a book called "Cat's Colors". Sawyer was at his friends house all morning, so we did this when I picked him up. When he woke up I had a little activity and snack idea that I got from Shandra's blog. I had him sort fruit loops and then the plan was for him to string them and eat them. He sorted them all by himself really well, but the yarn was to thick to string them. He didn't want to eat them, so I just threw them away. It was the first time I had ever bought sugary cereal. He usually eats plain cheerios, so he didn't care for the fruit loops. I guess that is a good thing.


Wednesday I had a friend over in the morning. When she left we read a book about a rainbow and talked about the colors in a rainbow. I let him paint a rainbow. He made quite a mess! Usually I try to do the crafts when Jax is sleeping, but he was awake this time. He was on the floor pulling things out of the cabinet and I thought he was fine, until I saw that he was sucking on the red paint jar. He was testing to make sure it really was non toxic.


Today Sawyer's friend, Bobby came over. They are just a few days apart in age. His mom and I switch off keeping each other's kids and today was my day to watch Bobby. They played together most of the morning. I read them a book about colors while they ate a colorful snack of strawberries, blueberries, and green grapes. Then I let them glue colored shapes to a clown.

I am not really sure what we will do tomorrow. I had an idea involving shaving cream and food coloring that I wanted to try. We will just have to see how the day goes.