our school week, having fun with math

It always looks like this when the library throws up on my living room floor. Math books, phonics books, geography and science books, music, movies......and this time, I took not only Ben and Alli, but (gasp) Jocelyn and Lauren! BY MYSELF. Yes, I, Dana Maize, took four kids ages five and under to the library. I know, I know, people do it all the time, but it's the first time I've done it with all of them and to be honest, I was just a tiny bit scared, especially since Lauren is only seven months old. Of course, we did spend the first ten minutes in the bathroom so three of the four could do their business, but after that, smooth sailing.


I'm starting some very casual geography lessons with the kids, so we checked out some books that reference various European countries. The first one on our list is Madeline, so we can learn a bit about France.

Aside from that and phonics for Ben, we really focused on math this week. This is an activity I thought up all by myself. I was so proud. ;)

I save some of the baby food jars because I've learned they come in handy for a ton of stuff. We were focusing on the letter five this week, so I labeled five jars with the numbers one through five and passed them out.

Then I put a jar of small "stuff" in front of each child and asked them to put a matching number of shells/pom-poms/beans into their jar. Alli had trouble with it at first, just filling her baby food jar to the top each time, but she finally caught on. That's the thing about learning. Sometimes it's child-directed, sometimes it's teacher-directed.

Yesterday we tried a math game that introduced the "look" of five. I gave each kid five blocks (from the game "Don't Break the Ice!"). Then I turned on some fun music and told them to move their blocks around until the music stopped.

Then they were to make a design with their five blocks, a different one each time. It was fun to see them come up with something different each time, and they were able to recognize different groupings of five. I think we'll try this again, mixing up the number of blocks.

I've had these stored in my documents for about a year, and finally had them copied! They are clothespin counting cards. You match a clothespin to each dot on a number card.

We also used it this way, placing a bean on each dot. The cards really should be cardstock, or laminated, but this activity worked well because I slipped the number cards underneath our plastic tablecover.

For a measuring activity, I traced each child's foot, cut it out, and we used each of them to measure different things around the house. I kept a simple chart of how many "feet" long the item was for each child, and then we talked about how many of Ben's feet it took compared to Mommy's, and so on.

We're still learning days of the week and reading about caterpillars, so we're still reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar. And we're on the letter "C" this week, so we had to read it some more. I can't remember where I got these...maybe from Currclick.com? Anyway, there are number pages from 1-5, so I put them around the table, and when I got to the days of the week (on Thursday he ate through four red strawberries), each child looked to see who had the correct page and then colored in the circles.

I didn't post last week's "B" pages - banana b and Bumblebee B. We read books about bananas and boats. The Owl and the Pussycat illustrated by Jan Brett is one of our favorites, with the beautiful pea-green boat and all of her amazing sea illustrations.

Our "C" craft this week was, of course, caterpillars. I tell you, I'm loving this alphabet. It's going to be so fun to see all of these cute letters together in one album!

So that pretty much wraps up our homeschool week.

Now I get to spend the weekend with them.

I can't seem to find the words.

today in my not-a-daycare

I really can't call it a daycare.  Not just because it's just part-time and I'm not even official, but because these are really just kids I love, playing and learning with my kids that love them, too.  My kids would be devastated without their regular company.  It's pretty much win-win.  :)
Today we ate spaghetti for lunch because we've been reading Eric Carle's book Today is Monday to learn the days of the week,

and Tuesday is spaghetti!

We also brought out the muffin tin inspired by Muffin Tin Mondays, and we worked on a little ABC action.  I cut up Apples, Bananas and Canteloupe (from my very own garden...yeah baby!), and let them pick them out of the tin with toothpicks.  I put the alphabet flash cards underneath that handy-dandy plastic table cover of mine, too.

Later, Ben used it as a sorting tin for his cherry tomatoes.

For a sensory activity, the girls played with pom-poms, cottonballs and dry beans, which they apparently thought was a very silly activity.  Of course they think lying in Alli's bed and covering their heads with blankets is silly, and chasing small rubber balls downstairs is silly, and making snow angels inside on our fuzzy brown blanket is silly, so draw your own conclusion.


I do know that it is best to keep the troop active, and I have finally started getting back into a routine of planning activities for them.  Maybe it's because school will be starting next week and I'm finally inspired to teach once again.

Perhaps the inspiration came the other day when my unsupervised children revealed to me their plot to save the world from eminent destruction.  Not that that would be a bad thing.

Or would it??? 

I'm sure I have nothing to worry about.

idea to share

I, Dana Maize, have something to contribute to the blogging society today other than my usual ramblings about primal childhood behavior and safari massacres on my kitchen counter.
(If you didn't read my previous post... well ....you're just gonna have to read my previous post.)
Yes, I have a useful idea to share. It's probably not original. You probably already heard about it from some other mother's nifty, award-winning blog, but it's a Monday and I'm desperate to feel that I am contributing something worthwhile to someone, somewhere. And now...onto the show.



Aunt Martia gave me this large sheet of heavy plastic she had been using as a tablecloth cover. (Walmart, in the fabric section.) It was the perfect size for my table. I borrowed her idea and put down placemats at each setting before the plastic went on. Then I thought...."what else could I put under there?"

The wheels, they were a-turnin.

First I cut out some color-copy prints of Monet paintings and put one on top of each placemat.
Sneaky art lesson. They still don't know what hit 'em.
Then I replaced them with alphabet cards.



Alli likes to trace the letters with a dry erase marker and erase with a napkin. It comes right off.

When Alli and Jocelyn want to paint, I don't have to worry about them getting paint on the table - it comes right off the plastic, too.

Not that they would EVER do that - get paint on the table.

So, it's become a pretty useful gadget, this plastic table cover, but I need even more ideas on how to use it - anyone? anyone?

Bueller??

looking back at our week

We had some really nice afternoons this week, and were able to get outdoors for long stretches of time - taking walks, getting the garden ready, and just sitting on the grass listening to the meadowlarks and the blackbirds.

Ben picked juniper berries from the trees.

Alli chased a tiny, black spider.

We did see some exciting signs of spring when we pulled back last year's layer of grass. We even saw our first bee of the year!

We also found some evidence of a rabbit.

(An unfortunate rabbit, mind you, but I didn't have to share that lovely tidbit of info with the kids!)

Although our afternoons were warm and toasty, the mornings were still frosty, so until it warmed up, we kept busy indoors:

Scooping and pouring beans - something we hadn't done in quite a while.

There's always something on hand in the recycling bin...screwing the lid on was a great way to practice dexterity.

Ben had some fun building things out of straws. This, for instance, is a penguin.

A penguin that has lost an arm due to an unfortunate skirmish with a bigger, more violent penguin.

(Hey, I don't write this stuff, I just read what's on the card.)

Ben also designed this very unusual, somewhat trendy, definately eco-friendly hat out of leftever cardboard.

As for why she's bustin' a sag, waddling down the hallway in the funky hat....

don't ask me. I just work here.

Hope you're enjoying a little taste of spring.

100 days

Nathan's class had a "100th day of school" party today! *Sweet* that he gets in on that even though he's only been there for twelve of those days!
Each student brought 100 of something to class. Nathan made a creation out of 100 Legos. They also made this paper coat - ten folded sections each with ten items glued onto each one. The party, along with school pictures and playing outside three times today, made him less adamant about quitting school. He's been saying he doesn't want to go any more, at least not so many days of the week - only two or three. I think it's just my baby missing home, and as much as I want to cradle him in my arms and run him out of the school doors, I think we'll press through and give it some more time. ;)

Here's a quick run-down of what the little ones have been doing at home:

Writing letters in decorative sand and paintbrushes, (yes, very messy, but much better in boxes with high sides)

Painting dots, which was a good speech lesson for Alli, saying "dot" each time she stamped one. Also good for color recognition. I stayed away from the primary colors and gave her new ones to say and learn, like pink and brown.

This game was picked entirely from the recycling box. I had been saving different colors of plastic caps from milk jugs, water bottles, etc. I cut a hole in the lid of an oatmeal canister, and she plopped in one cap at a time, working on color words.

Today Ben and I read It Looked Like Spilt Milk, then did some cloud-watching of our own. It was really cold outside, so we took advantage of our great picture windows! We did see some interesting shapes, like this dolphin swimming over our barn. (His face is on the left. Just use your imagination!)

After that, Ben painted blobs of white paint on paper, then folded it to make really cool cloud shapes, like this sea turtle with incredibly long, disproportionate arms!

He's gonna go hang out with the barn dolphin.

all in a day

As we get ready to move, our days seem to be getting shorter. Or flying faster. Whatever.

This morning, my friend Jill dropped off her baby before I'd made breakfast for the kids. Wyatt needed his bottle right away, so I gave breakfast duty to Spencer.....

and he did a fabulous job making scrambled eggs, sausage links and toast. I am loving this pre-teen thing! (Well, aside from the smell. And the occasional attitude.) I'll gladly sit in the rocker and feed a baby while my son makes breakfast.

Alli thinks Wyatt is all that. She wants to mother him. She needs to mother him. She won't STOP mothering him. So it's a good thing we'll be seeing more of Wyatt after we get settled in to our new house. I'm going to start watching him several days a week starting in January.

I think there will be alot of this going on. The boy is quite kissable.

Since the move is getting closer, our school days are cut down a bit. Ben has done a great job schooling himself, really. He's at the stage where he likes doing school, so he'll make words on his own, do games, worksheets, and puzzles, and draw snowmen dudes with long, skinny legs.

I did plan this activity for Ben and Alli's tot school project - color sorting with plastic lids I've been saving from milk and juice cartons, and squares of construction paper. I saw it on another mom's blog but I can't remember which one - sorry blog mom!

Here's an example of Ben's "self-school." He wrote "6DRI" and asked me what it said. I told him, "This part sounds like dry." Then Nathan helped him spell "RIGHT," "DEAD," (except Ben spelled it DEAB), and "WHITE," which, ironically, is written on the orange piece of paper. Then he glued them down in strips and proudly stuck it onto the fridge.

Then Spencer made a batch of brownies after dinner.

Cooking and self-schooling.

I think I could get used to this.

what the wee ones are up to

We have had a very busy week so far, and it's not just because of lessons. No, it's because we have a two-year-old in the house, so in addition to our normal business, we are closing the refrigerator door, turning off lights, picking up books pulled off the shelves, and putting arms and legs back on the baby dolls! (AGHHHHHH!)

Aside from all that fun stuff, Alli has been learning about colors and shapes. She's been using the felt board activity,

and bean bag shapes my sister made. I tape shapes to our floor using electrical tape and she matches them. Taping our tile floor with various shapes/lines to jump over, into, etc., has really come in handy! (But notice there is no circle. I have a circle bean bag, but have you ever tried to make a circle out of tape? Yeah. Trust me.)

Nathan and Ben picked a letter bean out of our spelling bean game, and they "planted" their bean on the paper and made a bean stalk grow. On each leaf, they glued a picture of something that started with their bean's letter. Nathan Naturally chose N and grew Noodles on his bean. (Ben chose I, so his bean grew ice cream, because there weren't any pictures of igloos or iguanas in Better Homes and Gardens.)

I saw this idea at A Mommy's Adventures. She does activities with her little one based on books they read, like this one that I did with Ben and Alli: Ten Apples Up On Top!

Ben picked "golden delicious" apples, (adhesive dots) to stack up on top of his head. He loves this photo of himself, and stands in front of this picture each morning to reenact this pose while I snicker quietly to myself and pour my coffee. This activity was a good one for Alli, because we're working on the "p" sound and the word "up" in speech therapy.

Here's a Cat in the Hat activity that I saw at Adventures of Bear, except I added rhyming words to our colored paper strips. Ben is just now getting interested in pre-reading and was proud of himself for writing cat and hat all by himself.

Even so, this is what Ben would really like to do ALL DAY, EVERY DAY. Play with trucks in the dirt. And on the sidewalk. And on the rock pile. I swear, the boy's feet are stained a permanent shade of "dirt." But look at that happy face!