Unschool-ology

Unschool-ology
Unschooling: Living Without School; Living Free Range-Freedom to Learn What One Wants When One Wants

Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Week 22: Letters and Dentist

This week was letters-basically working more with spelling. And then we also threw in another activity each day to help Samantha get ready for her very first REAL trip to the dentist, where they will actually clean her teeth this time. 

Monday/Tuesday: For letters we read "Barney's Alphabet." And for our activity I picked 4 random letters and then filled brown paper bags with items that started with that letter. For example, B I put in a "Baby Doll" a "Ball" and a "Banana." I am sure there was something else, but I forgot to take pictures. I let them take turns pulling out and item, naming it, and then once all the items were out of the bag, I asked what letter they all started with. "B." And then I would ask them to name some more words that started with that letter. They really enjoyed it. 


Then for the dentist, we read the Bearenstain Bears Go To The Dentist. :) And our activity will be her trip to the dentist. 

Wednesday: Her Bible story was the story of Adam and Eve. We learned a little poem about how God made her. Then she made a face-her face-on paper with plastic eyes, a pom pom, and a pipe cleaner. 

Thursday: For her art project, we did letters in shaving cream, not technically art, but it was similar to finger painting. 

The dentist art project-we made head mirrors with construction paper and tin foil. We also used popsicle sticks and such and the kids took turns pretending to be the Dentist. I showed Samantha several pictures of real dentists on Google images and the Kool Smiles website, and she informed me that the only thing she was concerned about what the mask he was wearing over his mouth, so we talked about that too. 

Friday: We did not do a "Letter" food project. But we did a dentist project. We made a peanut butter sandwich on one piece of bread and then lined it with marshmellows and folded it in half to be a mouth! 


Saturday: We played a game with letters. We did an upper and lower case match game that I printed and laminated. Then we built words with the letters. She read several words, simple words. I was so proud of her!  


Obviously the show we watched for letters was Word World


Then we watched a show for a dentist-Calliou Goes to the Dentist. 




Showing me her clean teeth at the dentist. 









Tuesday, August 23, 2011

Week 21: Numbers


This week was numbers. They already know their numbers 1-15ish, so I decided to go further with the numbers and also focus on true counting. I also decided to add a Bible lesson every Wednesday because I don't think she gets enough from church on just Sundays and we don't have Wednesday church for kids. 

Monday/Tuesday: We did the finger play "Five Little Monkies." We also read "Barney Numbers," but I didn't get a picture of it for some reason. We played with counting bears, working on adding and subtracting, without actually telling them that is what we were doing of course. I didn't want to confuse them. But I didn't get a picture of that either because I have a million pictures of her with her counting bears. We use them a lot. 

Wednesday: We went over Genesis-God creating the world. I found a website with worksheets and coloring sheets and crafts to go along with the lessons. There is also a simple version of the story that I read off to her and then taught her a song-one of those they teach you in Sunday school. She Loved it. And now if you ask her, "Who made Earth?" or "Who made you?" She will say, "GOD DID!" 

Thursday: We did number caterpillars. I got a pic below. They absolutely LOVED them. I did all the preparation before the project-makes things much easier-so the circles were already punched out and the numbers were on there. They just had to put them in the right order and name the numbers as we put them in order. (Earlier in the week they made butterflies with Parents As Teachers, so this lesson went right along with it!) 

Friday: I spent Friday and a good part of Saturday getting those games cut out and laminated. I have one that is a number matching game. You match the numbers to the dots. I am pretty excited about that one. The laminating was pretty easy. I used contact paper and I was a beast at it! I didn't really get any bubbles. I tried to borrow my Nana's straight cutter, but I found out it was a rotary cutter, not a straight cutter, so it took me awhile to come to terms that my pieces would not be exactly straight ever, but it is close to it. 

Next week is Letters. 






Sunday, August 14, 2011

Week 20: Shapes

This week was shapes. I decided to start adding back in a song or finger play of some sort. They seem to be enjoyable for the Babies. However, I took out the movie because it is getting hard to find a show for every topic we do. I also added in a game. If I can find a game for us to play, weather it be on the computer, a video game on the tv, a board game, whatever, then we will play one sometime during the week.
Monday: We read "Colors and Shapes," a simple Dolly Parton Library book. We also made puppets from construction paper and popsicle sticks and did the play, "I am Susie Circle." I posted it at the bottom.

Tuesday: We played with tanagrams and the rubberband board making different shapes and dividing them up into smaller forms of the shape.

Wednesday: We just ate "shape food." We had round bologna, and a banana, which we cut up into shapes, triangle chips.

Thursday:We did a pre-writing activity. Samantha really enjoyed it. She traced some shapes, with my assistance of course, but after awhile she was able to do it with very little help. She was so proud of herself, which was a big change from the, "I just give up!" that she was saying at first.

Friday: I printed off a shape game, but we didn't do it yet. I want to laminate it. I am going this weekend to get stuff to laminate. I am also going to check out the dye cut machine at the library.

Next week is Numbers. Now that they are getting older, they are able to do more, and so my lesson plans can have more in them. I am very excited about that! I have decided to start printing off charts and flashcards, games, and such. We still aren't going to do a lot of worksheets. I still don't know what I think about them. I am going to stick to hands-on activities for the most part I think.



I am Suzy Circle.
I'm happy as can be.
I go round and round.
Can you draw me?

Sammy Square is my name.
My four sides are just the same.
Turn me around, I don't care.
I'm always the same.
I'm Sammy Square. 

I am Ollie Oval
A football shape is mine
Some people think that I'm an egg
But I think I look fine! 

I'm Tommy Triangle.
Look at me!
Count my sides.
One, two, three. 

Ricky Rectangle is my name.
My four sides are not the same.
2 are short and 2 are long.
Count my sides, come right along.
1, 2, 3, 4. 
I am Danny Diamond
I am like a kite
But I'm really just a square
Who's corners are pulled tight






I am pretty proud of these! 

Big hit! They were making them talk. 

I got these at the homeschool expo for Samantha. 


Not sure why my pictures look pixelated. 



Friday, August 5, 2011

Just Surfing The Net

It has really been bothering me that we don't do many cooking activities with her lessons anymore. So I got online and started searching. One site lead to another and here are some good websites I have found, and I am very picky when it comes to what resources I use. 

http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/kindergarten.html This website has all sorts of things. From lesson plan topics, to activities, songs, art projects, and cooking ideas. 

http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/RecipesPictorialDirections.htm Lots of good recipes! And also activities for certain themes. My favorite part is the book ideas. I have never seen a website that did that. Now, as I plan ahead, I can also order books from Amazon-linked on the page-to correspond with the topic. 

http://www.enchantedlearning.com/Home.html A website I actually found in my Building A Curriculum book. 

http://www.123child.com/act/ This has a ton of great pre-school lesson plans. 

http://www.amug.org/~jbpratt/education/theme/alphabet/abcsnacking.html Also a TON of recipes for kids.

http://www.perpetualpreschool.com/ Love this because it is ideas from all sorts of people. 

These two have great print out puppets and games and such. 

http://www.tlsbooks.com/


http://www.kidslearningstation.com/

http://www.preschoolexpress.com/theme_station.shtml 

http://www.dltk-kids.com/ (Because dtlk has so many different sites-one for crafts, another for Bible lessons, etc. I just google what I need like "dtlk family theme.")

This is all for now. :) 

Week 19: Colors


I just want to start off by saying I she already knows her colors. Which is why we through some challenging stuff in the mix, stuff that related to the colors. Such as sorting and recognizing the words spelled out. I remember reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear and doing a bunch of activities with it in Kindergarten, so I wanted to work a little with that.


Monday: We read "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do you see?"

Tuesday:We played a color sorting game with her counting bears and tanagrams.

Wednesday: We were supposed to put food coloring into cups and mix two colors slowly to watch it change colors. I am hoping to still do that, but we gotta get to the store.

Thursday: We made a Brown Bear book.  I printed out all the pages we needed, made a cover, and tore construction paper into pieces so that they could make a collage-like thing. This project took a little preparation, but I enjoy that sort of thing, so I was okay with that. The only thing is they didn't have the attention span for it. The first few pages were awesome. Completely covered. But then after 2 or 3 pages they only put like one piece on it or said, "Are we done yet?" So we had to take a break. We did finish them. It just took awhile.

Friday:No show. I am having the hardest time finding cooking activities and movies to go with the lessons for the week. I don't mind the movie so much, but I really want to do a cooking activity. Usually, on the days that we don't have an activity planned, however, we will make sure to do an extra spelling game or something so I am still setting aside that time for structured learning.

Next week I believe is shapes. I think we are going to work on more difficult shapes and recognizing the words and such.
We also played some different games to learn, that I thought I would post. We played one with her refrigerator magnets. I would close my eyes and she would pick one out and have me hold it up against my forehead. Then she would say what sound it made and I would guess it. (Obviously I already knew, but I wanted her to practice her letter sounds some more.) She already knows them, but I want to reinforce it so that she will remember them even if we don't go over them for awhile. 
We also played some simple taking turns games and sharing games, but I am really looking for a website that has games you can play at home to make sharing, taking turns, and cleaning fun. Or even a website that has simple games for TODDLERS to learn their letters. Everything I find is for like 4 and up and she doesn't quite get it or doesn't have the patience for it yet.



Samantha Being Silly-As Usual



The Finished Project-They were having a hard time holding up the books so I could see the cover, so I told them to do whatever.

This is the cover.

This is just one of the inside pages. There were too many pages to take a picture of them all.

Had some help from my little brother on this one. Good fine motor exercise.


Tuesday, August 2, 2011

Week 17 and 18: What's That Noise? and Musical and Movement

Last week and the week before were sort of related. That is why we did them back to back. Week 17 was "What's That Noise?"
 
Monday:
We read "Baby Listens." I Love that book because it is part of a set called Baby Luvs. They were what I grew up with. Luvs diapers would send you a book every time you bought so many packs of diapers. And we had all of them. My Mom sold them. so I re-bought them off Amazon once Samantha was born. She is only missing one that I can't find. It is out of print and very rare...Sad face. Anyway...

Tuesday:We made noise with anything and everything we could find. We used pots and pans and instruments. We used our hands on different surfaces like the wall and the floor. We used our feet for the same thing. And our voices. :)

Wednesday: I could not think of anything to bake that had to do with noise.

Thursday: We made LOUD art. I took a poster board and we went on the back porch and Samantha stomped and stomped and slid around to move the paint all over the board. Brennon opted out of the art project again, but he was satisfied just watching. 

Friday: I cannot even remember what we watched, and I didn't write it down for some reason.


Week 18 went pretty well also. I didn't think it would be much fun since we are always listening to music and such, but it was. 

Monday: We read "Animal Serenade." Which is a Kindermusik book. It is an awesome book because on the inside there is a line of music that you can read and it goes along with the words of the book. Pretty sweet. And then "This Little Piggy Played Fiddle." It was alright. It was also a Kindermusik book.

Tuesday: We played with instruments. We turned on some of their favorite CDs and played instruments with some of the songs. And then we danced to some of the songs. 

Wednesday: I didn't know what to cook or bake, so we listened to music while we ate. I discovered the Banana Song by Dr. Jean-I just LOVE Dr. Jean. And so does Samantha. She Loves the new song too. (I also found her website and blog, and they are GREAT resources!)

Thursday: I have been reading a book that talks about hundreds of early childhood experiments and their significance to childhood development. I LOVE experiments, so we did a miniature one. I wanted to see if there was a difference in what colors she chose and the way she drew based on what sort of music we were listening too. So we turned on some of her fast, more upbeat Kindermusik songs for awhile. Then we turned over the paper and turned on some classical music. Obviously it isn't going to be VERY accurate, but I found Samantha didn't color any different. And she chose the same color for both pictures.

Friday: We watched Curious Buddies! Let's Move! They LOVE that! And it keeps them up and moving, so I Love it too!