Upcycle toy chest to dino world

Our toy chest was great for storing blankets when the kids were small but lets face it, all those stuffed toys are just dust collectors so we handed down our teds and i placed a custom sized peice of astroturf (fake grass) on the lid with Mason's dinsoaurs, trees and rocks on it. Inside the chest are other toys that are suited for play on top of the chest like Tara's my little pony collection, some horses and farm animals. These can be swapped by whoever is playing at the chest. I left a small chair next to the chest to make it easier to play although cushions would do nicely too!

Animal pet rocks

 This was an inviation to play that i set one this morning for both kids to create Animal Pet Rocks, keeping with our letter of the week A.

Paint,glue,pom poms,eyes,gems,crepe paper and plenty of rocks. Needless to say our house is now FULL of families of pet rocks :)

Apple colours

I had printed off these apples to continue his apple theme week and i used my own colours to colour them as previously with Tara i had colour printed card and found the shades were very hard to distinguish. The reds closer to orange and the browns closer to grey.

After colouring them i cut and laminated as well.

These made great small cards that i placed out in Montessori methods (left to right top to bottom) and then asked Mason to hand me the...blue apple,red apple etc.

Leaving the ones i knew he would struggle with to the end and spoke about what else in the house was grey or white etc.

 I will continue this every few days and look forward to seeing him take pride in naming them all :)

Graphing letter of the week

Trying to keep with the letter of the week while big sissy is at home on holidays i found her some apple theme grid work over at making learning fun...

http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/AppleGridWork.htm

We had never done these before but she loved it! Basically there are grid coordinates that she must follow and colour in a designated colour then the more coordinates you find the picture becomes more apparent. The activity kept her guessing right up to the last square of what it could possibly be that she was graphing...then she saw it...An apple!

Cheerio Abacus

A is for Abacus

As Mason has started on his letter of the week program we made this Abacus from a cardboard box, cheerios and fishing wire. Very simple to make. I attached the wire and let him thread the Cheerios and we counted them as we put them on. He seems to love it, regularly going to his Montessori shelves and laying on his tummy and counting them across.

Coloured cloud dough

                                                          Coloured Cloud Dough!

This dough is fluffy and light and lots of fun. I had made it with Tara a few years ago but this time we added colour!

Recipe is: 4 cups of flour

1/2 cup of baby oil

finely grated chalk pastels

We used a kitchen grater on the finer side to firstly shave our chalk into separate containers first. Then we made a big batch of the flour/oil mix and added the colours after just mixing with a spoon till combined.

Consistency should be crumbly but hold when compacted.

Please be aware baby oil is toxic if eaten so this activity must be supervised at all times.Sandpit moulds, bento moulds and ice cream scoops work well with this dough



Artist unit puzzles

Tara has a real passion for Art, not surprising really if she could create,draw,paint and mould all day-she would!

To delve deeper into Art i found an amazing online study unit

http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/tag/worlds-greatest-artists

Although it is a little advanced for a 5 year old i have taken bits from it and used what works for us now.

Today we just familiarised ourselves with two famous paintings. We printed/laminated and will eventually stick magnets on the backs to make fridge puzzles. We look forward to growing on this and getting into our own painting later in the week!

Find a words

I have to say i really admirer homeschoolers with handfuls of children at different levels! It must really be a juggling act to keep them all engrossed in their own activity. As i have said before, i too am learning in our journey of teaching at home. Tara is on school holidays so will be joining us for the beginning of Mason's formal homeschooling.

Tara has taken an interest in find a words so i found these great printable find a word (apple theme to keep with Mason's theme) at 

http://www.bigactivities.com/

Find a words are such a great activity that sneaks in all the reading lessons without them even realising! Along with the find a words there are some great printable maths equations printables too!

Letter of the week (round 2) A

Mason is turning 2.5 this week and lately he has been showing a real interest in sitting still and exploring written work. He often follows Tara around at home he will sit along side her and do his own work. It is funny that this is the exact same age Tara showed an interest in Montessori.

That willingness to listen and watch while lessons are demonstrated really takes focus and i feel Mason is showing he is ready for this.

As many home teachers follow their child's interests, i thought it only fitting to use Masons favourite food as a starting point for our lessons

APPLES!

I used the worksheets kindly provided by Carissa and her wonderful LETTER OF THE WEEK PROGRAM.

I placed these worksheets into a plastic sleeve and handed Mason the whiteboard marker and dobber to use. I do this to not only save the paper but at this age half the fun is rubbing out and trying again.

http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.net/2011/03/tot-school-printables/

So today we traced focusing on circle shapes and the letter A.  This week we will be learning all things A, names of our fruits and colours and this little man is loving it already!

Tara's reading

Watching Tara flourish at school this year, it has been obvious that the time we had put in to working at home together before school had really paid off. Her reading is getting even stronger and her enthusiasm is what makes me proud. Here is a little mummy-cam of her reading independently at age 5.5