Friday Folder

In this week's Friday Folder is another counting game! All you need is numeral cards, dice - I love the big foam dice from dollar stores, blocks or other items to count, and trays.

The child rolls the dice and counts to add the two dice together. Then he finds that number on a numeral card and places it on a tray. Next, he counts out that many blocks and puts them on the tray.

After all trays have been done he then puts them in order. Shown below they are done least to greatest but you can do this any way you choose. Several skills are practiced in just this one activity such as counting, number recognition, numerical order and recognizing which is more or less.

Friday Folder

Well, I missed the Friday part but here goes...

K-bear is working on days of the week so I wanted to help him recognize the words and put them in order so I made a folder game for it.



I used an envelope glued inside the folder to hold the pieces and placed 7 velcro dots in the folder.


I made day 1-7 cards with a flower and put a velcro dot on the back so they would stay in place once put in order in the folder. Then I made bee cards with the names of the days of the week.


So...to play he pulls out all the cards and puts the numbered flower cards in order then matches the day of the week bee to it. Easy to make, easy to play!

All Star Gal

Today was an exciting day for the little girl of the family. It was her first day of gymnastics!! She has waited so patiently for a long time to be able to do it and she had a blast! The boys even informed me in the lobby that they want to take lessons. It is a coed class so I guess that gave them the idea. I was impressed at how much they did in an hour. They started out with very simple rolling, rocking, and balancing then moved on to cartwheels and rolls. Next, they practiced for the vault by bouncing into a hula hoop and then bounced up and down on the vault.

They tried to swing on the bars (used to be one of my favorites).

And finally, they jumped down the long trampoline doing different moves. How I would have loved one of those! My how things have changed. One of the great things about her class, aside from what a great deal it is price-wise, is that it is in the afternoons so it doesn't take up any of our evenings leaving time for the boys to so something (basketball) later on. I think we could have a busy year!

Friday Folder

Time for Friday Folder! I had a hard time deciding which idea to share this week since it was the first week I really got to put some of the things I found to use. I finally chose counting bags. These are super for young learners and oh so easy to make yourself.

First, I made number cards and laminated them. I did numbers 1-20. Next, I picked some themes. Below is a beaded necklace counting mat. I picked this because I had beads that were similar to use as the counters. I put it all in a pencil pouch and voila! - counting bag ready to go! The child lays out the number cards and draws one. Then, they put that number of items on the counting mat. Simple enough?!

Here's another version of a counting bag - bugs. Pipe cleaners work as legs and antennae for the counters. Some other versions of counting mats I made are a piggy bank with pennies as counters, bag of popcorn and I will pop some popcorn when we do that one for a treat (you could use popcorn kernels instead), and notebook paper with paper strips for the lines. I had a lot of strips of laminated paper leftover from from making the number cards which made great "lines" for paper.


The idea for making counting mats came from http://www.hubbardscupboard.org/counting_bags.html.
There is a vast amount of information on this site, even a complete (and free) curriculum for young ones!

Come back next Friday for more ideas and bring some of your own!

Lessons from the Little School House: First Days

With our theme this year being geography, we have been learning about maps and globes this first week of school. We have tons of books in our book basket that we found at the library on maps. We did a little experiment of sorts on the difference between flat maps and round globes. I had Hayden try to take a piece of paper and fit it around a ball. This was to show that a flat map cannot accurately reflect sizes and shapes of land as can the globe since the world we live on is shaped like the globe, a sphere. He was (maybe still) convinced (or just stubborn) that one day he will make it work! From there we took a grapefruit and I drew a (terrible) map of the world and then peeled it and asked the kids to piece it together to make a map. I forgot to take a picture of the whole grapefruit so they held it together for me in the pic above.

Here is the peeled globe.

Trying to flatten it out match it up.

And again, one determined fella!

Today, we studied our backyard habitat by roping off one square yard and observing what was in it. They found leaves, berries, bugs, a small piece of duct tape, and holes. We'll be taking weekly nature walks and making a leaf notebook later. Hayden was sidetracked for a moment as he tried to make his string barrier smoke. He even wrapped it around a twig.

Looking for berries until she spotted an ugly bug crawling toward her!

Just hanging out in his square - we are working through an "i can't do it" phase lately. What happened to "I can do it by myself"?

Time for School!!

We have most definitely enjoyed our first few days of school! We have a big kindergartener, a sweet second grader, and a fun fifth grader! I just can't describe what a privilege it is to be able to be with my children each and every day! I love them so much and they are so fun to watch as they "do school". We started on Monday and I will be honest and say it was a rough start. None of us were used to getting up so early and I think we all had to take some time to wake up that day and get our frumpy grumpies out! I'll also admit that after day 3 this morning it has not gotten any easier to get up! I asked Troy last night how long til my body adjusted and he reminded me he's been at his new job for a month and he's still tired every morning...bummer.

I have been very pleased with how our schedule is going so far. I'm trying to do the same subject with them all at the same time and it's working even though I wasn't sure it would. So, when one of them is doing math, they all are. I stagger start them just a little and Keaton does a lot of hands on things that he doesn't have to have me right with him for.

One of my favorite things so far...

•  Timers! I bought two of these. They come in so handy when I want/need to set a time limit for a certain subject or activity. Wtih math, for example, the kids can do more than one lesson per day so I give them 30 minutes and have them do as much as they can. They also get 15 minutes for typing lessons on the computer, 10 minutes for math drills, etc. They're just super!

This was taken after our morning stretches. Just simple toe touches, jumping jacks, etc, and their favorite spinning while reciting months, days, continents, or alphabet until I say "freeze".

Ok, so maybe he's not so thrilled about everything!

She loves it all!

He asks to count to 100 every morning after doing their calendar notebook!

Another year older means...more chores!

So, can you tell I am having a free day? Troy is working, kids and I are going somewhere later this afternoon, and I have spent two weeks getting ready for school so today is laundry day, light lesson planning, and fun! It is beautiful weather outside and the kids were enjoying it until...the mosquito bites had covered all their bare skin! That's even with bug spray on them already! I don't know what it is but we have a million of them in our yard and they are there all times of the day. Ugh, it's so frustrating to have a nice yard and nice weather and not be able to enjoy it.

I've updated the kids list of chores or as we try to call them "acts of service" or "AOS" for short. We aren't big on the word "chore", it just sounds so Eeyore-ish so we came up with AOS instead since what we are doing is serving each other by doing our part. A lot of things remained the same as last year but since the kids are older their responsibilities have increased. I made a checklist for me to use each day to mark off that they have done their AOS but I haven't gotten used to using it yet. Maybe once we are in the school routine I will do better. The purpose of it is to show in graph form how they are doing with getting things done. We may do a reward or a consequence depending on how their graph looks.

For some reason these didn't load exactly right. The top of the first one is on the second page and the top of the second one is missing along with Siara's name. Oh well, you get the picture and maybe some ideas! We made a big deal about the fact that Keaton's no longer says "nap" time. Since he is in kindergarten it says "rest" time! Now, it is still my intention that he will go to sleep, and I think that most days he probably will just because he's 5 and still needs that rest, but he will be allowed to look at a book quietly first. Something I can't help but think is that kindergarten was so big and special for the other two because they went off to school for the first time and Keaton will not be doing that now. So, I have tried to think of as many ways as I can to make him feel older and special as he begins his kindergarten journey at home!

Fun School Day and Father/Son Time

The kids had fun on their short day of school Thursday.  Keaton was all smiles for the first day of kindergarten! He was able to come down first by himself and we had a few special moments just the two of us talking about what a great year it's going to be.

Keaton learned how we will use our calendar wall this year as he placed a straw in the ones place for our first day. He and Siara got started in their calendar notebook by marking the day's weather.

Hayden had a few minutes to draw while I worked with the other two.

And here they are warming up for our morning by doing jumping jacks!

The big boys had fun mowing the yard last night. Troy has been showing Hayden how to mow the yard but he needs a little more strength to really be able to do much on his own. They called me outside to show me how they get it done using teamwork. They both took hold of the mower and took off running across the yard! So sweet to see them spending time together.

Friday Folder

I'd like to do a Friday Folder post each week. The purpose of it will be to share at least one resource, game, link, craft, or book that I used or discovered that week. For instance, today I'm going to share a couple things that I made for our room.

I wanted to add a chart or something with all the months and days of the week. I've been looking at them in stores and couldn't bring myself to pay for them so I decided to make my own. I had fun doing it and creating my own stuff has helped me to get much quicker at making decisions on fonts and clipart! I have always had a hard time choosing but I am learning to pick the first one that looks good and not keep browsing!

I put the months next to our calendar wall and the days of the week beside the chalkboard. Above the days is where we keep track of the code date. You can't see it well but it's a laminated sheet hanging on hooks that Hayden will take down every day and fill in the new date with dry erase markers. Do you have anything to put in the Friday Folder?

You can download days of the week and months here:

Domino Activity Basket

Here is an easy to make domino activity basket. Print off the domino worksheet. Laminate it so that you can reuse it. The child places the domino in its spot on the mat and then writes an addition problem and answers it using a dry erase marker. Easy cheesy as my daughter would say!

You can find the domino template here http://www.firstschool.ws/theme/printables/dominoes-math.htm. If you don't have any dominos you will find a template to make your own at this site.

The School Room

I plan to share some of the things I have found in all my searching for ideas to make school fun and exciting this year! First, I thought I'd start with a brief tour around our almost finished school room. We have a great basement to use for our school room. It has one big room where we will set up desks, tables, and center type things. There is a closet that we will use as our supply closet to hold toys, games, craft items, books for later in the year, etc. We also have a bathroom and the laundry room is in the basement so that makes changing out laundry very convenient for me during school!

Here's a big picture of our room. It's almost complete...needs the chairs (just waiting to get them cleaned up!) and a few more things I'll be adding to the walls like our big maps.  

I LOVE the chalkboard! It turned out great! We have our handwriting charts under it. I saved the space above for some paper dolls that we will make the first couple weeks of school. The table beside the chalkboard has another of my new favorite things...a laminator. It has been such a help in trying to preserve some of the activities I have been making.

This is our calendar wall. We will go over everything on it first thing every morning. I'll share more about it another time when I share our calendar folders that I just love, but the younger two will practice place value, counting, money and more by using this wall!

Here you see some things I had a blast painting. The magazine holders which we'll use for books (probably for our adaptation of workboxes) turned out super. I have four more to fill in the spaces with once I get more lime green! The second shelf has a basket containing the items used on the calendar every day, trays for papers, pencil sharpener and the bottom shelf has our read aloud missionary books, dictionaries, and some extra notebooks. 

This is where I will keep some center type activities. So far, most are geared to the younger two but I am working on searching for ideas and brainstorming for Hayden to be able to do some as a break from book work. For Keaton it will be used as productive learning time while I am teaching the older ones. He'll be able to sit at the little table for a change from his desk. I'll be sharing all the awesome activities that I have found and links to great websites.

Oh! Notice the buckets? They were part of my bargain finds at a dollar store in a previous post. The blue ones were the right color but the ugly grey ones are now a lovely lime green! Eventually, I would like to do the yellow baskets on the top and the little chairs but for now yellow works!

This table sits at the far end of the room and will be for art and other activities.  See the basket on the left? It used to be a peachy pink color with yellow stripes. Now it's brilliant blue and lime green on the inside! And then we have our book basket. These are some of our collection of books that I will rotate out unless I am able to add a few more of these crates. Found them at walmart and the colors were almost perfect. The green isn't so limey but it will work! The name book basket comes from our curriculum where we will be adding in additional library books every week to further explore what we are studying. The baby dolls haven't found a home yet. Siara only plays with a couple dolls so I'm thinking the rest need to find a storage bin to live in for now!

And finally, our computer station! This will be a favorite I'm sure with my kids! We'll use it for learning games and typing practice. The table was left here by the renters before us. Even though it's not in great shape it works beautifully as a computer table with a drawer and cabinet to store things. The box on the table is going to become a mailbox soon.

Hope you have enjoyed the tour of our Little School House!!

Enjoying time with Dad

The kids enjoyed some bible study time with dad the other night.  Here they are coloring in faces and hair on their Adam and Eve pictures.

They cut out "leaves" to use for Adam and Eve's clothing after they sinned in the garden.

After they talked about how God clothed Adam and Eve with animal skin they made their own skins for clothing.

Here they are listening as dad talks about how God clothes us in righteousness.

And they are all enjoying one of their daily "phone visits" with cousins!