Ww Water

It seems only natural to go from studying the octopus last week to studying water this week. My girls are thoroughly excited as they love everything having to do with water. To kick off the week in a fun way, I let the girls wear swimsuits for their school day. It's pretty cold here, so I cranked up the heat to keep them nice and cozy.

Aren't they adorable, or am I bias? I guess it could be both. We started out the day just as everyone before: calendar work, name, 100's chart, and introducing the letter and its sound. Brina already knows her letter sounds so a lot of this goes by quickly. I have no problem reviewing this information as I want her to have a deep understanding of the letters and their sounds. I am a huge believer in phonics. She has also reached the stage of being able to blend CVC words easily. My Father's World K and time have done wonders with this girl. Because she has already mastered a lot of the material, we supplement with Explode the Code Primers (we are in book B) and Math U See Primer. We will start Singapore Essentials Math K soon as well. I just want to switch it up now and then to keep her from getting bored. This will also give us an idea of which program we like better. It's so much fun to see your child's own growth though. I love having this opportunity!

Today's read aloud during school time was The Story About Ping. It was about a little duck that hid so he wouldn't be the last duck to get back on the boat. It's a cute little story. He does find his way back home thankfully.

I bought Siriana some sticker workbooks from Wal-Mart to give her something that she could work on independently while I work with Brina. They both love these books and I think I will have to buy more.

Thanks to a very generous preschool teacher, we own a wonderful sensory table. We haven't ever used it before since we haven't had it long. I pulled it out, washed it down, and filled it with water. I wasn't really prepared for these, but I knew we could come up with something. I used the sensory table to introduce some concepts about water. We discussed that water is a liquid and that means that it can be poured. We'll go more in detail about this tomorrow. We also discussed how all living things (people, animals, and plants) must have water to survive. Without we will die. Our biblical concept of the weeks is Jesus gives my spirit living water to drink. What a wonderful concept to learn about this week! I wasn't sure how to explain this to my almost 5 year old, but it seemed to work out well. Here's some pictures of fun in the water.

We had a wonderful school day to start the week! I'm hoping that the items I ordered to supplement our sensory table with arrive in time for us to enjoy them this week. If not though, you will see them on the blog next week. We are also going to attempt beginning a chapter book read aloud. We are going to start with the Magic Tree House series. I'm hoping the girls love it. Thanks so much for stopping by and feel free to post suggestions or comments!

Wordless Wednesday: Just Another Day in Pre-K

Day 2 of Oo Octopus

We continued with Oo Octopus today. I decided to go ahead and post again because we did extra school activities to kill some time waiting or UPS. We packed everything up and went to my mother-in-law's house. We did all of our calendar activities only using the pre-school learning notebook printables I showed you yesterday.

Here are a few pics just because my girls are cute.

We did something a little different today as well. I used some of Dawn's printables, from Our Little Monkeys blog, to play a little game. The game focused on graphing and counting. We rolled a homemade dice and would match up what sea creature it landed on with blocks on our graphs.

Once we got all the way to 10 with one of the animals, we quit rolling and completed a corresponding worksheet. The girls loved this activity. I was glad to get introduce the concept of graphing. This was a nice little introduction to the process.

Finally, we needed to get messy and have some fun. I wish I had pictures of the actual process. I was busy painting hands and trying to not get paint on my mother-in-laws table. We made a couple sea creatures using hand prints, google eyes, and glitter. We love glitter!

This was a difficult day of schooling for me as a mom. My oldest daughter was having issues today. She has some OCD tendencies and everything was upsetting her. She finally cheered up once we did these two activities and is now lying quietly in her bed.

Please check out Our Little Monkeys and Confessions of a Homeschooler! They have great printables that could supplement anyone's curriculum!

Oo Octopus

Hi everyone! I know I missed posting a recap of our week, but instead of spending time talking about the past I am going to move forward. We have moved on to the unit Oo Octopus this week. My girls were super excited. They love learning about the ocean and all its sea creatures.

Since I haven't posted many pictures as of yet, I'll give you a look at how our typical school day goes with My Father's World Kindergarten curriculum.

We always start the day out with our calendar time. In this picture, Brina is telling you how many days there are in a week.

After going over days of the week and the date, we move on to counting how many days of school we've had so far. Brina is learning the concept of place value. She can count by tens to 100 now.

Once calendar time is done, we move on to her pre-k learning notebook. The name printable is from a homeschooling friend named Dawn. You can see her blog and find links to her printables athttp://mamasmonkeys.blogspot.com/. The rest of the printables shown in her notebook are from Confessions of a Homeschooler. You can find the preschool daily learning notebook here: https://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/blog/2012/09/preschool-daily-learning-notebook.html. I find it to be an invaluable tool for calendar time.

Once this is done, we move on to learning about our letter of the week. I don't have pictures of everything we did because, well, I was teaching. We reviewed letter names and sounds, sang the Aa Apple song and practiced printing the letter O and identifying the letter. This printable is also from my fellow blogger Dawn mentioned above. She made sheets to complement My Father's World K for the younger students going through the program. Brina's motor skills lag sometimes, so we continue to use these for extra practice.

We ended our school day with reading a cute little book, and making a cute little octopus.

I hope you enjoyed reading about our school day! If you noticed we didn't do any formal math, we are thinking about dropping Math U See Primer. It's just getting to be boring for her. I think we may go ahead and order Singapore Essential Math K, but haven't quite decided yet. Thanks so much for stopping by!

Please check out the My Father's World Blog Roll.

Also, check out Preschool Corner.

It's been a while...

It's been quite some time since I have been here. Life happened and things just started getting in the way. Thankfully, I am no longer working part time, so I have a little time to devote to blogging and the rest of my time to enjoying my little ones.

A lot has changed in our schooling since I last posted. Little Hands to Heaven ended up being way too easy for B. She already knew her letters and most of the sounds, so she was quickly getting bored with the activities. After researching many different options, I decided that My Father's World K would be the most appropriate option for her. She is flying through this curriculum at a fantastic rate. I don't push her at all though. If she doesn't want to continue, we finish what we are doing and pack up for the day. She really has a love of learning. MFW K is helping that love of learning grow. Everything in it is so gentle and fun, yet she is progressing at a phenomenal pace. She can now easily sound out CVC words and blend them rather quickly. I am just so proud of my little girl. She will be 5 on January 24 and has come so far. We are currently doing Unit 8: Dd Dinosaur. I will post a review of our week on Friday.

B is also doing some other add on curricula as well. I wanted a more structured math program, so we are doing Math U See Primer. It has been a great introduction to math concepts for her. She actually loves math and does very well. We have also been working through Handwriting Without Tears Pre-k. She has some issues with her fine motor skills due to low tone, so I decided that this tried and true method would be best for her. She has come amazingly far though and I would say is right on level with her peers now in Handwriting. Finally, we are using Explode the Code Primers to reinforce phonics skills. She finished Book A yesterday and is now moving on to Book B.


My youngest daughter, S, follows right along with her sister. She doesn't engage in all the activities since she is just now 3. You can usually find her playing with puzzles, coloring, cutting or anything else creative. She is definitely our little artist in the family. I just ordered the Rod and Staff About Three Series to start working with because she begs to do school work. I wanted something at her level on hand for when she asks. I am excited to receive that in the mail.

So this is an update on our lives. Our lives are very messy right now. Our house is in a constant state of renovation. We have an extra room that is in the process of being converted to our schoolroom, but right now we are in the dining room with most of the flooring completed. Hopefully, in the next few weeks we will begin school in our new room. Until then, excuse the messes in our pictures. We are nowhere near perfect and do not strive to be. We strive to live and enjoy. God gave us these children to raise and we want them to value the little things in life. I can worry about the house being perfect when they are older.