Creation - Day 7

Today, we conclude our unit about Creation.

We've had a ton of fun and Charlotte has gotten really invested in "doing school".

I've found already that repetition of procedures is something Charlotte really hooks onto and takes off independently.  That is exactly what I think I want for her as a homeschooled girl.

This morning, she came downstairs and began coloring her 7 before we had eaten breakfast or even gotten her juice.  I wasn't even in the room when she began.  Gotta love that motivation :)

After reading some Charlotte Mason, I've been working on having Charlotte "Narrate" or re-tell stories to me in her own words.  This is sort of a mix between narrating and just reading her finished Creation Book.

Video Here

One thing that I've found (and also from listening from other moms) is that sometimes a 3 year old isn't going to want to be invested in the "lesson" the whole time.  No big deal, but I have to have some things for her (some go-to activities) that are completely age-appropriate.

This (Sort & Snap) is something I bought Adelyn about a year ago and Charlotte has been holding hostage in her room :)  I pulled it out and she was engaged!  I've found that Adelyn doesn't have as much perseverance as her sister. So, to keep her rolling: she would do 2 snaps, and then I would do one.  This kept her happy!

Meanwhile, Charlotte worked on some sequencing.  First, I had her put the cards with the events of creation in order from first to last.  Sequencing is a big early-childhood skill that is worked on in a ton of different areas.  It seemed to be the perfect place in the unit!

This video is for Grandma Manke :)  Adelyn was having a moment to herself during this video, but as you can hear later in the video, she was singing from her room :)

Here is the entire song from Day 1 to Day 7

Then, I had Charlotte match the day #s to the pictures.  Both of those can be found here.  

Later, we'll be using it like a memory game, as they describe on the website.

We talked about how God created the world in 7 "days" and how our calendar is based on God's creation.  Each week is made of 7 days, the first being the Sabbath.

We sang our "days of the week" song a few times.

Here's the video if you've never heard it!

Then, Charlotte used the cards from our calendar to try to sequence the days of the week correctly!

I used a slightly easier set of sequencing cards (click here) for Adelyn so that she was still doing the same activity, but with focusing on putting the numbers in order (because the numbers and pictures were connected).

We did some ten-frame fun ("Can I eat them now?")

Some Rainbowing!

As I mentioned, Adelyn doesn't always finish what she starts, so we're going to work on that.  Before she could start the fun craft, she had to finish her picture.  We worked together (all 3 of us) taking turns putting a snap in until it was full.

The BIGGEST hit of the day was our craft!

Because God rested on Day 7, I found a cute idea online to make pillows.  

Of course, I found this idea last night when I was alone in the house with my sleeping children, so I couldn't run out to get cuter fleece or poly-fill so as usual, I improvised :)

Instead of making pillows for themselves, I thought it would be fun to make little pillows (and blankets) for their dollies (Plus, I didn't have big enough pieces of fleece for them!).

I found some leftover fleece from last year's Halloween costumes and cut each of them a blanket for their dolls (see them resting beside them?)

Then, I sent my kids to town creating their own filling for their pillows.  They took a bunch of scrap fleece and started cutting it into strips and little pieces

Then, I cut two small rectangles to make them each a pillow.

I cut strips on the sides (and holes) like described at this website.

I was troubled at how small the strips and holes were and worried that the girls wouldn't be able to push the strips through, so I pulled some paint brushes out of a paint box and let them use the back to push the strips through each hole.  It worked perfectly.  

Charlotte LOVED this!

She is a Grandma Manke kind of girl - crafty, crafty!

Adelyn lasted about 3 strips.  I can't say I blame her ;)

After 3 sides were finished, we stuffed the pillows with our filling!

They both enjoyed and were able to do this part.

Ta da!  All finished!

They played with these for quite awhile!

Mommy loves the cute, cheesy grins :)

Creation - Day 6

I'm getting kind of sad that this unit is almost over.  We've had a ton of fun with the numbers and learning about how God created the world!

*Side note - my kids have about 10 pairs of pajamas, but seem to be in these particular gowns every time I take pictures of our lessons.  I promise, I really do laundry....sometimes....when I have to!

Today, we colored the 6 like usual, cut, pasted, etc.

While we worked on our 6, we talked about rhyming words.  My girls LOVE to rhyme and make up the most ridiculous words by rhyming, especially when singing their favorite "Down by the Bay".  Today was a great opportunity to talk more about rhyming because today was the first day our song didn't rhyme.  So, as a great review, we sang all 5 other verses to the song.  After each day, I asked if they could figure out what the rhyming words were.  Then, we learned the new verse for Day 6!

Later, I recorded Charlotte practicing.  One word slip and she had to do the whole thing over....not that she's a perfectionist ;)

Adelyn's sidewalk chalk rainbow of 6

 The fun thing about teaching 2 kids (instead of a whole classroom) is that I know my kiddos really well.  They adore make-believe, dress-up, etc, especially together.

So, our favorite activity today was these little wooden masks I found at the dollar tree.  $2 my kids had probably 45 minutes of "crafting" and a ton of fun playing afterward.  Win-win, right?

It was really fun to paint with the girls today.  I let each of them pick 4 colors so they could do some mixing.  Adelyn just mixed all of the colors, but Charlotte was so particular, really trying to make a different shade of each of her colors by mixing white.  She was quite meticulous and it was fun to watch her explore making a lighter and lighter pink, without my direction.

Both girls love to paint and took a good amount of time to paint their masks!

I thought animals might be difficult to draw (though later I realized they aren't for Charlotte) so I pulled out our stamp pads and animal stamps.  Kids LOVE to stamp (really, they love anything that makes a mess, right?) and I was happy to do it outside!

The girls' favorite math manipulatives are these little animals so we pulled them out for math time.

Charlotte put them on her ten frame and went to work, writing number sentences.  This has been really good for me to watch her write numbers.  I'm realizing that we've spent a lot of time writing letters and less time writing numbers.  To practice, I'm going to start adding a number to the writing part of the end of her reading lessons.  

Then, we used the animals for patterning.  I made a pattern and asked each girl to continue the pattern.

For Charlotte - Red, blue blue, Red, blue blue (then she added the rest)

For Adelyn - Yellow, Purple, Yellow, Purple

It's also good to use objects for less obvious pattern, other than colors.

For Charlotte - Alligator, Turtle, Alligator, Turtle (in a variety of colors)

My girls are kind of obsessed in their pretend-play with "being the teacher" and I hear this nonstop as they pretend to the ballet teacher, gymnastics teacher, church teacher, etc.

So, I asked them to "be the teacher" and make a pattern for me to finish.  We repeated this a few times.

Charlotte was quite pleased with herself when she tricked me with the above pattern.

I thought the pattern was: yellow, blue, yellow, green red, yellow, blue, yellow, green, red.

However, the actual pattern was: Dog, Bear, Dog Bear, etc

Our masks were dry by the time we finished our lesson!

15 minutes after our lesson was over, Charlotte randomly started drawing animals: two cats, a dog, and a monkey.  I guess my theory went out the window.

Meanwhile, Adelyn is being the "gymnastics teacher" and the girls are singing "The Wheels on the Bus" with diving rings.  These girls crack me up, seriously!

Creation - Day 5

Today, we learned about Day 5 of creation!

We did our usual color the number,

then cut, 

and paste!

 We learned a new verse to our song:

We colored a picture about Day 5

 I made number cards on the fly (1-5) and had Adelyn "make a train" by putting them in order

While Adelyn worked on her numbers, Charlotte counted every 5 spaces on a 100s board and colored them.

Then, we used that board to learn to skip count by 5's.

This is a great connection for Charlotte who has been counting nickels up to 25.

Then, we started our jello oceans :) and let them set for an hour!

After, we moved on to our 10-frames, using 5 fish today!

Charlotte has really picked up on this routine and went right to arranging her fish!

She arranged and wrote all of these number sentences alone!

Then, we headed to Chatfield to swim with the fish and watch the birds :)

After nap time, we got to eat our jello oceans full of fish!

Today, we also tried a new word study strategy.  I've seen it a few different places, but I printed one of the boards found at this site.  I've printed 2 extras to have laminated at Lakeshore the next time we're there!

We've been working on word study and with Charlotte's strong reading skills but young fine-motor skills, I had been having her do some word work with her tiles.  This utilizes both strategies, so obviously I'm not the only one with this idea :)

We got in a little more math after nap time too.  This was my favorite find because there were two mats at two different levels, which perfectly fit my girls exactly right now :)  Win-win!

Charlotte worked on some addition problems, using goldfish!

I caught her at one point not using the manipulatives, but trying to use a counting strategy to combine both 4's.  She has trouble keeping up with the numbers she's adding on, so she labels them 1, 2, 3, etc.  Her sister woke up right in the middle of her thinking, but she still managed to finish :)  Hooray!

Adelyn's mat was just the numbers 1-6.  She counted and placed the correct number in each fish bowl!

Then, we jumped in the bike trailer and headed to the park that has lots of pine cones for our next craft!

I tied yarn on each of the pine cones and the girls smeared peanut butter!

At last, we hung our bird feeders!