What a week!! :)

 Busy, busy, busy!  :)  We have been so busy this week, I didn't have time to update until now!!  One of Olivia's favorite things to do is play "The Dice Game".  (I mentioned the "Ballerina Pack" in the last post, so the link is there!)  We print out & make the dice, then we roll it & graph the results!  (You're supposed to roll 10 times, but she likes to roll until she fills the chart!!  ;)  She's counting & graphing and thinks it's a fun game!!  :)

These two pictures are from her Alphabet Book - (the spiral notebook I mentioned last time) - the butterfly is the Alphabet Creature & the bear is our Alphabet Pal!!  :)

This is her sign-in sheet - I print one out each week & keep it in her binder.  Each day, she traces her name to "sign-in".  Eventually, she will be able to write her name by herself!!  :)








Apparently, I didn't take pictures during week "C".  :(  (Like I said, busy week!!)  However, this week, we incorporated a few different themes, such as:  candy, circus, & Curious George (only briefly - I realized that the whole idea of "C" and "G" was a little confusing!!)!  Our Alphabet Creature was a caterpillar out of circles & our Alphabet Pal was a clown!

One fun thing that we did this week, was making CRAYONS!!  I found an ice tray at Goodwill & we put all of our broken crayons to use!!  ;)  We broke the crayons up into little pieces & put them in the tray.  Being that it is around 110 degrees EVERY DAY, we used "solar power" to melt the crayons!  Within a few hours, we had melted crayons!!  We brought them inside to cool & then removed them from the tray!!  We had fun coloring "C's" with our crayons!!  :)

 The tray we used - - forgot to take a "before" picture! :/







Our cool crayons!!  (Some are already broken!  Oh well, we can melt them again!! ;) 

We're Back!! :)

I know we kinda dropped off the Earth after Easter (that was my last post!), but we're back & ready for a new year!!!  :)
We've started this school year off running & hoping that we don't lose any of our motivation!!  ;)  Olivia is so excited for preschool!!  We started the same day as the other kids did (Aug. 8), and really haven't missed a day since!!  She definitely keeps me busy!!  As soon as she finishes one project, she says, "What can I do next??"  :)  I'm trying to use lots of manipulatives & hands-on projects, but she LOVES doing "worksheets"!!  I think she thinks that if she doesn't have tangible proof - no one will believe that she's in preschool!!  ;)  ;)  (Guess I better stock up on the printer ink!!!  ;)

The first (1/2) week, our theme was "All About Me".  We did a few projects about her & sort of eased into it!  This is her "All About Me" mobile & name necklace!  :)

 Last week, we started our Alphabet themes!!  We're going in order, so we did A last week & this week is B!!  :) 

 I've decided to keep a lot of her work in a spiral notebook - as in glued in!!  ;)  This way, we can just keep adding & pages won't fall out!!  Each letter will have about 4-5 pages: page 1 is a handwriting page, page 2-3 is our Alphabet pals (have to post a picture later!), page 4 is our Alphabet Creature (shown - A - Alligator) & page 5 is for what ever we need it to be!!  ;)   This way, she'll have an Alphabet Book (or two) when we're done!!  She also has a 3-ring binder for all of her worksheets!!

 Found "A's" in magazines!

 Animal puzzle - LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Carisa's creations over HERE!!  If you click on the "Preschool" tab at the top, it will take you to all her great printables!!  We used "Baby Animals" for week A!





Letter B:

 
Sorting, counting & graphing beads (made them HERE). We also started Carisa's "Ballerina" pack!!  :)  Lots more in store for the week. . . hopefully she'll let me have time to keep this updated!!  ;)

Fun Find

A while ago, we came across this cute bag of letters - for only .99 cents at Goodwill!!!  It was missing the letter "K", but I think I can create one!!  :)  We came home & washed everything & Olivia had fun playing with them!! 

 Obviously they're not in order here, but I forgot to take a picture after we put them in order!  ;)

We don't have a "Miranda", but it will do!!  ;)

Dollar Store Activities

We stopped by a couple of dollar stores today & found some fun preschool things!  :)  I found a bingo marker (or dauber) at Dollar Tree & Olivia just loved using it!! DLTK has a bunch of printables to use with the daubers!!  Over at the 99 cent store, I picked up some small plastic tongs (4-pk) - which are great for little hands!! - & ice trays (2-pk).  We added in our pom poms & had lots of fun!!  :)

Catalog Flashcards

First of all - NO - we haven't disappeared!! :) Just busy as ever!! I just wanted to make a quick post showing what you can do with catalogs!! I got a hold of a few sticker catalogs that came from a dentist/doctor's office. They were filled with pictures of stickers - which included every character you can think of!!! I came up with an idea (a no-brainer) to use these pictures to make flash cards!! This is what I used:

- index cards
- magazine pictures (one representing each letter, then one representing numbers 1-10)
- letters/numbers of some sort (I had pre-cut Post-It type letters that were perfect so I used those! You can write your own, use sticker letters, die-cut letters, etc.)
- glue stick
- scissors

I'm sure you can figure this one out - told ya it was a no-brainer - but just in case: attach one letter to each index card, adding the corresponding picture. Repeat process for numbers!! I couldn't find a character for EVERY letter, so some are generic - i.e. frog for "F"!! Here are a few of mine:

Hunter loves these, because he likes to see all the characters that he knows!! **Just a word of advice: be careful when choosing characters for each letter - make sure they aren't known by a different name!! i.e. don't put a picture of "Nemo" on F for "fish" - your kid will say "Nemo" every time!!! :) If you do use a picture that might be confusing, make sure to use a group picture to make more sense!! (i.e. my letter C & D cards - I used a picture of different cars from the movie Cars, and a picture of different dinos from Dinosaur Train!)

Weeks D & E

Just a quick post to share our Alphabet Art for weeks D & E! Nothing too fancy - we colored dinosaurs to add to our D & cut out pictures of "ears" to put on our E!!! :)

Week C

This week, we focused on letter "C", and our theme for next two weeks is "A home to live in". This week we talked about all the different types of homes that people live in - from tents to castles! :) We made an "In My House" book, and Hunter drew things he does in each room of the house! (And for the bathroom, of course, he drew himself going to the bathroom!) :) We checked out some "C" books at the library, and so far, City Chicken seems to be the favorite! :)

For Alphabet Art, we made paper cookies & glued real sprinkles on top!! Hunter LOVED this, as he ate just about as many sprinkles as he glued on!! :)

Next week should be fun, since we'll be talking about different animal homes!! :)

Weeks A & B

The first two weeks of school!! Always so exciting!! :) We started preschool with the theme, "All About Me." (Just a coincidence that the theme for Week A was, "All About Me"!) We talked about Hunter- self portraits, "All About Hunter" books, family stick puppets, his likes & dislikes, etc. We went to the library & checked out books that started with A - some of his favorites were, "Armadillo Rodeo", "Antlers Forever", and "Arthur's Underwear". (Didn't make it back to the library for Week B, but chose books from our own collection!)


We also started an Alphabet Art Book, which we use the letters of the alphabet in an art project! For letter A, we made an ant hill with ants climbing on it! For B, we made a butterfly! (forgot to take the "A" picture the 1st week, so took them the same day!) ;)

Besides the Alphabet Art, we also started an ABC Book, which we will also be adding to weekly!!

Just in case you might be the only person out there that hasn't been there - - Target has a TON of great preschool stuff in their "One Spot" (dollar section) right now!!
I got Hunter a bunch of great stuff before school started!! (Can't wait for them to be marked down so I can go buy a bunch more!! ;)