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!!  ;)

Polar Graphing

Continuing along with our graphing, we talked about Arctic/Polar animals today & did some Polar graphing!!  I found a fun Polar Roll & Graph activity over HERE so we printed it out & put it to work!  :)  (I printed it in black & white & since the pictures were so light, some parts didn't print and I had to draw them in!)  :(  We were only going to graph 10 rolls, but being that Hunter loved this, we went to 20!!   

We also looked at some Arctic animals online - some of his favorites were: Arctic hare, Arctic fox & the polar bear!  Next week, we plan to make an igloo!!! :)

Color Mixing & Graphing

What a fun day!!  We talked about mixing primary colors today!  First, we started with a simple sheet about mixing colors (found it HERE a few years ago) - just using crayons but not actually mixing. 

Then, I divided a piece of white construction paper into 9 squares.  Using red, yellow & blue (and adding a little black, white & brown), I just put a few drops of each onto the squares, and we came up with new colors!!  Hunter loved this!! :)

Next, we talked about graphing!!  What a better way to learn about graphing, than by using CANDY!!!  M&M's to be exact!!  ;)  I've had this M&M graphing sheet forever (sorry, don't know where it came from - but could easily be created on your own!!), and thought Hunter would enjoy it!!  Of course, he did!!!













Bummed that I forgot to take a picture with all the M&M's on the paper, but you can get the idea by his little "circles"!!  ;)