GLE Week 8 Q is for Quail

Curriculum found here.  This week we talked more about Moses.  He had a verrrry interesting life!  Lots to talk about.  We also talked about Qq and what sound it makes and what it looks like.  She knows all her capital letters and most of her sounds, so we just focus on the lowecase one most of the time.  Although sometimes for Q she said /k/ and sometimes for G she says /j/ which is especially tricky because sometimes G does make the J sound!



















We had that little pheasant-I mean QUAIL, ahem- on her desk all week.  Pretty cute little guy (I assume it's male since it's tail is super colorful).  Got him at Hobby Lobby.


 

We painted with feathers and went out and tried to make our own bird nest.  I think we made the walls too thick because it took all week to dry out (we used mud) and then it wouldn't even hold together!  Them birds be smart.

Tot School Letter Bb!  He actually started saying /b/ by the end of the week.  Today I started to show him T and asked what sound it made and he said "/k/k/k/.../b/b/b/..." Pretty funny!  However those are the 2 sounds he has learned so far (C and B-we did do an Ii week, but he never even got close to understanding /i/i/i/) so I'm pretty impressed!

Playing in his pasta bin with ABC Find It from 1+1+1=1.  He does really well with that so we do it pretty much every week.  He is pretty limited in what he can do without getting super frustrated so we keep it simple around here for my little man!  A perfect example is the school bus craft from No Time for Flashcards.  DISASTER!  He had a total meltdown when I glued the pictures down.  He didn't want to color the bus and he got mad at me when I sang the wheels on the bus song.  So I did the craft without him and then he happily carried it around all day! :)  

One thing Mr. Man will do happily all day long is read.  Autumn crafts way more than him, but he reads way more than her so go figure!  So far, they both have a healthy dose of appreciation for books for which I am exceedingly happy about.  

Caleb's books focused on the /b/ sound and Autumn's were just bird books I had.  None of them fit the theme very well, but we made do. 

GLE Week 7 I is for Insect

This week for our bible study/preschool at home, we talked about Moses and the plagues.  Curriculum found here.

Only a couple of pictures this week!

Our 10 plagues index cards.  For the 5th plague (sick livestock) we ended up putting pictures of farm animals on it.  The bottom picture is some activities we did.  Both the iguana with the Avery stickers and the big I with the iguana's glued on it came from 1+1+1=1.  The dragonfly is a paint, cut, and glue from learncreatelove. 

Books about INSECTS! (or, bugs!)

  Tot school!  I tried to just go with whatever letter Autumn was working on (in this case, Ii).  I have now decided to work with him on letters he already knows or is somewhat familiar with (the letters of his name for example).

Painting an egg carton inchworm.  Some printables from 1+1+1=1 and The Mommy Teacher. 

We were putting Avery stickers on the igloo, but they ended up all over his legs! :)

Finding I books that feature the /i/ sound was a challenge for us.  We basically had no book focus this week.  He also didn't really get "I".  The whole point in doing things with him is simply for exposure though and now he does see letters and points them out so I know he is absorbing more than meets the eye.  I think in his head he believes he knows all the letters and they are all called "E" :)

GLE Week 6 "c" is for colors

Also, week 6 encompasses the story of Joseph and his beautiful (if problem causing) coat.  Curriculum found here.

Wearing her paper bag coat, retelling the story with her Joseph puppet, and some of the crafts we made. 

This child.  We mixed these one day and now she knows them.  Model student!

I thought I would also teach Caleb his letters along with Autumn (even though they have their learning times separately from each other).  Caleb is 22 months.  We learned all about what sound C makes!  All of the materials I used with him can be found at 1+1+1.  (LOVE that woman!)

Finding C words in a kidney bean sensory bin and some artwork

Even baby sister got in on the action! Yes she puts things in her mouth and yes I was watching her like a hawk. See my hand in the bottom of the picture? 

Literature for both kids!  Autumn's (left) goes mostly with the theme (colors) and Caleb's goes more for the letter sound. 

We decorated pumpkins this week and I thought it was funny there was a pumpkin for what both kids were leaning.  Caleb's has a big C on it and the pumpkin on the end has rainbow crayons melted all over it to emphasize colors!

GLE Week 4 & 5

We are still using God's Little Explorers as our bible study every day.  It is wonderful!  We are also learning sight words using Reading the Alphabet.  We are going pretty slowly with this, but so far she has learned to read 3 sight words ;)

I am really no good at taking pictures.  For the last two weeks of our time together I have 5 pictures.  I got tired of documenting everything but then this week I decided it will come in handy when I got through it with Mr. Man so I started trying to take them again.

So, week 4 was z is for zoo (Noah's Ark).

I actually only took ONE picture this week, HAH!  Autumn and I (Autumn and I? No, it was just me.) found this online graphing game that she loved.  We actually found an entire mega pack and did quite a few things out of it.  Cutting and pasting, q-tip painting, and other fun stuff.  The picture on the left was just my big kiddos playing in the rain!  It seemed appropriate!

Week 5 was t is for tent (story of Abraham).

We set up our play tent and made a campfire and played with it all week!  This week was harder for Autumn to grasp for some reason.  I think trying to explain traveling around from place to place living in a tent all for the sake of obedience was just over her head a bit.  She loved the star crafts we did though!  You know that verse about Abraham having more descendants than stars in the sky?  That is the reason for the star crafts.

We are also practicing writing our last name.

 

Ladybug 7 Months

Her first Halloween costume!

That child you see above?  I am totally obsessed with her.  We all are. She is nothing short of a delightful, joyous, overwhelming blessing to this family.  It is amazing how much love one heart can hold.  It also boggles the mind that people wonder if having multiple children detracts from the family unit somehow.  

She is starting to sleep better at night.  Not fully arrived or anything, but getting better.  She only woke up twice last night (11 pm and 5:30 am).  She is crawling now!!!  She still doesn't sit up though.  Is that normal?  She enjoys chewing on everything and anything so we have to be SUPER diligent around here about picking up after the {almost} two year old hits up (aka destroys) a room. 

She loves to eat, eat, eat!  Nurse or table food.  

Finally took her to her doctor's appointment and she is a tiny thing!  But she hasn't always been so...so we have to take her back in a couple weeks to make sure she is gaining weight.  If not they are going to do a bone scan to make sure her bones are growing.  She went from being in the 46% to the 11% for weight and from the 79% to 50% for height.  I'm sure she's fine.  I mean, I'm 90% sure.  I can't help but being a tiny bit nervous.  We have tried to add formula to encourage weight gain but she just will not take a bottle. It's crazy how much she won't do it.  If we do ever have to put her on formula, it  is going to be a struggle.  

I found a way to make her laugh so that is fun.  Before she would just smile really big but now she actually giggles if someone does this certain thing.  It's kind of like you "scare" her...you just pull back and then rush forward and make a funny noise and she loves it.

Her favorite thing to do is to crawl around and explore everything right now.  Makes cooking dinner a challenge since I used to be able to leave her and she would stay in one spot! I try to stick her in her exersaucer while I do dinner. The big kids always watch a video during dinner prep.  

She is still very easy and very happy and I love her so very very much.