Make a Geoboard for $1!

I'm sharing this idea here:




Last week, Sam and I made a Geoboard for $1!  The only thing I had to buy was the cork board.  This is a great math manipulative to add to our rotation of activities!

Supplies:
Cork Board  - found at Dollar Store
Push Pins
Marker
Ruler
Hot Glue Gun
File Folder, Card stock, Cardboard or, other backing
Rubber Bands

Instructions:
1.  On your cork board, draw a grid by making a small mark where you want to put each push pin.  I used a ruler evenly spacing my marks 1 inch apart.

2.  Working one row at a time, put a dab of glue on each dot of your grid and then push in your pins.

3.  The pins were sticking through the back of the cork board so, I hot glued a file folder cut to size to the back of the board.

4.  Have fun making shapes, letters, or piling up the rubber bands!  (Pins can pop out so, keep those kiddos supervised.)

Zz is for...

Last week was Sam's last week of preschool!  Since we were following along with the letter that they were doing at school we are also done (but moving on to other things; see a post later in the week).  We were also just having an off week (hence the late posting of our activities) so, we didn't do too much.

Here are some letter Z activities:

Watercolor painting of  Zebra (from his preschool):

We made a geoboard (tutorial coming later this week):

Zebra and Zoo dot art from Make Learning Fun.
Zebra size sorting from Confessions of a Homeschooler.
Sam has been on a playdough kick lately so, lots of that.
Planting in the garden.
Painting the word, "zero" also from Make Learning Fun.
Lots of talking about his cousin who's name starts with a Z!

Yy is for...

Here is what we have been up to this week for letter Y.

Lots of books about colors especially Yellow:
In My New Yellow Shirt
Mouse Paint
Little Blue, Little Yellow (LOVE this book!)


 
A Day With No Crayons
The Crayon Box That Talked

Yodeling with Jim Gill
.

Teaching Ray to say, "Yes!" rather than, "No!" to everything!

Sam made some yarn art at preschool by putting yarn between two pieces of contact paper.

Counting with large paper clips.

Lots of watercolor painting on letter Y sight words.  Found here.

A yellow Y collage made out of junk mail.

Spanish words puzzles.

Coloring yellow duck and the other "Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?" animals found here.

Eating yogurt!

We have had a short week because we have a fun long weekend ahead! 

Xx is for...

 Letter X has been the most difficult to come up with activities for.  Nonetheless here is what we have been up to:

Sam (42 months) and I made a (short) list of X words: X-ray, Xylophone, Exit, Fox, and Box.

Xx as in fox do a dot art from Making Learning Fun.  Sam chose to use circle garage sale stickers instead of markers this week.

We have been reading, "Fantastic Mr. Fox", aloud this week. This is the first time that I have read a chapter book to Sam and I was excited that he was attentive and able to answer questions about the plot and make predictions when I stopped reading to ask him.

 

We used the xylophone color by number, lacing card, and size ordering from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

We checked out these library books:
Fox by Kate Banks
Crazy Like a Fox: A Simile Story (I'm showing you the picture of this one because I really liked it and will get it again when Sam is actually learning about similes.)

 

A Fox: The Sound of X
Jessica's X-Ray
We colored a picture of Swiper the Fox and watched an episode of Dora.

Mike, my husband, made a treasure hunt for Sam.  Sam had to follow clues that lead to a "X" (marks the spot) piece of paper.  The paper was a note from my husband telling Sam how proud he is of him and a dollar for his piggy bank.

I also found a template to make a fox mask but we never got around to that.

We have also been doing lots of colors/elephant activities which you can read about here.

Share your ideas and get great ideas at Tot School and Preschool Corner!

Beginning Chapter Books

Did you have a favorite series of books as a kid?  I loved Babysitters Little Sister when I was in about second grade and then later moved on to The Babysitter Club (which are being re-released now!).

I also have really fond memories of my Grandma reading chapter books to me.  She started this when I was quite young (probably not much older than Sam).  Everytime I would spend the night (which was pretty often) we would curl up and read a chapter or two.  I remember reading classics like, "Heidi", "Black Beauty", "Little Women" and when I was older, "Gone With The Wind".

Tonight, my husband and I went on a date to Barnes and Noble and I decided that it's time to move on to chapter books with Sam.  I've been giving it some thought for a while and after perusing all the beginning readers I reassured myself that Sam has in fact mastered most, if not all, the words in them (yes, he is 3 1/2).  So, we are moving on to chapter books starting with The Magic Treehouse Series.  It may be a bit of a challenge but I think it will be good to mix it in wit the other books that he is having such an easy time with.  I am excited to start reading them to/with him!

If you aren't familiar with these books, they are great!  Each book takes Jack and Annie to a different location and time period (I love historical fiction.).  There is a website that gives parallel activities too.  I'm hoping this will bring some excitement back to our afternoon activities because we have both been getting kind of bored.

So, what were the first series of books or chapter books you read?  How old were you?  Do you read them to your kids?  Are there books you are excited to read to your little ones?  (I can't wait to read anything Rahl Dahl, The Chronicles of Narnia, and Harry Potter to the boys!)

Ww is for...

This week we had two main sub categories under the letter W: Whales and Wonder Pets.  Here are some of the activities that we did and books we explored.

Whale Activities:

 - Do a Dot Whale art
 - Books: Whales and Face to Face With Whales (Face to Face with Animals)
 - Sink water play.

Wonder Pets Activities:

 - We watched The Wonder Pets Save Little Red Riding Hood (from the wolf).
 - Put lots of Wonder Pets stickers on a letter W.
 - Practiced writing the number 3 and colored the 3 Wonder Pets with this worksheet.
 - I made a list of things that start with W and had Sam find pictures of them in his  My First Look and Find: Wonder Pets, What s Gonna Work? Teamwork! (My First Look and Find) book.  When he found the picture I had him take a picture of it with the camera.  He loves using the camera!

 - Sam read Save the Three Little Pigs! (Ready-to-Read. Pre-Level 1) and played with the Three Little Pigs Magnet set I had made for the letter P.

A few other random activities:

 - graphing (one to one correspondence) with watermelon seeds using this from Confessions of a Homeschooler.
 - Read: Days of the Week (Read-It! Readers)
 - eating waffles!
 - making play dough worms.
 - looking for letter W's at the zoo today.

Head over to Preschool Corner to get and share ideas!

I Like Bugs (for lunch)

With two little guys their is bound to be cars, legos, mud and BUGS in my life for a at least a few more years. 

Sam got a magnifying glass set in his Easter basket (good find at the dollar store) so, the boys have been finding bugs outside and then, "make them big!". 

Sam also got the book, "I Like Bugs", in his Easter basket so, HE has been reading to US (!!!) about all different types of bugs.  This is a cute book by Margaret Wise Brown who you may know as the author of, "Goodnight Moon"

 

So, this leads us to bugs for lunch.  I admit most of our "bugs" lacked creativity (chocolate covered sunflower seeds and corn eyes on a cheese stick and rolled up turkey).  The boys however, thought it was so funny.  Even Ray was saying, "I eat bugs" over and over again. 

Sam decided he would make his own bug sandwich and told me exactly what supplies he needed: bread, cookie cutter, peanut butter, knife, and sunflower seeds.