Skip Counting Charts ~ updated!

Recently a reader asked me to add a few pages to the Skip Counting Charts that I put together awhile back….which reminded me that we need to get back into the groove of using them more.

The skip counting charts cover the numbers from 2 up to 15. The number pages up to 12 each have a little ‘rhyme’ at the top, show how skip counting with that number works and then skip counts up to whatever 12 x that particular number would be. The few above that number don’t have a rhyme, but still will help you out.

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Enjoy them!!

 

Visit these great companies!

• Betty Luckens ~ educational and fun felt sets for children
• Weekly Homeschool Planner ~ manage and organize your homeschool day, year after year

 

Valentine’s Day Early Learning Printables

These printables were created to use for Valentine’s Day with your child. I have a fun pile of books that I can’t wait to read {see below}. The Snowy Valentine by David Peterson is really one of the sweetest books that I’ve seen and so is the book Valentine’s Day by Anne Rockwell.

 

The Valentine’s Day Early Learning Printables include fun activities to tie in with various books ~ vocabulary words, word tracer cards, Scripture verses and tracer page, a color by number, size sorting, counting activities and more!

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Download the Valentine’s Day printables pack!!

Don’t Miss These Either!

~ Valentine’s Day word cards for the Read! Build! Write! vocabulary mats

~ Valentine printables from 2 Teaching Mommies

~ Love Tot Pack from 1+1+1=1

~ More Early Learning Printable Packs

 

Visit these great companies!

• Betty Luckens ~ educational and fun felt sets for children
• Weekly Homeschool Planner ~ manage and organize your homeschool day, year after year

 

Homeschooling in the Car ~ Moments to Remember

Moments to Remember was developed as a simple way to look back on our week as homeschoolers and find photos that encompass the memories we want to remember. 

The week may have been tough, there may have been more bumps than smiles, but in the end these are the moments that keep us going, the ones we need to remember.

Earlier in the week we had to head out the door mid-morning. The kids had done much of their independent work already, but history and our read-alouds were still waiting to be done.

Enter the audiobooks. :) We have the companion audio cd’s for Mystery of History and were able to do our history lesson in the car, and then had MUCH fun listening to a different audiobook for the hour plus that we were driving around.

And I definitely love that flexibility!!

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Want to join in and share a fun moment? Link up your Moments to Remember at 1+1+1=1 this week!! This linky is for homeschoolers, or families who are keeping their kiddos at home during the early years {we consider you homeschoolers too}.

 

Visit these great companies!

• Betty Luckens ~ educational and fun felt sets for children
• Weekly Homeschool Planner ~ manage and organize your homeschool day, year after year

 

Our Science Studies

This year we are all working together on Nancy Larson® Science 2 {recommended for ages 7-9} and have been studying a range of topics. At the moment I’m rather anxious to get into the bird section of the program {since we moved our birdfeeder up onto our porch}, but we are definitely having fun and learning a lot this year.

We are a little more than halfway through the Science 2 program and are working through the fourth of the six units. We’ve already covered:

~ The Physical Properties of Matter: solids, liquids, and gases; measuring the mass of a solid; the transparency of matter; exploring magnetic attraction; naming magnetic poles and the states of matter.

Needless to say, the scale has been a big hit. Whenever the science bin is pulled out, I’m sure to hear “Can we play with the scale too?”

 

~ Observing Rocks and Minerals: classifying rocks by size {sand, pebble, cobble, gravel, and boulders}; comparing the hardness of minerals, and identifying the minerals in granite.

The rock collection that we used to talk about the hardness of minerals has also much fun. We went on several walks during our time learning about rocks and minerals. One of the best parts of those walks was listening to Zachary and McKenna point out the various rock sizes that we saw along the way. :)

 

~ Investigating Forces and Work: learning about gravity; demonstrating how lubricants affect friction between objects; learning about wheels/axles; observing how rollers make work easier; and inclined planes.

This unit involved several of our small race cars, a lot of our blocks to build inclined ramps and the involvement of all of the kids as we raced cars, used the coveted tape measure to see how far vehicles traveled with/without friction and more.

~ Examining Simple Machines: so far we’ve talked about how inclined planes work make easier; characteristics of wedges; identifying the functions of screws; and the characteristics of wheels and axles.

Our last two units will be exploring light and sound and then investigating birds {just in time for the warm weather!!}. In the meantime I’ve been snapping pictures of the many birds in our area and getting ready for that unit!

The Nancy Larson® Science 2 has been a step up in work level for the kids, but what I really love most is Zachary’s desire to participate in the reading of the text and seeing his study skill improve dramatically with this level. The Science 2 has added bolded words and has children highlight important text ~ and we have a little boy that is giddy to use his highlighter and find the important info in each lesson {and I definitely won’t complain about that!}.

While Laurianna falls on the older end of the age range for the curriculum, she still is learning things that we haven’t covered in the past and enjoying the ‘hands-on’ parts of the program too…and even Kaleb is having fun with those parts {especially the ramps and the racing!}.

 

Visit these great companies!

• Betty Luckens ~ educational and fun felt sets for children
• Weekly Homeschool Planner ~ manage and organize your homeschool day, year after year

 

Letter Tiles ~ {Reader Ideas}

One of my readers recently linked up this idea that went along with the Read! Build! Write! Mats and I not only loved her pictures, but wanted to share it with you all too. :)

Carissa from Stella’s Apron Strings has quite a collection of letter tiles that she has accumulated from various games. Many of them have been picked up at garage sales, Goodwill or other thrift stores very inexpensively and then Carissa stores the pieces in a jar to use with her kids.

Instead of using letter tiles, the kids have fun using pieces from Boggle, Upwords, Scrabble and other games to build words. Thanks so much for sharing, Carissa! Hope that this helps some of you all as well!

Printables for The Mitten by Jan Brett

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These printables were created to use with The Mitten by Jan Brett. It’s one pack that was a last minute addition to our school time, but one I know we will enjoy!

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The Mitten printables includes fun activities to tie in with the story ~ vocabulary words, word tracer cards, a tracer page, sequencing cards, a fun song, beginning sound cards, counting activities and more!

Download The Mitten printables pack!!

 

Don’t Miss These Either!

~ The Mitten word cards for the Read! Build! Write! vocabulary mats

~ More Literature Based Printables

~ Story prop printables from 1+1+1=1

~ Lapbook printables from Homeschool Share

~ Activities from Jan Brett

~ Read The Mitten online at We Give Books

 

Visit these great companies!

• Betty Luckens ~ educational and fun felt sets for children
• Weekly Homeschool Planner ~ manage and organize your homeschool day, year after year

 

Birdwatching ~ Moments to Remember

Moments to Remember was developed as a simple way to look back on our week as homeschoolers and find photos that encompass the memories we want to remember. 

The week may have been tough, there may have been more bumps than smiles, but in the end these are the moments that keep us going, the ones we need to remember.

We have had so much fun every day watching our birdfeeder through the window off our kitchen ~ identifying the different birds {and yelling at the squirrels}. And while this picture may have no kiddos in it, typically you will find one of them sitting on the floor with a chin propped in hands, watching out the window.

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Ready to link up and share your moment this week?

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Link up your moments to remember post below, be sure to provide a link back and be sure to use a permalink to link up your exact Moments to Remember blog post {not your blog home page}. Your post can be as simple as one photo, or as detailed as tons of photos and tons of words!  This linky is for homeschoolers, or families who are keeping their kiddos at home during the early years {we consider you homeschoolers too}.

When adding your link, just put your blog name for the title and choose an image from your post for the thumbnail.

Next week, link up with 1+1+1=1!

 

Visit these great companies!

• Betty Luckens ~ educational and fun felt sets for children
• Weekly Homeschool Planner ~ manage and organize your homeschool day, year after year

 

Jesse Bear Unit ~ Preschool Corner {&5K too!}

Our Jesse Bear unit was put off a little bit and then I forgot to post about it. Somehow I didn’t manage to get as many pictures of the activities that we did to go along with the book…or somehow I’ve managed to lose them in the meantime.

 

From our Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? printables we talked about:

~ the foods that Jesse ate in the book {and the ones that we didn’t’ like or did like}

~ counted ducks in the tub and worked on 1:1 counting up to the number 15

~ practiced rhyming words

~ measured vegetables that we saw in the book

In addition to the printables, here’s a little peek at a few of the  ‘hands-on’ things we did together {and I managed to get a picture of}.

Bear Pancakes ~ all of the kids enjoyed this part of the Jesse Bear unit! We used chocolate syrup to make the mouth and raisins for the eyes.  Definitely a yummy addition.

The Flag ~ We talked about the flag of the US. There is a ball in the book that looks like a flag, so we made our own from construction paper and used silver star stickers for the field of blue. We also worked on the Pledge of Allegiance.

A few more things {not pictured}:

~ Jesse Bear’s drawers were very neat and organized…similar to another little boy’s drawers {and not those of his older brother}.

~ We made paper doll bears and dressed them up.

That’s about it for our week with Jesse Bear ~ how was your week?

More Preschool Links

• ABC Printables
• Color and Shape Printables
• Early Learning Printables: Police Officers, fireman and more!
• Math and Counting Printables
• Phonics and Reading Printables 
• Preschool Planning Pages
• Preschool Resources Main Page

Ready to Link Up?

Share what you are doing with your kids! Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below and link back here too! Grab a button for your post below and be sure to take a minute to visit the person who linked up before you. You can read more in the updated guidelines for Preschool Corner.

Be specific in your ‘link title’. Leave either your blog name or theme and provide an age range for your activities. Something a little like this:

Police Officer Theme {ages 4-5}

 

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Visit these great companies!

• Betty Luckens ~ educational and fun felt sets for children
• Weekly Homeschool Planner ~ manage and organize your homeschool day, year after year

 

The Power of Words

“Words have the ability to inspire or to depress; to make one happy and feel validated or to deplete and discourage.  When we live with our children day after day, we either build an inheritance, a treasure chest of inspiration, confidence, validation, OR memories of anger, criticism, while storing up in their souls hostility, insecurity, and bitterness.”

-Sally Clarkson

 

Inspire. Validate. Build.

That seems so simple to do and yet I fail MISERABLY all too often. While this is something to do for a lifetime, I often need the reminder to take things one day at a time ~ truthfully, one minute at a time because things can change so quickly in this house.

Minute by minute. Hour by hour. Day by day. Week by week. Each word that I speak has such power to speak into the lives of my children.

Each day this week I am striving to intentionally encourage my children. One word at a time.

Thanks so much to Joy from Grace Full Mama for reminding me of this quote! Please read the rest of the article she wrote about Encouraging Words along with her challenge too!

 

Visit these great companies!

• Betty Luckens ~ educational and fun felt sets for children
• Weekly Homeschool Planner ~ manage and organize your homeschool day, year after year

 

Corduroy Bear Printables

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These printables were created to use with the book Corduroy by Don Freeman. Printables in this pack can be used for preschool as well as kindergarten aged children.

Here’s a peek inside the Corduroy printables:

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The Corduroy printables include fun activities to tie in with the story ~ vocabulary words, word tracer cards, coin counting, lacing/sewing cards, button shapes, counting activities and more!

Download the Corduroy printables pack!!

 

Don’t Miss These Either!

~ Corduroy word cards for the Read! Build! Write! vocabulary mats

~ More Literature Based Printables

Check out more fun {and free} printables at Printable Power.

 

Visit these great companies!

• Betty Luckens ~ educational and fun felt sets for children
• Weekly Homeschool Planner ~ manage and organize your homeschool day, year after year

 

Doodling ~ Moments to Remember

Moments to Remember was developed as a simple way to look back on our week as homeschoolers and find photos that encompass the memories we want to remember. 

The week may have been tough, there may have been more bumps than smiles, but in the end these are the moments that keep us going, the ones we need to remember.

What’s so special about the above picture? During one of our Mystery of History lessons I looked over to see Zachary had rather…ummm…embellished his drawing with stick figures galore.

There’s even a crocodile in there up at the top. And nerf guns. It’s a odd mix between our Grapevine stick figures meeting a Trojan horse all in an effort to win Helen back.

And it just makes me smile. Because this is truly one of those lessons that he remembers…and didn’t get in trouble for because I was just laughing so hard at his creativity.

Want to join in and share a fun moment? Link up your Moments to Remember at 1+1+1=1 this week!! This linky is for homeschoolers, or families who are keeping their kiddos at home during the early years {we consider you homeschoolers too}.

 

Visit these great companies!

• Betty Luckens ~ educational and fun felt sets for children
• Weekly Homeschool Planner ~ manage and organize your homeschool day, year after year

 

The Snowy Day ~ Preschool Corner

The week we planned to work on The Snowy Day unit and turned out to be rather a good week to do so! Kaleb and I sat down to read the book together and just as we finished the book, he looked up and out the window and it was snowing!

Needless to say, there was much excitement about that!

And my big ‘duh’ moment of the week? I was so cold, we were having fun inside with things, and it NEVER crossed my mind to go out and catch the snow and look at the flakes…and we rarely get snow around here, people! Nevermind right in the middle of a unit on snow. Yep. My brain is right on top of things. :)

Aside from the things that are included in the The Snowy Day printables, here’s a little peek at the more ‘hands-on’ things we did together.

Making ‘Tracks’ ~ In the The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats, Peter makes different kinds of tracks in the snow with his feet and also using a stick. Kaleb walked around the house trying to make 'tracks’ the way Peter’s feet would have been.

   

Crystal Snowflakes

I found a tutorial for these Borax crystal snowflakes via Pinterest and they were a HUGE hit. I’m especially fond of them because it only took a day for them to form.

Kaleb had fun measuring {1/3 cup Borax mixed with almost a pint of hot water}. We shaped a snowflake out of a pipecleaner, hung it on a piece of yarn and let it sit overnight.

 

It’s here that I’ll insert my piece of advice {ahem}. Either make your snowflake much smaller than the mouth of your jar or use a WIDE mouth canning jar. When the crystals form on the pipe cleaner {and they do it rather quickly}…you won’t be able to get it out of the jar if it is wider than the mouth of the jar {who knew?}.

Cotton Ball Snowman

The first day we were reading the book, Kaleb wanted to know where the cotton balls were and when he could make a snowman, so I printed off a template and he had fun gluing and practically went through half a bag of cotton balls in his zeal to glue any and all cotton balls down.

We also made some {soon to be} glue snowmen, similar to this idea, but I got a little carried away with the glue and after 6 hours it still wasn’t remotely dry enough to even move…so it will have to wait.

After Kaleb traced the names of the shapes from The Snowy Day printables, I cut them out and we put them all on popsicle sticks. As we read the story, we matched the shapes on the sticks to the different shapes in the book by ‘smacking’ them down {oh yes, he loved that!}.

We also did a little art to imitate a scene in the book. We used construction paper to make the snow banks and cut out some little boys to play in the snow. I had a snowflake stamp set too, so Kaleb stamped different colored snowflakes over the picture.

 

That’s pretty much our week summed up. How was your week?

Other helpful Snowy Day Links:

~ The Snowy Day printables

~ Homeschool Share resources {great sequencing
cards!!}

~ Snowy Day fun from Delightful Learning
~ Snowy Day lesson plans
~ Winter Theme from PreKinders
~ Snowy Day read-aloud on YouTube
~ Snowy Day in sign language

Ready to Link Up?

Share what you are doing with your kids! Please link your exact blog post to the Mr. Linky below and link back here too! Grab a button for your post below and be sure to take a minute to visit the person who linked up before you. You can read more in the updated guidelines for Preschool Corner.

Be specific in your ‘link title’. Leave either your blog name or theme and provide an age range for your activities. Something a little like this:

Police Officer Theme {ages 4-5}

<a href="http://homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com/search/label/Preschool%20Corner" target="_blank"><img src="http://i2.photobucket.com/albums/y37/jolantheerb/PreschoolCornersidebarbutton210.jpg" title="Preschool Corner" /></a>

 

Visit these great companies!

• Betty Luckens ~ educational and fun felt sets for children
• Weekly Homeschool Planner ~ manage and organize your homeschool day, year after year