It's reading time!

Ellie has been working on sight words and CVC words both since her K4 started 3 weeks ago.

Today she did the -at family week of Reading the Alphabet from This Reading Mama. Of all the bits and pieces I've put together for Ellie's K4 I think it's my favorite. (Blog on her K4 pieces I put together for this year still to come!) Half of the Reading the Alphabet week is letter review which we just skip and half is a new sight word. (We are doing 2 weeks each week except for the review weeks like this week's.)

Here's what she did today:

We talked about how her sight word at was in lots of words. Then we talked about how at was actually one we could sound out. Then we sounded it out. Then we took the provided letters and made the words and sounded them out. 

Then I mixed them up and she did it again all on her own! She is great at identifying the beginning sounds, so the picture clues were a great aid.

So excited for this cute little emergent reader!

Picasso time!

We are using Confession of a Homeschoolers "World's Greatest Artists" this school year. I really like the books it uses! Even better, the kids like them too! Today was our first art project and I couldn't help but take some photos.

I made them all use crayola watercolor paints so the oldest two weren't super excited about that, but I was impressed with what they all did! Especially with the cheapo little kid paints! Lol!

I asked them to create their own version of Boy in Sailor Suit with Butterfly Net or Bather with a Beach Ball. My oldest two picked the first, and littler two the later!

Grace's:

Cian's:

Then the little girls':

Zoe's:

Ellie's:

Too Much Glue!

I tried to get this book at the start of last school year, but our library system didn't have it yet. I didn't see it on Scholastic yet either and think it was just too new?! However, when I tried at the start of this school year, the library system had it! YAY! The kids really enjoyed it!

I also got these "Just a Dot" worksheets back out from last year and had the girls practice "glue raindrops not puddles" like they say in the book. These worksheets are from pocket full of kinders (that's where I heard about the book first also!). The link is here. We don't use the alphabet ones since we use D'Nealian, but I use her dot and lines ones. (We also have the Q-tip painting from 1+1+1=1, but haven't used them for glue before either.)

Ellie loves to glue!

Look how I did!

Ellie's

And Zoe's:

Zoe loves anything arts and crafts related!

Zoe's

Pizza Field Trip

One of my favorite books to do with a preschool pack is on Pete's a Pizza. The kids find it hysterical!!

The worksheets seen here are from the pack from 123homeschool4me.com called Pizza Learning pack. It's FREE and has great activities from ages preschool up. Here's a link! We have been working on these last week for K4: 

Here's some pics:

Ellie's favorite part? When he was a pizza, of course! Shown here with pepperonis on him!

Another fun worksheet about pizza!

And another!

Then today was the pizza FIELD TRIP!! It was such a blast! The kids got to see how the pizza was made then they cooked those 4 whole pizza for the kids to eat!

Eating her pizza with big sister Zoe!

Something new we started this year! The field trip report! This was Ellie's:

If interested, here's a post about the new field trip reports we are doing at Teach Academy here.

Back to School - 1st Day Treats

One of our first day traditions is that I make the kids a special treat with a cute label. This year, I couldn't decide between a few so I made them all!

Here are the treats I made the kids this year and the links to the generous folks who shared these online. 

This one is all over the web! These are SO cute! It is a package of rolos with a yellow cover to look like a pencil. Grace got her spacer out last week to get molds done for her braces that go on this week, so I HAD to make these! (She can't have caramel once the braces go on.)

Here's one site I saw these on:

http://pinterest.com/pin/33565959700141019/

I also bought a breakfast goodie (in addition to our tradition of donuts), and put these labels on it. 

Zoe and hers:

http://www.iheartnaptime.net/back-to-school-printable-2/

For morning snack, I had a bag of snack mix with this cute ruler taped on. 

"You rule - happy back to school"

Found at: http://pinterest.com/pin/33565959700140852/

Afternoon snack the kids got these:

I liked that there were multiple choices! Plus, one of them was for 1st grade which was perfect for Zoe!

Ellie's had owls:

Found at: http://www.mysunwillshine.com/2013/08/back-to-school-treat-bag-toppers.html?m=1

Finally, at the end of the day, they got this whole candy bar! This was the only one I couldn't find free online so I made my own!

The front:

The back:

First Day of School Photos 2015-2016

Here are pictures from our first day of school for this school year!

Class photo:

 

Grace - I can't believe she is officially junior high age! 

My little guy- doing 4th Grade this year!

Miss Zoe: 

Ellie is doing 4 year old Kindergarten:

And of course, I couldn't forget Fionn! 

 

Zoe's Super Summer of Reading

Our local library is really great, I love that a small town has a library with nice librarians and we use it A LOT! However, the only thing I don't love is their summer reading program. I have 5 kids who love books and only 2 could do the summer reading program. My 1 year old and my 3 year old (now 4 year old) weren't "old enough" to participate and my 6th grader "aged out" by completing 5th last year. Only Cian, who just finished 3rd, and Zoe, who just finished K, were eligible in our family. I went ahead and let them do it, but I also signed ALL FIVE up at neighboring library. They allowed all the kids, including the 1 year old. Did you know the American Academy of Pediatrics says it is NEVER TOO EARLY TO READ TO YOUR BABY, click here to read why!

Our local library had kids who are going into 3rd-5th count the time spent reading, but they made the kids going into K-2nd count the number of books. I also disliked this. I was really proud of Zoe. She just finished K, so we she was in the count the books group, yet she reads chapter books. She could have read super short books to try and "up her total," but she chose to read chapter books. She read her little heart out this summer and the bigger library where we were able to log her minutes read actually awarded her a prize for the most minutes read in her age group (we didn't even know they did this prize as their ending prizes have always been a random drawing of all who read). I was so proud of her, that she read for the love of reading, and so proud of the bigger library that they recognized her accomplishment and recognized her for it. 

Zoe and her prize from the big library

Here is her final total, I took a photo of it on the last day we submitted her books she read:

A look at our K4 Curriculum Choices

I already wrote out my annual "Subjects" list really early this year. I actually did it last March before I attended a Homeschool Conference. It already has all my kids' subjects for this year and what they are doing for each. However, each year I organize their books and make labels for notebooks and folders if they are needed, make piles for me of the teacher manuals, stack their books and place them on top of their workbox bins, etc. and this year I decided it might be helpful to me down the road to see a picture of what books they are doing! So here it is! A blog post with a photo for each grade we are doing next year!

If you want to see our full list of subjects with all the kids, that post is here.

A look at Ellie's K4 Curriculum:

A look at our 1st Grade Curriculum

I already wrote out my annual "Subjects" list really early this year. I actually did it last March before I attended a Homeschool Conference. It already has all my kids' subjects for this year and what they are doing for each. However, each year I organize their books and make labels for notebooks and folders if they are needed, make piles for me of the teacher manuals, stack their books and place them on top of their workbox bins, etc. and this year I decided it might be helpful to me down the road to see a picture of what books they are doing! So here it is! A blog post with a photo for each grade we are doing next year!

If you want to see our full list of subjects with all the kids, that post is here.

A look at Zoe's 1st Grade Curriculum: