Kidamerinks Preschool: Letter F

This week we learned all about the Letter F. 

If you have missed the previous Letter Weeks, check them out Here.

We are taking a Kumon approach to writing letters, for more information take a look at The Kidamerink Method.

Next week, we will be working on the Letter "E," so stay tuned.

We did a lot of letter writing practice this week! Lowercase f was a hard one to master for my little Kidamerink! :) But, I think we got it by the end of the week. 

We used these Letter F Worksheets and also did a few worksheets out of our Comprehensive Curriculum Book.

We love the book, "The Rainbow Fish," by Marcus Pfister. It is one of those books that is a must for your own personal library. We read it A LOT this week!



So, we made our own Rainbow Fish one day. I just drew a fish, cut out some "scales" and even cut some scales out of Tin Foil to make it a "real" rainbow fish.

My Kidamerink Loved glueing all of the scales on. We counted as we glued, for some counting practice as well.

He turned out pretty good too. But, in all seriousness... if you haven't read this book, it is a must. Go and check it out at the Library. It teaches a really good principle and the pictures are so great. 

For our Kidmerinks in the Kitchen section, we made some Amazing Fruit Dip. Seriously... it's Heaven! Go and check out the recipe Here: Kidamerinks in the Kitchen: F is for Fruit (Dip).

We also talked a lot this week about Feelings. F is for Feelings! I made these cards to help my Kidamerink recognize certain feelings and we talked a lot about what makes him angry, or sad, or happy or excited. It was really important for me to get him to recognize why he was feeling the way he felt etc. throughout the week. It has really helped with his attitude lately and I'm glad I decided to focus on feelings this week. 

We read a lot of books about feelings this week too. 

We spent a whole afternoon talking about Feet one day as well. That's what you get when you are married to a Foot Doctor!! Haha! My husband has a "bone" model of a Foot and my Kidamerink LOVES to play with it. So, we talked about how important feet are and had fun playing with the bones.

My Kidamerink may be the only 3-year-old in the world who knows where the Navicular Bone and Talus Bone are located on the foot, but it sure made his Dr. Daddy Proud!!

We also recently had an unfortunate event happen to my Kidamerink which required an X-Ray of his foot. Thankfully, nothing was broken... but don't let your kidamerink's jump off the couch like a superhero while making dinner!! :) Lesson learned.

Anyways, he LOVES too look at his bones. So, we printed them off so he could look at them and he played doctor all afternoon fixing up my feet and taking my X-Rays. It was a fun afternoon.

 

And, to top it all off... we made Foot-Print Ghosts to get into the Halloween Spirit!! :) 

We talked a lot about making Friends and read the book, "Do You Want to be My Friend," By Eric Carle. Of course, I had to include this book in our "F" section - if you don't already know, I'm a huge Eric Carle fan!! :)

I LOVE this book because it is a book with very few words. It is great for your Kidamerink's to make up their own stories and to figure out the story for themselves. It is great to hear what my Kidamerink comes up with and the illustrations are amazing - which is to be expected of course. This book is Definitely a favorite of ours!!

We spent a LOT of time reading this week and I made sure to have our D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read) time every day, if not more. It really changed our week and it has been great! 

Here is a list of all the books we read this week:

Linked up @ Homeschool Creations &
No Time for Flashcards &
Living Life Intentionally

Kidamerinks Preschool: Review Week

This week we spent lots of time reviewing our past four units that we have been working on. 

These include the Letter's L, T, H, & I.

I think it is important to Review and I am planning to do a review after every 4 Letters in sequence. 

We basically just re-used the manipulatives that I created for each Letter Unit and studied one letter per day.

Here are the links to the Letter's that we've been working on, and you can view each unit separately, or you can click on the Kidamerinks Preschool Tab and view them there as well:

Letter L

Letter T

Letter H

 

Letter I

 So, this week is kind of a boring week as far as "blogging" goes and "pictures." I decided to cool it on the pictures this week and just spend the time with my Kidamerink reviewing his letters. 

I think I've drilled those letters in his brain too well though, he's been practicing writing them on everything and in sequence! :) 

Here is one picture I took this week. I drew out the Letters L, T, H & I in block letters and let him "paint" them. These are Crayola's No-Spill Water Color Paints. They are pretty awesome!

We had fun re-doing each unit this last week. Every day I would bring out something new and my Kidamerink got so excited and would say, "I remember this one!!" It was fun. I also liked getting a little more use out of everything!

We had fun making some Play-Doh out of Jell-O for an activity one day. We shaped the new Play-Doh into the letters as well. This Play-doh was seriously one of the best Play-doh's I've ever made! Go check out the recipe and How To, Here: Jello Play-Doh.

We also spent a lot more time reading this week. I started implementing D.E.A.R. (Drop Everything And Read) into our every-day lives and it has made a serious impact on me and my Kidamerinks. To find more about D.E.A.R., Click Here. 

And, I made my first Sensory Bin! 

Since Halloween is coming up, I decided I would create a monthly sensory bin created around a Holiday Theme. 

If you would like to know more about the importance of Sensory Bins and Sensory Play, take a look at this post from 1+1+1=1: Montessori Minute: Sensory Activities.

This has entertained my Kidamerink for Hours at a time. He loves the Eye Balls and the Spiders. He also loves filling up the Tin Cups with beans and pretending that he is a dump truck. 

I gave him an ordinary Ice Cube Tray to sort out what "treasures" he found in the sensory bin. He loved it, and I love watching him in his element discovering "self-directed" play.

**This was really easy to put together and relatively cheap. I found a lot of the little items at Michael's or the Dollar Store. The Bin and the Tin Cups I found in the Dollar Spot in Target. The beans were from food storage. 

Easy-Peasy-Fun entertainment that also builds neurons!! Yay!! Haha!! :)

Kidamerinks Preschool: D.E.A.R.

D.E.A.R.

Drop. Everything. And. Read

Isn't that a great acronym??

I came across this blog post on D.E.A.R. from 1+1+1=1 and it had a huge impact on me. 

I read this blog post a few weeks ago, and I've been trying to implement it in our home. 

I realized that I often get too busy to just sit down with my kids and enjoy the beauty of reading to them during the day.

It's not like I don't read to my kids, we are always very good at reading before bed etc., but I get caught up in the "I know I need to sit down and read with you today, but I have so much stuff to-do..." way of thinking, that I'm not really "present" when my Kidamerink begs me to read his favorite book of the day. Ya know what I mean? I hurry through "Go Dog Go" since we've read it a bazillion times and sometimes skip pages when he's not looking, just so that I can get back to my task list.

I always have an endless "To-Do" List and it takes over sometimes!! :)

I'm guilty, I know!!

So, we've been <trying> to implement D.E.A.R. this week (since it is our Review Week for Preschool) and it has been so great.

I'm not perfect, and some days we are just too busy -- i.e., not even home due to errands and library classes and playdates etc.

But, Our reading sessions have now turned into something amazing. It has become a great bonding time and has forced me to get down on the floor with my kids, even though the endless laundry isn't finished, or the toilet needs to be scrubbed, or dinner isn't done (or even started).

And, I've tried harder to be more "present." It has been so great.  

So forget about yourself and what you have on your "To-Do" list and Drop Everything And Read... 

All it takes is 15 minutes a day!

DropEverything&Read

I created a weekly Check-Off for D.E.A.R. 

I laminated ours so that every day when we Drop Everything And Read, we can mark it off with a dry-erase marker.

I LIVE by visual reminders! :)

Linked Up @ Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers!

Kidamerinks Preschool: Letter I

This week, we have been learning about the Letter "I."

If you have missed the previous Letter Weeks, check them out Here.

We are taking a Kumon approach to writing letters, for more information take a look at The Kidamerink Method.

Next week, we will be doing a "review" unit on the Letters L, T, H & I.

We had some fun with Sidewalk Chalk the other day. I found some 3D Sidewalk Chalk on Clearance, and decided to try it out. It is actually really cool and I definitely recommend it. If you had your 3D glasses on while looking at this picture, my <sorry> looking Iguana would "pop" out at you! :)

I love sidewalk chalk because it is such a fun, easy and generally cheap activity.

We practiced writing Upper Case and Lower Case "I's" with chalk.
 

 

 We did a lot of different letter worksheets this week and work in our Curriculum Book.

Here is a link to some of the pages we used:  

Letter I Worksheets (DLTK)

Letter I Worksheets (Lanternfish).

We had fun doing this Ice Cream Dot-to-Dot.
 

For counting practice we built an Ice Cream Cone with 10 Scoops. Then, we glued the numbers on the scoops and counted them. 

I let my Kidamerink cut out the numbers for his cutting practice.

 

Here's our finished Ice Cream Cone! We took turns picking out our favorite color and "eating" them.

Here is the link to this free printable: First School Preschool Activities, Ice Cream Craft.

 

We also talked a lot about Insects this week. We went on our own little Insect hunt, but all we could find -- or rather -- all that my Kidamerink would touch was this little Roly Poly. 

My Kidamerink was too concerned with putting the Roly Poly in "Jail" so, we soon let him go free!

I also found this really neat "I is for Insects" Printable from Oopsey Daisy. Her packet is AMAZING!! But beware, it is about 80 pages LONG!! Which is a bit overboard for me. But, I chose to do a few things from her packet. 

I did not print out the entire packet, but I did print out these Movement Cards which were such a hit! We were being too silly for me to take pictures of us sliding like snails, or jumping like Crickets!

 

I also printed out the Insect Patterns, from Oopsey Daisy's: "I is for Insects" Packet. My Kidamerink had a lot of fun with these. I would create a pattern, and then he would copy it on his own. Then, he thought it would be fun to create his own patterns, and he did pretty good!

We also made a simple Igloo out of Paper and Cotton Balls. I drew a simple Igloo with a Sharpie...

Then my Kidamerink glued on the Cotton Balls. He's really into the show "Pingu" which is a penguin show (really annoying, they don't talk) but he likes it -- and ok, it is cute... So, he was excited to build "Pingu's" house.
 

 

We made some fun Ice Cubes for Bath Time. We talked about how Ice is made and the different "states" of water: gas, solid, liquid etc. for our Science portion. 

These were a great hit!

View the Original Post Here: Kidamerinks Activity: Bath Time Fun

We made some "Icky" Green Smoothies. They were really tasty and really healthy for my Kidamerink!!

View the Original Post Here: Kidamerinks in the Kitchen: "Icky" Green Smoothies

And, to complete our Ice Cream studies we decided to try our hand at making some Ice Cream.

This Ice Cream is only made out of Frozen Banana's and Cocoa Powder!! It is super easy and a super healthier version of Ice Cream.

View the Original Post Here: Kidamerinks in the Kitchen: Ice Cream

Here are some books and helps that we used this week:

Kidamerinks Preschool: Letter H -- Continued

We had a great "H" Week -- Continued.

If you have missed the previous Letter Weeks, check them out Here.

We are taking a Kumon approach to writing letters, for more information take a look at The Kidamerink Method.

Next week, we will be working on the Letter "I," so stay tuned.

We did some workbook work in our Comprehensive Curriculum Book.

My Kidamerink really liked doing the Color by Letter pages.

And, we've done enough letters for him to write his first word (other than his name). He wrote "HAT" all by himself.

We play with Play-Doh a few times a week. We LOVE Play-Doh here!

Not Pictured: We made Big Letter "H's" out of Play-Doh, and had a lot of fun doing that.

If you don't already know, I am a huge Eric Carle Fan. When I came across this "The Very Hungry Caterpillar" unit, I got very excited and decided to use it for our "H" week... Because "H" is for HUNGRY!



I found this printable from 1+1+1=1, and here is the direct link to the Hungry Caterpillar Unit that she does.

I used a few of her ideas. We LOVED the size sequencing. My Kidamerink is getting pretty good at putting things in order, and we did this multiple times this week.

I found a Hungry Caterpillar Story Sequencing printable at DLTK.

My Kidamerink LOVED this, as he knows the story well. He thought he was so smart that he could put it all together and tell me the story.

He did this over, and over, and over, and over, and over... I guess that was a good thing?
Learn through Repetition, right?

He also really enjoyed putting the WHOLE Alphabet in sequence, using the printables from 1+1+1=1.
It was a good review to go through the whole alphabet and we made up a few games. I'd call out a letter, and he would have to find it, etc.

We made our very own "Hungry" Caterpillar.
We just painted an egg crate that we cut out and then glued some eyes in front and poked some holes in the top for antenna's.

My Kidamerink's cute Caterpillar!

We also had some fun with flash cards this week. They were all "H" words. I glued them on popsicle sticks to make them a little more interesting.

I printed this off as part of 1+1+1=1's Letter H unit.

I found these cute Letter Matching Cards at Making Learning Fun.

These were also a great hit. I had a big jar of clothes pins, so I let my Kidamerink have at it. He clipped the Matching Upper Case letters with the clothes pins to match the Lower Case letter printed.

These not only function as a letter review, but teach manual dexterity with the clothes pins.

We worked on cutting with scissors some more. I traced out basic shapes and he cut them out. Then we built a "House."

We spent one afternoon talking about Hands. Then we made a butterfly out of our hands -- sticking to the Hungry Caterpillar Theme.

For our snacks this week, we had fun with our food. My Kidamerink got a kick out of eating this little dude!

We just sliced a banana and stuck it back together with peanut butter. Then added some raisins for eyes and pretzels for antenna's. I let my Kidamerink do the slicing of the banana to learn a life skill with a knife... but don't worry, it was a child's plastic knife and bananas are easy to cut. He thought he was so big when I let him do that!!

We also had our Caterpillar "turn" into a Butterfly that day for lunch! :)

We did some counting with blocks and more letter practice with these "H" worksheets. We also broke out the Eric Carle Flash Cards a few times and read a lot of his books this week.

Here are a few of the "Helps" we used.