My Memories Suite Review & Giveaway

I am happy to share with you a giveaway over at my other blog, Grandma Bonnie's Closet. This is a giveaway for digital scrapbooking software. I really want to let you know that this is not just scrapbooking software it is much more. For homeschooling families it can be used to make educational materials. The software is easy and fun to use. Here is a sample of what I have been making for my grandchildren. 

A sample of  a vocabulary matching game card for our nature unit.

Sample phonics matching game card.

Alphabet and Numbers flash cards

Sample work sheet

If you would like to enter this giveaway stop over to Grandma Bonnie's Closet. Any followers of Grandma Bonnie's Wee Classroom have an extra entry. 

Wordless Wednesday

Pooh Bear

Preschool Lesson: Learning About Plants

This week we are learning about plants. We will discuss trees, flowers, grass and seeds.

1. For our first lesson we will look at book about plants. We will talk about the plants we can eat and the plants that we don't eat. We are going to discuss where different fruits and vegetables come from. ( Such as apples grow on trees,  potatoes and carrots grow under the soil, and berries grow on bushes.

2. Next we are going to look at different seeds. We will cut open fruits and vegetables to collect seeds.
We will glue the seeds on a coloring page under the plant they came from.

3. After Our seed lesson we will grow some bean seeds in a jar and watch the seed grow. We will identify the roots, stem and leaves.

4. For our art this week we will make some interesting plant crafts.

5. Last we hope to harvest some grapes and visit a pumpkin farm.

Wrapping Up Animals Week

For our craft project we decided to make a caterpillar from an egg carton. 

Some of the books we have read this week.

Pooh Bear played with his animal farm and identified the animals.

He also played with his jungle animal and sea animals window clings. He learned how to sort the land animals from the water animals.

Over all we had a great learning week. 

Our Farm Trip

Over the weekend we visited a Petting Farm! The farm had lots of animals for children of all ages to interact with. Pooh Bear loves touching and petting animals. Pooh Bear even got to enjoy a pony ride. This outing went well with animal week.

Animal Fun

For our first animal lesson we sorted our toy animal figures into groups of small and large. While sorting we named our animal figures and practiced the sounds the animals make.   Later on in the day we played with our animal magnet set and talked about what color the animals were. This evening we are reading a new book about penguins.

This is a simple lesson that can be expanded for older preschoolers. We can also separate the animals into groups of zoo/jungle animals and farm animals. Since Pooh Bear is not two years old yet I felt we should slowly introduce the idea of other ways to classify animals. We will work on more classification later this week.

Preschool Lesson: Learning Animal Names

This week we will continue learning to identify colors.We will also be learing to identify animal names and sounds that they make. Pooh Bear already can name several animals and identify the animal with the sounds they make. I will add a few animals that he has not already learned and hopefully find some fun games to make this lesson enjoyable.

1. Refrigerator animal magnets. We purchased animal magnets from Melissa Doug.  Each time we are making a meal we ask Pooh Bear to show me the (animal name). Pooh Bear moves the animals as he identifies  each animal. We also ask what sound does the (animal name) make? As we move along we will add more animals to the set. 

2. I am looking for some fun animal crafts to work on this week.

3. We will be reading our animal books and playing with some toy farm animal figures.

4.We will use coloring pages from: http://www.first-school.ws/theme/animals/cp_farm.htm

5. We have planed a fun surprise outing to a animal petting farm.

6. We are adding the colors: green, violet, and orange to or color games from last week.

Our Color Fishing Game

This is how we made our game.  We cut out colored fish from construction paper and put a paper clip on the fish.The we taped  ribbon  to a craft stick. Then we taped a magnet to the end of the string. Now you are ready to go fishing.  This game requires supervision of small children. The string(ribbon), magnets, or paper clip may be a chocking hazard for small children.

Classroom Supplies Giveaway

I am having a great giveaway over at Grandma Bonnie's Closet!

If you would like a chance to win some nice school supplies stop over and enter!

Arts and Craft: Color Puzzle

To go with our theme of learning colors this week I decided to make a color puzzle. We had fun making our puzzle. Pooh Bear had a lot of fun painting the puzzle pieces.

First we needed some cardboard. This coke carton was just the right size.

Cut out a frame and keep the cut out circles for the puzzle pieces.

Then cut out matching white paper to glue to the front of the cardboard.

After gluing the paper to the frame and puzzle pieces,  paint the frame. I used brown paint.

For the backing cut the other side of the coke box to the same size and glue white paper to the front of the backing. 

Next  paint 3 circles( the size of the puzzle pieces) on the backing making sure to line up the circles with the frame before painting.

Next glue the frame over the backing.

Then this part mommy and daddy helped Pooh Bear paint the puzzle pieces.

We pointed out each color as Pooh Bear was painting.

The  next step was to paint several layers of Mod Podge over the frame, backing and puzzle pieces. 

Then we applied colorful duct tape around the boarder of the puzzle frame.

Now we are ready to play.

Next time we will try to make a shape puzzle!

I hope every one enjoys!

Fun Toddler Painting

We are learning how to paint with a brush today. We are also learning the colors red, yellow and blue. My original plan was to introduce finger painting but Pooh bear did not want to put his hands in the paint today. We will try again later on this week.

Preschool Lesson: Learning Color Names

Pooh Bear is going to be working on naming colors this week. Usually parents teach their child colors by pointing to an object and asking, What color is this? This is an easy way to teach colors and I am all for this method. It works well while out on a walk or when we are shopping. I have decided we need to add some fun to the mix and create some color games.  Here are a few of the games we will be playing.

1. Finger painting! This might be a little messy but, it is sure to be fun, fun, fun! While painting we will point out the colors and maybe even mix a few to see what happens. When starting out we plan to stick with three colors and then add new colors as the week progresses.

2. Color fishing game.  Cut out colored fish from construction paper and put a paper clip on the fish. Tie a string to a Popsicle stick or  a craft stick. Then tie or tape a magnet to the end of the string. Now you are ready to go fishing. I am going to ask the colors as Pooh Bear catches the fish and then have him sort them by color once he is done fishing.

3, Sorting colored blocks in to baskets.

4. Color matching game. Cut out two rectangles of each color from construction paper. Lay them out mixed well and ask the child to match the colors. Once Pooh Bear understands the concept I will add backing to the cards and flip them over color face down and he can learn the rules of  a regular matching card game.

We will be working on the primary colors red, yellow and blue this week. As we progress on we will add more colors into the mix. I hope to find a few more fun color activities along the way.  I also plan to use some coloring pages from First-School Preschool/Colors in Preschool.

My Teaching Goals

I have many plans for teaching my grandchildren.  Here you will find a partial  list of the many hopes and wishes for my lovely grandchildren's education.
What I hope to instill in my students: devotion, faith, forgiveness, compassion, understanding, respect, kindness, responsibility, strength, happiness, love, morals, patience,  sharing, and self esteem. (not in any specific order)
I hope to teach in this first year: comprehension, identification, sorting, counting, phonetics, rhythm, reading, and science concepts.
We will learn through,: books, games, instruction, hands on activities, practice and field trips.
I look forward to learning right along with my grandchildren. I will be sharing  lesson plans, our fun filled days, and any other learning experience we have along the way.