Katy No Pocket- Before FIAR

For the last week or so J4 and I have been doing Katy No Pocket as his Before Five in a Row book. He loves this book! He will tell anyone he is doing home preschool. He is very much enjoying his status as an official preschooler. I can't believe he is our last preschooler!

We have the B4 fold n learn for Katy No Pocket. We made them the summer before last with I-7 who was getting ready for Kindergarten at the time. J4 and I decided to fill them with some of our puppets. Click the link if you want to see more of our puppets.

Something for J4's workbox this week

The alphabet mat has been out all week. I almost got away with putting it away last night. Nope...J4 pulled it right back out!

Alphabet Resources- This is a post I did a while ago all about alphabet resources. Enjoy them and stay tuned for more Katy No Pocket this coming week.

Ask Mr. Bear

We started a new Before Five in a Row book this week. Yes, I know. I just had surgery, but I like to shake things up. Our new title is Ask Mr. Bear by Marjorie Flack.

J3 likes to do puzzles so I pulled out this farm animal mama/baby puzzle with only 10 pairs.

Wow! A job well done.

We used the resources at Homeschool Share to put together some notebook pieces. Today we talked about animals and their sounds and J3 practiced some cutting. He also matched the animal with the gift it suggested.

We practiced the letter G sound

Today I pulled out the bigger Whose Baby puzzle and we sat at the kitchen table. Yes. I can sit there and do a puzzle one week out of major surgery. I sit well. Sleeping and lots of walking- not so well.

I'd like to go through the movements of Danny and the animals, but I think that is best carried out by his big brothers and sister this week. That'll be a fun activity for the family.

I have thoroughly enjoyed spending time on the sofa with J3 doing this book. I can't pick him up or put him in my lap for a long, long time yet so getting to cuddle up next to him is a real treat and I know he loves it too.

I Am an Artist

We began another Before FIAR book this week called I Am an Artist. What a great little book and just perfect because J3 loves to look all around him and discover and discuss almost anything he sees. He has a real fondness for the things in nature and is particularly attuned to what kind of day it is outside. I thought he would enjoy this book and he does.

We did a leaf book with different colored and shaped leaves.

Saturday we took a walk to the soccer fields to watch his brothers play and we found all sorts of sugar maple leaves along the way. He also pointed out a few pine cones in different sizes. His favorite outdoor creature is the spruce tree. He calls them funny trees and will show you how they laugh. I'm not so sure about all that, but he can't wait until a few months from now when we have a funny tree in the house.

On tap for this week, we'll be looking at clouds and our fall nature study from FIAR. We will make a leaf collage from our collection on Saturday and I think we'll do a short apple study in honor of autumn and the apple harvest which has begun here in NY state.

Stay tuned for updates as I add them.

The second time I read the Artist book to J3, he asked for this one below. He called it the "other" artist book. We figured out he was asking for God Says I Am. On the first page it says, His hand painted the world with the light that he made. God says, "I am an artist." He remembered it and asked for it- what a connection. Way to go J3!

One of the nature items in the artist book is the cloud. We are artists any time we see faces in the clouds the book reads. So, I thought Charles Shaw's, It Looked Like Spilt Milk would be a fun read to go with our study.

All Around Town

This game was a gift from the grandparents to J3. What a hit and so easy to play!

You have to pick cards and do what they say and try to get to stores.

Once you get to stores, you pick up a card from that category and see what you've bought. Then you put the card on its matching store. When you finished all your errands, you win the game!

There are a few twists and turns in the game like having to give some things away, but in the end it all turns out.

What a great game to go along with My Big Green Pocketbook- a Before FIAR book.

Blueberries for Sal- 2008

Every year we row Blueberries for Sal when the blueberries are ripe for picking here in NY which is the end of July. J3 simply adores this book (as do I) and we read it nightly. I decided to involve all the kids this year by using the lapbook from Hands of a Child. There's a lot of content in there on blueberries, fruits, bears, what animals do for the winter, bear hibernation...among other things. All the kids have been putting together a lapbook. We also did a blueberry graph surveying how many people like various blueberry treats. We asked the FIAR moms and they heartily delivered!

R8 did a fantastic job taking two flats of blueberries and putting them into Ziploc storage for the freezer. Nothing like fresh frozen blueberries to make blueberry yummies with all winter long.

The first night home with our blueberries- bought by the flat from the farm not picked this year. The weather in July was super unpredictable and we find blueberries difficult to gather in large numbers. We made a blueberry cobbler.

E9 recorded our data by tally off of the FIAR website. We had a sample size of 104 people. We posted twice because the kids decided that our original sample size was not big enough to yield reliable results. There was no way muffins were going to beat everything out by a long shot. Not on our watch! We had to gather more data to see if this influenced our results.

R8 works diligently on her bar graph. Of course we are working on correct graph construction. Unlike many of the kids I taught back in the day, my kids will go into sixth grade knowing how to make a proper graph- labels, units, and all!!

I-6's final graph. Note that muffins beat out fresh blueberries by a small margin. Obviously, most participants have not tasted our blueberry pancake recipe!

Through Dawn's blog, I found this blueberry craft

I think the finished product is very nice. I was thinking of stamping on some small tote bags. So cute!

We learned about where bears live around the world (north of the equator) and what kind of plant blueberries grow on. There's something for older and younger kids in this project pack. We plan to add one fact about each bear tomorrow.

This cool mini-book shows a bear species and its range around the world. For some reason the polar page is huge.

We will have a few more things to add to our lapbooks tomorrow before calling it another great year with Blueberries for Sal. This was sort of our warm up to the new school year which begins on Monday at our house. I know...it's only August, but we've been off for 11 weeks already! Time flies and all that... Besides, I think the weather may be turning already. I'll keep you posted.

Camp Little Guys- Day 6

Yesterday was terribly hot and humid. Yuck! Before noon we had a big storm come through so we holed up in the learning area to have some gluing fun. I had mentioned to J3 the night before that we could do some Jesse Bear gluing. He was excited! Day 6 also included a trip to the grocery store, a stop at Barnes and Noble to pick up our very own copy of Night of the Moonjellies, and a stop at Office Depot for .01 folders.

The start of the Jesse Bear Lapbook- these items are from Homeschool Share. He did a good job coloring Jesse Bear's shirt and pants and cooperating on the correct colors!

The front page

He made a B book and we talked about all the things pictured that begin with B. When he showed Dan he told him all the words below while he pointed to each picture. Nicely done J3! See the green pants? He cut those himself and told me they were Jesse Bear's pants. Conveniently, they are made from a post it note.

Inside the two books- this time when he colored he was all about the orange

We took out the birthday box of fun and he had a grand time

J3 also requested frogs and the balance

I-6 wanted to make a Batman lapbook

Camp Little Guys- Day 5

I took the little boys to a local park on the lake to spend some time there before we picked up Dan from the airport. It was blazing hot here on Wednesday!!

We've been reading Jesse Bear books for a while now every day and one of J3's favorite Jesse Bear books is Better Not Get Wet, Jesse Bear. J3 loves to play with the hose and get wet. This book is perfect for him. Here he and I-6 practice a "pebble throw" just like Jesse's.

Check out this pebble stash- how can you not spend time skipping stones when you come to this place?! When is the last time you skipped a rock? Get out there with the kids and DO it!!

Caps for Sale

Today we spent some time with those rascally monkeys in Caps for Sale. J3 loves to use glue.

Let's put on the cover!

Our 3yo cutting expert!

Lapbook in progress- we matched hats this morning and talked about who would wear each one. The chef hat he said Pasketti wears it- as in Chef Pasketti from Curious George (he's a chef!). There's also a mixing flip book to have fun with.

Color matching barrel of monkeys

J3 and I played a game where I say, "Monkey monkey in a tree throw the ______ cap down to me!" He really liked this. I had him stand on our climbing structure to pretend he was in tree. He had to throw the colors I named down to me. He sure does know his colors!!

J2 and I have spent a little time with Caps for Sale over the last week or so. We are going to do bunches of work with monkeys. A new puppet will appear and we started his first lapbook. I think he'll enjoy sitting with it again and looking at all the fun things inside.

E9 took this kinda blurry picture of me reading to I-5 and J2

J2 tries to trace an M. He loves to do "school" like everyone else. I'm going to encourage him to color the monkeys this week.

Stay tuned for more Caps for Sale. J2 (who will be three in a couple of weeks) works in spurts. Right now he is in a playdough phase. He and I have spent a lot of time with dough lately!

The Runaway Bunny- Bb Book

Tada! I made a Bb page!

He was pretty pleased with himself and wanted more and more! We started the Kk page too. I've had this as long as the rest of The Runaway Bunny stuff, but let's be real. He's two. I've offered on other occasions and was rebuffed. Today he jumped at the chance so we went with it.

More gluing- these are from the Kumon books for 2 and up on cutting and pasting...he did a whole pile