Learning Through Love-4K Fun {Halloween Style}

We had soooooo much fun this week with our preschool studies! We centered our week around the theme of Halloween, what else:-). We read lots of Halloween books—some old ones and some new I’d saved just for this week—we made more Halloween crafts, played games and had a “party”complete with a candy corn relay. You’ll read about that next week.

I had Joe pick back up with his Code lessons. He studied the letter “Yy”. He sewed with yarn and plastic canvas, and made a letter “Yy” picture.

This week Joe surprised me so much! After seeing a fun drawing activity of my friend Christy’s *here*, I decided to have Joe do the same thing—make a picture by tracing our Halloween cookie cutters. He did this and then he wrote the names of each thing beside his drawing. I was shocked—he actually wrote some of the words correctly, or had some of the correct letters in them.

Then, he surprised me further into the week when working in one of his workbooks. He was able to match a picture to it’s correct word without ANY help or prompting from me, and quickly too!

One more surprise in this area….Virginia suggested Boggle Jr. as a way to help with pre-reading skills. I ordered it and it came. We played it for the first time a few days ago. Joe was able to spell 4 words by himself without looking at the card, or any help from myself or Hanna. I can’t believe all of the progress he’s shown this week! I am so proud of him!

OK, what else did we do, well, we read the BOOKS:

• Room On the Broom
• There Was An Old Witch
• Halloween Hats
• Halloween Pie
• Tuck’s Haunted House

Joe enjoyed ALL of these books immensely! We continued reading many other Halloween books we’ve been enjoying all month. You can see all of these in my Shelfari in my sidebar.

Math

We used a couple of our Kumon workbooks for writing practice, dot-to-dots and color by number. Joe also used his homemade geoboard.

From IBB I got the idea of using Halloween stickers for a patterning exercise, as well as the pictured grid below. Joe had fun making patterns I assigned, and some of his own with the stickers.

I pulled out our lacing tree. Joe always enjoys this.

Arts/Crafts

Joe made a Halloween scene from foam stickers, after first sorting them into piles and counting each pile to see which was the biggest.

After reading Room On the Broom, from IBB I printed this witch’s cauldron and had Joe draw contents he’d like in his own witch’s brew. He made up a story to go along with his ingredients complete with a spell.

Science

This week’s science bin was simple but so fun! It was nothing more than an I SPY Halloween sensory bin that contained a mixture of spiders, skeletons, body parts, cockroaches and eyeballs. Joe had fun tonging and sorting all of the different spooky things in his bin. He loved it! (We got this idea from IBB.)

We read the book Nuts To You, by Lois Ehlert (see my Shelfari). This is a book about squirrels. What I love about Ehlert’s books is at the end of most of them there is a ton of factual info that can be used for schooling. I used the info at the end of this book about squirrel’s in our science studies this week. Joe made this squirrel picture. I got the template and idea from Kids’ Soup.

OK, you’ve seen what we did this week. We had so much fun with our Halloween theme. Now, I hope you’ll share what you did as well, by linking up below! For rules to link up, please read *here* first.

Pumpkin Painting

This week’s theme for Open Ended Art is pumpkins. Hanna has painted a pumpkin since she was two years old. Mostly at school. Well, Joe and Jack never have, but….I decided since this is a sort of “rite of passage” for school aged children, we will make this a traditional Halloween school activity in our home. All three kids participated this week.

This was Jack’s first experience painting with a paint brush. He had more fun mixing the colors on the plate than doing the actual painting. It was cute to watch. He didn’t last too long, but he did great for his first time and considering his age. He painted for about 4 minutes and then turned to me and said, “All done”. Here is his pumpkin.

Joe started out painting a face on his pumpkin and giving it “pink” cheeks. When he discovered he could make gray paint by mixing some of the colors together his face was quickly painted over and his pumpkin became a color mixing experiment. His pumpkin is, ummmm, interesting:-).

Hanna stuck with the traditional Jack-o-Lantern faces on hers with the addition of the words “Boo” and “Happy Halloween”.

I enjoyed watching the kids take their pumpkin painting in different directions, and all of them had fun with this.

To see what others did with their pumpkins this week visit Shannon at Mommies Wise Little Bookworms.

Learning Through Love-4K Fun {All About Cats}

First, what is Learning Through Love? Click *here* to find out. Hopefully, you'll decide to join in!

This week in our 4K Fun, Joe learned all about Cats. We read books about cats, talked about the body of a cat, and searched for hidden mice while pretending to be cats. Once again the bulk of all that we did was taken from Itty Bitty Bookworm-Bo's Year Two.

Joe reviewed the letters "Cc" and "Mm". He used his Abeka ABC 123 workbook and the chalkboard for letter writing practice. We continued on with daily Language Lessons from Queen's Homeschool.

I introduced Joe to some consonant-vowel-consonant cards. These were suggested to me by Virginia, and they were a hit. Thanks, Virginia! These are matching cards with color pictures on them, and one letter at the bottom of each card. You put three together to make a complete picture and word. Joe really enjoyed playing this "game", as he called it. I highly recommend these to children learning how to blend and read.

Books-We read the following books this week to go along with our theme of cats (for a complete list of all that we are reading right now, see my Shelfari in my sidebar):

• Cookie's Week
• Kitten's First Full Moon
• Mama Cat's Kittens
• Calico's Curious Kittens
• Feather's For Lunch

Cookie's Week is a great book to use when teaching your children the days of the week and/or cause and effect. Cookie's Week and Feathers For Lunch were Joe's favorites from this weeks reads.

Math-Joe counted mice using a counting mat from Itty Bitty Bookworm, and small rubber mice I got from Dollar Tree. He LOVED this activity!! I also used these mice for tangible addition. For writing practice and number fun we used several of our Kumon workbooks. Joe has finally mastered the days of the week. We will continue doing weekly Calendar Math to work on the order of the months, and what makes up a month.

Arts/Crafts-Joe drew a picture of our cat, Baby O. He has been into drawing with crayons and writing with pencils the last few weeks. We've been going through lots of paper:-).

From IBB, I printed out a color photo of a mouse, and then had Joe paint a picture of this same mouse while looking at it.

Joe also created a mummy and ghost prints for some Halloween crafts. I will be posting those next week.

Science-This week our Science bin contained gourds (from Grandpa's neighbor's garden), cotton from Grandpa's garden, and a sensory bin full of beans and hidden mice.

We talked about gourds--what they can be used for, what their purpose is, and how they relate to fall. We discussed the changes that occur in the weather and in our neighborhood, home and surroundings telling us that fall is coming.

Joe had a blast "tonging" the mice out of this bean bin!

Joe also worked on a science experiment with Hanna. You'll be able to read about that next week in Hanna's post.

That wraps up our 4K fun. What did you do in your learning fun this week? I'd love to know. Feel free to link up below! All ages and all learning activities/projects are welcome.

Open Ended Art-Black and White

This week's theme for Open Ended Art is black and white. Hanna was all geared up to make her salt dough witch's hat, so she did not participate this week. However, Joe did....

I simply asked Joe what did he want to make that was black and white? His answer--a mummy. He told me he needed black paper, white paper, googly eyes, scissors and glue. I'm not sure why he wanted the scissors, because he tore his paper instead of cutting:-)--unusual for him. I got everything out and he made it.

Here is his finished mummy:

To see what others created this week for Open Ended Art head over to Mommies Wise Little Bookworms.

Learning Through Love-Playtime!

First, what is Learning Through Love? Click *here* to find out. Hope you decide to join in!

This week in our Learning Through Love Playtime, Jack had lots of fun at the school table with big brother. I also realized that I once again took most of my pics while Jack was wearing his "famous" pair of pj's, oh well:-).

Jack enjoyed using a spoon to put pom poms into an egg carton:

He enjoyed nesting cubes:

He loved searching for toy mice in this bean sensory bin (read more about this bin and our mice in Joe's post tomorrow):

He got a haircut from Nana:

And my personal favorite, he had fun playing with, and snuggling his little brother:

Lots of play, and some learning too!

What did you do this week with your child to learn and have fun? Feel free to link it up below. There will be more chances to link up tomorrow through my 4K post, and this same linky will remain open until next week. Remember, you don't have to link any specific age to Learning Through Love. All ages, and all learning activities and projects are welcome:-)!

Learning Through Love

From now on I will be posting my weekly wrap-ups for each of my children titled Learning Through Love. There will also be a linky at the end of each of these posts so you can have the opportunity to link up as well. You are not required to link up weekly wrap-up posts only.

Here are the requirements for linking up:

• Posts may be about any teaching and/or learning experiences you've had with your children throughout the week.
• You may post any projects, experiments and/or educational activities you have participated in with your child.
• Older posts are welcome.
• You do not have to exclusively homeschool to link up.
• You may link your learning post to me and another carnival. I have no problem with this as long as you include a link back here as well!
  

I have made a button for this linky. Do not feel obligated to use it, but it would make me happy to see it:-). It's in my sidebar. However, do link back to me if you link your post to Learning Through Love.

Since I am choosing to use this mainly for my weekly wrap-ups, Learning Through Love will most likely be published Friday-Sunday of each week. The linky will be open one week from the time of each post. However, feel free to link up anytime you see a Learning Through Love titled post!

Tot School Week 13

I've really had a breakthrough with Jack's Tot School this week. This has been an awesome week of learning fun for Jack. The past few weeks have been difficult having Jack only nap once a day now. This means Jack is up and running around during his older brother's school time. Well, this week I decided to sit Jack at our school table across from big brother, put out some activities for him, and see what happened. Here were the results, and no, Jack did not do all of these things in one day, actually two, but he did wear the same pj's for more than one night:-) and just happens to have them on in all of this week's pics:-):

This was a huge success! I hope to have many more weeks just as this week. Jack loved working at the table with Joe. It was heartwarming watching them work together. One of the rewards I enjoy from having children, and being blessed enough to be able to homeschool them.

Jack did other things as well this week, like puzzles:

Play Doh:

Pasta I Spy/sensory bin, this was a big hit! (This idea came from The Rogers Family Blog.):

Drawing on the chalkboard:

Jack also found a baby doll at home and decided to care for this doll just as he sees me care for Jesse. Taking care of this doll was completely initiated by Jack, and it has been so sweet and entertaining to watch him with his "Jesse" (this is what Jack calls his doll) throughout the week. I tried really hard to get a picture of Jack burping him--my favorite to watch--but never did have the camera nearby at the right moment.

To see what others are doing this week in Tot School, head over to 1+1+1=1.