Homeschool–“Caps for Sale”

- Abigail is 2.5 years old –


- Adam is 4.75 years old -

This week for Preschool and Tot School, we read the book Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina and did activities from Before Five in a Row, Homeschool Share, and Homeschool Creations.  Caps for Sale has long been a favorite in our house and also goes back to when I was a little girl!

Abby matched different hats.

Stacked caps on a monkey in the order the Peddler stacked his caps in the story.

She also worked on a counting/number puzzle and a pattern file folder game…..although patterning is apparently over her head.
 

Adam’s individual activities included playing with a matching book.  He was supposed to flip the pictures to match up the hat, face, and body of a person, i.e. policeman, cook, farmer, etc.  It didn’t go over very well and he got bored really quickly.

Coin Counting
He counted the number of pennies on the sheet, and used a real penny to mark the correct number.

Word Families
He sorted words into groups of –ap and –at endings.  He surprised me by being able to easily read each word, with minimal sounding out!  He could look at the first letter, the ending blend and put them together fairly quickly.  It is beyond fun to see him learning to read!

He also did a few pages of his math and handwriting curriculums, as well as reading lessons.  I love this picture of him concentrating hard, with his tongue sticking out, as he drew in his handwriting workbook.

We did lots of activities together this week too!  The favorite was playing “Monkey, Monkey, Sittin’ in a Tree”.  They took turns being the monkey and we would call up to them, “Monkey, monkey, sittin’ in a tree.  Throw the _______ cap down to me!”  And the monkey would throw that colored cap down.  Adam also loved this game when he was about Abby’s age.

They even kept playing while I left to make lunch!  On a side note, I learned that Abby can identify the colors red, yellow, orange, green, blue, purple, pink, and black.  She also said “black” for brown and grey.

Pre-writing practice pages

“5 Little Monkeys” stick puppets

Coin Graphing
We rolled a die with pictures of a penny, nickel, dime, quarter, silver dollar, and gold dollar on it and then graphed which coin was rolled each time.  (I say we did this together…..most of the time, Abby is just along for the ride!)

Another favorite was playing a game called “Caps for Sale!!”.  I wrote different prices, from 1-5 cents on the back of each cap and we took turns picking a cap off the tree and paying for it.  It was a good introduction into the value of money and making change for Adam.  My kids love anything to do with money!

Measurement
They also both really enjoyed using a ruler to measure stacks of caps.  Adam decided that instead of trying to copy the numeral, he would make tally marks.

Which then Abby had to do also.

Playing the Peddler!
How fun to stack a bunch of hats on your head and try to walk around!!

I couldn’t resist pulling out this picture.  This is Adam in June of 2010 at 2.5 years old.  Look at my cute baby!

Our art project this week was a 5 step process!
First the kids painted an outline of a tree brown.  When they were dry, I cut them out and glued them to white cardstock.

Then they used green paint to paint leaves.

When that was dry, they made monkeys using their finger prints and brown paint.

Finally, I used a colored pencil and pen to add details and attempt to make the monkeys look less like mice!
The finished product……Monkeys in a Tree

Adam narrated Caps for Sale and wanted to write his last name for the first time.  He’s never written a G, R, N, or E before!

What happened in the story?

“So, the first thing I know, is that he sat down for a nap and monkeys came and took his caps.  But they left out his own checked cap.  And then he feeled to see if his caps were in the right place.  All he could feel was his own checked cap!
First, he looked to the right of him.  Then he looked to the left of him.  He looked behind the tree – no caps!  Then he looked up in the tree, and what do you think he saw?  Monkeys!  And on every monkey sat a grey, or a brown, or a blue, or a red cap!
He stamped his feet – ‘You monkeys you!  You give me back my caps!’  But then the monkeys only stamped their feet and said, ‘A-tsz tsz tsz tsz tsz’.  Then he stamped both his feet and said, ‘You monkeys you!  You better give me back my caps!’  But they stamped both their feet and said, ‘A-tsz tsz tsz tsz tsz tsz tsz’.  He took off his own checked cap, threw in on the ground, and began to walk away.  But then, the monkeys took of their caps, and all the grey caps, and all the brown caps, and all the blue caps, and all the red caps, came flying down out of the tree.”

My favorite part of the book was…

“My favorite part of the book was when he stamped both his feet and said, ‘You monkeys you!  You better give me back my caps!’”

As you can see, we’ve read this book a lot so he knows a lot of it by heart!  I find it funny how he completely left out the peddler calling, “Caps!  Caps for sale!  Fifty cents a cap!”

I’m linking up to Tot School and Preschool Corner.

Baby Giggles (Caleb at 4 Months)

It’s hard to believe that our baby boy is already 4 months old!  Why can’t pregnancy go by as fast as post baby??

Caleb is an awesome baby.  Much like Adam, he’s pretty happy and chill most of the time.  He definitely lets you know when he’s hungry, tired, or poopy, but that’s about the extent of his issues!

At 4 months old, Caleb’s stats are:

Weight: 14 lbs. 2 oz. (45th percentile)
Height: 25 inches (50th percentile)

This baby gained FOUR pounds in 2 months!  He’s our chunkiest baby so far!  Adam and Abby were always around 50th percentile for height, but 25th percentile for weight.

I learned something interesting today.  Caleb has a spot on his head that I assumed was either cradle cap or eczema of some kind.  Despite cradle cap treatment, light scrubbing, and lots of lotion, it never went away.  Today the pediatrician told me it was a Nevus Sebaceous birthmark and that in the past, it was thought to have a low risk of developing into cancer in adulthood, but now the risk is virtually zero.  Still, I “googled” it and despite some really nasty pictures, it does seem harmless.  It will never grow hair so we’ll have to see how his hair hides it in the future.  The one thing I am concerned about is that a lot of reports say that during puberty, it can go from being virtually flat, to getting bigger, bumpy, and wart-like.  Um….that has me a wee bit worried!  Especially since he’s a boy and won’t have a ton of hair to hide it.  Anyone have experience with this?

On to happier and cuter things……..

He has really only giggled twice.  The very first time was for my mom while she was babysitting!  The second time was when Adam and Abby decided to put his vibrating elephant on his belly!  I was in the kitchen and started hearing giggles.  When I came over I discovered their brilliant idea and grabbed the camera!  Sadly, we haven’t been able to get these kinds of belly laughs since.

 

And of course, he continues to be absolutely adored by his Big Brother and Big Sissy.  The more he interacts with, talks to, and giggles at them, the more they love him!

Homeschool–“Blueberries for Sal”

-Abigail is 2.5 years old-

- Adam is 4.75 years old -

We survived our first week of home preschool and tot school!  It went pretty much as expected….lots of juggling and plate-spinning for me.  But we had fun and the kids absolutely loved it!  They asked, and asked, and asked, every morning when we would start school.  And if the baby needed to be fed or I just wasn’t ready at the time I had told them we would start, woo-wee…I heard about it!

Our theme this week was the book Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey.  Using the resources from Before Five in a Row, Homeschool Share, and Homeschool Creations, we did a bunch of fun little activities.  We also read McCloskey’s Make Way for Ducklings which I love!  I pointed out that the illustrations in “Blueberries” are done with blue ink and the ones in “Ducklings” are done with brown.  I don’t think Adam cared.  But I thought it was interesting!

Abby counted blueberries on a “math mat”.

And Adam did some addition on his “math mat”.

Pre-writing practice tracing lines.

I quizzed Abby on her uppercase letters and she correctly identified the lower group and missed F, K, I, U, W, V, and M.
(Notice my mistake?  There are 27 letters there!  It took me so long starting at this picture to figure out that I somehow got a lowercase y in there!)

Adam working on a puzzle.
This was a little tricky for him.  The picture had thin lines in a grid pattern, so we carefully looked at each square, talked about what we saw, (half white, half black or a lot of green, and a little black, etc.) and then found the matching piece to add to the puzzle.

Making a “directional word” book.
Each page read, “Little Bear is _____ the ______ and they glued Little Bear in the appropriate place.  Well, Adam did.  Abby glued wherever she wanted to!

Adam “reading” me his book!

 

 

Rhyming Word Match

Blue Ink Drawings
Robert McCloskey illustrated Blueberries for Sal using just blue ink so the kids drew pictures with a blue pen.
Adam drew a “fixing machine” with blueberries, a tic-tac-toe board in the left corner and a “twisty part of the machine” called “The Toyota” on the right.  Abby drew a crocodile.

Painting Blueberries
We used pom-poms and blue and purple paint to make blueberry prints.

 

One thing I’m really excited about doing is narration.  I’m hoping to have Adam narrate 1 book a week to me.  His narration of Blueberries for Sal is as follows:

What happened in the story?

“Well, before the end of the story, they got all messed up.
Sal’s mother and Little Sal were picking blueberries.
Bears came and ate some that Little Sal and her mother were gonna pick.
They were picking blueberries and Sal accidentally picked blueberries out her mother’s pail.”

 

(I asked) What happened when they got mixed up?

“They looked behind them and saw that it was not their child.
Sal’s mother was picking blueberries all the way to the car.”

 

My most favorite part of the book was:

“My most favorite part when they were going to the car and picking blueberries for the winter.”

Blueberries sounding “kuplink, kuplank, kuplunk” just like in the story!

I had the great idea to toss some blueberries out in the grass and have the kids “pick” them.  As soon as we got outside, there were huge claps of thunder which sent the kids screaming for cover!  This picture cracks me up.  I’m standing outside, holding a pail in my hand, while my kids are screaming at me from the doorway to come inside so the thunder doesn’t get me.  Mind you, it wasn’t even raining!

So I sat in the grass and picked blueberries by myself.

A fun project we did was making homemade, berry-scented play  dough!  I used a Kool-Aid packet to color and lightly scent the dough.

Rolling balls into “blueberries”


The pail of “blueberries”complete with star and seahorse “cookies”!

We also made Lemon Blueberry Breakfast cake but I forgot to take pictures.  They love helping me in the kitchen and I’m working on embracing the “help” and enjoying the slower, messier process of cooking with kids!

In addition to our theme, Adam started his math and handwriting curriculums and continued with his reading lessons.  (I only took pictures of math).

Here is he working in his math workbook.  This week he used the one’s blocks to count and cross out the incorrect number and trace the correct one.
 

He also counted pictures and circled the correct number on the number line.  This is a breeze for him, but that’s exactly what I want right now.  I don’t want to force my 4 year old to do math that frustrates him!  There will be plenty of time for that in life!

Here’s a picture of the kids playing with the Math-U-See blocks for the first time.

It was a good first week of homeschool!  I’m linking up to Tot School and Preschool Corner.