Letters of the week X,Y and Z

X marks the spot where the treasure is.I don't mean Gold and Silver but spiritual. In the scripture Mathew 6:20 it talks about laying up for yourselves treasures in heaven. There is a story of a girl named Christina who lived in Denmark. She saved coins that her Father shared with her from taking their sheep to have their wool sheered off.She didn't know why she was saving them until she met missionaries and traveled to America. She had just enough to join the Saints going to Salt Lake City.

Nursery Rhyme: The Zoo
At does do we saw a bear,he had long dark fuzzy hair.We saw a lion cage he was in an awful rage.We saw the big long necked giraffe,and the silly monkeys made us laugh.But my favorite animal is the elephant- how about you?

We did a little puppet show with finger puppets and made the animal sounds. The kids had fun doing that for the baby.

Letter of the week:Letter X
The kids hid treasures. My oldest even cut out and made coins.He also named the rooms like the jungle of death and skull island.The maps were simple with lines showing where to go and and X where the treasure was.

For my 2nd grader:
I found some down loadable summer packets.I took some of the sentences and changed some.Then my 8 year old would fix the sentences, whether it needed to be a capital, misspelled word or punctuation.Then I wrote up a word problem where he had to figure out how much it cost for 2 adults to go to the Zoo.The decimal point through him off.Both of my oldest wrote about their favorite activity for the week.

For my Kindergartner:
We worked on counting by 2's.She wrote her X.We practiced b and d since she keeps getting them confused. We did some addition practice as well.

For my Tot he practiced drawing diagonal lines and we read books.

Speaking of books we are reading a lot our book worm is getting long.We put a tally mark on one's previously read so we can find out our favorite!

We are counting down to Friday when we go to the Zoo.

For bedtime we had the kids get into their pj's and we made cookies and had them with milk.If you give your kid's milk and cookies they ate going to want to read If you give a Mouse a Cookie.

Letter of the week W and Zoo much fun!

First we started out with the story of Noah's Ark.We talked about the flood and how he brought the animals on the arc 2 by 2.We also talked about how he had to build it himself instead of the Lord just making an arc of here in our lives we have tests and trials and things that are hard.He can't make it easy for us otherwise we wouldn't learn.

We also talked about the letter of the week W.What starts with W:
wow ,what, warthog ,wet ,water and wound. I had my Kinder practice writing the letter W and the sound.

For the baby we are doing the nursery rhyme,What are little boys made of?
 Frogs and snails and puppy dog tails that's what little boys are made of.We read the book Touch and feel on the farm and talked about animal's sounds and how a frog is bumpy and a dog is soft.Here are pictures from the book some other baby stuff I had.

Theme:Zoo

We watched the Zoo song

We read a book The Underpants Zoo.What animals are in the zoo? I had the kids right down animals from A to Z to see how many they could think of.I had my Kindergartner sound out the words and then I corrected her later.It's good way to practice writing her letters and for me to know what she needs to practice with.

She got bored with the activity, but my 8 year old love to find the animals especially when we got to the hard ones like q,x and y.For my toddler we had him draw the animals and talk about the letters they started with.

Getting back to nature:What is inside a dandelion?The kids asked
There is white milk inside that is smelly and tastes bitter.They made soup out of water and weeds and grass.

We watched a Time lapse of dandelion.The kids thought this was pretty cool.They were surprised that it could be used as medicine.

We also played some sponge tag.You get the sponge wet and toss!Followed by a light saber fight on the trampoline.Another use for pool noodles!

Letter of the week V-6 ways for kids to make a video and Volcano

V is for Volcano.This week we did some volcano fun.
Our first experiment we took a tray, some baking soda,food coloring and vinegar.
I put the food coloring on the baking soda and the kids used droppers for some colorful fizzy fun.It is a variation on what was done here

The second time I did one color at a time so it wouldn't turn a dark color,but there would be more pretty color mixing.

Our next experiment I threw all good table manners out the window.You take milk,red food coloring and a straw.Then let the kids blow bubbles.

We listened to the volcano song.It is really cute.It has good vocabulary words for the older kids:

Volcanoes

Eruption

Lava

Magma 

Equilibrium

We also did V for Videos.The kids chose to do a 1.puppet show behind a white sheet.You could do anything though.A few more ideas would be to 2.have them teach something,3.do a cooking show,4.dance or 5.music video or 6.just be silly!

My kids like most have a hard time with controlling their tempers.They are like little volcanoes.When they get upset they over react at times and erupt with a display more terrifying than the volcano videos we watch.We talked about controlling ourselves and ways to calm down.

While I was folding laundry we pretended to be volcanoes and erupt!

Letter of the week U

We started our morning off with the pledge of allegiance. My 8 and 6 year old know it but not

my Tot.We talked about what it meant to be Under God.U for under.U for united. I opened an umbrella, which I know you are not supposed to do in the house,but I had the kids sit under it.We imagined it was God's love and it is always there!

U for umbrella
We practiced up,under,next to,behind and in front.The kids moved the flag to the  corresponding place.

We colored on paper under the table.

They ate snacks under the table too!

The baby got to be under the umbrella. We hung toys and a mirror for him to play with.At almost four months he loves to bat at things and kick.Mirrors are also something that fascinate babies.We are still doing tummy time songs and books.
Our Nursery Rhyme this week :
Rain Rain go away
Come again some other day
Little baby wants to play

We talked about underground animals like earthworm, badger, gophers and snakes. My Kinder asked what worms ate so we finished with that and lunch under the umbrella. Boy I am going to have a lot of bad luck!!!

We are doing letters U and V together.We have been fighting a bad cold so hopefully tomorrow will be the letter V with a video and some volcano fun! 3 more days and school is out! We will keep playing and learning with our Summer of Success.I should have the first weeks plan up Friday but it is a busy weekend so it might be Monday.

Review letters K-T

Faith is like a little seed.....                                      
We talked about faith and hope as we read Hebrews11:1.Afterwards we did the activity,or you could say it's a finger play,found here

This week is review week for us.We are going over K-T.We start this off by walking on letters with music.When the music stops they say what letter they are on and the sound.My 2 year old recognized a few!My Kindergartner practiced writing her letters.

We focused on letter K-M.As we read books they tried to find those letters.We read blue train,green train and Fire Truck by Peter Sis.These books were the favorite from our Transportation theme last week.We actually read for over an hour.

We noticed a lot of words ending in ck:

Here is what we foundTruck,clickety-clack,track,back, sack,stack,thick,and trick.

Letter T-Transporttion and Wright Bros Patent of the airplane

Today we celebrated the Wright Brothers patent of the airplane.So we went to Hill Air force Museum and had a blast! We even made and flew paper airplanes.Who can go the farthest?

The kids got to do a lot of hands-on activities.Here they are flying a plane with a joy stick .The plane was suspended in the air and fans were blowing on it.They could steer it.On the wing is the alleron Controls the roll.The flaps increase lift or the drag.

They had a block area to play in.Here the kids are building a runway for the airplane.

They even got to be pilots and sit in a cockpit.

Endangered Species day and the letter T

Scripture D&C 3:2
“For God doth not walk in crooked paths, neither doth he turn to the right hand nor to the left, neither doth he vary from that which he hath said, therefore his paths are straight, and his course is one eternal round.”

I found a talk by The straight and Narrow Way by Joseph B Wirthlin where he starts out with a story he says:
While traveling along a mountainous road one evening through a driving rainstorm punctuated with frequent claps of thunder and flashes of lightning, Sister Wirthlin and I could barely see the road, either in front of us or to the right and the left. I watched the white lines on that road more intently than ever before. Staying within the lines kept us from going onto the shoulder and into the deep canyon on one side and helped us avoid a head-on collision on the other. To wander over either line could have been very dangerous. Then I thought, “Would a right-thinking person deviate to the left or the right of a traffic lane if he knew the result would be fatal? If he valued his mortal life, certainly he would stay between these lines.”

That experience traveling on this mountain road is so like life. If we stay within the lines that God has marked, he will protect us, and we can arrive safely at our destination.

The kids and I talked about what Jesus meant.He is not talking about a real road but the path we choose in life. He will forgive our mistakes or our detours and he will make the way back to him straight .This he will do if we repent and ask no matter how crooked and wrong our choices.

Next I drew 2 paths,a straight one and a zig zag.I asked which would get them to their destination.Here are the kids trying to figure it out.They decided it was the straight path.Good choice!

We used the box the babies high chair came in. We made ramps and had so much fun.

We are talking about Transportation this week.
Letter:T
shape:circle
Number:4
What better way to study than to drive around and see the cars,buses,trucks,strollers and bikes.We talked about colors and where they were going.
Today is Endangered Species Day.We learned about tigers and the kids made a cage for the pretend train to take the tiger to the zoo.
We sang a train song

For baby
 Nursery Rhymes: This little piggy
Song:The wheels on the bus

Letter of the week S-Solar system

S is for Solar system. It is made of 9 planets, galaxy and billions of stars.There is a cute song on You Tube about each planet.
The kids pretended to be planets orbiting around Sun.I played music and if I stopped it they would freeze.
They pretended they were stars.

We started our new Nursery Rhyme Star bright Star light.
How was it formed?What better way to know then to look to the scriptures about the creation.In Genesis chapter 1,it states that on the 4th day he created the moon and the stars. I had the kids draw pictures of each of the days.

I printed a coloring sheet from coloring castle.Then we cut the pictures out and played pin the planet by the sun,like pin the tail on the donkey.

Next we did sight words and making a sentence with them.I got the idea from a picture I saw for a pack on 1plus1plus1equals1.There are great preschool packs there for a variety of themes.

We mostly talked about Mercury,Venus,and Earth.Tomorrow we work with constellations,Sun,Moon,and Mars.We are going to have a very fun activity with the baby!

8 ways to play with the letter R

1.Row Row Row your boat.We tried to rhyme with boat and talked about the "oat" family.Then I asked what does the boat look like?What color is it? Who was inside? Where is it going? A great story took shape! My daughter said it was going to the other side of the lake.It is a great way to spell and practice writing.

When we got their we got chocolate ice cream.Then we went home.

My toddler glued scraps to make his boat.He said the boat was going to jail.

2.We went outside to look for rocks.It is finally starting to feel like Spring.

3.Will it float or sink?Will a rock sink or float?
After that experiment take 2 sheets of aluminum foil and 2 pennies.1.Put one penny in aluminum and crumple into a ball.

2.Lay other penny flat on sheet of aluminum.

Good vocabulary for older kids like aluminium, and displacement.The balled up foil with the penny sank.The flat sheet floated.
Find the lesson plan here

4.We made boats out of foil and people to go in it and their imaginations from there!

5.We counted rings.

6.We counted how many pennies it took to sink the boat.7.We also played Simon says with R words like Run,roll,rub,reach,rake and rowing your boat of course.I got the idea from http://www.dltk-teach.com

8.My daughter also wanted to play red light green light

Letter of the week R-Rocks

We introduced the letter R and sound.My Toddler recognized it.Awesome! For Kindergartner we practiced writing R.For older kids you can have them write a story using words beginning in R or write a report on animals with R like raccoon, and rat.The kids put pillows down and jumped on them like they were rocks.

I lined up rocks and hid an R under the rocks and the kids tried to guess which one it was under.

We did a variation for the baby where we hid a rock under plastic eggs.He is still little for it but both of these games are good for fine motor skills.

Nursery Rhyme: Row row row your boat

For a fun activity sit the baby in front of you.As you sing hold the babies hand And rock them gently.Pay attention to their head and make sure its safe.For the older kids have them sit with their legs apart and hold each others hands and rock forward and back.

My daughter wanted the baby to feel the rock.It is important to teach them textures.The rock is smooth.

We did a sensory bin with rocks and water.I added cups and toothbrush.They had fun brushing the rocks.

For our craft we made a craft we found @http://www.dltk-teach.com Hi my name is rectangle and I am no square.

Join us tomorrow for more activities with the letter R.

Review of letters N,O,P and Q

It's raining its pouring letters at our house.We are reviewed letters N,O,P and Q.For my Kindergartner we practiced writing the letters.For my Toddler we practiced tracing and saying the letters and their sounds.After we sang It's Raining I asked the kids if they wanted to see it rain.We did 2 experiments.First we put a plate on a jar of water and watched as it git foggy and wet inside.We talked about the water cycle. First Evaporation. Second is Condensation.   Third is Perspiration.Last is Collection.These words are hard for youngsters but repetition is important. If you have a Second or Third Grader they can practice their vocabulary and spelling of it.The link I used to teach the water cycle and the jar experiment is http://www.kidzone.ws/water/

The next experiment you take a clear container and fill it with water. Then you put shaving cream on top.Add blue food coloring and you have rain! I got the idea from Pinterest. 

Next we took white paper and my Kindergartner practiced cutting and we glued a blue strip to be the sky and one to be a river.Then they glued clouds on.I showed them how they could stretch the cotton.They drew rain and we talked about those big water cycle words again.We will be doing more with this picture tomorrow.

We let the baby who is almost three months now fee the cotton balls.

The Nursery Rhyme this week is Pat-a cake.After some time outside we sang Pat-a-cake.We rolled the babies arms and patted the pretend cake and I drew his first initial on his belly.The other two wanted to teach the baby.We also did their names too!

Here we are with play d'oh.We rolled it and patted it.We wrote their initials....

We even made the letters we are reviewing this week.

Next we put it in our magic oven