This morning after our Lowe's Build and Grow workshop where the kids made a really cool race car, we did some shopping. Daddy spend a long time in the carpet sections, so to keep the kids occupied and behaved, we played a game. In many of the aisles, there are letter markers to help identify the sections - you'll see them near the bottom of the photo. We created a letter recognition game that kept the kids occupied and provided some letter practice. Brooke and Kate were assigned a letter: they had to say the letter, the sound, and a word that started with the letter and then run and stand under it. Of course they needed a little help but it was a good learning experience. To make it a little harder for Jake (and to work on his listening skills which were soaring lacking this morning) I gave him a series of 4 letters. He had to remember the 4 letters in order and run from the first to last. Now, of course, we did not do this in the lighting section! We found a quiet aisle of nuts and bolts. Daddy was able to focus on the carpet, the kids had fun, and Mommy created a learning experience out of a waiting experience - success all around.

Myrtle Beach May 2010, by Valerie Miller

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Brooke's 3 year-old preschool report card. Note her teacher's comment about being "very talktive"....I can not express how wonderful it is to hear Brooke's teacher describe her as "talkative". It is an answer to prayer: I have prayed for God to allow her to speak with boldness, so as she grows, she will speak God's truths with amazing boldness and courage! God has answered my prayer and I can not wait to see what He has planned for her!

Report Card

Ephesians 6:18-20
And pray in the spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for the Lord's people. Pray also for me (Brooke), that whenever I (she) speak, words may be given to me (her) so that I (she) will fearlessly make known the mysteries of the gospel, for which I (she) am an ambassador in chains. Pray that I (Brooke) may declare it fearlessly, as I (she) should.

My prayer for Brooke that has been answered and will continue to be answered:
Lord, I pray that You will give Brooke boldness. I pray that You will cause her to engage socially, to be friendly, and to be kind. I ask You to help her develop more vocabulary and sentences and overcome of her fear of speaking to others so that she will continue to grow and learn as quickly as possible. Lord, allow her to speak with confidence and boldness so that one day she will speak boldly on your behalf. Amen and Hallelujah

Lessons in Learning

Categorizing
We borrowed this puzzle from the library for Brooke to practice Classification. The puzzle had 3 items that grouped together to create a category. This is great vocabulary practice for her. For example, as she was learning words we called every vehicle a car; now we use the words "car", "truck", and "bus". These are all vehicles. Also, instead of using the word "boat" the puzzle helped to introduce words such as "sailboat, canoe, and ship" which are all boats.


Letters Here Brooke is gluing buttons on a capital B....we practice and reviewed the sound.


Literature
We borrowed this book bag from the library as well. Using the puppets as we read helps to make the book much more fun. Brooke was one of the little pigs.



Numbers
We played "Cookies on a Plate" game. The girls rolled the dice, recognized and named the number and used one-to-one correspondence to put the correct number of cookies on the late. The dice only has numbers 1-3 which was great for Brooke. Then we counted all the cookies on the plate. We also used flower buttons and numbered cups to work on number correspondence this week. Brooke does 1-3 independently and then I help with the counting up to #6.



Sorting and Categorizing
Brooke sorted circles and triangles and then glued each into the correct category.

Colors
A fun puzzle from Confessions of a Homeschooler to sort colored paintbrushes and put them into the correct paint can.

For this activity, which was yummy, we sorted Froot Loops into their colors and then created a patterned necklace to eat. Brooke's patterns was pink, purple, pink, purple.

Lessons in Learning

We did a great Bible lesson craft which Brooke really enjoyed. We read Psalm 51:1-3 from Jake's Bible. We talked about how God will forgive us for the bad things we do and as a reminder of how God cleans us, we made crosses out of a bar of Ivory soap. The kids used a butter knife to cut and carve the soap into crosses. Brooke's turned out pretty good since she really took her time with this. We talked as they carved and then everyone jumped into the tub with their bar of soap for a bath. It was a reminder that we all do and say things that are wrong, but through the cross God is there to clean us up!

Lessons in Learning

Sillybandz have become the new craze in Elementary schools. I'm not sure how, but Kate new about Sillybandz and on a trip to pick a friend's birthday present, Kate asked to buy a package. After the toy store, we went out for lunch. The Sillybandz became a great educational tool as we waited for our food.

First we created a graph of the animals. We discussed "most" and "least" as we counted the animals. Then we sorted them by color and practice using "most" and "least" and color words. There were "big" bunnies and "small" bunnies. We talked about what each animal eats. We talked about how the animals move...rabbits hop, sheep walk, dogs run and walk, etc. Brooke was certain that cows hop - we talked about how cows stand and walk and run - she insisted that cows hop; then I remembered there was one cow that did jump over the moon so I agreed that at least one cow did hop! The SillyBandz were a great conversational tool that provided Brooke with some great vocabulary.

Lessons in Learning
Language Experience
Brooke and I made some Pumpkin Bread. She loves to help in the kitchen and it is a great time to talk with her and review lots of vocabulary. We even sing songs like, "This is the way we make the bread, make the bread, make the bread. This is the way we make the bread so early in the morning."

Another great vocabulary Experience was Mother's Day. We attended the Lowe's Build and Grow workshop where the kids made planters. We had to follow directions as we worked and then choose a plant we put in the boxes at home.

A Mother's Day breakfast in bed was a special start to the day! Daddy let each child chose an item for breakfast. Jake chose pancakes with strawberries, Kate chose tortilla chips with whip cream (actually kinda good) and Brooke chose a peanut butter and jelly sandwich! It was a wonderful breakfast


Numbers

We have these great number ducks from Discount School Supply. We put them in the pool and Brooke picked out one at a time. We counted the raindrops on the back of the duck and then checked the bottom to see if we counted correctly.

We got a great idea of a Shape Search with rectangles, circles and ovals....both girls loved finding the shapes in our house and really surprised me with how well they did!

Lessons in Learning

Language Experience

Brooke made tea for the Tea Party. She helped measure, pour, and count tea bags.

We planted a few flower seeds in this activity. We focused on the words: water, soil, push, seed, sunshine; as well as counting the seeds.

Jake found a caterpillar which spurred a literature lesson on The Very Hungry Caterpillar. We read the book multiple times and made some lacing cards to use during the reading. As the caterpillar eat, we added the card to the string. It was a great vocabulary lesson (caterpillar, hungry, days of the week, fruits, counting, cocoon, butterfly, and many more words). We also had some sticker sheets we received as a birthday gift that I finally got out to use. I introduced the idea of graphing as we counted the food the caterpillar eat during the week. The girls really surprised me how well they grasped the concept of graphing as well as the vocabulary of MOST and LEAST. We used watercolors to paint a caterpillar and the food. Sadly, the girls gave the caterpillar a little too much water and he did not survive....not to worry, we went looking for another (great vocabulary) and found another.

Letters

We did some letter searches using paint dot bottles. Jake helped Brooke to find the letters.

We focused on Letter Ll this week. Here is Brooke making Ll using the magnetic pom-poms.

Numbers

We focused on the number one. Brooke is putting one sticker into each square that I drew on the paper. Then we counted the total number of stickers.

Here is an umbrella with the numbers 1-5 on it. I let Brooke paint each section of the umbrella and then Brooke used dot stickers to put the correct number of stickers into each section. This was an activity left from last week's theme of umbrellas that we finally got to this week.

Number Match: here we counted hearts and drew a line from the number of hearts to the actual number. Brooke needed a lot of help with this so we only did numbers 1-5.

Brooke and Kate are doing the Ladybug Counting Clips. The girls count the number of dots on the ladybug and add the same number of clothespins to the edge of the clips. You'll notice the 6-10 Number Match that Brooke didn't get too in the tray.

Shapes

These shapes sheets have been laminated and we use dry erase markers to practice drawing the shapes. This activity allows us to review the name of the shapes, the number of sides, and also work on fine motor skills.

This is a ladybug shape puzzle

ColorsThis was a lot of fun. The coloring sheet has numbers 1-6. We took turns rolling the dice and colored that section of the picture. This focused on number recognition as well as colors.

Categorizing

Sorting "Things We Eat" and "Things We Play With"

This sheet is "What's Different?" This was hard so we will need to practice some more with the vocabulary of "different" and "same."

Here we sorted "Bugs" and "Animals."

This week we sorted "Forest Animals" and "Farm Animals" too.

Patterns and Sorting

An easy introduction to patterns using ladybug colors

This Discovery Toys Busy Bugs has a variety of pattern cards for sorting the bugs

Kate sorted the ladybugs by size.