Week 10 - Corduroy

 Corduroy by Don  Freeman is one of many classic must-reads for kiddo's.  Set in a department store, a sweet little teddy bear goes on the hunt for his missing button.  After attempting to pull a button off a mattress, he ends up falling to the ground and taken back to his shelf by the night watchmen.  Lucky for him, he is purchased the next morning by a little girl and gains a new button and friend.  The boys seemed to like this book and have even been going through the house chanting...Corduroy-roy-roy-roy, over and over again (increasing the decibel level each time as only 4.5 year old's do best)! 

We started the week out by making our very own paper Corduroy's (link for pattern here).  Fair warning- they are still into making crazy faces when I break out the camera.

 

Next we worked on our measuring skills.  I made a simple felt Corduroy out of the pattern above.  I also made a cute little Cubee Corduroy (here) that took forever to put together.  Definitely an activity for older children.  Then we got two of their own bears.  Time for the measuring to begin!!  We used a tape measure first:

 We discussed how you can use other things to measure and compare.  So, we got out some Lincoln Logs and used those to measure our bears as well:

 We recorded all of our findings and compared the answers using our Math-U-See blocks.

  Next we did some button activities in our lapbook.  And practiced "sewing" a button. 

We read The Button Box by Margarette S. Reid. The book is 

illustrated with lots and lots of button shapes, colors, designs, etc.

And, as always, my stomach got the best of me this week.  I came

across these cookies and thought, perfect!

Poking holes

  One day, they pretended to have their own toy store and brought out lots of their toys.  A few times I heard them say, "what's this?  A mountain?  I've always wanted to climb a mountain!" (a quote from Corduroy, while stepping onto an escalator).  We didn't actually make it to the mall this week.  I was hoping to be able to let them enjoy riding one a few times.  Oh well, there's always next week :)

  Since there were several emotions displayed in the book, we talked about feelings (this idea came from Delightful Learning, thanks!).  They made their own faces of how they felt that day from printouts.

"B" felt good.

"C" felt bad.  He was sick that day...and, apparently growing a beard.

 

We wrapped up the week by reading some other great Corduroy adventure's including A Pocket for Corduroy & Corduroy Lost and Found.  We also discussed our favorite part of Corduroy (see left) and watched a live version of this book on DVD.

Five in a Row Link-UP!!

Bible

    Ahhh...the Good Shepherd.  Can I say that I learned something this week from our Bible time?  We'll save that for later.  We talked about how Jesus is the good shepherd and we are like his sheep.  Our memory verse:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow Me.  John 10:27

We started out the week by making our own Good Shepherd/sheep/wolf puppets.  As well as reading a book about sheep and learning a new fingerplay/song.

 The next day, they received a letter from Missions Mike (from India) which talked about people who had accepted Jesus into their hearts and had become one of his sheep.  We've talked a lot about salvation over the past few months and the boys can tell you the right answers.  I'm just waiting to see conviction and a heart change.  Hubby and I pray daily that God would work on their little hearts.


We made some marshmallow sheep.  They were yummy!  And read, Russell the Sheep by Rob Scotton.

 Finally, they colored a few workbook pages to remind us about listening and The Good Shepherd.

  

So MY learning moment of the week (perhaps I'll try to add one every week?)...

 

 We read The Lord Is My Shepherd by Hans Wilhelm.  If you guessed it's the 23rd Psalm, you'd be right.  It's told in a way that kids can understand.  But what grabbed my attention in this book was the illustrations of the sheep.  Pretty cute on the cover, right?  That cute little sheep is smiling all the way through the book.  If I weren't afraid of copyright infringements, I would scan a picture.  Anyway, when it gets to "yea though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, etc." you ought to see that little lamb happily trotting next to his Shepherd, without a care in the world while the wolves lurk nearby.  It was a great reminder of how we, as Christians, should be responding in troubling times.  Not fearful, worried or panicked (like I usually am) but bold and brave at the side of our Shepherd.  I'm going to try and remember that next time!

Math

Can I just say that what a difference another week can make?  The boys did so great this week really catching on to 100's place value.  You can see them gettin' their math on below:

                               

Handwriting

This week they tackled "Y" & "Z".  We'll be doing some review next week and working on "C" and "O".

Phonics

Phonics is always a hit in this house.  I'm hoping it stays that way!  They added 3 more books to their repertoire this week and learned helper words "what" and "this".  I'll try to post a video of a reading next week!

Prayers!

We have a nasty cold bug that has been circulating through our house since the 27th.  Needless to say, we didn't get to finish as many activities as I had planned for this week.  B & C both seem to get better until nighttime hits.  However, poor baby J has croup.  Prayers are appreciated!

Thoughts/Comments?