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?

Week 9 - Goodnight Moon

So, I must say I was hesitant to do this book as it seemed rather baby-ish.  But, I'm so glad we did row it because there were lots of fun things to pull from this simple night time classic.  If you're not familiar with Goodnight Moon by Margaret Wise Brown, it's about a little bunny who is getting ready to go to bed in his "great green room".  He does this by looking around his room and saying goodnight to objects in his room.  If you ask me, he's like any other little boy that I know trying to drag out bedtime as much as possible! 

We started the week by making our own green room.  I was able to find most of the items in the room thanks to Google!

 Because this book has lots of bold colors, we spent some time talking about primary and secondary colors.  First, I made a basic Venn Diagram for them to color:

Then we colored (red, yellow, blue) water in different cups and mixed them to make secondary colors.  They thought this was amazing.

There were some additional color themed activities in the lapbook.  The one below was coloring balloons the correct color.  I was so proud of both of them.  They didn't need me to read them the colors.  They were able to sound them out!

Next, we discussed moon phases.  There were several great websites out there who used cookies to demonstrate this.  And since we all know that food must be a part of the weekly lesson ...I couldn't resist.  We were even able to spot a gibbous moon this Thursday!

Can we eat these yet?

Lapbook activity

 We talked about how it seems to get brighter outside as it gets darker in the great green room and this is due to your eyes adjusting to the dark.  For the past 3 nights now, they have begged to continue this experiment in their room.  We leave the light on and look out the window (very dark) and then turn off the light and see how we can actually see things in our backyard.  

We also made night sky paintings.  I used a white crayon to make a moon and stars before they started painting.  Then I gave them watercolor's to paint with.  As they painted, the moon and stars started to appear.

So, I'm not sure why anyone would have a "bowl full of mush" on their bedside table, but the bunny in this book does.  The boys liked watching the mouse move from page to page and getting into the bowl of mush.  It does appear that some is missing on the last couple of pages!  Anyway, we made mush one morning for breakfast.  They both ate it and loved it.  I let them add in raisins and brown sugar:

We finished up the week with doing some various activities in our lapbook:  rhyming words, matching single/pairs (for the mittens & socks in the story) and discussing nursery rhymes. 

 We had such a great time with this book.  We also read My World by Margaret Wise Brown. 

BIBLE

  This week, we read about Jesus calming the storm.  They learned that because Jesus takes care of us, we should help take care of others.  Our bible verse this week was 1 Peter 5:7:

Give all your worries and cares to God for He cares about you.  1 Peter 5:7

  We started the week by making our own sailboats (from a juice-box) and sea.  Two little boys provided the storm!  This was lots of fun and a ("contained") bubbly mess.

Another storm made landfall in the family room using a toy boat and pillow case.  This would be even better in a larger group with a big sheet and lots of boats!

They made sailboats by tracing numbers:

Missions Mike made an appearance this week (back from his trip to Africa)!  He talked to the boys about caring for others as he was off on another mission to help people in India.  We talked about things they could do to be caring toward others.  This was a great segue into the Operation Christmas Child project they are doing at church.

The week ended with a game called crossing the sea.  Two jumpropes were placed on the ground and they had to jump over them.  Each time they made a successful jump, the ropes were moved further and further apart until someone falls into the sea!

 

Gameface?  Check!

MATH

 ...This is my Math-U-See man.  And, as U can see, he's a little frustrated.  The boys moved on from the 10's place value to the 100's place value this week.  I think sometimes I forget that we are doing Kindergarten material and they have yet to turn 4.5 years old.  Needless to say, I'm not 100% confident that they have really mastered this concept, so we will be repeating it next week.  Hopefully, with a Mommy that is a little more patient.  Prayers would be much appreciated!

Coloring in the appropriate number of 100's blocks to form the correct number of total blocks.

HANDWRITING

 PHONICS

This week we added more helper words ("like" & "to") and learned about adding "s" to the end of a word to make it plural.  They picked it up rather quickly.  I would say over the past week+, I have seen them really take notice to words and try sounding them out.  Be it at home, in the grocery, driving, etc.  

A review of some of the words they have done thus far

Looking forward to rowing Corduroy next week and learning about The Good Shepherd.  Till next time!