Week 11 - Pledge of Allegiance

We took a break from the Before Five In A Row manual this week to focus on the election.  I thought this would be great as I believe this will be the first election the boys will remember.  As such, I decided to do a patriotic themed week.  Since the boys do not know the pledge, I thought this would be a great book to row.  The Pledge Of Allegiance published by Scholastic worked wonderfully as they can both now recite the pledge.  The book is illustrated with real pictures to help translate the pledge.  You can see them say it below:

{best part, wiping the snot on your hand afterward...ick}

We had a discussion about what the stars and stripes represent.  Fifty stars=Fifty states (they'll be ahead of our president on that one!), although I hear we may have 51 soon.  We read the book Meet Our Flag Old Glory by April Jones Prince and made our own Old Glory.  Construction paper + Qtips + White paint!

They both got to participate in Tuesday's election by going to the polls with hubby and me.  They were very excited to get to push the buttons and look at the names.  I wanted to let them vote at home, but I knew they would choose the candidate that hubby and I would be voting for.  After much research, I found, "Your Vote Counts", a lesson plan by Kathleen Carpenter.  It uses Cookie Monster and The Count as the candidates.  They are campaigning for an imaginary position as a classroom helper.  The kids have to decide who would help the most.  Their campaign posters:

Cookie's idea of helping is making people feel better about whatever problem/issue they are having by giving them a cookie.  The Count will help by offering solutions to the problem.  Both candidates left gifts for the boys in hopes to persuade them in one direction:

A helpful math reference sheet to use with our new colored Math-U-See blocks from The Count

A cookie from Cookie Monster

Enjoying the treat from Cookie Monster!

I didn't tell them who they should vote for and encouraged them not to announce who would get their vote.  Although, they proclaimed loudly to one another who they thought would be the best helper.  They were so excited to vote and counted down the days.  We read Vote by Eileen Christelow and Amelia Bedelia's First Vote by Herman Parish so they could learn a little bit more about the voting process.  Then, Election day finally arrived and we all got to vote:

 Signing in & Voting:

A whole lot of privacy going on here..."C" trying to sneak around to see "B".

AND THE RESULTS ARE IN!

The only vote for Cookie from "C".  What can I say, he's a man after my own heart.  I think the treat from Cookie swayed his vote.  

We watched this video showing Cookie & Count cooperating.  It was a great wrap up.  We also read America the Beautiful by Katharine Bates and America:  A Patriotic Primer by Lynne Cheney.  From these we discussed America's special dates, places, people etc.  We made the White House, fireworks and a Bald Eagle (see here for patriotic crafts!).

The White House:

Bald Eagles (made from hand prints and a foot print):

Fireworks (made from Q-tips)

 As a side note, the website suggests drying these in the microwave if you don't have time to let them dry overnight.  Word to the wise, take them off the paper plate before putting them in the microwave.  Otherwise, it turns into a science experiment and you get real fireworks.  Ahem...

Ta-Da!

 BIBLE

  This week started our lesson in Daniel.  We focused on 3 P's this week:  Prayer, Praise & Promises.  We learned about Daniel trusting in God no matter what and continuing to praise Him even in hard times.  Our memory verse this week was Jeremiah 33:3:

Call out to me.  I will answer you.  I will tell you great things you do not know.  Jeremiah 33:3

We started the week by reading the first part of the story of Daniel in the Lions Den.  All the way up to the point that he was thrown in the den.  We came up with our own prayer requests to pray for and put them on our bulletin board.  Our board also includes the other P's.  The prayers will move to the praises section when answered and the promise section will contain our Bible verse and other truths that we are learning for the week.  They colored a picture of Daniel in the den:

 

Sasquatch face?

We read Lion by Caroline Arnold and Lion's Lunch? by Fiona Tierney.  The next day we finished up the story and talked about praises as Daniel praised God for keeping him safe.  We also had a "lion hunt."  I printed out lions and wrote words from the story on them.  Hubby hid them in the house and they had to find them:

Listening to Daddy to see where to look to find the last one!

After they found them, they had to match the word up with the correct picture...King Darius, lions or Daniel.

That day, they had lion sandwiches for lunch.  It was a roarin' hit...get it, roarin'...sigh.

We wrapped the week up with some songs/fingerplays and making the story from pages in our workbook:

"C" retelling the story with his mini-book.

Mommy's learning moment of the week:  I suppose this just continues to go along with last week and that cute little sheep with a smile on his face.  What are the lions that you face?  If Daniel was able to keep praying to God in a of real, raging, ravenous lions, why don't I?  I need to work on my faith and trust as I clearly don't seek Him as I should when a "lion" is in my midst.

MATH

The boys started using colored blocks this week.  Instead of using green units (1 block) to count, the colored ones represent the units "glued" together to form a 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8 or 9 block.  The course recommends making up names to help you remember the color associated with the number.  For example, the 3 block is pink- so he recommended the 3 Little Pigs.  The boys ran with the animals idea...2 orange tigers, 5 blue whales, etc.

HANDWRITING

We finished up C & O and worked on writing some words.  They did great!  Although, I think I need to start integrating more writing into our day.  So, we'll see what transpires of that next week :)

PHONICS

As promised, readings from "B" & "C":

"C"

"B"

Praises:

The boys are back to their healthy selves...just waiting for the next illness to come our way!  Oh how I love the winter season.  Baby J's croup is gone.  She still has a slight cough every once in awhile, but is for the most part back to 90%.  She has her first tooth popping up as well, so that is likely adding to the fun!

       

     I would love to hear your prayers, praise's, comments etc!

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?