Preschool Corner: Weeks 10-13

Here’s a little look at what we did from the end of November until Christmas break:

Alphabet Activities

Our main ABC lessons came from Easy Peasy-All in One Homeschool.  I love this source because it has videos and links to ideas, printables, and activities for each letter, and it has a daily schedule.

These letter craft ideas came from Totally Tots (Click on individual letters for the link to each craft):  J, K, L, M

We finger-painted the leopard, and we added a pocket with a joey (from a small letter k) for the kangaroo.

The Jack-in-the-Box idea came from Our Crafts~N~ Things (via Easy Peasy-All in One Homeschool, which has a template to make the jack-in-the-box):

We read several Madeline books when we studied letter M.  I have this really cute Madeline’s House game I picked up at a yard sale once, so of course we played that.

Books for Letters J-M:

Jesse Bear books (Nancy White Carlstrom)—listed below under Before Five in a Row

Julius (Syd Hoff)

Katy and the Big Snow (Virginia Lee Burton)
One Kitten for Kim (Adelaide Holl)
Bad Kitty (Nick Bruel)
Kitten's Adventure (Michele Coxon)
The Lonely Kitten (Truda Mordue)
Kitten's Day Out (Heather Amery)
Katy No-Pocket (Emmy Payne)

The Little Lamb (Judy Dunn)
We're Going on a Lion Hunt (David Axtell)
The Lion Who Wanted to Love (Giles Andreae)
Lyle, Lyle, Crocodile (Bernard Waber)
Lovable Lyle (Bernard Waber)
Leo the Lop (Stephen Cosgrove)

Madeline (Ludwig Bemelmans)
Madeline's Rescue (Ludwig Bemelmans)
Madeline in London (Ludwig Bemelmans)
If You Give a Moose a Muffin (Laura Numeroff)
If You Give a Mouse a Cookie (Laura Numeroff)
If You Take a Mouse to School (Laura Numeroff)
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel (Virginia Lee Burton)
Maisy's Bus (Lucy Cousins)
Maisy's Bedtime (Lucy Cousins)
Mrs. Brice's Mice (Syd Hoff)

Before Five in a Row

Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?—We did several book activities, and we added in this felt weather bear set:

We also read four other Jesse Bear books I have (all written by Nancy White Carlstrom):

Happy Birthday, Jesse Bear!

Let's Count it Out, Jesse Bear

Guess Who's Coming, Jesse Bear

Better Not Get Wet, Jesse Bear

Katy No-Pocket—Worked on our animal classification cards, discussed generosity, discussed where different animals live (kangaroos in Australia, for instance) and how mother animals care for their babies, and talked about the different tools the man had in his pockets.

Ask Mr. Bear—Mostly, we just discussed the animals and the gifts they offered, sounds the animals make, and about birthdays.  We’ll do more activities for this book when we repeat it later in the school year.

Corduroy—We did this book just before Christmas and when we were discussing stores.  Gabriela made a poster of different store departments and what kinds of items would be found in each.  We also tied it into our manners lessons (described below), as we discussed the manners Lisa used in a store.  We also talked about different kinds of homes and about saving money for something you want to buy.  Gabriela also played store a few times, and we looked at several store logos.

Theme Unit

Manners—We discussed table manners, manners in a group of children, and manners in public places.  Gabriela quite enjoyed correcting the rest of us if we showed bad table manners!

Here are some good books on manners:

The Berenstain Bears Forget Their Manners (Stan & Jan Berenstain)
Bear, Your Manners are Showing (Kathleen Allan Meyer)
Manners (Aliki)
Madeline Says Merci: The-Always-Be-Polite Book (John Bemelmans Marciano)

Christmas Activities

Christmas Sensory Tub—This is similar to the tub we did last Christmas. As in the past, Gabriela likes these for a few days, and then they’re forgotten. I’m afraid my sensory tub creating days are nearly over.

Christmas Play Set—We used small blocks, a tiny Nativity set, green felt, white felt, tiny houses, small plastic deer, a blue felt circle, miniature bows, a handmade Christmas tree thing, filled with pinecones and red potpourri stuff.

Christmas Books—I finally did one activity I had seen numerous times on the internet.  I wrapped up all our Christmas stories and allowed the kids to choose and unwrap a book for me to read each night until Christmas.  Actually, I went past Christmas because I found a few more!  They really enjoyed it, but I’m not sure I’ll do it again…it’s an awful lot of wrapping!  Here are some of our books:

Mr. Willowby’s Christmas Tree Unit (Homeschool Creations):

Other Christmas activities:

Watched The Nutcracker on video

Watched several Christmas movies.  Favorites include:

How the Grinch Stole Christmas

Polar Express

Muppets Christmas Carol

A Charlie Brown Christmas

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer

Silent Night

Had a lesson in gift wrapping

Cut paper chain links (which Isaac made) to count down the days until Christmas

Drew and colored a picture of the Nativity

Helped cut out and decorate Christmas cookies:

Helped make Christmas ornaments out of pony beads.  I got this idea from another home educator on a facebook page.  I can’t find her blog, which also shows this craft, but I’ll post the link when I do find it.  If you have facebook, here is her facebook page: Homeschooling-Educating from Scratch.  By the way, it took mine 50 minutes to melt instead of 10…not sure why.

Field Trips

Little Moreton Hall:

We visited twice within a month.  The second time was for the Tudor Christmas event, our yearly tradition.

I’m linking this post to Preschool & Kindergarten Corner at Homeschool Creations.