First S'mores Experience!

Th

is summer, we fired up the fire pit and roasted marshmallows together. What a fun and special experience.

Long time, no blog! Three kids and an eco-friendly baby store will really bog a mama down. Despite lack of posting, we have still been doing school. Quinn turned two in June and now has her own learning trays each week, which she LOVES.

I decided to get back into blogging because people are always asking how I organize and present materials, which I love to share about but is hard to explain without pictures. Also, I am back because it kind of holds me accountable for staying on track and making sure my trays are awesome! :) We have officially started our school year and it is going to be a great one!

Here is some of what we are doing for D is for Dinos week. :) 

**There is much more on our trays this week, but I am just getting back into the groove, and I am easing into it. Plus, technology has changed soo much since I stopped blogging- I have a camera phone that can upload instant pics, and an iPad to take pictures and make movies. Whew, media overload!

 

 Simple dino flashcards I found at target dollar spot, along with a magnifying glass for closer inspection. There are facts on the back, but none of my three care much about that yet.

 4 year old- dino dig. Dig up bones and decide whether the word is a real word or a nonsense word. Found this great printable on TPT and I love it!

 Kenna got into this tray during nap and decided to fill in her own blanks. She clearly dug up words and tried to sort them. I am really proud of her! Real side- Fix, pot, jet and has are all real words! (she told me SEM was "seem" - so it makes sense she wrote it on that side.) Nonsense side- reg, pid, zem, yus, and ??not sure what she wrote!

 Dino two-part puzzles for the 2 year olds.

 Match dinos to our number line. (so really a just a number match, but it is tricky because the fonts are different so the1, 4, and the 9 are written differently.

 Sorting Big D and Little D (www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com)

My trio, all grown up and singing their days of the week. More to come soon, I hope!

Duck Wash

As part of our D unit, we set up a duck "car wash" outside in the backyard. Using shaving cream to get our ducks "dirty", we then ran them down the gutter into the water to be scrubbed with sponges and dried with towels. My kids LOVED this and happily played for over an hour.

D is for DINOS 2013

I think I've done a Dino post before, but this is a new year, with 2, 3 and 4 year old all LOVING dinosaurs! This was a short unit because we were super-busy this month, but our activities were very fun.

All of these items are hidden in the texture tub. Then Kenna has to find them and match them back to their word. For the babies, I simply printed this photo and they had to match the item to it's picture. 

Examining Dino cards with a magnifying glass. This turned out to be a HUGE hit this week. Those Dollar Tree flashcards were in use every.single.day!

Find real and "nonsense" words.

Copy them onto this chart. Kenna did this and got every single one right. I am pleased with her attempts to form letters on those tiny lines- usually her writing is neater but MUCH bigger.

Dino two part puzzle cards. They were grayscale, so that made it a challenge for everyone.

Power Magnets with our same sheet from last year, still printed badly, and still usable! Maybe I will remake it next year...but probably not.

Oh, now this was fun. I found a template for cardboard animals/planes etc, and we made a dino for our peg people to ride on!

Excellent fine motor, counting, adding/subtracting work, and just plain ole fun.

Place dinos in order on the number line.

Capital and lowercase D sort.

My sweet Trio, singing our morning songs. Three reasons I stay up late and get up early. :)