T is for Trucks

Truck week is a must when you have a vehicle addicted 3 year old!

 FOund this set of traffic sign wooden dominoes at a yard sale. I wasn't sure why I was buying them at the time, but I knew I had to have them!

 Using our Alex Button Board to match colors.

 Practicing fine motor skills by peeling stickers.

 Driving wooden cars up and down a number line. We played several games with this. Our favorite was when I named a number and they drove the car to "park" on it.

 The cars helped us count up the number line, and then back down. It helped us to "add one more" as well.

  Truck number clipping cards.  I just wrote numbers 1-5, since I didn't want to frustrate them. (they don't love this activity.)

 How inviting it looked on the tray!

 Alex truck lacing beads.

 Studying animals and bugs that start with T. My 4 year old and I took it a step further and she wrote their names as writing work, and then she matched the cards back up. I also read her all the facts on the back of the cards, which were so interesting!

 I need to do separate posts for my kindergarten work! Here is a 50-80 maze for Kenna, using dry erase. She LOVES this.

 Back to the toddlers. Different colored cars (link coming soon!) and matching colored pattern blocks to the cars.

Using power magnets in a truck color sort. I had a little pack of these truck silhouettes, and we used them for everything this week! We made shadow puppets by gluing them to popsicle sticks! We wrote out our names, one letter per truck, and lined them up.  We did relief painting where we stamped all over them and then peeled them up!

We had a fun time with these trays! These were for my 2 and 3 year old. My oldest enjoyed trying them once, but even she acknowledged that they were too easy for her. Instead, she decided to "teach" her brother his colors, which was precious to watch, and annoyed him to no end.

Citi Blocks are awesome!

So this isn't a real post. But we LOVE CitiBlocks (Kapla also makes them).
Happy New Year!

Backyard Renovations

 Mud Kitchen

 Hill with Slide built into the back of it!

 Arbor for squash and bird house gourds, with room for children to play in, and tunnel through.

 Moveable balance beams

 Lots of stumps! They are placed for climbing, jumping, using as tables and chairs, or obstacles.

 Huge, ten foot across sand pit!! Dug out the grass, planted logs (reclaimed from a neighbor's fallen tree) and filled with a ton (literally) of sand!

 Another view of the mud kitchen, water combo, after a morning of active play.

This summer was the year of the backyard. We had a blank canvas to work with, and I knew I wanted it to encourage play and be able to grow with the children. Kids are 2, 2 and 4 this summer.

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.