ivey league preschool: nothing but n!

This week has been brought to you by the letter N!

First we did a couple of worksheets where Caleb had to find uppercase and lowercase N's, and then color them specific colors.  

He also completed one with a hidden picture inside.  I've been trying to find worksheets that involve more coloring since it forces Caleb to pay attention to what he's doing and not just scribble everywhere.  Still a work in progress but we're getting there!

He did very well on a tracing worksheet too!

We also did our play-doh mat, do-a-dot, and pattern block worksheets for this week:

We also did our magazine scavenger hunt and collage for the letter N:

Next we did a "nest" unit based on the book Are You My Mother?  While we read the book, I would point out simple sight words in the text and ask Caleb if he knew what they were.  He's actually getting pretty good at recognizing words like dog, cat, cow, up, etc.

After we were done reading, we completed a nest-themed preschool pack.  It involved tracing and writing practice, counting eggs in a basket, completing patterns, and finding what's different.

We also read the story of Noah and the flood in Caleb's storybook Bible.  When we were done, Caleb colored in a rainbow and we talked about God's promises.

We also did a few Noah-themed preschool worksheets.  These involved sorting lowercase and uppercase N's, prepositions, completing the pattern, finding the letter sound for a word, counting items, and tracing.  For the last one, I read Caleb the questions.  He would figure out the answer, and then I wrote it in using dashed lines so he could trace over them later.

All this Noah talk inspired Caleb to get out his Little People Ark and play around a bit!

Our classical music for this week was another collection of 25 masterpieces, such as The William Tell Overture, part of Dvorak's New World Symphony, and some pretty waltzes.

Our N Books:
The Nutty Nut Chase by Kathryn White
Are You My Mother? by P.D. Eastman

Links:
Do-A-Dot Alphabet Pages (Home School Creations)
Play-Doh Letter Mats (Home School Creations)
Pattern Block Printable Templates (Jessica's Corner of Cyberspace)
Find the Letter N Workheets (3 Dinosaurs)
Hidden Object N Worksheet (Education.com)
N Tracing Worksheet (Education.com)
N is for Nest Preschool Pack (Teaching Mama)
Rainbow Coloring Page (About Home)
Noah Preschool Pack (123 Homeschool 4 Me)

ivey league preschool: monstrous M's!

This week was brought to you by the letter M!

We did our usual play-doh mat, do-a-dot sheet, and pattern block sheet for the letter M:

We also did some monster-themed activities.  Caleb recently asked me how much a hundred was, so I found a monster hundreds chart online and printed it out for him.  It gave him a nice visual of all the numbers, and with some guidance from me he was able to count up to 100!

He also created his own monster.  I found some printables where you choose legs, arms, eyes, etc., and glue it together!  So what Caleb ended up with was a pigeon-toed monster who looks like he's always asking for a hug...oh yeah, and his horns look more like a mustache.  :)

We also did a googly-eye monster counting game.  Really, you're supposed to laminate this worksheet (or else stick it in a plastic page protector sheet), use a die to roll the number of eyes to put on the monster, then count the eyes and write the number in the box.  What we ended up doing was letting Caleb glue as many eyes on the monster as he wanted, and then when he stopped we counting them up and wrote the number.

We also made a Mike Wasowski mask.  :)

We also worked a little on writing numbers.  I found fun printables with catchy phrases for each number, as well as a clear starting and stopping point.  I put each one in plastic page protectors so Caleb could practice over and over with dry erase markers.

We did a few Minon-themed activities as well!

We did our magazine scavenger hunt and collage for the letter M:

And finally, we made a big "M" made out of mustaches!  We had a lot of fun with this one.

Our classical music for this week was a collection of 25 classical masterpieces, such as The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy from the Nutcracker, part of the Surprise Symphony, and the overture from Die Fledermaus (so fun to say).

Our M Books:
Monsters Inc. (Disney's Wonderful World of Reading)
Merle the High-Flying Squirrel by Bill Peet
Mouse TV by Matt Novak
Big Max, World Famous Detective by Kin Platt

Links:
Do-A-Dot Alphabet Pages (Home School Creations)
Play-Doh Letter Mats (Home School Creations)
Pattern Block Printable Templates (Jessica's Corner of Cyberspace)
Monster Hundreds Chart (The Measured Mom)
Build a Monster Printables (Somewhat Simple)
Googly Eyed Monster Counting Game (The Measured Mom)
Monsters, Inc. Printable Masks (School of Disney)
Number Writing Practice Sheets (Ed Snapshots)
Minion Preschool Pack (1 Plus 1 Plus 1 Equals 1)
Mustache Printable (We Heart It)

ivey league preschool: pumpkin mini-unit!

I decided to do fun pumpkin-themed activities with Caleb on Halloween this year.  So we took a break from letter-themed things that day and focused on pumpkins instead!

First we did a few pumpkin worksheets.  We learned about the life-cycle of the pumpkin by putting pictures in order (Caleb selected independently and got a couple of them correct!).

He also wrote in missing letters of a pumpkin alphabet:

We used one worksheet to introduce the idea of addition...I just let Caleb count the pumpkins for now, but it helped him start to grasp the concept of adding objects/numbers together.

And he colored his own jack-o'-lantern using a color-by-sight-word method.  He can recognize some color names, plus he already knew pumpkins are usually orange.  :o)

We also threw in some science by conducting a "pumpkin investigation" with a little sugar pie pumpkin we had in the house.  I had found a couple of different worksheets online, and combined what I liked about them into our own special one.  We found words to describe the pumpkin, and hypothesized about how tall it was, how many lines it had around it, how many seeds it would have inside, and whether it would sink or float.  Caleb loved testing out the last one...he played with that pumpkin for at least 20 minutes before I told him it was time to cut it open to count the seeds!

Finally, once the seeds were dried out, we toasted them with some cooking spray, salt, and pepper.  Yum!  We also roasted and pureed the flesh of the pumpkin and baked it into a pie.  Caleb was so excited to help me make the pie, but was not so much excited about the end product, even with whipped cream on top.  Maybe it's texture thing?

Links:

Pumpkin Life Cycle Worksheet (Education.com)

Pumpkin Alphabet Worksheet (Education.com)
Pumpkin Math Worksheets (Itsy Bitsy Fun)
Color the Jack-o'-Lantern Worksheet (Education.com)
Inspiration for Pumpkin Investigation (Mrs. Lowes' Kindergarten)
Pumpkin Pie Recipe (AllRecipes.com)

ivey league preschool: love those L's!

Our L week was last week, so I'm almost done catching up!  :o)

First we did leaf rubbings...it was the first time Caleb had done this and he really enjoyed himself!

We also did our do-a-dot, play-doh mat, and pattern block mat for the letter L:

We did a leaf-themed preschool pack that included counting and graphing activities, as well as sorting words into word families:

We also did a couple of Lorax-themed activities.  First we made a Lorax out of a big letter L with a mustache printable I found online:

We also used math blocks to measure print-outs of Truffala trees:

Finally, we did our magazine scavenger hunt and collage for the letter L:

Our classical music this week was that collection of famous marches again!

Our L Books:
The Lorax by Dr. Seuss
Library Lion by Michelle Knudson
Ladybug Girl by David Soman
Ladybugs by Gail Gibbons

Links:
Do-A-Dot Alphabet Pages (Home School Creations)
Play-Doh Letter Mats (Home School Creations)
Pattern Block Printable Templates (Jessica's Corner of Cyberspace)
Leaf Preschool Pack (3 Dinosaurs)
Lorax Mustache Printable (Coffee and Vanilla)
Truffala Trees Measuring Activity (Fun in PreK-1)