Tot School

Kayleigh is 32 months

Literacy Activities

We read lots of books about the fall and focused on the letter G this week.

We finally got around to completing our F page for our ABC book.  Kayleigh painted the F with a feather and then we glued a feather on.   She wasn't much interested in doing the craft.  She does spend a lot of time looking at the book in her "spare time."   She loves it!

Kayleigh did her first poke page, from COAH.  She loved it!  

We'll be doing more of these.

G is for Gumball letter sort, also from COAH.  She had no problem

sorting "mommy" and "baby" Ggs.  She also used a pointer to teach her critters about Gg.

So cute!

Of course we had to do Gumball Spelling, from COAH.

Kayleigh always likes those.

Math Activities

We played the Roll-A-Tree Game from 2 Teaching Mommies.



I got this adorable Fall Pattern and Sequencing Card set.  It came with these fall animal counters
that Kayleigh just loves.  We did a couple of different acctivities with them.  We used some of the cards that came with the set.  Kayleigh hasn't totally grasped the concept of patterns yet but she showing progress.  If you can get her to say the pattern with you then she can usually tell you what comes next.

I also made a Fall Grid Game, modeled after the ones over at PreKinders.  You just roll a die and then cover the grid with the appropriate number of markers.  Kayleigh surprised me by recognizing some of the numbers on her own.

Of course her favorite activity was just to play pretend with the critters. LOL



The favorite of the week was Candy Corn Math.  I made four activities that we played using Autumn Candy Mix.  Sorting, graphing (for my older daughter), patterns, and a grid game.  Both girls loved it.  Especially eating some of the game pieces.

Download the printables here.

We did another visual discrimination game, also from PreKinders.  

 Motor Skills

I was excited to find my missing Music and Movement in the Classroom  cd.  I used to use it all the time as a classroom teacher and when I did a brief stint as a dance teacher.  Kayleigh had a blast dancing to "Body Rock."  The top photo is her signature move. LOL

We used halloween colored pipe cleaners for a small spaces activity.
Kayleigh said it was lemonade. LOL

She did some tonging with halloween colored pom poms and our pumpkin ice tray.

She asked to do "work" like Mackenzie so I finally broke out the Kumon Let's Color!  book
I'd bought forever ago.  I wasn't too sure how she'd do, as it involves following directions,
but she surprised me.  She even did two pages.

The girls did autumn leaf prints using toilet paper tubes that were bent into a leaf shape.  Simple and fun!   And the paintings came out adorable.  I got the idea from The Frugal Family Fun blog.

Learning Toys and other fun Stuff

We got a new toy, Alex Little Hands Button Art.  It first came across our radar when we read about it over at Caeden's Corner.  Kayleigh loves to play with it.  She just doesn't like to match the colors. LOL

Our Melissa and Doug Chalk Board made an appearance this week.

And of course, the Magneatos  came out.  She made a crown, a baby rattle, and discovered that they stick to the chalkboard.

And what could be more fun than kicking down the Melissa and Doug Nesting Blocks?

And out came this month's sensory bin.  She loves the stretchy
skeletons, which she calls scarecrows.

Check out what other tots are up to by clicking the Tot School button at the top of the page.

Weekly Wrap-Up

It was an uneventful week here with not much to report. We hung with some friends but no big outings. We did, however, test out some of our new art supplies from A.C. Moore.



Have you seen A.C. Moore's line of store brand art supplies? Specialty paper, paints, pastels, and other artsy goodies for about $5 an item. I'm trying to be more purposeful about our fine arts studies this year so I was excited.

At any rate, we wanted to test out some of the goodies so we chose this project from Art Projects for Kids. (BTW, check out her recent post about her favorite art supplies.)

This will be our last official "third grade" wrap-up. Next week Mackenzie heads off to Xtreme Kidz Kamp with our church and the following week we start Fourth Grade!!! Woot!

Be sure to see what everyone else has been up to this week at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Weekly Wrap-Up

Well it's been a couple of weeks since I've "wrapped-up" but we're not actually doing school so there hasn't been much to say. LOL I'm late with the wrap-up, again, and wasn't even going to post but I did a post for Kayleigh and didn't want Mackenzie to feel slighted.

We went to visit my dad over the fourth and enjoyed some small town life. And we even did a few patriotic activities at home.

We made a fireworks craft that Mackenzie enjoyed. You can view that HERE.



The girls made edible "sparklers" using pretzel rods, marshmallow fluff, and patriotic sprinkles.

Since I'm feeling too lazy to take the time to post individual pictures of our weekend, you'll have to squint at these scrapbook pages I made. Sorry. LOL

Be sure to check out what everyone else is up to over at Weird, Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

Weekly Wrap-Up: School's Out

Hooray! We did it! We're free at last!! The last thing that we had to do was her final math test and she did it over the weekend so she'd be officially finished for the week to come.

So now I now longer have a third grader...sniff, sniff.

I was going to take some pictures of her holding her little "I finished core 3...I finished level blah, blah, blah..." but I haven't yet. Maybe next week.

So what have we been doing? I'm trying to remember.

I finished scheduling science for next year. Everything else is already in HST for next year. LOL I'm such a homeschool mom.

I've even printed out some of the lapbook units that we're using along with it and cut them out. I've also been doing some digital scrapbooking. It's so exciting to not have to clean up a mess when I'm finished.

Carisa, from 1+1+1=1, got me hooked on Tumblr. I'd like to explain it to you but it would just be easier if you clicked on Carisa's name in the previous sentence and let her explain. She's much better at it than me.

I'm primarily using it as a place to visually link all the great ideas I see on the web that I'd like to try with the girls. I like the visual aspect of the links rather then the list of names in my bookmarks. I can't remember what I liked about the site from a random name but I can recall them with a picture of the activity. It's probably my age. LOL

We've been going to the pool, Water Country USA, the Virginia Marine Science Center. I took pictures of the latter. I'll share some of them with you. I'll save the rest for Kayleigh's Tot School post.

And that is pretty much what we've been up too. Be sure to check out the other Weekly Wrap-Ups hosted by Kris.

Weekly Wrap-Up: Family and Dog Overload

It's time for the Weekly Wrap-Up, hosted by Kris. Or it was yesterday. LOL I'm late.

We've had a crazy week and it's going to remain that way for the next couple.

First, we were dog sitting for two weeks. We don't really enjoy pets, to put it mildly, so that was a challenge. This particular dog wasn't terribly bad, except when it was time to go for a walk. He's a runner and doesn't do well on a leash. And he wasn't the brightest. I had him for two weeks and couldn't teach him any tricks. And for someone who doesn't enjoy pets, I have a knack for teaching dogs tricks. (It's such a waste on someone who doesn't enjoy pets.) The last dog I owned could do the standards (sit, lay, shake, speak) plus dance, beg, and sing "My Country 'tis of Thee." Poor Charlie, couldn't master even shake. Bless his heart.

We all survived though. Although I've vacuumed, swept, swiffered, and mopped and so far all I've done with the dog hair is push/blow it around our wood floors. The only thing I hate more then wood floors are wood floors with a dog on them. Sigh...

Now we're enjoying family invasion time. It's rare that anyone actually visits us. They always expect us to do the traveling. (So much fun with a toddler who hates the car.) But a big event can sometimes get them to come.

Well to be fair, my dad and step-mom do come every year for the big Liberty Tax convention. So they're here now. Leaving tomorrow and coming back for a night next week for the Big Event.


In this case my husband is retiring after 21 years in the Navy (Woot!), so it was easy to guilt his mom into coming. If only she hadn't brought that ill-mannered puppy. LOL Yes that's right we got rid of one only to have replaced with a naughty one. It jumps, nips, chews. I'm afraid it's going to revert my toddler back in to fearing dogs. Thankfully, it's staying at Kevin's brother's for the weekend but it'll be back on Monday. On the bright side, by the time it leaves, it will be trained to stay off furniture. If I accomplish nothing else next week, I will accomplish that. =o)

Then next Thursday my mom arrives. She doesn't know my dad's going to be at the ceremony yet. She's still bitter about the divorce from 24 years ago. Pray for me!

I guess I should talk about homeschooling some. LOL

Despite the arrival of my father mid-week, school went on as scheduled. He's been at the tax convention.

Science done! Math done, except for final tests. History will be done next week. (If we actually get a chance to do school with my in-laws here.) Aside from that we have 2 read alouds and one reader to finish. Then we're totally finished hooray!!!!! Mackenzie's so excited that she's reading school books right now.

Good bye third grade!!!

Since I'm in a hurry no pictures this week. And I got a few nice ones of Charlie. For all that he's furry and smelly, he's cute. He's a Shiba Inu (spelling?) and is red like a fox with a curly tail. The tail is very cool from the side but not so much from the rear because his "third eye" is always staring you down. Ick!

Wow, this post was a lot of rambling about nothing. =o)

Weekly Wrap-Up

Happy Friday!!! Hope your week went well.

We've been working, working, working to get this year over! It would probably go faster if we'd stop taking breaks for things like the zoo. Actually, the zoo didn't stop us. We did school afterward. Ha!

Some of our highlights this week...

One more lesson in math!!!!! Woot!!!!!

Science will be done by Wednesday. Double woot!! We're currently enjoying The Great Dinosaur Mystery and the Bible. It's been a very interesting read and has given us a lot of things to discuss.

Mackenzie and daddy had fun with the Blizzard in a Bucket that I picked up for cheap at the Scholastic Warehouse sale.

We have two weeks left of history but I have a feeling that we'll be doubling up next week and finish that up too. That's always easy to double. That will just leave us with two read alouds and two readers to finish. Oh happy day!!! The end is near.

We studied the Nez Perce this week and she made a Nez Perce History Pocket this week. Sorry no pictures.

You'll have to settle for these from the zoo yesterday. It was hot, slightly crowded for a Thursday, and we had to battle the world's worst behaved school group ever but the animals were cooperative for my camera. Even the ones who's tails were being stepped on by obnoxious boys with no supervision.

Be sure check out the Weekly Wrap-Up hosted by Kris.