BFIAR - Corduroy (Teddy Bear Theme)

I decided to do one of our units from our Before Five In A Row curriculum. We "rowed" the book Corduroy, by Don Freeman. Here are some of the highlights from our week:

Along with reading Corduroy daily we read lots of bear books.

Bear dress up puzzle ( Melissa and Doug )

Teddy Bear shape matching

(Childcareland.com)

Mr. Teddy joined us at the table for school every day. 

I love this shot of Ducky concentrating 

Button Matching

Searching for buttons in a bin of dried beans

Geometric Stacker ( Melissa and Doug )

Snack time - Teddy Grahams, carrots and dip )

Bear color matching. She finished this activity super fast so I handed her a color one at a time and had hear search for items in the house to match the color. She responded really well and we used the idea with a similar activity later in the week. 

(ABCTeach.com)

Word/Picture matching 

(HomeschoolCreations.com)

In this week's play-doh kit I added brown play-doh and teddy bear cookie cutters. 

Monkey Man was here!

This week's memory verse. 

Coloring her Corduroy picture

(BookitProgram.com)

Doing some shape work. First I used these as flashcards. Then we went on a shape hunt, similar to the color hunt that I previously mentioned

(HomeschoolCreations.com)

Here she's doing the "sit on the ground" portion of our song that we did every day:

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear 
Teddy bear, teddy bear, turn around.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch the ground.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, up on tiptoes.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, touch your nose.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, walk to me.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, bend your knee.
Teddy bear, teddy bear, hop around,
Teddy bear, teddy bear, sit on the ground.

We took a field trip to Build A Bear Workshop:

Which one should I choose?

I like this one Mommy!

Picking a heart.

In goes the stuffing.

Her first bath.

Brushing her fur.

I shall call you Lola.

 In this picture she's at the computer next to me pretending to type. This is my favorite picture of the week. 

She wanted to ride the escalator just like Corduroy

Look, Mom!

On the way down

I am going to ride again Mom, ok?

Mom, look at me!!!

( She rode it twice with Daddy then once with Mommy and cried when it was time to leave )

Playing the iPad on the way home. 

Valentine/Love Theme

This week was our most productive one yet. I introduced the idea of sensory bins. I wasn't sure how this would go over with Ducky. As it turns out she LOVED it. Every morning she would ask when it was going to be sensory time. 

We attempted to work on our cutting skills. That didn't go over too well. She was begging to learn but she really struggled with the fine motor aspect. My mom works at a special education school and she is bringing me some scissors to try out that she thinks might help. I will update once I get them this week. 

Our first ever sensory bin!!!! 

Digging in

Concentrating on finding the hidden hearts

She said the paper tickled. 

How do you open this thing, Mom?

Still playing

I printed some ABC hearts and glued them onto some construction paper hearts that I had left over from this past week's Sunday School lesson. When I did this, I wasn't quite sure how I was planning on using them.

We used our Melissa and Doug wooden letters and matched them with the ABC hearts. I would hand Ducky a letter, ask to tell me the name and then to find the matching letter. Ducky responded really well to this activity. I plan on using it again soon. 

Her coloring skills have really improved in the last few weeks.

She's thinking:  I wonder if Mom will notice if I eat one of these?

Conversation Heart counting activity

V is for Valentine puzzle 

Some fine motor work

Working on her heart butterfly

Covering up her letter Vs

Heart hands ( probably my favorite part of the week )

"Hold your hands up and don't move until I get back."

This was a last minute activity. Ducky was begging to do more crafts so I had her glue tissue paper to a heart that I cut out of cardstock. 

Hard at work.

Play-Doh time

Stacking Rings

Monkey looks so pitiful 

That's better!

Hard at work.

Our newest sign language words/phrases this week were:

Heart

and

I love you

Our printables this week were from the following websites:

Confessions of a Homeschooler

1+1+1=1

Over the Big Moon

The Lesson Plan Diva

~Ducky is currently 38 months old ~

Letter of the Week - Letter K

We spent the week focusing on the letter K. All in all it was a great week. We had a lot of fun. Ducky amazes me. She is such a sponge. She really is a blessing to teach. We have our moments where her behavior makes it tough to accomplish things but with a little training, she gets right back on track.

Coloring her book, all about the letter K

Key sizes, smallest to biggest

Shadow matching 

Key Shapes

Here Ducky is working on her numbers. 

Dot painting. This is Ducky's favorite activity and she would do this for hours if I'd let her. 

Coloring her keys orange.

Doing the ASL sign for the color orange. 

Monkey man decided to join us for story time. 

Lacing time. I picked up these baby friendly lacing beads for Monkey Man to use while his sister uses hers. He can't lace them yet but he sure enjoys using them as a chew toy. 

Bead lacing

Monkey man watching me during calendar time. 

We began doing daily calendar time this week.  Each day we sing the days of the week song and add the number that goes along with the current date. We then count. Here we counted to 8 because the date was Wednesday, Febrary 8th. Next we check the weather and sing the weather song. Starting next week we will be adding a daily schedule onto our calendar time. Ducky responded GREAT to this activity. 

Here is one of Ducky playing with our newest homeschool tool, our iPad!!
There are so many awesome educational apps our there. For now we are starting Ducky out with the free apps and once she gets use to using the iPad, then we will provide her with some better apps. There is one called "The ABC's of God" that I am really looking forward to purchasing. I am also waiting for my new case to arrive. I am getting one that is  hyper toddler friendly.

Our sign language words of the week were:
Kangaroo
Key
Kite

Below are the links to all of the printables that we used this past week. Thank you to everyone whose printables I used:

www.1plus1plus1equals1.com(Letter K)
Confessionsofahomeschooler.com (Letter K
Printable Letter K Book

Next week our theme will be Valentines Day / Love
Our new Bible lesson will be on creation ( more info to follow next week )

ABC (Review )

Our ABC review week went well. I did notice some improvement by the end of the week. I plan on doing a letter of the week theme using the letters that she struggled with. I will rotate this with our other unit studies.

A sample Month would be:

Letter K Theme
Valentine/Love Unit Study
Letter U Theme
Corduroy Unit Study (BFIAR)


Sadly I was not able to take pictures this week of Ducky at work (the camera needed batteries.) I did however want to give credit where it  is due as far as the printables that I used.

Homeschool Creations has lots of great ABC printables that we used. I ended up laminating some of them and plan on using them often.

I found the cutest ABC Caterpillar printable over at the Moffatt Girls blog.

I also used various printables from the following blogs/websites:

1+1+1=1
Confessions of a Homeschooler

The plan for next week is a Letter K theme. We will also begin daily calendar time. I am looking forward to this.

Now I know my ABC's.... or so I thought

I sat down with Ducky on Sunday evening and tested her using flashcards and a few other supplies. I was surprised at how many letters she once knew that she no longer could remember. So I am taking this week to do an alphabet review with her. I will post our progress at the end of the week.

I am also using this week to do some much needed homeschool planning and cleaning. I spent yesterday cleaning out our arts and crafts drawers. I also organized one of my file boxes of unit studies. Now I have 2 more file boxes to go.

Tonight we are starting our family Bible time that Dad will be leading us in. The plan is to read a chapter of Proverbs a day. I am so excited to see where this Bible time takes us in the years to come. I am loving seeing our family grow in Christ.

Starting Over

Things are finally settling down and I can once again begin my homeschool blogging. It's been a crazy few months in our house. It seems like every week there was a member of the family that was sick. We quickly fell off our schedule. We had birthdays, holidays, the birth of my nephew, hubby going to school and working as a very busy real estate agent. There hasn't been a dull moment around here, I assure you. I guess that's the good thing about starting ducky out early. We have a little room to have months like this. I started back this week with more of the structured schooling and ducky did great. So glad that homeschooling is flexible.

Fall 2011 Curriculum Clean Out

Be sure to check out Homeschool Creations Curriculum Clean out!!!