Trash turned into a teacher's treasure!

My littlest learner, Nixon, is really into "opposites" right now.  Anything that he can open/shut or put in/ take-out will keep him busy for a good 10 minutes! (enough time for me to teach Jackson a quick homeschooling lesson or start some dinner)

My husband keeps asking my WHY I am collecting trash in a Target sack in our kitchen!  Plastics with a lid are my favorites!!  My answer...just turning our trash into my teaching treasures!
 Here's a great example for recycling trash AND help build your littlest learners fine motor skills...

All you need is:
1 Clorox Clean up Wipe Container with lid (once it was empty, I washed it in the dishwasher to get all the cleaner out of it)
ALOT of babyfood lids, milk lids, large magnetic letters or just about anything that makes a fun noise when you drop it into the Clorox container. **Just make sure it's not to small!**

I usually dump out the contents, then put the yellow lid back on.  Sometimes I sit with him and count as we drop and other times I just let him explore on his own.  I've even added a magnetic wand that he can use to pick up the lids.  He LOVED using that and so did Jackson! 

Wanna "bump it up" for your older Learners? 

 Use 2 different containers for a Letter Sort: one container holds lowercase letters 

while the other container holds uppercase letters

Start with a mixed-up-pile of upper and lower letters.  

OR

To segment words and hear their sounds use 3 different containers: 

Drop letters in each as you "sound spell" the word.  

1st container - /c/ (drop in magnetic letter C)  

2nd container - /a/ (drop in magnetic letter a)  

3rd container - /t/ (drop in magnetic letter t)

Then ask your child what word you just stretched out..."cat"!  Dump all the letters out of containers and put the letters together to spell the word c-a-t!

Something so simple~ that I haven't seen on Pinterest, yet :0)

Enjoy learning with your littlest Learner and all of your little Learners!

Show me what you know, Jax!

I knew there HAD to be a way to check Jackson's understanding on specific skills that we have been working on!  After weeks of reflecting on how to get this done...this is what I came up with.  I just started it yesterday (May 8), so I'll keep ya posted on if it's something that we will continue to use or if we will try something new.  But today, this worked, just like I had planned!

Meet our Morning Work box!  

I actually don't really like this title, but it's all I could really come up with.  Jackson's best time for independent work and play is first thing in the morning or right after nap (because once he gets going, he doesn't stop!)...so that's how I came up with such a "fancy title"!
I am also going to add a "Morning Work" icon/flip card to his morning procedures (see Morning Procedures HELPS your Mommy post)

Here's how I organized the inside of this old file box:

3 different colored hanging file folders that holds independent work and materials inside.  I wanted EVERYTHING to be stored so it's a "grab and go do" kind of deal.  I hate looking around for paper, crayons, scissors!  I feel like it breaks up the focus and momentum for big and little people.  I have an obsession with always being prepared and thinking ahead!

Plastic Wipe Container that I slide into folders that can hold  crayons, scissors, gluesticks, stickers, or sticky notes!

And the Clothespin clips are for showing me that he is finished with the work that he choose (see next picture)

Jackson shows me that he is finished by flipping around the clip that shows the blue sun sticker.  

This morning, he picked his Highlights Magazine page that has the Hidden Pictures exercise on it.  For the past 3 subscriptions, Jackson and I have been doing this activity together.  I've showed him how you circle the small picture once you've found it in the BIG picture.  Then mark an "x" through the picture you've found to let you know..."YOU FOUND IT!"
  Check out his independent work!  

I'm so proud!

He clearly understands and has applied what  I've taught him!  What an amazing feeling!
I pointed out the GREAT things that he did on his work!  He said that he was finished for the morning, but needed to  keep his clip turned around (no sunshine showing) so he could finish it another day.  Fine with me!

Keep in mind that the material that I am putting in here are skills and strategies that we have worked on for months!  This is a tool that I am using as a teacher to see if what I am doing is effective for my student!  I even plan to just throw in some fun stuff like a "Free time on the computer" card to research something we've been learning about or some blank paper just to doddle on!   Just to keep the interest there for this lil 3 year old.

And does he HAVE to do his "Morning Work" every MORNING?... Nope!  That's why there's only 3 folders...Jackson can pick which folder and what day/time of day he would like to work on them.  I am a teacher and a mother that believes ALOT in giving children the choice to choose!  Builds independence and reasoning skills, right?

Happy Learning with your Little Ones!

Quick and easy ideas

My "dinosaur" of a computer is running super-slow tonight!  So I'm gonna make this a quick one!  My patience is shot after a day with no naps (for either boys) and NOW a computer that wants to take it's precious time...grrrr! Here's a few here and there ideas for you to try with your little learners:

Do a Puzzle...add some labels!

I can't get enough of sticky notes!  They are the best things to keep around for labels, lists, or just a fun way to get your kiddo writing!  

Thanks to Pinterest, we enjoyed this little Science experiment using magnetic letters, construction paper and the SUN!

It also gave me to the chance to assess Jackson on his name knowledge!

Think your little learner might be ready for reading?  Try this first!  

I was curious to see if Jackson REALLY knew the difference between Letters and Words, so I made up this mini-assessment.  

I made the HUGE mistake of saying "You can have candy for a snack if you just do this for Mommy!"  Check out how fast this sort goes...and how wrong it went!

"One over here...One over here...one over here...One over here!  Now where's my candy?"

So we tried it again...and I think he clearly understands the difference between a word and a letter...

Happy Learning with your Little Learners!

Morning Procedures HELPS your Mommy!

Jackson's has turned into the "I can do it...by MYSELF" kid already!  I was hoping his dependency would hang around alittle while longer...but he is a WHOPPING 3 years old now!  So grown up!  And if you are ready to be independent, buddy, then all that does it help your momma (and makes me sad at the same time...sniff, sniff)

I have been going back and forth about Jackson having a chore chart.  My "mommy brain" was telling me that he just wasn't there yet.  BUT...
we could always start with Morning Procedures!  If this works well, then we'll start with chores maybe this summer.  All this could do is make my life ALOT easy!

And if I can handle teaching morning procedures to first graders, this should be a piece of cake, right?
This is what I came up with!

First, I took 4 pictures of him actually doing his "morning procedures" today!  1) Go Pee Pee 2)Wash your hands 3)Brush your teeth 4)Pick out clothes
(Four task/pictures, at this age, is a good number...not to many, not to little)

I printed the pictures and typed in a short question sentence at the bottom of each picture. "Did you wash your hands?"  (Because THAT'S the question I ask EVERY morning)

I stuck a number using scrapbooking stickers at the top of each picture to show sequence/ordinal numbers
(Math Lesson coming soon!)

On the back of each card is a smiley face and "Yes I did!" in text!  I added fun stickers just to make it look...well...fun and like an accomplishment!

Next step... LAMINATE and hang!

The idea: after every procedure is done, then he flips the picture over to show me "Yes I did!" it!

I just introduced this to him today (Sunday), but it officially starts tomorrow!  I'll let you know how it goes!

Happy Learning with your Little Learners!

My little Animal!

My littlest learner, Nixon, is really starting to understand language these days!  He can use it when he signs, when he wants something (using usually his pointing finger and a squeal) or when a certain "someone" messes with him (using his SCREAM!)

His first words were Momma (thank you very much!) and Elmo!  Yep, ELMO!  He has never seen an episode of Sesame Street or Elmo's World, but this boy has been to Busch Gardens just about every week for the past 6 months and Elmo is everywhere!  We even got a picture with that furry, red thing and his buddy Big Bird.  Being that it was the cutest picture EVER, it made the fridge!  But I never knew THAT picture being up there would help Nixon say his very first word!

Think about how many times you walk in and out of the kitchen as a mom?!  And I don't know about you, but I usually have a baby on my hip!  So EVERY time we would pass that fridge, I would stop, point and say names of people in THAT picture..."Elmo, Big Bird, Nixon, Jax and Addie (my niece)"  After about 4 days of this, Nixon started pointing and saying "Elmo".  Ta DA!  Who would have thought?  So....

...I pulled out these amazing animal cards, slapped a piece of magnetic tape on the back and put them on the fridge.  And EVERY time we walk to and from the kitchen, we stop and talk about the pictures.

Sometimes we talk about their sounds, maybe their colors, or the word/name/letters printed on the animal card.  Just talking to your child can be an amazing thing!  It's so cool the language (good and bad) that they can pick up from us!

Something SO simple has become SO effective!  The best confirmation that this lesson is working is when Nixon reads a book with Jer or I, he is pointing and saying animal sounds!  Yippy!  Happy Mommy/Daddy and a Happy Teacher!  Way to go, Nixon!

We have, now, added pictures of family members back in Texas.  I think I need a BIGGER refrigerator!

Happy Learning with your Littlest Learners!

M is for Monkeys, Money and Muffins!

Nixon was turning 1 and his birthday theme was "Sock Monkeys"!  I'm thinking that is where Jackson got the idea for learning about monkeys...cute boy!  So off to the library we went and checked out every Curious George book they had.  I threw in a few non-fiction monkey books too.

Before this thematic unit, I had noticed Jackson had the letter N and letter M mixed up when he was asked to recognize them "out of context".  He knew Nixon's name began with the letter N, but would get confused if I asked him what "N" was by itself.  Boy Howdy, after these lessons we have no problem recognizing N and M!  Something must have clicked!

My first lesson (picture above) with Jax was a literacy/math combo lesson!  And it really helped with his small-motor skills as well.
Literacy Focus: Letter M; Sound
Math Focus: Sorting and patterns revisited - we had been doing sorting and patterns for about 6 months.  This was a mini-assessment to see if he really "got it".
Small Motor Skills - Money pick up, glue and stick in circles

I found this great website (http://totschool.shannons.org/) that has all the "Dot Marker" print outs.  I use these ALL the time!  We've used round stickers, money, fingerprints and yep...our Dot Markers.

After talking about the shape of the letter M and the sound that it makes, we sorted out our pennies from our dimes.  I started sorting them, then gradually handed over that job to Jax.  Before I knew it the whole bowl was sorted into 2 different piles.

He was still interested in the lesson, so I continued with my A(penny), B(dime) pattern assessment!  Once again, I showed him what I wanted him to do, then gradually "released" the responsibility to him.  Here are two, great videos of our lesson!

Jackson got an "A+" on this assignment and he proudly hung his "Money M" up on the fridge.  It only took 15 magnets because it was so heavy, but it was totally worth it!  A few weeks later, we picked off the money and put it into his piggy bank.

For our "Fun with Food" Friday lesson we made Muffins one week and then made Monkey Bread the next!  Friday's are our favorite days of the week...cooking for fun AND Daddy comes home from work for the weekend!

I actually NEVER played  the game "Barrel of Monkeys" until now!  Jackson, Nixon and I had LOTS of fun with this simple (and cheap Target $4.99) game!  We even used them on our Monkey Vines, later...

Another quick and fun Math lesson, was making Monkey Vines.  We decided to make 5 different vines and hang them shortest to longest.  Later (I didn't get a picture) we hung monkeys on them using the "Barrel of Monkeys" game pieces.  I just used a hole punch in the last green ring, and the monkeys hung from there.  I'd have to say, it turned out pretty, darn cute and Jackson was very proud of his Monkey Vines.

In another post on Making Books, I showed our "Where's JoJo?" book that we made.  Making this book was part of this thematic unit on Monkeys!

Sideways...sorry!  

And the BEST part of our Monkey Theme was celebrating Nixon's First Birthday!  

Happy Learning with your Little Ones!

Number Lines are super nifty!

This is going to be a quick post because Jeremy is out of town and my time is limited when it comes to things, like blogging!

*Here's a fun statistic! 

"People remember 10 percent of what they read, 20 percent of what they hear, 30 percent of what they see, 50 percent of what they see and hear, 70 percent of what they say, and 90 percent of what they say AND do!"*

Just some food for thought!

You gotta love the Dollar Tree, huh?  I bought this number chart there along time ago!  I decided to cut the chart apart and use it as a walking number line!

One day, Jackson and I got this out to see how many numbers it actually counted up to!  It went all the way to number 25 which made a LONG number line from our living room into our kitchen!  I stood back and "assessed" Jackson as he did this, realizing he knew his numbers verbally and visually up to 15...but then he started to get mixed up!  Perfect teaching moment for me and something so simple (and CHEAP) led me in the right instructional direction that I needed to go in order for Jackson to understand number order!

I was hoping that by picking up a number, walking it to the end of the number line while saying the number out loud, he would remember 90% of this lesson!  LOL  

But my point is for you to see how easy it is to teach in a fun way and a way they will remember the information!

I helped Jax finish up the number line so that it was all laid out, then we decided to add some trucks (part of my on-the-spot lesson/idea)  We started at the number 1 and just drove the car/truck to the number that I said!  For example "I am driving my bulldozer to the number 13! Can you drive your dumptruck to the number 14?"  After 25 trucks were lined up on our number line, we drove them back into the garage (aka basket)...but this time we started at the number 25 to introduce counting backwards!  My "teacher talk" was consistent and the same as when we counted up.  "I'm driving the red car that's on number 18 back to the garage!  See ya later number 18!"

After writing this post, I'm going to get this out next week and "informally assess" him again to see if we've made some gains on counting past 15!  I'll let ya know!

I wish I had video of this lesson, but it was a random lesson on a rainy day.  But I hope a few pictures and my crazy commentary gives you some ideas for using CHEAP number lines in a fun way!

Happy Learning with your Little Ones!

Made by me Books!

Scrapbooking USED to be one of my hobbies.  I can't find time to scrapbook any more, so we make books!  They are super easy to make and really not all that fancy!  Let your memories become your ideas for your books!  Trip to the beach, favorite toys, words to favorite songs, and so on!   Kids are the best inspirations!

Here are some of our Made by Me books.  We hope it inspires you to start creating, making and reading!

Here's Jackson's "Made by Me" Book box!  I have a lid that goes on this one, so Nixon won't "read" these!  They sure are special to Jackson and the lid helps keep little hands off and out!  Someday, Nixon will have his own book box like this one!

Our Moving In...Moving Out book

 Don't know why this is upside-down!  Sorry!

 
  Jer and I are proud renters and seem to move every year because of work, school or just ready for a change!  And once Jackson was born, I wanted to remember these homes and how old he was when we lived there.  So...I came up with the Moving In - Moving out book!  I took pictures when we "moved in" and, then a year later, took pictures of Jackson in the same room, as we were "moving out"!  It's amazing to see how much he had changed in 1 year!!  We are moving to a new house AGAIN this summer, so Nixon will be a great addition to our book!

Sideways picture...sorry!  I don't know what's going on with the pictures!  This was a fun book we did  Jackson's favorite monkey, JoJo!  We took JoJo outside and Jackson put him in different places around our house.  Simple and repetitive text reads..."JoJo is in the swing."  "JoJo is under the leaves."  And so on...

Another flipped pic!  Ugggg!  This was a quick book I made before running off to the zoo with some friends.  It was a scavenger type thing were if they saw that animal, then they colored it in and read the sentence.
Once again...simple and repetitive text.
 "I see a .."

Our Cars book of Cars

This fun book was inspired by Jackson's LOVE for the Cars movie! (One of my favorites too!)  It took us about a week to complete this book.  We wrote about 1 page a day.  Here's our step by step progess:

Step One:  We talked about how most books have pictures to help us read the words.   I wrote "I see..." and Jackson drew a picture from our picture stack.
These were all pictures of Jackson's Cars characters that I took one day during nap.

Step Two:  After we drew our character picture, we match it up with a page in our book.  This would help us spell out that character's name.  And Jackson would call out the letters in their name while I wrote them on the paper.  Great way to reinforce Letter Recognition!

B is for Bears!

While teaching 1st grade, I enjoyed teaching thematically!  All of my read-a-loud books, centers, crafts and so on where based off of one theme.  And I really felt that my students enjoyed it and LEARNED while teaching this way!  So, if it worked for them, I was hoping it would work for my lil Jackson!   

Bear cookies!  We B-aked these after we rode our B-ike to the B-ank! (more pictures below)  

So back in January, we decided to learn about bears.  This was my first attempt to preschool homeschooling, so I didn't take as many pictures/videos.  But I hope this gives you some ideas to do with your little learner!  

Picture of a scary bear will draw any 3 year old in!  My literacy focus (besides the letter B) was labeling!  Using sticky notes cut in 1/2, we labeled this scary bear and even learned about FUR (with the help of Tank and Max).
**Using old picture calendars are GREAT for this activity!  I always see them on sale at Micheals!**

B-erries and B-ananas on a stick for B-reakfast!  Even touched on making a pattern!

Our Fun with Food Friday treat was:

Sugar Cookies and Chocolate Frosting = one yummy Bear Cookie!

I just used a circle cookie cutter for the face, them rolled 2 small balls and flatten them for the ears.  We even added nose (rolled ball in the middle)

For the frosting, I just used a plastic baggie with a small hole cut in the corner.  Jackson squeezed out the chocolate frosting to make "fur" and I added the face!   

Sure was a yummy treat!

For your littlest learner...

Now that Nixon has turned 1 year old, I'm on a mission to include him in some of our lessons and create some of his own age appropriate activities!  With both Jax and Nix, I let them "explore" with any thing or any activity that's new, rather than jumping in to showing them how it works.  Isn't that what you do with a new "something" that you buy or get?   Doing this, seems to spark new ideas or teach me something that I would have never thought of doing with that certain thing/activity.  Just taking the time to observe your children is such an amazing thing...and lesson!

  Here are a few, simple ideas I did with my littlest learner this week:

Painting! (of course)  But didn't use paper...just on his highchair tray.  I thought the paper might be to much!  Honestly, he didn't even try to taste it!  Must be all the times he has watch Jax do it.  

This is a word building activity (for Jackson) that I found on Pinterest using  single, stacking chunky legos...But I leave them out for Nixon to stack and sort.  And, of course, I build his name for him saying each letter as I stick them to the green Lego board.  

I noticed one day that Nixon kept himself VERY busy sliding a  plastic straw in and out of a cup with a lid from Chickfila!    So I made this simple small motor skill activity for him.  Just took plastic Gerber baby food containers and cut a small x in the lid, then gave him a few straws. 

Happy Learning with all of your little ones!

All "sorts" of Patterns! Making Math FUN!

We love to sort ANYTHING around our house!  And simple sorting activities are great ways to bridge over into addition and other math skills.  I'm a bit OCD when it comes to organizing anything!  We have a bin for just balls, just trucks, legos and so on!  And I look at my "disorder" as a great way to teach my children "sorting" skills during clean up time.  But to make it a formal and much, more fun learning opportunity for my kiddos, I came up with a few lesson for sorting.  And you never know, after a week of lessons on sorting, your kiddos might have helped you organize your WHOLE house!

We have a BILLION trucks...I'm not kidding!  So one day, our lesson was to sort them by color.

I also invite Jackson to help sort our laundry and unload the silverware bucket from the dishwasher.  Helps mommy and helps my lil learner at the same time!  Perfect!

Got Goldfish?  Well you just have a great sorting lesson waiting for you and your kiddo!  I am a proud Momma whenever Jackson decides to sort out his Goldfish Crackers by color before he eats them for his snack.  He also has done this when his gummy snacks!  But he didn't learn this sorting concept over night!  One of my very first sorting/addition lesson with him was using the Smores Goldfish (which are to DIE for...so yummy)  I just cut out 3 "sorting circles" using colored construction paper, then laminated them, of course!  Check out our video, to help it make more sense:

Then our lesson led to addition...which now, I wish I would have done on a whole different day/lesson.  That was ALOT for one lil brain to understand in one lesson and those SMELLY wipe markers didn't help!

 He still loves to get our his "sorting circles" when we have Smores Goldfish for a snack!

Sorts can also led to understanding the concept of patterns.  Sort whatever first, build patterns next.  Here are some patterns we made with snacks (of course!)

 And the good ole paper chains are always fun to make and then just to decorate!

With St. Patty's Day coming up, buy a box of Lucky Charms and have your kiddo sort the marshmallows!  Fun with Food always makes lil one's learning more fun!

Happy Learning!