(And All My) Work Be Praise

In following the ABC Jesus Loves Me 4-year-old curriculum , I've been doing some activities to introduce Silas to the different coins. For reasons unbeknownst to myself, he recognizes and weirdly loves nickels, but the rest are new. First we did some coin rubbing with crayons. He struggled a little bit at first to hold the crayon on its side, but as you can see in the picture below, we eventually got a good outline to show up.  The following week, as a fine-motor activity, I buried some coins in balls of playdough. The boys (Owen joined in this activity) had dig them out without using their thumbs. It's great for strengthening other muscles of the hand, which in turn helps with handwriting (or, in Silas's case, violin bow-hold). I didn't take any pictures, but here's a token "we play with playdough in our jammies" photo just for fun (messy kitchen counter and everything). Last week, we got a litttle more specific and sorted a pile of co...

It's been four years now since I did a unit on creation with my kiddos, and it's fourth child's turn to do some preschool crafting! You can see Levi's day-of-creation crafts from four years ago here . His are definitely more involved than Toby's -- such is life with four kids instead of two -- but we did change things up a bit this time around. DAYS ONE and TWO Day one: Toby's first experience with a glue stick (black paper to white). Not terribly successful (think, half a glue stick smashed onto the paper . . . ).  Day two: The picture doesn't look like much, but he colored the clouds and water with chalk. I was hoping it would have a more dramatic effect on paper, but it didn't. Truth be told, I had intended to use cotton balls for clouds, but we didn't have any, and I didn't make it to the store before week's end. Keepin' it real. Day two is Toby's favorite to say out loud: "God separated the clouds and the water!...

As I've mentioned dozens of times, but some of you (I've met new friends since last year!) probably don't know, I'm a big fan of the ABC Jesus Loves Me preschool curriculum. You can buy workbooks, but I never have; the weekly lesson plans are all available for free online. The author, Heidi, now has curricula available for one-year-olds (though I'm skeptical of the point) through five-year-olds (which can be supplemented to be kindergarden, depending on your state's requirements). She has suggested activities for a 36-week academic year, including Bible stories, Bible songs, character development, finger plays, nursery rhymes, classic children's books, shapes, colors, numbers, letters, pre-writing skills, letter and number formation, gross motor skills, fine motor skills, literacy, social sciences, self-care . . . seriously, everything. I've never done it all! We tend to be a bit ahead of the game in academics in my house, but I would honestly NEVER thi...

It's been over a year since I blogged last, and I really don't expect to have time to start up in earnest again any time soon. Even still, I couldn't resist the opportunity to show some comparison pictures between my first toddlers and my current toddlers. I'm using ABC Jesus Loves Me  again, a combination of the two-, four-, and five-year-old curricula (more on that later). One of my favorite activities from the two-year curriculum is using dried spaghetti to show the shape "line." I mean, really, who thinks to teach "line" when you're doing shapes? Not me. Above: Silas at 2.5, in January of 2015. Halfway through, we turn the paper sideways, so as to get a feel for horizontal and vertical lines. Below: Toby at 2.5, in June 2016. That week, he wore his construction hat all day, every day. Painting on a vertical surface is a great way to strengthen little hands!  I love that you can see the smooth curve of chubby toddler c...

I realize I've been a bit sparse here on my own blog lately, but I did find time to write a guest blog for a friend. You can read me today over at Ohio Homeschool Assessments talking about my favorite resources for free printables, and how I find and store them!

This post is woefully belated -- the Chinese New Year was February 19 -- but I didn't want our celebration to go unrecorded, especially since my brother moved to China just a few months ago! He has lived in various parts of Asia for several years, but this is his first job in China. I planned to celebrate the New Year before he even took the job, but knowing we were celebrating "with" Uncle Brian in a small way made it that much more special! We read one random non-fiction book on the Chinese New Year, thanks to the library's seasonal displays, and did two crafts: Chinese Hand Drum : paint the outside of two paper plates red (the lucky color in China, a fact Owen pounced on and declared about every red item he saw for the next three days). Attach something -- the site says small jingle bells; I used small beads -- to the end of some string; attach string to each side of plate (I taped and then stapled over the tape). Attach some sort of rod -- the site suggests a ...

It's been nearly two years since I did a weekend check-in . I'd like to get back into the habit, but only time will tell whether I'll be able to keep it up. Only way to know is to start, so here we are! What I'm Cooking Pulled pork on cornbread waffles with maple-apple chutney . This is leftover from last week, but it was delicious  so I had to share. The pork was nothing fancy, just a loin in the crockpot with some seasonings and some chicken broth. Whole wheat English muffins . I actually have these going in the skillet as I'm typing. I tried one right out of the skillet, all warm and toasty, and this recipe is definitely a keeper! We read Mr. Putter and Tabby Pour the Tea this week, which features English muffins, so it seemed like a good week for a baking project with help from little hands. Baked chicken and potatoes . Super simple comfort food. I did a mix of white and sweet potatoes, since the boys prefer sweet potatoes. For the freezer: a triple ba...

Owen asks me nearly every day if we can do a craft of some sort. I sort of got away from "preschool" activities this year, but if I am to honor my artistic four-year-old's interests, I need to plan these more frequently!  Over Christmas vacation, Levi was reading the Magic Tree House: Dinosaurs Before Dark , so Owen logically asked for a dinosaur craft. A little Pinterest-searching later, we ended up with these cute guys , made from a cereal box, two toilet paper rolls, and some green paint. (There is a template to cut out the dino bodies in that link.) This week, I let Owen browse my "crafting for kids" Pinterest board and choose something (within the very necessary limits that we have the materials on hand). He chose these paper plate rainbows  and we set to painting! I used random objects from the kitchen to draw concentric circles on the plate in pencil. Later, Levi had me cut his in half so that it was the shape of a rainbow, ...

Even though we don't make a big deal out of Santa at our house, it seemed like the logical thing to do to finish up the semester's animal studies with reindeer. Besides, if you can't use your red sparkly pipe cleaners in December, when can you?! Always, always with the googly eyes. And a red pompom nose, of course. Because, besides not really knowing much about Santa, they really didn't know anything about Rudolph, either, we got on youtube to watch the 10-minute movie from 1948  and also to listen to Gene Autry sing it. Levi has been pretty taken with the song since, humming when he doesn't know the lyrics and asking to learn it on the piano. We have a few more animals to study, scattered over the next few months, but will largely be concentrating on the human body for several weeks after the holidays. Should be interesting!

Due to the lethal combination of seasonal busy-ness and house-wide cruddy coughing, we didn't actually read any books about alligators, fiction or non-fiction. If I'd had my wits about me, we would have at least pulled The House on East 88th Street off the shelf to re-visit our beloved Lyle the Crocodile, but 'twas not to be this week. Still, our little craft was too cute not to share! ( Idea found here .) Two handprints: one with only three fingers painted, opened in a V to be the mouth, and another with all four painted and close together as the body. Peel-and-stick foam cut into triangles for the spiky skin, and of course the ever-present googly eyes! Peeling stickers: great fine motor development. I decided our alligators needed a riverbank scene, and the watercolors were already out, so I took a turn with the paintbrush. :) Top right: Levi's scattered spikes. Bottom left: Owen's meticulous straight line of spikes. Aren't pe...

This year, besides our thankful chart , we focused a little bit more on the history of Thanksgiving -- you know, Pilgrims and Indians and all that. It's fun that the kids are getting older and able to understand and remember some of these things! Levi had two lessons on Thanksgiving in his history curriculum , but we went beyond that and used this kindergarden unit on the History of Thanksgiving  as well. (It's kind of hard to see the link on this page; it's in pink, sandwiched between two rows of social media links.) The unit includes books (we got two from the library and didn't worry about the others), links to videos on scholastic.com (which the boys loved watching), craft ideas (which we never got to), and more. I highly recommend it, and will be watching this blog for future units! (Actually, that's not 100% accurate. I get e-mails from freehomeschooldeals.com , and immediately download anything that looks like it might be useful some day. It's been a f...

As I sat down to write this post, I thought to myself, "gosh, another childhood favorite. I wonder why I'm using so many of my own books this year." And then it hit me: getting to the library with all of the children, without ruining any naps, requires a mid-size miracle. So it is that we pulled another fun one off the shelf this week: The Day Jimmy's Boa Ate the Wash  by Trinka Hakes Noble. Craft:  snakes, of course! ( Idea here .) Paper bag, paint, foam cut into triangles, glue, and the ever-present googly eyes. Silas wanted in on the painting action this time. These boys are serious about their gluing. (Never mind the weird lighting. It was not the middle of the night, honest.) Snakes! Science:  I got several library books on snakes -- hold up. Didn't I say above that we never get to the library? It's mostly true. But my favorite local library branch is open on Sundays, so once a month or so I sneak off by myself in the middle of ...

Last week we re-visited another old favorite, Corduroy  by Don Freeman. I'm pretty sure the copy we have was mine as a child. We covered bears a little bit during our berry month over the summer, but there is no shortage of bear stories and activities in the world! Levi reading the story to his brothers. Food :  teddy bear toast  with banana and blueberries. Cute and easy! We also made these  peanut butter button cookies . It might interest you to know that the holes in Corduroy's button are only pictured on one  page in the entire book: at the end, when Lisa is sewing his new button on. (It might also interest you to know that I spell "Corduroy" wrong first every single time.) Even though it's a two-hole button, we decided it would be okay to make both two- and four-hole button cookies. Poking holes in the cookie dough with a straw.  Silas joined in the "flattening" (er, smashing) of the balls of dough. Unflattering pictu...