stART- The Alpha Flower...I named it myself...

A story + art = a great stART!!!

We have finished doing our alphabet crafts for both the Capital and Lowercase letters... so I wanted to do something fun to review... I came up with The Alpha Flower... I wrote the alphabet on the petals and the girls had to put them in order to create the flower. For fun I put the numbers 1-5 on the leaves and stem...

Books we have read to go along with this craft:
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault
Dr. Suess's ABC: An Amazing Alphabet Book! by Dr. Suess
Rainbow Fish, A,B,C by Marcus Pfister
Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert


Ryleigh putting the petals in alphabetical order...
The finished "flowers"....

For more great stART posts check out A Mommy's Adventures!
For more fun projects check out ABC and 123... Red Ted Art and JDaniel4's Mom

stART- Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

A Story + Art = a great stART!!!

This week we read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom...we read it a lot and is a favorite for most of the kids... I used it this week because we are done with all our letters (again)...and are reviewing them as the "school" year winds down...

For our project we made alphabet trees...I cut the trunk and leaves out of construction paper and then the kids put all different colors of alphabet stickers on them... so simple...but so cute.. and a great review!

Ryleigh putting some of the alphabet stickers on...she is wearing butterfly wings...

V putting the alphabet on...

The girls' finished trees...

For more great stART posts check out A Mommy's Adventures!
For more fun projects check out ABC and 123... Red Ted Art and JDaniel4's Mom

Shutterfly celebrates spring...with free Cards!

Spring is my favorite Season... the nice weather...in theory...the longer days... and the promise that Summer is around the corner :-) We have made the most of the beautiful weather and spent many hours playing outdoors and on our brand new swing set.... Spring also lends itself to some really great picture opportunities...especially with all the blooming flowers for a colorful background...

Ryleigh having fun in the warm weather...
Braeden enjoying his swing...

There are some really great holidays in the Spring as well... Easter, Ryleigh's Birthday, Mother's Day and Father's Day...and Shutterfly has a great selection of items to help celebrate! I first used Shutterfly around Christmas time for my holiday cards....and I absolutely LOVED them! This year I plan on using Shutterfly to create photo card invitations, photo-books and Father's Day Cards....

Some of my favorite items is the photo-book because you can tailor them to fit your personalty....

Another great thing about Shutterfly is that they always have so many great special offers available...from free cards to 25% off Mugs... you are bound to grab a great deal!

For your own chance to get 50 FREE Cards from Shutterfly go HERE.

Disclosure: I will receive free cards for writing this post to participate in Shutterfly’s spring card promotion however these are my own unbiased experiences and opinions.

Curriculum 2011-2012 Tot School and K4

I have finally finished the official *until I change it* curriculum for both classes... I will have 4-5 children for K4 and 6-8 children for Tot School.... I am beyond excited!!! That being said...the curriculum is really a list of goals for us to hopefully accomplish this upcoming school year... whether or not that actually happens....we will have to wait and see...

TOT SCHOOL (Ages 2 & 3)

• Circle Time
• Calendar
• Days of the Week
• Months of the Year
• Holidays
• Counting
• Number, Letter, Shape, Color of the Week
• Songs
• Pre-writing
• Lots of Tracing
• Mazes
• Drawing Lines to Match Items
• Pre-Reading Skills
• Recognizing Capital Letters and their sounds
• Letter of the Week Craft
• Find the Letter –Upper case
• Correlation between sounds and object: A is for apple...
• Alphabet Box
• Math
• Number Recognition and counting 1 -10
• Sequencing
• Patterns
• Matching
• Puzzles
• Recognizing shapes
• Sets & Logic - Which one is different/ does not belong
• Science
• Baking (although I suppose this could also go under Math)
• Very Elementary Chemistry
• Units
• Farm Animals
• Plants and Flowers
• Ocean/ Sea life
• Weather
• Seasons
• Fruits/Vegetables
• The Five Senses
• Hot/Cold
• Projects and field trips
• Music
• Singing
• Learning about other instruments, rhythm, dancing
• Art
• Colors
• Mixing Colors/ Color Wheel
• Shades of Colors
• stART projects
• crafts
• Fine Motor Skills
• Practice Cutting
• Fine Motor Activities
• Clothespins, Transfers, stickers, etc.
• Gross Motor Skills
• Catch & Throw
• Kicking a Ball
• Obstacle courses
• Listening Skills/ Following Directions
• Sensory Bins
• Practical Life
• Button snake
• Zipping
• Snapping
• Cutting
• Lacing

Anticipated Purchased Curriculum:

*Hand Writing Without Tears

K4 (Age 4) – Typically they have done Tot school and preschool already

• Circle Time
• Calendar
• Days of the Week (Review)
• Months of the Year
• Holidays
• Counting
• Number, Letter, Shape, Color
• 1-100 Days of School Countdown
• Weather
• Make the Date in Change
• Spanish
• States (all 50)
• Songs
• Writing
• Writing Capital Letters (Review)
• Writing Lower Case Letters
• Writing sight words
• Writing Numbers 1-100
• Reading Skills
• Recognizing Capital and Lower Case Letters and their sounds (Review)
• Beginning sight words
• Letter Blends
• Correlation between sounds and object: A is for apple...
• Rhyming words
• Beginning Readers
• Reading Comprehension
• Story Telling
• Math
• Number Recognition and counting 1 -100
• Counting by 2’s, 5’s and 10’s to 100
• Sequencing (Review)
• Patterns {Review}
• Puzzles
• Value of coins and dollar bill
• Telling time to the nearest 15 mins
• Addition facts through 10
• Subtraction facts through 10
• Opposites
• Sets & Logic - Which one is different/ does not belong
• Measuring to nearest inch(review)
• Weighing objects
• File Folder Games
• Science
• Baking (although I suppose this could also go under Math)
• Units
• Farm Animals
• Plants and Flowers
• Ocean/ Sea life
• Jungle Animals
• Weather
• Seasons
• Fruits/Vegetables
• The Five Senses
• Hard vs. Soft
• Heavy vs. Lite
• Float vs. Sink
• Hot vs. Cold
• Dinosaurs
• Levers/ Pulleys
• Projects and field trips
• Geography
• Compass
• North, South, East and West
• New York- In depth
• 50 States (Names, General Regions, Capital)
• Continents – passports getting stamped as we study different parts of the world
• Post Card Exchange to track on classroom map
• Projects and field trips
• Intro to Spanish
• 1-20 Numbers (review)
• Numbers 21-100
• Colors (review)
• Days of the Week, Months of the Year
• Household and classroom objects (glue, table, phone, stove, etc.)
• Simple Phrases
• Music
• Singing, learning about other instruments, rhythm, dancing
• Intro Music theory
• Art
• Colors (Review)
• Mixing Colors/ Color Wheel (Review)
• Shades of Colors
• stART projects
• crafts

• Fine Motor Skills
• Cutting (review and more practice)
• Learning to Tie
• Fine Motor Activities
• Clothespins, Transfers, stickers, etc.
• Gross Motor Skills
• Catch & Throw
• Kicking a Ball
• Stopping a Soccer Ball with foot
• Passing a Soccer Ball with feet
• Dancing
• Obstacle Courses
• Listening Skills/ Following Directions
• Sensory Bins
• Practical Life
• Dialing a phone
• Address and phone number
• Tying Shoes
• Anticipated Purchased Curriculum:
• *Hand Writing Without Tears
• *All About Spelling/ Reading
• *Road Trip USA/ Expedition Earth
• *K4 Expansion Pack

To see what others did this week check out Tot School at 1+1+1=1; Preschool Corner at Homeschool Creations; and the Weekly Wrap-up at Weird Unsocialized Homeschoolers.

stART- Fancy Nany Cupcakes

A Story + Art = a great stART!!!

This week we read Fancy Nancy and the Delectable Cupcakes.... super cute..... we love Fancy Nancy over here... I especially like how the books nonchalantly teach new vocabulary... In this story, Nancy makes some cupcakes for her school bake sale...not to ruin it for you..but they are delectable (that is fancy for yummy)...

For our project we made...cupcakes (I know...totally surprising)... and the girls had a lot of fun decorating them to make them fancy...

Waiting...patiently...ish... to start baking...

Stirring in the ingredients...we practiced listening and following directions with this project...

No cupcake is complete without frosting and sprinkles...

For more great stART posts check out A Mommy's Adventures!
For more fun projects check out Red Ted Art and JDaniel4's Mom......

stART- Harold's Circus

A Story + Art = a great stART!

This week we read Harold's Circus...another adventure from Harold with his purple crayon...this time we get to go on a magical...lively trip...to the circus... very fun! Our project was open ended...and the girls had a great time using pastels to draw their own story...

The girls used oil pastels to create their adventures on paper....

The girls' finished drawings (adventures)...

For more great stART posts check out A Mommy's Adventures!
For more fun projects check out Red Ted Art and JDaniel4's Mom......

stART- Goodbye April...Hello May...

A Story + Art = a great stART!

We have read many books about spring... one of Ryleigh's favorites was Pooh's Favorite Things About Spring...by Kathleen W. Zoehfeld.... mainly because it was about Winnie the Pooh...

Although we did these projects a week apart- they totally go together... as...April Showers bring May Flowers... (hopefully!)... We made fingerprint raindrop/ Umbrella pictures (April) and handprint flowers (May)....who doesn't love handprint projects? I did both projects in the TSB (Tot School Beginnings) and Preschool classes.... I think they both turned out cute!

I had the kids (in both classes) decorate their umbrellas before we glued them onto the rain page...

Ryleigh making the finger print raindrops...

The April Showers pictures that Braeden and Ryleigh made...

Ryleigh's flowers....tulips perhaps?

Braeden...excitedly waiting to do his project...

Braeden's flowers...

For more great stART posts check out A Mommy's Adventures!
For more fun projects check out My Delicious Ambiguity , ABC and 123... Red Ted Art and JDaniel4's Mom