Doctor Lessons, Part 2 {Weekly Wrap-Up}

We are continuing to enjoy our lessons on medicine! Our girls just can't seem to get enough of it!

 Here is our Bible Memory Verse for the week!

 Elle had a very easy time memorizing this one:)

 Elle is working on her language arts and spelling skills. She loves doing copy work now!

 Here, Em is doing some classification work. She is  separating living from non-living things. We just cut out some pictures from magazines and she sorted them out on the chart.

 The girls had a ball playing with the Potato Heads. We hadn't pulled them out in a while. Of course, Elle had to be an OB/GYN and help Mrs. Potato Head deliver her baby:)

 Congratulations!! Ha, ha.

 I love these silly girls:-)

 I printed off the Doctor Preschool Pack from Homeschool Creations and Em had a great time matching up the medical equipment with its shadow.

 Here are some medicine bottles Em put in size order.

 Elle has continued to work on her Doctor Lapbook.

 Last week's Bible Verse was about being cheerful. Elle was writing out some ways she can be cheerful even if/when negative things happen.

 Em is matching different size medicine bottles with a black and white copy I printed out and laminated.

 Just some sisterly love:) Ce Ce was feeling extra snuggly and spent the morning in the Beco Carrier on my chest, so she gave lots of kisses to me and her sisters:)

 These are little cards we printed out with ASL (sign language) pictures of medical terms.

 Em pulled out the poker chips to put in the slot of the yogurt container.

 Well, look at Ce Ce---she wanted to join in on the fun!! She loves the colored blocks!

 Ce Ce on the move---trying to see what Em is up to. I think Homeschooling just got a bit more interesting;-)!

 Awwww, Em so sweetly showed Ce Ce how to do the chips!!

 Ce Ce (14 mos) was so proud! She wanted to show Elle her work!!

 Em working on her closures basket. It was nice to be in the official classroom again.

 Em checking out a discovery bottle (wave in a bottle).

 Of course, Ce Ce wants to see everything the big girls do now.

 A little music time!

 The big girls love reading this book about the human body!

 Em still loves working on the Alphabet Box!

 Elle attended Gymnastics Camp this week and LOVED it!!!

Man, she is such a grown up lady now. It makes me so sad...but, we are so blessed with her and so happy to have her!!!

We hope you are having a wonderful summer and enjoying some fun learning!!

Blessings,

Aria:)

Just for FUN! {with some learning sprinkled in, lol}

We pride ourselves on raising our children to be very loving and very smart! But, I can admit that I tend to be a bit too "serious" and am really learning how to move away from so much structure and just allow the kids to have FUN! I regret having to "grow up" way too fast as a child and never getting to have fun and just be a kid without a care in the world. 

We always want our children to have a natural curiosity about life and learning and always love to learn! Plus, we know that children's play is children's work, so we want them to have fun at learning and also know how to take care of themselves and a home some day--should God bless them to be wives and mothers.

One of the things we have implemented is {High Touch Tuesday}! But, in general, I am looking for new ways to continue to infuse more FUN into our every day learning. I also have to balance that with our children's individual learning styles. Elle is a very structure-oriented student. She LOVES worksheets, hands-on learning and getting her answers "right." Em on the other hand is ALL about moving!! Her style is very active and tactile. She is definitely a kinesthetic learner! She is all about the DOING part of learning!! This can be a challenge and I make an extra effort to tailor our girls' lessons to accommodate each of their learning styles.

Here is a cartoon that made me laugh. Click on it to enlarge it.

So, here are a few of our fun learning games that I have implemented. I was inspired for this first one by Mama Jen here.  It is a file folder game focusing on the alphabet. We use it in all kinds of ways. Elle has been using it to match to animal names based on the spelling of the name. Em uses it to match capital and lower case letters as well as try to guess at the animal names. It has really been a great game for our girls--they both really enjoy playing it!

 It's funny to see how Em (27 mos) ALWAYS starts with M as her first letter;)

The other fun activity is a math game I came up with. We have the girls roll the jumbo dice and then Elle adds the dice together and gets the 

corresponding number of manipulatives to match. 

In this case, Em rolled 2+4=6(and called out the numbers), so Elle got 2 acorns and 4 gems and added them up! 

It is a lot of fun for everyone!

We have also been using the dice in our gross motor skills activities to determine the number of jumps, hops, skips etc each person (Mommy included) has to do. It is a great way to get some important exercise (especially now that it is cold here) 

and also get math lessons in.

What other fun ideas are you all using?? I need some inspiration in this department;-)

Blessings, 

Our ABC Crafts

We have started doing the ABC crafts found here! We love doing these crafts and have begun hanging them up in our Classroom for a nice visual reminder of what each letter of the alphabet sounds like. I highly recommend making these (or something similar) for your Preschoolers! Even if you do not homeschool, it is a fun weekend project to do as a family!

Our Alphabet Box

So, I got this neat idea here for making an alphabet box! Though Elle and Em both know all of their letters and sounds, this is a great way to reinforce those skills and also prepare Em for spelling phonetically.  Each drawer has tiny items inside that begin with the corresponding letter on the drawer. For example, inside of the B box, you will find tiny butterflies, a bathtub, a brush, a backpack and a very special bracelet the girls got from their Aunt on our last trip to Florida;)

We still need to gather some additional items, but you can get the general idea! We will have to try very hard to keep their little hands off of them--they love them already!