Halloween Bingo

Halloween Activities and Games

Here are a few of the websites that we used for our Halloween activities.

We printed out a Ghost Counting Board Game to play (at the bottom of the
list), but she also has wonderful math, color, size, shape, and letter
activities:
http://www.childcareland.com/free.html

We have had lots of fun playing Halloween bingo and dominoes (but you
can choose lots of other themes instead if you want to play these games
with numbers, letters, shapes, animals, time, etc.)
**Halloween Activities:
http://www.dltk-holidays.com/halloween/games/printablegames.htm
**Dominos: http://www.dltk-cards.com/dominos/index.htm
**Bingo: http://www.dltk-cards.com/bingo/

We enjoyed the skeleton game. Print out multiple copies of a skull,
body, arms & legs and be the first to complete the skeleton:
For a 6, take a skull
For a 5, take a body
For a 3 or a 4, take a leg
For a 1 or a 2, take an arm
http://www.activityvillage.co.uk/skeleton_game.htm

We painted a pumpkin and made our own jack-o-lanterns (gluing on eyes,
nose and mouth). There are some other good ideas for the
preschool/kindergarten crowd at this website
http://www.littlegiraffes.com/october.html

Delenn and Logan have enjoyed the Halloween Alphabet Book we printed
out: http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/wil/A_Halloween_Alphabet.pdf

We also bought a set of 4 really cute minibooks on the history of
Halloween, spiders, bats and pumpkins for $1.99 but the website isn't
working so I can't post the link to that. Logan and Delenn have enjoyed
reading them, so they were worth the small cost (we're using them as
part of our Halloween lapbook/unit).

Delenn and Logan Playing Halloween Dominoes

We're Ready for Halloween!

Base Halloween Party

Delenn plays a game. Sydney and Delenn. Elora, Delenn and Seth.
Delenn and Logan (at left) with lots of other kids at the Halloween
Party.

Having fun on the tag-along bike

Preschool, Kindergarten Website

There's a (free) website that I have been using quite a bit with my 3 and 5 year old kids.  I wanted to pass it along to you all in case you might find it useful.  It has lesson plans for about 30 well-known books (such as The Very Hungry Caterpillar, Officer Buckle and Gloria, Brown Bear, Brown Bear, etc.)  There are cute printables and she has some good ideas in her lesson plans.  Here's the direct link for those.

http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/wil/classroom_instruction.htm#Weekly_Instruction

I've also been printing out her "rhyme-a-week" for my son to read aloud. The font is quite big and there's always a cute picture on it as well.

She has nice ideas for working with word families -at words, -ite words, etc. (that go along with the particular nursery rhyme).  She has pictures of most any -at word; -ight word; -ill word etc. if you are working with those (or other) word families and need to print out pictures (sorry it's late and I know I didn't write that out very clearly!).  

Here's the link for the nursery rhymes:
http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/wil/rimes_and_rhymes.htm

And finally she has short lesson ideas to go along with a whole long list of books (Harold and the Purple Crayon, Where the Wild things Are, etc.) She has a suggested rhyme to go along with each book. Here's that link

http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/wil/home.html#Monthly%20Materials

Hope someone finds this useful.

Going for a swim at the Desert Palms Resort Pool

We went swimming at one of the local resort's pools. The
water was chilly, but the kids had a great time.

Kindergym

Everyone's been enjoying Kindergym lately. Logan has a good
buddy, Devas, who he plays with the entire time (in blue above).

Kindermusik -- The Itsy Bitsy Spider

Kindermusik -- The Japanese Rain Dance Song

Kindermusik -- "Pitter, patter, pitter I can hear the Rain"

"Pitter, patter, pitter I can hear the Rain" -- first they drew
pictures of the rain and wind, then they used the rhythm sticks
and ribbons to make the rain and wind.

Kindermusik -- It Rained All over the Town, Town, Town...

Let Me Out!

An Update about Elora

Elora has been amazing us with how strong she is.  She is pulling up on anything she can to stand up -- the couch, her toys, the train table, cabinets and her favorite -- the bathtub.  I often find her standing in the bathroom looking longly at the toys in the tub. It might also be soothing on her gums because most of the time she is gnawing on the edge of the tub.  Elora is teething and having a rough time of it.  The top gums are very swollen and we should see her pearly whites within the next couple of days.  That also means that our nights with her have been rough.  Anyway, back to her physical feats.  Today Elora was standing holding onto my knee as I was sitting on the floor.  She then stood up a bit taller, let go of my knee and stood there balancing on her own while giving me a big grin.  "HAH!  Look at me!" she seemed to be saying.  She has tried to stand on her own a couple other times (like in the bathroom letting go of the tub), but I thought that she just forgot to hold on.  Today it was very deliberate; she was trying to stand without holding on.  Go Elora!

Elora races all around the house with her crawl.  She crawls properly on one knee, but on the other side she uses her foot instead (someone called it hitching, but I don't know if that's the proper terminology for it).  She'll carry toys around in her mouth to get from one spot to another.  It's very cute to see her racing along with a stuffed animal or plastic doll in her mouth. (One of her favorite toys is a small plastic doll figurine that Delenn had gotten in a Happy Meal.  On that note, her favorite book is still Baby Chick's Day.  She is quite pleased with herself because she can now make the chick squeak.)

We had Elora weighed and measured last week.  She's about in the 50% percentile for weight and 95+% for height at 8 months of age.

Elora is a great eater.  She has joined us at the table and eats lots of finger foods.  She'll eat any finger food I put in front of her -- diced fruit, cheerios, cooked soft vegies, shredded meats and so forth.  Tonight after eating a full meal for Daddy (1+ jars of baby food plus finger food) she went CRAZY until I let her try my pizza.  Then she continued to claw at my hand until I fed her more.  It leaves me wondering how it is that she's in the 50th percentile for weight!

Her personality is still very sunny.  She's quite happy and laughs hard when Logan and Delenn joke around with her.  She wants to be right in the middle of things, so if Logan, Delenn and I are reading or playing together Elora needs to be sitting ON TOP of everything!  She is a bit shy around strangers at the moment.

Fire Safety!

We did a unit on fire safety. We talked about the role of
fire fighters (and fire puppies too, of course!) and read a
couple of books together and did some crafts out of toilet
paper rolls.

Stop, Drop and Roll!

We practiced what to do if your clothes caught on fire.
Stop! Drop! and Roll! To help someone else out you can
throw a blanket on them to smother the fire.

We also talked about the exits they might use in case of
fire and tested our fire alarms to make sure the batteries
still worked.

A Smoke Filled Obstacle Course

We practiced crawling low to escape
from the smoke. Logan is wearing a
blind fold to stimulate how dark it can
be in a smoke-filled room. Delenn was
a bit scared to do it with a blindfold at
first, but then gained confidence and
did it a couple times blindfolded too.

We did it again and again and again

Each time Mommy made it a bit harder!

Elora Joins in the Action!

Oh My Goodness!

My Weekly Reader came in the mail and it's on Fire Safety!

Yes, they are wearing underwear on their heads!!

Ring Fun

The kids really enjoy playing around on the rings.

Delenn, the 3-year old Princess

Delenn's Birthday Party

Delenn had an arts-and-crafts birthday party. The kids are
doing play dough and painting paper mache animals and
star fighters in the pictures above.

Decorating a canvas bag

Logan preferred a bit of tennis to the crafts

Just as we thought, Logan wasn't much interested in
doing arts and crafts today. He did enjoy doing the
crafts during the week as we got ready for the party
though. He and Delenn spent an hour playing with
the play dough yesterday (and he decorated his
canvas bag earlier in the week).

Chasing Bubbles

Bradon, Lexi, Logan and Sydney just hang out

Gifts and Decorating their Cupcakes

Some of the finished crafts

Kindergarten Curriculum

A friend of mine who also has a kindergartener just wrote and asked me for some of the websites and book/curriculum recommendations. I'll post what I wrote to her here on the website because I know there are others who might also like these websites and stuff. Just skip this entry if you're not interested in the nitty-gritty of what we do!

Here are some of the things I do with Logan (and Delenn). This sounds like a lot, but the three main things I do daily are reading/spelling, math and music. Most days I try to have him do some kind of writing/drawing work. And, I do science/social studies/lapbook kinds of things several times a week (when he's interested/inspired). But, since we homeschool, this is interspersed and integral to our day -- so we don't have a formal "now it's schooltime" (ding, ding, ding). School happens on a bed, at the couch, on a trampoline, on the swings, at the table... you get the idea. I won't even go into much about their general free play, crafts, computer time and stuff.

For math, I love, love, love, love our curriculum -- it's called Right Start Math -- http://www.alabacus.com/ -- and has lots and lots of hands on activities using manipulatives like an abacus tiles, tally sticks (ie. popcycle sticks) and so forth. Logan is doing things like geometry as well as learning to work with numbers in all sorts of different ways (rather than just addition, learning to count, etc. -- which is incorporated in there as well). I can't recommend it highly enough!

If you just want to supplement with fun math activities -- this teacher's website is very, very good. I just downloaded a pig picture (to make a piggy bank) and will have Logan do a worksheet with coin stickers I have. Under the pig picture I wrote "I see 7cents in this piggy bank." I'll work with him on putting the correct amount of money "in the piggy bank." This website is http://www.littlegiraffes.com/teacherpage.html This teacher also has activities on the ABCs, word families, book/themes, and so forth.

As for reading/learning to read. We sit down and have Logan do one reader a day -- we started with the Bob Book Series, went on to Animal Antics -- and now are primarily using a series called Primary Phonics. We got the set used from someone, but I'm impressed with it. Each book is 16 pages long and they really build Logan's reading skills (http://www.epsbooks.com/dynamic/catalog/book.asp?subject=63S&subjectdesc=Phonics+%26+Word+Study&series=357M&seriesdesc=Primary+Phonics%3Csup%3E%26reg%3B%3C%2Fsup%3E&seriesParent=pri_level2&seriesparentdescription=2&altIsbn=1556&altIsbndesc=Storybooks+1%26ndash%3B6+Complete+Starter+Set ). We supplement that with Scooby Doo phonics readers and things like that. He's a pretty good reader now, so now I have him spell 5 words from his book (slide, steep, or other words from his story). There's good activities at starfall.com including phonics readers.

We read lots and lots and lots; I have 2 or 3 books always out on the dining room table and read during meals and snack time (or just after). A good place to start if you're thinking of going any further with the book (doing activities with them) is this website http://curry.edschool.virginia.edu/go/wil/classroom_instruction.htm#Weekly_Instruction Many of the books are award winning books and this professor has designed activities to go along with them. Examples of books with lesson plans include Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, Officer Buckle, and The Very Hungry Caterpillar. If you have one of those and might be interested in doing more activities with literature at home, I suggest you check out her lesson plans. They truly look wonderful! Her nursery rhymes (and supplementing that with word family activities) also look pretty good. I recently found http://www.storylineonline.net/ -- these are books read aloud on the computer by Hollywood actors/actresses. And I also download, record onto CD and play lots of stories from http://storynory.com/ in the car.

Writing skills -- I do this in all kinds of ways -- he has a drawing book and I encourage him to tell me a story (which I write down) and he illustrates it. He does mazes and dot-to-dot books. I use pages from learningpage.com (http://www.learningpage.com/pages/menu_basics/alpha_zaner.html) -- print out a letter and have him practice tracing. I also laminated some sheets from a book called File Folder Games that I got from Lakeshore Learning. It also has math activities and general kindergarten level games. I recommend that one. And I also encourage him to write cards to his relatives and friends for birthdays.

I use Kumon workbooks (I love their maze books) -- and will probably use their math workbooks eventually a bit as well.

For general education sheets for Kindergarten I really like the http://www.learningtreasures.com/ -- she has very cute alphabet cards, number cards and activities and things like that. I print out quite a bit from her site.

Science and history/social studies) -- we have a curriculum but at this point are primarily doing lapbooks (check out the website for Logan's latest unit on bats) and have read 15 or so of the books -- Read and Learn About Science such as Germs Make Me Sick . I love the website In the Hands of a Child because the lapbook kits are done/researched for you (we've done units on Thanksgiving, pirates, birds, bears and bats). We have used the packets from Hands of a Child as a base for several of those lapbooks (and supplemented with Enchanted Learning's activities (enchantedlearning.com I think). They have free lapbooks every quarter, but this month it's on Thomas Alva Edison and unless [your child] is totally into science/electricity it's probably not a good one to start with!! http://www.handsofachild.com/shop/Quarterly-Freebie-C151.aspx For social studies Logan gets the Weekly Reader -- which I put in the mailbox each Wednesday for him (it comes through our PO Box) and it covers topics like the election (They are pretty simple, but get us talking about different topics. For example, one of them was... "Who will be our next President?" John McCain is running for President. Barack Obama is runing for president. ... and a bit more, but it got us on the topic of voting. Another was on Fire Safety; one was on spiders; one was on books and reading, etc.)

Logan does like the little science videos at this site: it's free to subscribe and the videos are cute --
http://www.sciencewithme.com/

I also heartily and strongly recommend the next level of Kindermusik -- Young Child 1. I am doing/teaching that for Logan and several of his friends... and I am SO SO impressed by the quality of activities (I've supplemented a bit to it -- so that they've really been learning the notes A, D and now F). Logan and the others have learned a lot about rhythm as well. I've read a book and several articles about how very important music is at this age -- and how many kids who were supplemented in preschool and kindergarten with music/singing had much better math scores -- but also the studies showed that these benefits follow the kids straight on to high school and college.

I know I've probably given you way too much information... just ask if you have any questions. It's late so I'll just hit send for now.

Crafty Delenn, Crafty Logan

While Delenn was busy with her crafts, Logan was busy being
crafty (tying up Delenn). This turned into a long game where
Logan was the jailer and Delenn was in prison. Logan spent
much of the time at Delenn's beck and call getting her toys,
drinks and snacks, and making her comfortable with a blanket
and pillow.

Turned into an hour-long game

A Bit of Fun at the DingoDen

Elora's Pulling Up on Everything and Standing Pretty Well Now

Araluen Art Museum

Today we went over to Araluen. For the first time in a long
time we went into the art museum portion. The kids really
enjoyed looking at the paintings and Logan said he'd like to
make an animal pet like the crafts we saw.

Of course, we also went to Strewlow (the science museum)
and Elora really took it all in.

Delenn, Elora and Logan

Bat Lapbok

During the school holidays Logan didn't work on his bat lapbook.
As you saw, Logan joined a few friends at tennis camp and things
like that instead. Yesterday, Logan finished up the last couple
of bat activities. He learned a lot and the good thing is that he
loves to go back and look at his projects and to share them with
others (reviewing the material and wanting to learn more.
Today, for example, he pulled out his pirate lapbook and wanted
to know more about the pirates whose flags we had included
in that lapbook. I promised we'd look it up information on those
pirates on the Internet to learn more). Here are a few pictures
of the finished bat project. Above, there are lift the flap books
(about where bats roost and about what makes bats mammals),
vocabulary cards (echo-location, nocturnal), information about
what bats eat and a maze.

The Insides of Logan's Bat Lapbooks

While we were working on this bat unit, Logan's
Weekly Reader arrived. As you can see above, it
was on bats this month! Logan also did a few
activities from the enchanted learning website.

The middle picture above shows the two different
types of bats, the larger fruit eating bats and the
smaller insect eating bats.

In the bottom picture we talked about the bats'
skeleton. We went to the science museum and
looked at the preserved bats and bat skeleton
(at Araluen). We printed out pictures to put in his
lapbook.

Our final bat-related activity is at the end of the
week when Logan gets to talk with the zoo keeper
at the Desert Park about the resident Ghost Bats.

Jane Goodall at the Desert Park

Daddy and I were very privileged to get to hear a speech
given by Jane Goodall at the Desert Park. She is the researcher
who studied chimpanzees in Tanzania in the 1960s; you've
probably seen a documentary about her sometime in your
life! Her speech was inspiring, leading us to ask ourselves
what we are doing to benefit the environment and the next
generation. She is an amazing woman and we were so grateful
to our friends George and Sue who let us have a evening out
watching the kids for us (Elora's first time without Mom
or Dad).

In the pictures above, you see Jane Goodall taking a picture
of the aboriginal kids who put on a drum show for us. As you
can see, Jane Goodall was in the row right in front of us.

Bath please!

We have the door to the hallway closed so that Mom can keep track of her
speedster, Elora. Today Elora made a beeline from the living room to
the kitchen, raced through without so much as a glance at Mom (who was
standing at the sink). A minute later Mom went to see where Elora was.
Elora was already in the bathroom standing at the bathtub peering in
longingly at the empty tub. Mom said, "alright," stripped off Elora's
clothes and gave her a bath much to Elora's delight!

Elora's doing a great job feeding herself

Elora has joined us at the table at meal time.
She enjoys feeding herself, though she still
eats a lot of pureed food as well.

Logan is Dressed Up as a Mummy Catcher

All the blinds in the house were closed, flashlights
were brought out and Mommy was the Mummy.
RRROOooar!

Logan, Bradon and Christian at Tennis Camp