MFW K Unit 3–Leaf (Max)

{CLICK HERE} to view the rest of our MFW K unit posts.
{CLICK HERE} to read our 2012 Leaf Unit post with our older son.



In this unit, we learned the letter Ll for leaf.
Our Bible words were: I will live and grow in Jesus!

These are the books we enjoyed throughout the week – click on any book image below to read the book description on Amazon.  (We love to buy used copies; they’re usually in good shape, and the price is right!)

I love using MFW K as a good reason to snuggle up on the couch and read a stack of quality children’s books!  I couldn’t pick a handful to share this time, so you get the whole list.  “Sneeze, Big Bear, Sneeze” is a cute book that was new to us this time around.  The others are familiar stories that we enjoyed again.

      

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If you purchase through these links, you are supporting our family. 
Thank you!

Once or twice a week, we start our school day with a YouTube playlist of 4-6 songs/videos that go along with our current school lessons. 

We don’t exactly do calendar time the MFW K way.  We print a calendar page from HERE (preK and K options available), and Max fills in the numbers.  I do it some days; Max does it other days.  No rhyme or reason.



For the rest of our calendar time, we’re using a foam board that we can bring out during school time (and put away later, as our kitchen table is our school room).  The schedule on the top left corner of our board is from Alex’s MFW K days.  We don’t follow that rigidly anymore.  Right now, we’re:

• starting with singing/video time every few days…I’d like to do it every day, but that’s just not how it’s working out.
• Max is adding a straw for each school day to our place value pocket chart
• Max is writing that school day’s number on the MFW K 100 Chart
• We are singing a Days Of The Week and Months Of The Year song while Max points to the day/month on the board.  We also sing the MFW K alphabet song with the alphabet flashcards.

I love the example in this unit of how a leaf NEEDS a tree in order to grow.
In the same way, we need to stay in Jesus in order to grow.

There’s a fun action song with this unit, reminding us that we need to
stay in the Word in order to GROW in Jesus!

I try never to share too much detail in this box,
as I never want someone to use my blog rather than purchasing the MFW K manual!

sorting the picture cards for /m/, /s/, and /l/.
Max BEGS to do this!


circling the pictures that begin with L.

 

cutting & pasting the correct letter sound under each picture
 



my own page…available HERE for MFW K users only
 

official MFW K handwriting page


a few more activities – pattern block L page from Confessions of a Homeschooler


and L/l letter sort (my own page…available HERE for MFW K users only)
 

drawing page
hard at work – Max is very into drawing lately!

 

Max LOVES math, so I made the page below for him based on one on that I found (for free) HERE.  I prefer a different tracing font than what she used, so I designed my own.  I don’t plan to share it, due to copyright, so I’ll just direct you to the original author’s site.  Ugh.  Now her site is gone.  I will have to try to find a way to contact her to see if I can share my set here.  It’s a fairly obvious copyright violation if I don’t contact her first, so I’ll have to wait and see…
 
We used raisins as manipulatives to fill in the ‘ten frame’, and we’re then using the same raisins to work on ‘even/odd’, ‘1 more’ and ‘1 less’.  He may eat the raisins when he’s finished with the page. 

my own 3 practice page…

Official MFW K math page – color patterns with leaves

I had the page below ready for Jensyn, but Max asked if he could do it…
count & color leaves from Autumn Leaves preschool pack

Cuisenaire Rods – Max is loving this activity!
It’s so funny how every kiddo is unique,
as Alex was pretty indifferent when it came to cuisenaire rods.

Rain. Wind. Cold.  Wisdom Tooth removed (mine, not Max’s). Field trip.

For a huge number of reasons, we didn’t get to do our nature walk at the park or go on a leaf hunt.  Now the leaves are mostly gone, and we’ve missed our chance.  Max was really looking forward to this, and I feel like a bad mom for missing out on this fun opportunity.

We did READ about leaves, we did take a leaf off of the tree in our yard…
but it’s just not as much fun as hands-on leaf hunting!

Max made this in his speech therapy class –
what perfect timing for our leaf unit!

It’s a little messed up – Jensyn got hold of it before I took a picture.

 

I had great intentions of making leaf-shaped sugar cookies.  It never happened.  I blew it this time around – no leaf hunt, no sugar cookies.  At least Max LOVED the memory game we played and learned a wide variety of leaves that way…so there was some fun in this unit!

This leaf memory game was in a High Five (Highlights) magazine several years ago.  Max loves it, and we’ve played it together multiple times throughout the leaf unit.

 

alphabet leaf maze from my Autumn Leaves preschool pack
 

Also from the Autumn Leaves pack, this is a mini book with leaf color words and leaves to color.  Once the pages were colored and the words were traced, Max cut apart the pages.  I stapled them into a mini book, and Max “read” it to me.  He was very proud of himself!

 

 
(Jensyn is 3.5 years old.)

I don’t insist on participation from Jensyn.  She is free to join us or to wander away, but so far, she almost always wants to be a part of MFW K!  She sits with us as we read picture books, does the art or science projects, and completes papers or puzzles at the table.  She loves the Lauri alphabet puzzle included in MFW K!

My only goal for her this year is to learn the uppercase alphabet letters, and you may notice that in many of the activities that she’s working on…

I’ve designed lots of pages that can be used to keep a preschool sibling busy while you’re working with your kindergartener.  You can find most of these pages HERE.  The pattern block pages is from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

making pattern block L and l
 
magnets & raisins on the dot page
  

coloring in the dots…why?  I don’t know…it’s what she wanted to do.


Cheerios on L and l

(Random story: Jensyn says she wrote, “I ate hand sanitizer” with the purple pen.  This did happen, much to my chagrin.  We used a Dairy Queen gift card, and as we left the restaurant, I put a little blob of sanitizer on her hand.  For some reason, evne though we use sanitizer all the time, she popped it into her mouth.  Everyone in DQ heard her misery, and the employees were quick to get her a cup of water!)

cutting & pasting leaves onto the matching color box