Tuesday, April 30, 2013

Dinner In The Yard

Saturday was a beautiful day, so Keith suggested we build a fire in the backyard and roast hotdogs for dinner.  The kids were so excited!  Alex kept talking about our “bondfire”, and how it was so much fun to pretend we were camping in the backyard.

While Keith dug through the woodbox, kicking mice out of their winter home (shudder!), the boys ran around the yard collecting sticks to throw into the fire.  (Jensyn & I were making a quick run to the store for hotdogs, and I’m glad!  I could have lived without knowing about the mice, but Keith felt the need to share that with me.  I.  HATE. MICE.)

Alex really wanted to try cooking over the fire, but he was a little nervous.  He panicked with the hotdog, but he tried again when we roasted marshmallows.

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Max loved it, but he didn’t want his picture taken.  Jensyn, who likely doesn’t have any recollection of camping (‘though she’s been going since she was 2 months old), had a great time…no fear of getting dirty!   With ketchup, marshmallows, and just plain old dirt, she definitely was quite dirty by the time we headed inside.Smile

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I love our great big backyard & the memories we’re making there!

Monday, April 29, 2013

MFW K–Ff Frog

{CLICK HERE} to view the rest of our MFW K unit posts.
{CLICK HERE} to view our post explaining WHY we chose MFW K for our family.

Alex is 5 years, 4 months
Max is 3 years, 8 months

We are using My Father’s World Kindergarten as our base,
adding in some of my own printables.

prekindergarten 
This week, we are learning the letter Ff for Frog
Our Bible words are: I will use my tongue wisely.

(For those who know the order of MFW K, we skipped butterfly because our
caterpillars hadn’t yet arrived; we’ll be doing butterfly next.)

books

We loved all of these books!  The first two are just fun to read!
Alex giggled and giggled at the Frog & Toad stories!

These two are more educational, although “Fish is Fish” is a fun, fictional story.
”From Tadpole To Frog” does a great job of teaching the life cycle of a frog.
(Scroll down to the science section if you’d like to see JUST how well it teaches…
but consider yourself warned!)

{Disclosure: clicking on the books take you to Amazon affiliate links}

bible

lessons/Bible verses on using our tongue to speak good & kind words

I almost always keep this category vague because I don’t want anyone who’s interested to purchase the MFW K manual, not just copy from my blog!

phonics

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This week’s MFW K reading story.

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A very proud little boy finished his first reading book in All About Reading Level 1!
(No, we’re not finished with Level 1.  There are 3 readers, and he has completed the first one.)

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handwriting

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 math

Alex was introduced to counting by twos. 
I didn’t take a picture of the page, but he had to count all the frogs (1 – 20) and then count only the frogs on lily pads (2, 4, 6, 8…20)

He practice the number of the week – 22.

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science

We used resources from my online friend Gwyn (Preschool Printables shop)
to work on the frog life cycle.

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{YOU MIGHT WANT TO KEEP SMALL CHILDREN AWAY BEFORE SCROLLING DOWN…}

We read a book about the frog life cycle.
Alex learned…a lot.

This is what I found on the kitchen counter later in the day.
He could tell me why, too, in child-friendly terms.
I’m still not sure if that’s good or bad for a 5 year old to understand.
As the Tadpole to Frog book says, “The daddy frog is hugging the mommy frog.”

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art

We found this cute frog idea on Pinterest
The frog’s tongue is a poem about the life cycle of a frog!

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other

We played the Leaping Lily Pads game, created by Casey from Simple Joy Crafting.  It’s a really creative & fun game!  With Casey’s permission, I redesigned her trivia/board game combination into a printable file so I could share it with other MFW K users.   You can DOWNLOAD IT HERE.

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frog1 copyfrog2

We also did a bunch of papers from my free Frogs In The Pond preschool pack.

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We hunted for frogs in this National Geographic Little Kids magazine.

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tot school 
Max is 3 years, 8 months
Jensyn turned 2 on April 4thdec, and she decided we should include her this week.

Just for the record, I *offer* these activities to my little ones.  I  *NEVER NEVER* force a 3 year old to sit down and do “worksheets”.  Max is free to play or do his own thing.  I encourage puzzles, hands-on activities, etc…and he can do whatever paperwork interests him.

Jensyn really wanted to participate today, and I just couldn’t tell her no.   She really impressed me by matching the shapes on the frogs to the correct spots on the shape mat.  Wow!

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Jensyn also tried shape-matching.  She got 4 out of 6 correct, which again astonished me!

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She attempted to dot-paint a frog.  Not too many of her dots made it into the circles on the frog, but she had fun trying!

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Moving on to Maxwell…

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Max counted; I wrote the number he told me.

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Max’s Frog Art

idea found on pinterest – the frog’s tongue is a poem about the frog life cycle

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We may be linking up with the following blogs:
Tot School