Pinterest Find: Shape Sticks

Esther had a blast playing with shape sticks this morning!

I found the idea here, and bought sticks and Velcro from Amazon (see below for links).

I printed and laminated the cards, then spent a few minutes sticking Velcro on popsicle sticks.  It all fits inside a zipper top Ziploc bag for storage.

Esther was so proud of her flower!  She's such a puzzle whiz, I just handed her the cards and she figured out how to make things.  Lucy enjoyed making some of the alphabet letters with her too.

Homeschool Update - Preschool

During the Christmas break, I've been spending some time thinking about our homeschool plans and what I need to change next semester.  There are things we started out doing that just weren't working, things we added in along the way, and other things I want to add.  Here are my thoughts on Julia, age 4:
(Next I will post about what Lucy, age 6, is doing including a review of Beyond Little Hearts For His Glory.)

We started out planning to use Learn Your Letters Learn To Serve and The Reading Lesson.

Although I really like the ideas and thoughts behind Learn Your Letters Learn To Serve, (Click here to view more details) I think I just really need things spelled out for me on a daily basis.  I have a hard time looking at a weeks worth of activities and deciding what we are going to do, what to leave out, and when to fit it all in.  *I* am definitely the problem here, the curriculum is great and is chock full of fun ideas.  It will stay on my shelf as fun reference book to use when we need extra activities.  To be brutally honest, we only ever did letter "A" and part of "B".  Plenty of other learning occurred around here, it just wasn't from this book.

The Reading Lesson: Teach Your Child to Read in 20 Easy Lessons
I will post a more complete review of this program eventually.  Julia enjoys doing a couple pages every now and then and is learning to read!  I am planning to use this on a more regular basis next semester.  So far we are only at the beginning of the book, which is fine for her age.  She is asking to do more now though.  I like the simplicity of the book and the fact that we can take it at our own pace.

My First Book Of Cutting (Kumon Workbooks)
I picked this book up several months ago as something fun for Julia.  She enjoys doing a page or two at a time, and it serves as something to keep her occupied while Lucy is busy with math or handwriting.  I've seen her cutting skills improve just over the couple of months we've used this.  I have a pasting book that we will use next semester too.

Shirley's Prepackaged Crafts
Click the link above for my full review.  Julia really likes her box of crafts and asks to do a craft often.  These are right on her level.  We alternate between a craft or her cutting workbook while Lucy is busy.  I have the January box already and am looking forward to letting her get started with it!

Little Hands To Heaven
This is similar to Learn Your Letters Learn To Serve, but I think it will work better for me because of the layout.  I'm planing to start this with Julia in a couple of weeks.  We are not loving the devotional book in Lucy's curriculum, so I think having the exposure to simple Bible stories on a regular basis again will be good for all of the girls.  The basic math introduction, letter learning, and other activities will be a good fit for her now also.

Fat Brain Toys Inchimals

I bought these this fall and haven't pulled them out to use yet.  Julia loves to pretend and these look like she will have a lot of fun with them.  We have plenty of other resources that we can pull out as she shows interest too.  (A fully stocked art cupboard, millions of books to read, preschool idea books and plenty more.)

Julia listens to ALL of our read aloud books: Lucy's learn to read books, storytime books, and history books.  I wouldn't dare read Lucy a lesson without Julia!  She is almost always first to answer the comprehension questions too.  Any art projects or Bible study, she often chooses to do with us.  I am planning to add in Spanish and some science that she will participate in as well.  With the above books I think we will have a good balance of family learning and work that is right on her level.

Okay, what do you think?  Do you have a preschooler?  How is it going?

Preschool Curriculum

Click here to visit Laura Coppinger @ Heavenly Homemakers.

I'm in the midst of planning our upcoming school year, but wanted to let you know about a sale I'm taking advantage of!  Laura at Heavenly Homemakers has developed a preschool curriculum called Learn Your Letters... Learn To Serve.  It focuses on an alphabet letter each week with service projects (like taking Brownie Bites to a friend who's name starts with B on "B" week), crafts, and more.  I love it!  I just purchased the curriculum this morning, and will write more as I get a chance to look through it.  This looks like the perfect thing for Julia, and very adaptable to fit in whenever we have time.

I am an affiliate for Heavenly Homemakers, so clicking on my link to make your purchase will help support my blog.  I'm sharing the link with you today because you can use the code BACK2SCHOOL through Thursday at midnight for 20% off.

Introducing: Sing Song Yoga

Sing Song Yoga is a unique program that uses songs to teach yoga poses to children. Deb Weiss-Gelmi, the developer and teacher of this program, is a friend of mine! She is a school teacher and has been practicing yoga since 2001. Her daughter Lia is a year older than Lucy and we've had many playdates together. I was so excited for Deb when she decided to have this dvd made, and I think the results are fantastic! My husband Ross just graduated from film school in August and was involved in making this dvd also. Lucy and Julia were so excited to watch a movie that their Daddy helped make, see Deb teaching yoga, and look for their friend Lia on the dvd.

In the past I had done some searching for a good kids yoga dvd and wasn't really impressed with the ones that I saw. I read reviews on amazon and checked out several dvds from the library looking for something to use with Lucy and Julia. Including movement in our homeschooling days is important, especially in the winter when we don't get out to play as much. I had sort of given up my search, not finding anything that I was interested in. Sing Song Yoga is definitely what I was looking for!

Sing Song Yoga uses songs to describe how to do each yoga pose, with the words appearing on the bottom of the screen. Deb demonstrates how to do each pose while she is singing, along with children who do the poses also. Deb is great at gently giving directions when needed and even says a couple of times "If you fall out of this pose, its okay!" The dvd moved quickly enough to keep my girls interested, yet also gave enough time for them to try the movements. There are a variety of fun poses - a frog that leaps up into the air, a donkey that kicks, and many more. Easy as well as challenging poses are included and sometimes the children show different ways of doing the same pose so that you can do them whichever way you choose.

I like that the dvd gives the option of playing all of the poses or selecting just standing, sitting, or floor poses. I couldn't do much of the yoga being as hugely pregnant as I am, but eventually this will be great for me to do along with the girls. Its easy enough for them to follow along with, but I think I would also feel pretty stretched and challenged. Lucy loves ballet and practicing this yoga dvd will be a huge help at improving her balance, flexibility, and coordination. Julia (age 2) enjoyed watching and trying a few things, it will be interesting to see if she actually learns how to do the poses after a while. The songs are simple and catchy, so we could even sing them on our own whenever we wanted to do some stretching.

Deb gave us this dvd to review, and is also giving away a dvd to one of my readers! Check out the Sing Song Yoga website for information on how yoga is great for the brain, see a clip of the dvd, and more. You can also order the dvd right from her website. To enter the giveaway, leave a comment on this post being sure to include your email address. For an extra entry you can leave another comment letting me know that you are a follower of my blog. The giveaway will close on January 30th at midnight.

I'm proud of you Deb, and think you did an amazing job! Thanks for sharing Sing Song Yoga with us!

**Thanks for your interest. The giveaway is now closed and a winner has been contacted.**

Hugg-A-Planet

We recently received a Hugg-A-Planet Earth, Moon, and Mars set to play with and review. Of course the homeschool teacher in me is excited to have these as learning tools for my kids! Hugg-A-Planets are soft, stuffed globes. Earth has 600 places labeled on it, the Moon has 100 places labeled, and Mars actually has 400 places labeled as well. The Moon and Mars are both in proportion to the size of Earth. The Moon fits in a pocket on the Earth as you can see in this photo:

We already had a small beach ball type globe that we used for school and the girls really enjoy playing with it. I don't let them play with it all the time because its just a beach ball type thing. I like that we can leave the Hugg-A-Planets out and play with them and reference them often. They are squishy and huggable, although it does bother me a bit that they don't stay round. The Earth gets pretty lumpy, and I think that's because of the pocket part in it. Julia sitting on it didn't help its lumpiness either. There are just a few places where the seams don't match up exactly so the borders of a couple countries aren't entirely clear.

Overall though, I think the Hugg-A-Planets serve a great purpose. I love that I can have my kids toss me the Earth and talk about where elephants live. When we first opened up the package, Lucy asked me to show her where Australia was. I don't know why she wanted to know that in particular, but I was happy to show her. Mars and Earth both come with great fact sheets that we will use in our studies as the girls get older. We had to disregard parts describing how the earth began and the age of the earth and planets as this is contrary to our beliefs. The Mars fact sheet in particular has a lot of great information that I didn't know and was interesting to read.

The Earth, Moon, and Mars set is actually on the International Space Station right now! They were delivered on September 18, 2009 and will stay until 2016 or longer. Here is a fun video of some astronauts using a Hugg-A-Planet Earth in a short lesson. If you'd like your own Hugg-A-Planet, you can use the code "freeship" for free shipping until the end of February (this is for ground shipping only). Thanks Hugg-A-Planet!

My Father's World K - Us Unit (The Five Senses)

This unit took us a while to finish because of Thanksgiving break in there and a few other days that we just didn't get to our schoolwork. I'm not in a hurry to rush through the curriculum since Lucy is only 4 1/2, but we are trying to keep going for now since we'll likely have some breaks when the baby comes in January.

Some fun things we did - played with playdough (for sense of touch), made a tambourine (for hearing sense), smelled some foods with our eyes shut (onion, lemon juice, pumpkin pie spice), and played “what’s missing?” (sight). I lined up five little people and took one away while the girls had their eyes shut. Lucy was great at knowing which one was missing, even if I mixed them up. Julia will randomly go up to a pile of little people now and grab one and say “which one is missing?” to me. They had fun talking and thinking about the different senses and when they use them. (They would say “We’re tasting this apple.” etc.)

Books We Read:

My Five Senses by Aliki

How Kids Grow by Jean Marzollo

Here Are My Hands by Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault

All About Sound by David Knight

Hearing by Lillian Wright

Seeing by Lillian Wright

What’s Inside You by Susan Meredith

Usborne First Encyclopedia of Science

On The Move by Deborah Heiligman

Inside Your Outside by Tish Rabe

We're also enjoying reading Haffertee Hamster Diamond - a series of books that my mom read to me when I was little. The chapters are not too long and both girls look forward to this. The stories are all about a little stuffed hamster and his adventures in the Diamond family household. The books aren't in print, but can be found used on amazon.

Lucy’s Favorite Part:

“Doing my math page. Where you pick a number and then you draw how many. My really favorite is doing my handwriting page, I like that one.” She’s also really been proud of learning to read simple words lately.

My Father's World K - Nest Unit

Its been awhile since I've posted our My Father's World Kindergarten fun. Partly because we've slowed down a bit, and partly because I just haven't taken the time to write it up. We finished "Nest", "Turtle", "Us", and are just starting "Dinosaurs" this week. Lucy is still loving it! Over Thanksgiving weekend, on Friday she asked me what day it was. I told her it was Friday and she said "Oh, good! I was going to be sad if you said it was Saturday or Sunday because I can't do my school on those days." I hadn't planned on doing schoolwork that day because of the holidays, but ended up pulling out a workbook for her because she had to do something. I'm glad she enjoys it.

Grandpa and Grandma found a bird nest that we got a chance to look at up close! (see photo in post below). Because all of the leaves are off of the trees, we have been able to see lots of nests in the trees as we drive places in the car. One day we made Rice Krispie treat nests (regular recipe shaped into nests) and put m and m eggs inside. A few other things I printed off for Lucy:

an animal homes matching game she colored and cut then I laminated

an animal homes mini book to color

color and cut out nest page

My girls love learning about birds, looking at the bird book Grandpa made for them, and watching the birds outside that come to our bird feeders. The books that we read focused on all kinds of animal homes:

Can It Live Here? by Jennifer Gillis

Peaceful Moments In the Wild: Animals and Their Homes

Even an Ostrich Needs a Nest by Irene Kelly

Birds Build Nests by Yvonne Winer (great book)

A Nest Full of Eggs by Priscilla Belz Jenkins (another great book)

Nature Files Animal Homes by Anita Ganeri

(We've had good success just going to the library and typing in "nest", "turtle", etc to the computer system and then pulling a few books from the section indicated.)

Coming soon... "turtle", and "us". :)

Teach Me Tapes (Review and Discount Code)

We are using Teach Me Spanish as our foreign language homeschool curriculum this year. I've listened to numerous bad cds, watched many bad dvds, and finally came across Teach Me Spanish. I've honestly not found anything that compares to it as far as teaching young children a foreign language. I was surprised that in spite of all of the research about children picking up a language easily at a young age, it was so hard to find something. I'm very happy that we came across Teach Me Spanish though; we love it!

Teach Me... offers a series of engaging books with CDs that introduce children to new languages through familiar songs and stories. Along with Spanish, they offer a variety of other languages as well. Someone on a homeschool message board recommended the Teach Me series to me and I first checked out the CDs from our local library. Lucy and Julia were both engaged in the lively familiar music and I was impressed with the quality. We have since purchased the CDs and have been using them as part of our Spanish language learning. (The other part consists of watching Dora DVDs. Really, they have picked up quite a few new words from Dora and we don't watch TV otherwise.)

The Teach Me Spanish CDs have a fun selection of familiar songs sung in Spanish and English, as well as short narrative sections in Spanish. I like that the narration is included because the girls get to hear a person actually speaking the language rather than just a word or two from Dora. They don't understand it at this point and I haven't translated much of it for them, but I do like that they are hearing it. There is an English translation included in the accompanying book. The songs are popular children's songs (Old MacDonald, Baa Baa Black Sheep, Oats and Beans and Barley, etc) so once the Spanish versions get stuck in your head, you end up learning quite a bit.

We have the older versions of Teach Me Spanish, but recently had a chance to review one of the new Teach Me Everyday Spanish books and CD, as well as the Christmas book and CD, Feliz Navidad: Learning Songs and Traditions in Spanish. I really like the updated format - a hardcover book with full color illustrations and translations. The pictures are well done and the translations are easy to read. Each book of course includes the music CD that goes along with it.

The Christmas book and CD is also very well done. I think it will be wonderful to pull this out every year and listen to it. There are classic Christmas songs, as well as traditional Spanish songs and stories included. At the back of the book you will even find a couple of fun recipes to try. For now, my girls are just interested in the music, but as they get older we'll dive more into the cultural aspect - making the recipes, reading the stories included, etc. When I put the music CD on, the girls both immediately grabbed a stuffed monkey (their usual dancing partners) and started dancing around.

As far as purchasing a foreign language curriculum, the Teach Me series is well priced - $15 to $20 for a book and CD. You can start with one book and purchase more as you go. If you are interested in purchasing something, Teach Me Tapes is offering a discount code. Use the code "FF09L" for 20% off and free shipping! I highly recommend taking advantage of this great offer. Thanks, Teach Me Tapes!

See here for more homeschool curriculum reviews.

Sign Language Flash Cards - Product Review

As part of our homeschooling, the girls have been learning sign language. Both Lucy (4) and Julia (2) seem to pick it up really quickly and enjoy signing. They often ask me "Mom, what's the sign for.." (macaroni, cup, dog, anything they can think of). If I quiz them on signs we have learned I'm always surprised at what they both remember. So far, our sign language curriculum has consisted of watching Signing Times dvds. We recently had the chance to review some flash cards that I think are wonderful and even have some lesson ideas that we are going to start using.

Sign Babies flash cards were created by a mom, Nancy Cadjan, who discovered baby sign language and started signing with her own child. She began teaching her son at 8 months old, and by 14 months he had picked up over 40 signs. Then at 16 months, he began to speak all of the words that he knew how to sign! Nancy tried and tested several different signing programs and soon realized the need for quality printed materials to help parents and babies learn to sign. She has a Master's Degree is Rhetoric and English, and years of experience teaching both adults and children. She is also a certified Sign2Me Presenter. You can read more of her story here.

Sign Babies Flash Cards are sturdy 4x6 cards with a picture on one side of the card, and the sign shown on the other side along with a hint to help you remember the sign. Nancy suggests putting the flash cards in a photo album so that the child can page through and practice signs, or as an easy reference tool for yourself. The only photo album I could find that had clear pages (so the flash card would show on both sides) were the cheap 84 cent photo albums at WalMart. These only hold 12 flash cards, so I bought a small file box to keep the rest of our set in. I'm planning to change out the flash cards once the girls are ready to learn new signs. Lucy and Julia enjoy paging through their sign book and practicing the signs. We even took it to church and Lucy had fun looking at it while sitting quietly.

The flash cards are sturdy and well made. The pictures are easy to understand and make the signs simple and easy to remember. Each set of flash cards has a good variety of signs and includes basic useful words. We have the full six sets, and I can see that we will be using these as a valuable resource for quite some time. Nancy has written a set of lesson plans to go along with the Sign Babies Flash Cards sets 1-4. Each lesson is designed to teach 6-10 signs, and only lasts 10-15 minutes. The lesson plans are simple ideas such as reading and signing a particular book or singing a certain song that goes along with the signs being taught. I love that the lessons are quick and easy to incorporate into our homeschooling day.

If you are interested in purchasing the flash cards, all six sets are on sale, $15 off, for a limited time. Nancy has offered us a discount code good for 15% off (use the code "WORD" at checkout). She will also give away the lesson plans for free to anyone who uses this code to order. The Sign Babies website has some great articles worth looking through, including information on getting started, signing with older children, FAQs, and more. You can also browse their selection of DVDs, books, and more. This board book looks adorable and might have to make its way into Julia's Christmas stocking this year.

Aren't they adorable?

See here for more homeschool curriculum reviews.

Weeks 5 and 6 - MFW K, Moon and Leaf

For the past two weeks one or another of us has been sick with a cold so we've slowed down a bit with our schoolwork. I love that My Father's World is flexible enough to allow us to do this. We took two weeks to complete our leaf unit and will hopefully all feel well enough on Monday to start fresh with the next topic (apple).

We took a trip to an apple orchard/ pumpkin patch last week:

Lucy and Julia really enjoyed this paint bag writing activity:

We collected leaves, made leaf rubbings, identified leaves, counted and sorted leaves, measured leaves with a ruler (Lucy really enjoyed this), read tons of leaf books, and more. For our books this week, I simply raided the library of all the leaf books I could find. I think the favorites were tree identification books, both girls loved paging through those.

Books we read:

Trees of North America (identification book)

DK Eyewitness Explorers Trees - lots of info, good photos

Be a Friend to Trees by Patricia Lauber - good info book

Why Do Leaves Change Color? by Betsy Maestro - good info book

Fall Leaves by Mary Packard

Trees, Leaves, and Bark by Diane L Burns

How Do Apples Grow by Betsy Maestro - good info book

Trees by Ernestine Giesecke

My Favorite Tree by Diane Iverson

Trees - Usborne First Nature book by Ruth Thomson - good info book

Leaves by Rena Kirkpatrick

Look What I Did With a Leaf by Morteza E Sohi

A Tree Is Nice by Janice May Udry

Taking Root by Allan Fowler

The Signing Time dvd "Going Outside" went along perfectly with our studies as it included signs for sun, moon, stars, grass, tree, leaf, and more.

Lucy's favorite part:

Well, she's not really going along with this anymore. Whenever I ask her what her favorite part was, all she says is that she liked all her school. She did really enjoy the paint bag writing and measuring leaves with a ruler. Several times during the week she told me that she really likes when I have new activities for her to do and enjoys doing schoolwork. The poor girl was begging to do schoolwork after having a couple days off due to sickness. I'm glad she's enjoying it!

Week 3 - MFW K, Sun

Here are a few highlights from the week... (These are just some extra things we did along with our My Father's World curriculum. Click on the blog roll button on the right to see other MFW blogs.)

It was actually cloudy and cold all week, so we had trouble making a sundial and our grapes never shrank into raisins. One sun activity that worked for us was to put chocolate chips in a plastic bag and put them outside to melt. Once they were melted, we squeezed the chocolate out onto a cracker for a yummy snack.

Lucy enjoyed completing the "S" page in her Cuisinaire Rods book.

We are charting the weather on a graph for a few weeks:

We learned that the sun is a big star, so we did a few star activities as well. I put star stickers on black paper and the girls used a white crayon to connect them to make shapes. We looked at our star Fundana and then went outside at night to look at the stars.

Books we read:

Sun Up, Sun Down by Gail Gibbons - great information book!

Sun Bread by Elisa Kleven

Under the Sun by Ellen Kandoian

Bear Shadow by Frank Asch

What the Moon Saw by Brian Wildsmith

There's No Place Like Space by Tish Rabe

"S" in the Christian Liberty Nature Reader K (about snakes)

VHS - All About The Sun

What Lucy learned:

"Um, I learned about the letter S. And I learned about the sun."

Mom: "What did you learn about the sun?"

"How big it is (giant!)."

Mom: "What else did you learn about the sun?"

"That its hot. And about everything in my school."

Lucy's favorite part:

"Everything. Those little blocks, but I liked everything though." (Cuisinaire rods)

Preschool Games

I recently participated in a swap of Activities In A Bag where 20 of us got together and all made 20 of one kind of preschool activity and then swapped them. It was so much fun to come home and look through all of the preschool games! Each game is stored in a gallon sized zipper top plastic bag. I've continued the idea and put several more games in zipper bags and added them to my box. I'd highly recommend doing a swap or organizing one if you can find enough people who are interested. Here are some of the games that I made on my own...

Fishing - The idea is from here, with a few changes. I used brads for the magnetic part and wrote a lower case letter on each fish. There are also two of each color so that the game can be played several ways. The child can either name the letter on the fish that they caught, name the color of the fish, or try to find a matching color pair. For the fishing pole, I bought a dowel at Hobby Lobby and Ross drilled a small hole through it for the string. For the end, we hot glued the magnets together with the string in the middle. The string is a bit long, especially for Julia, but the girls both love "fishing".

The Very Hungry Caterpillar - I saw this idea here. I printed the pictures from the link given and then laminated them. The caterpillar is a green pipe cleaner and the fruit all have holes in them so that the child can string the food onto the caterpillar as the story progresses.

Star Counting - This idea was adapted from one of my Mailbox Magazine books. Since we are studying "sun" this week and "moon" next week I thought this would be a fun game to use. I put star stickers on small cardstock squares (1-10) and then made cards with only numbers on them. The child counts the number of star stickers on a card and then finds the corresponding number card. We are also going to use the number cards to practice counting backwards to "blast-off" into space. Of course I laminated the cards because I laminate everything.

Color Matching - This came from an idea that David Hazell of My Father's World mentioned on a cd I was listening to. He suggested getting paint chip cards from a home improvement store and cutting them up to make a color matching game. The different shades of each color are actually rather hard to distinguish, which makes this a challenging game. I punched the circles with a large punch and then laminated them all as well.

Story Dice - I absolutely love these! The idea is that the child rolls a few cubes and then has to come up with a story using the pictures on the dice. I got my inspiration here, and decided to use stickers for the pictures on mine. I bought wooden cubes at Hobby Lobby and then raided my sticker stash. I kept each cube to a topic - characters (Dora, a little girl, etc), things (a blender, a vase, etc), animals, weather and places, or transportation. Once I started making these I found myself searching every store I was in to find stickers that would work. I used Mod Podge, but it has stayed tacky, so I'm going to have Ross spray them all with a clear acrylic sealer spray. Lucy is very excited to use these and said she hopes to roll Dora every time so that she can tell me all kinds of stories about Dora.

Any other fun game ideas you've come across lately? We actually haven't used some of these yet, but I'm glad to have my box full of games available to pull out whenever I need them.

Week 2 - MFW K

We are using My Father's World Kindergarten as our preschool curriculum. This was week 2. Although I am not going to post everything we did (because most of it came straight from the teacher's manual), I will post some of the highlights. I plan to include any nature activities that I came up with, ideas I found on the internet and added to the week, or things that I made up. If you are using My Father's World (or even if you aren't homeschooling) I hope that this will be a fun peek into our homeschool days and maybe you will find some ideas you'd like to use. Some weeks will have more ideas posted than others, but I'll try to keep up with this!

This week we enjoyed a nature walk. I labeled plastic gallon size bags with a piece of tape that said "God made...". Lucy and Julia both enjoyed walking around collecting things that God made - sticks, small pinecones, grass, dandelions, pine needles, and more.

On Friday we started our Sun unit and cut pieces of yellow yarn (string because it starts with "S") and glued it to a big letter "S" that I drew on paper. The girls both loved snipping the yarn but didn't want to touch the glue to stick it on to the "S". We are just getting started with the Sun unit and I have lots more fun ideas coming up for this one next week.

Along with My Father's World, we are using Handwriting Without Tears. We began this week by just playing with the wooden pieces and placing them on the alphabet mats to create letters. I have the music cd as well so we listened to "The Hokey Pokey" and "Tap Big Lines" and followed the actions with our wooden pieces. This was a fun way to incorporate music into our day.

I posted last week about my weekly summary page and what that includes. Here is Lucy's answer this week to the questions I asked her:

What Lucy learned: "About "S". And, um, about what God made. And our nature walk. Thats not something I learned, but that's something I really liked."

Lucy's favorite part: "Um, all of it. Everything, I guess. My favorite part is all of it, but I think that's all."

This week was also Lucy's first ballet class. She was a bit nervous, but ended up enjoying it!

PS I just added a My Father's World Blog Roll button on the right hand side. Click on it to see a list of other MFW homeschoolers and what year they are on.

Nature Studies

In my homeschool planning for the fall, I'm working on including something called "nature studies". I've come across this while reading about Charlotte Mason and her philosophy. She believed that nature studies and time outdoors is important for children. I readily agree! My husband is wonderful at knowing the names of many different birds and pointing out small animals that he sees while we are out driving or walking around. Lucy is already able to name several birds and Julia loves little bugs and things she finds outside. I'd love for my children to grow up with even more of an appreciation for nature and knowledge about God's wonderful creation. The Bible says that nature reveals God to us, what better way to grow closer to Him than by learning about His creation? (Job 12:7-10, Psalm 19:1-6, Romans 1:19-20) Our Kindergarten curriculum includes notes in the teachers manual encouraging us to go outside and enjoy nature about once a week. I've been gathering resources and brainstorming ideas to make our nature studies time fun and interesting for the girls.

Here are some of the resources we have available in our home and ideas I'm planning to incorporate into our days:

Birds of Michigan Field Guide

Mammals of Michigan Field Guide

Bug Identification Book - We don't have one yet, but will be purchasing one.

Encyclopedia of Animals - This is a great book, full of pictures and lots of information. Lucy loves to pull this book out and flip through it just looking at all of the animals.

Fundanas - See my post here about these super cool nature study tools.

bug boxes, magnifying glasses, nets - The girls got these for their birthdays this summer.

bubbles, chalk, outdoor toys

CLP Nature readers - These are fun little informative nature stories to read aloud. I remember reading them as a child! We have books K and 1 to use this year.

nature collection boxes - I'm planning to use old egg cartons to let the girls make rock collections, leaf collections, etc.

bowl inside for treasures - I want to get a nice wooden bowl to keep on the coffee table or dining room table for treasures that end up following us inside. (big pine cones, extra special rocks, etc.)

journals of some sort - This book is great, but mostly applies to older kids. I'd love to follow the concept on a lower level and have the girls try to draw a tree or something simple while outside. I may make nature journals for them at some point or just take clipboards and paper with us when we go out.

nature walks - Both of my girls love to go for a stroller ride or a short walk through the neighborhood. I've not done so yet, but have heard of putting duct tape bracelets on so that they can stick little flowers, leaves, etc to it as we walk. Another idea I want to try is to bring some plastic baggies with us and categorize things that we find - one bag for special leaves, one for sticks, etc.

nature crafts - Making things like leaf rubbings, pine cone bird feeders, or pressing flowers are always fun.

bird feeder - We have a bird feeder right outside our front window, and plan to put up a few more of them this fall. (Also, see my post about our homemade bird book.)

a nice picnic blanket ready to go at any moment

Our curriculum has science/ nature ideas included in the work that will take us outside as well. Whenever it relates to what we are studying (or even if it doesn't!), we plan to take outdoor trips to the zoo, beach, etc. We also have quite a few nice park areas around our house with walking trails to explore. In fact, my husband took the photos in this post this morning.

This is my list for now, I hope some of it inspires you to think about ways to get your little ones outside and enjoying it! Do you have other resources you enjoy using for "nature studies"? Please share!

Fundana Review and Giveaway

What's a Fundana? A wonderful nature studies tool that we have discovered! Fundanas are games (either bingo or scavenger hunt style) printed on cotton bandanas designed to teach kids about the environment around them in a fun way. They are washable, easy to carry, reusable, and so much fun. We played with the Knee High to Senses Fundana today.

Each of the squares on the Fundana contains a fun activity related to the five senses. "find something smooth", "scratch and sniff a leaf", "smell a flower"...

"make a face like you just tasted something hot"...

...and more! When we completed an activity, we found wood chips or rocks to place on the squares. The activities were all fun, simple things that both of the girls (age 4 and 2) could do. The Fundanas come in either "Knee High"for kids age 3-6 or regular for kids age 7-adult. We also have the Winter Ecology Bingo Fundana and I don't think that it will be too hard for the girls to do even though its not a "Knee High" version. There are many different options to choose from - bugs, trees, birds, stars, beach, etc. I love that they fold up small so that we can take them along on trips to the beach, cottage, or elsewhere. They are also fairly inexpensive.

Our homeschool curriculum (My Father's World) encourages nature studies and we plan to use our Fundanas regularly to help us enjoy being outside and give us fun activities to do together. I haven't used our Winter Fundana yet obviously, but I'm thrilled to have something to help us study nature in the winter. It has kids searching for colors in nature, various plants, animal shelters, and just plain enjoying winter fun (make a snow sculpture, etc).

Caryl has this to say about her Fundanas: "I think getting kids out to understand and interact with nature is ESSENTIAL to becoming thoughtful, caring, responsible adults along with it being alot of fun..." I agree!

Imports Unlimited offers free shipping within the US to retail customers who order off of their website. They are also giving away a Fundana to one reader of my blog. To enter, visit their website and leave a comment on this post letting me know which Fundana you would choose. Please be sure to include your email address (or have email enabled on your blogger profile). The giveaway will remain open until September 15th at midnight. If you're interested in nature studies, stay tuned, I have a couple more posts coming up about the topic. Thanks for stopping by!

**Thanks for all of the interest. This giveaway is now closed. Random.org chose comment #10 and she has been contacted. If you are interested in purchasing a Fundana, check out this post for a great sale!**

Stamps Review

Before I had children of my own, I worked in a daycare for a year. I've tried to remeber some of the fun craft ideas that I did with my "kids" and some of the art supplies we had in my room and have them on hand for my own girls to use. One thing we had at the daycare were some wonderful large stamps and stamp pads for the kids to use. Although I had searched teacher stores and catalogs, I hadn't been able to find them until recently. We tried playing with some small rubber stamps for scrapbooking, but they just didn't work quite as well.

I finally came across Center Enterprises' Ready2Learn stamp sets and ink pads. They agreed to send me the Giant Imaginative Play Sets 1 and 2 along with the Jumbo Circular Washable Pads for review. The girls were both very excited to use these and after the package arrived, they asked daily if they could use the stamps yet. (We had a few busy days so it took a while before we had a free afternoon to play with stamps.)

I was very happy with the large size of the stamps - perfect for little hands to hang on to. Both Lucy (4) and Julia (almost 2) were able to use the stamps easily. The handles are rounded and fit into their hands nicely. The sets that we received have a nice variety of images that we will be able to use for any number of projects. The ink pads worked well and inked the stamps nicely. Both girls were able to produce clear images with their stamps. The girls didn't care for the green color as it was more of a dark forest green color, but otherwise very much enjoyed stamping.

We used a big sheet of paper for our stamping project - the stamps are fairly large, so I thought that they would fill up a regular sheet of paper too quickly. The large paper worked well and I saved it to use as wrapping paper! The Imaginative Play Sets that we received have a nice variety of images that we can use to create scenes. Lucy really liked the castle stamp; Julia enjoyed them all. These particular sets include stamps that relate to at least eight of our MFW Kindergarten themes - (moon - star, leaf and tree, apple, turtle, us - handprints on the big ink pads, insect - ladybug, butterfly, and frog). I'm considering adding the Giant Farm Animals sets to our collection as that would cover several of the animals we study this year as well.

The large ink pads were a great size and fit the stamps well. I only put out one color at a time since Julia hasn't learned to keep stamps to one ink pad yet. When we were finished, the stamps easily washed off in the sink. I also wiped them with a baby wipe to be sure they were clean. Although the stamps come in a reusable plastic case, I found it easier to store them all in a big plastic tub along with the ink pads. I'll definitely be keeping these handy and using them often. Both girls enjoyed the stamping and it made a fun art project.

I really liked the full color catalog that Center Enterprises set me along with our stamps. I enjoyed looking through it and found many unique items that would work wonderfully in our homeschool. There are stamps that go along with the Cuisinaire rods that we'll be using this year and would be great for creating any number of activities. Blank clock faces for learning to tell time, bead pattern stamps, money stamps (stamp and laminate to make your own play money!), and of course all of the shape stamps... my teacher's brain is going crazy with all of the fun learning ideas these stamps present. Go take a peek and see what you find.

Center Enterprises has been around for 35+ years and their thousands of products have been used by parents, teachers, and youngsters around the globe. The wide range of curriculum, theme based and artistic stamping and craft items is their field and it encompasses education, craft, hobby, toy, scrap-booking, early childhood, and homeschooling niches. There is definitely something here for everyone. Center Enterprises has always had very positive feedback and they are recognized for quality, creativity, and customer service as a leader in many ways.

Center Enterprises is offering my blog readers a special code "CVW09" good for a Free Surprise packaged with any retail order that they ship directly. The order can be from their website by email, fax, letter (USPS), or telephone, and must include the code for identification purposes. The code is good until 12/09.

Thank you Center Enterprises! We enjoyed the stamps and will be purchasing more of your unique stamps in the future.

Chalk Fun

We are enjoying some time at the cottage with Grandpa and Grandma this week. While Julia and I were napping recently, Aunt Laura drew a chalk road with Lucy. They went the whole length of the sidewalk and included houses, trees, a park and more. I thought this was such a fun idea that kept Lucy entertained for quite some time. The road was big enough for one of her trucks to drive through and she had fun telling me where our house was and Grandpa and Grandma's house, etc.

Today I made chalk paint for the girls to play with. We took a piece of sidewalk chalk and smashed it up and mixed it with a small amount of water. Julia really liked hammering the chalk in the ziploc bag. They both decided that it was even more fun to paint the cottage and were proud to show Grandma the new paint job.