2010 06 What's in her Tot school Workboxes, June

these are the items in hew tot school workboxes

mickey mouse milk cap letter sheets with milkcap letters

butterfly puzzle with a dice from Confessions of a Homeschooler

1-10 sticket sheets from Confessions of a homeschooler

Mickey Mouse Number flashcards with clothespins

Lauri Tall stacker pegs & pegboard

Learning Resources Piece A pizza game

A-Z wooden puzzle

Shape Silhouette Match Up from Confessions of a homeschooler

ABC foam puzzle

Melissa & Doug Slice & Bake Cookie Set

We are still playing with her sensory tub & playdough of the month!

thanks for looking

June Playdoh of the Month; Lemon Chiffon Pie, 2010 06

June 2010 Play Dough of the Month


still going with the food theme so this is lemon yellow, scented lemon chiffon pie with yellow & green glitter in it. It takes less than 5 min to make it and Natalie had a blast, she couldnt wait to knead it when it cooled enough! SEE THE SPARKLIES!!!
I got the recipe from My Montessori Journey  its fabulously simple, cheap and makes a very large amount.  I split this batch in two and gave out half as a gift!
thanks for looking
becky

June Sensory Tub, 2010 06, Rainbow sensory tub, Food sensory tub

June Sensory Tub; Theme: Food

Filler is Rainbow rice that we made as a family (yes, Steve helped can you believe it!)
items: Two spoons, one male wooden person, two female wooden people (to represent our family),
one red heart marble (i made it with my heart), mini muffin pan, fruit shaped reusable ice cubes $1,
4 red spotted bead (reminds me of strawberries), green beads (green vegetables), two brown square beads (chocolate), jewels (girls should always have jewels), clear glass jewels (ice & water), a purple fish (we like to eat fish), a small tiki glass for her to fill with rice or beads & marbles, little mini clips. 
This is my first sensory tub! 
thanks for looking
becky

more Winnie the Pooh & Friends Milk Cap Letter sheets

Here are some improved Winne the Pooh & Friends Milk cap Letters.  The circles are 1-1/2 inch unless the name is longer because I mounted all my letters on 1-1/2 wooden Nickles from the craft store!  So they should accomodate many letters tiles & such!

MICKEY MOUSE & FRIENDS MILKCAP LETTER SHEETS

Here are some jpg files of the Mickey Mourse & Friends milk cap letter sheets I made for Naters.

Winnie The Pooh milk cap letter pages

These are in jpg format, copy if you like

working on the letters

Naters is now 33 months old!  I've been working, printing & laminating away.  I've gotten to H of the Letter of the Week Curriculum.  it's been a lot of work but i can do it in short time stretches also so that helps.  Naters really likes playing with the milk cap letters I made like Erica showed.  I made up about 6 sets of the alphabet.  I'm doing up letter pages for each family member with pictures so I wanted Naters to have enough letters to do the whole family at one time.  I also did up some milk cap letters pages (taught myself Microsoft publisher!) for Mickey Mouse, Bolt (one of her fav movies), and the Disney Princesses.  I made up additional ones for each letter of the alphabet,  Once I figure out 4shared.com, I'll put them up for anyone who wants to download them.  Naters and I are taking a road trip this Friday, so I made her up some smaller games & made my first I Spy or Find it! bottle game for her.  It came out OK, but I'd like to make the next one much more colorful!
Have a wonderful week!
becky

Nurse's Week & Mother's Day

Feel like all it's been is a celebrations.  Got cookies & a duffel bag @ work.  Naters & SteverWeaver got me gift cards (JoAnns, & Michaels) and a beautiful wind chime for our deck.  Got in some coupon shopping this last week.  Got Naters the Melissa & Doug chalkboard/Dry Erase Board, Leap Frog Fridge Phonics,
Learning Resources Piece-a-Pizza fractions game, a zoo game, and some other goodies.  I've been printing & laminating again.  Went through a brand new color cartridge for my printer in under two days.  Have to admit though, i did print about 200 pages of heavily colored materials.  Tonight i hope to get a lot of cutting done. then I will be done with A, B & C of Erica's  Letter of the Week Curriculum.  It's a work in progress for sure, but i keep plugging away.  I'm surprised how quickly Naters is learning her alphabet.  When we use her letters, I keep having her trace them with her index finger; i think that has really helped imprint the letters for her!  I read about the technique on a Montessori blog somewhere. 
She's waking up from her nap, gotta go!
becky

What I've been working on

In the side bar are photo updates of some of what I have been working on.  I wasn't able to take photos of all the tot books & packs I've done, my back started hurting too bad.  I'll take more photos tomorrow. 
I have to thank the generous & ingenous works of Carisa @ 1+1+1=1, Erica @ Confessions of a homeschooler, Jolanthe @ homeschoolcreations.com, Jenn @ Mama Jenn and Mari-Ann @ Counting Coconuts.  Thank you all so very much for your downloads and wonderful creativity.

Now for some pearls of wisdom for those of you just venturing into this.
1st  If you are going to laminate, make sure to cut yours pages down to less than 8-1/2x11.   even though the laminating pouches can take a regular size sheet of paper, if you plan on putting any of these in sheet protectors, file folders or file pockets for storage you will be thankful if you trim them down PRIOR to laminating, then after laminating trim down as needed. 
2nd  Search & be patient for bargains!!!  I set aside 3 hours on a certain day each week specifically for shopping w/ coupons.  I go to Michael's, JoAnn's, Archivers, Barnes & Noble's, Hobby Lobby, Border's.   I usually know what I plan to purchase in each store, hit the ground running and I can be back home in under 3 hours (takes me 30 minutes to get to the 1st store!)
3rd  For some of my smaller file folder games.   I cut a file folder in half height then 5-3/4 then while still folded cut the width to 5-1/2 so when open the folder is 5-/34 by 11 which you can then lamiate easily!!!
Got the idea for my smaller file folder games from Mama Jenn using teacher's borders from the $1 store
This size will also fit in a quart size ziplock bag and are great size for your purse & traveling!!!
Thankfully only one more day of work this week~
write more soon!
becky

absent but working on school

I've been putting together the tot packs & tot books that I got from Carisa's great site.  I also printed off, laminated & completed the letter A from Erica's Letter of the week Curriculum.   This is a great deal for $10.00.  I will have pics to follow soon, I promise!

Hit some frugal pay dirt with a used book store that opened up locally for Project: Learn (an adult literacy program).  I  was lucky enough to find some books for different school themes & holidays as well as just for fun books.  Walked out with a loaded grocery bag full of books for $23.00, yeah baby!

From craigslist locally, I was able to purchase four gently used discovery toys for $25.00!  so those will be useful with learning!

My plan is to officially start school after her 3rd birthday this August, but I have been doing tot tray activities with her for about 3 months and she has enjoyed the activities!  she's done sorting, dry pouring, transferring etc.  I'm amazed at how they will keep her occupied and how she'll keep going back to the tray all day long for periods of time. 

I pray I'm doing my best by her here at home rather than putting her in the Montessori vs Prep Academy we were debating between.  I do feel so much more at peace with the decision to keep her home this year and to try to encourage & assist her learning here!

look for pictures soon!
becky