Savanna Banana's Cakes

A couple months ago I posted about how my daughter loves to bake and has started a fun journey of making cakes. We have had such a wonderful time and since August, we have made 10 cakes (plus cookies and breads along the way)! It's been so much fun having this experience with her and I am so glad we found something that she enjoys that we can also use for learning. Baking cakes helps her learn to follow instructions, use fractions and measurements, be creative, and also helps her with journaling as we keep a Cake Diary about all her creations! It has helped her with her penmanship, grammar, punctuation, spelling, and vocabulary! We decided to incorporate one more learning experience: blogging. She was very excited to design her own web page and we entered her diaries on the blog. You can see what she came up with at Savanna Banana's Cakes. It's been such a great experience and I am excited to see what this will lead to in the future!

Bye for now,
Kristina

Let's Talk Turkey

November is already here! For those of you who enjoy arts and crafts projects, here are some cute ideas for decorating your home classroom for the Thanksgiving holiday :)

Paper Pilgrim Creative Writing
This is such a cute idea. You can use it to write Bible verses about thankfulness, list reasons why you're thankful, do a mini-report on pilgrims, etc. So don't box this in as only a Kindergarten craft!! Older elementary students will enjoy this project as well. It's pretty easy once you cut out all the pieces you need. Here's a photo of the pieces:

For male Pilgrim you will need: 1 sheet of black contstruction paper (for body), 1 sheet of lined paper (trimming hole punches off will make it look neater), 1 brown paper circle (for head), 2 brown paper arms, 2 brown rectangles (for legs), 2 black paper shoes, 1 white paper collar, 1 black paper hat, 1 white paper belt (for hat), 1 brown paper buckel (for hat).

 

For female Pilgrim you will need: 1 sheet of black contstruction paper (for body), 1 sheet of lined paper (trimming hole punches off will make it look neater), 1 brown paper circle (for head), 2 brown paper arms, 2 brown rectangles (for legs), 2 black paper shoes, 1 white paper collar, 1 white paper hat, 1 orange or yellow paper "U" shape (for hair).

 

Have your child write the topic of your choice on the lined paper (before gluing! If you write after it's glued the pencil can sometimes tear the damp paper). We chose "10 things I am thankful for:" as our topic and had the kids make a list. I wrote Samuel's for him because he is only 3yrs old but he told me each item. Savanna (5yrs old) wrote her own. Then once they're done writing, glue it all toghether! That simple. And don't forget to have them draw a face for their pilgim :)

 

Samuel gluing together his pilgrim



Samuel drawing a face on his pilgrim

Savanna thinking about what
to write :)



Samuel's finished pilgrim



Savanna's finished pilgrim



We used the pilgrims to decorate our bulletin board in our classroom. After we finished the pilgrims I decided to make an American Indian girl, too. I put her in the middle of the bulletin board with a Bible verse about being thankful.



For the Indian girl you will need: 1 sheet of green contstruction paper (for body), 1 sheet of lined paper (trimming hole punches off will make it look neater), 1 brown paper circle (for head), 2 brown paper arms, 2 brown rectangles (for legs), 2 green paper shoes, 1 black "U" and 1 long black paper strips (for hair. You will need to share the tips of the strips to look like hair and also round the top of her head), 2 small strips of orange paper (for braid ties), 1 strip of orange paper (for head band), 3 multi color feathers (for head piece). Don't forget to draw a face.



Savanna's list

Samuel's list

Paper Plate Turkey

We added turkeys to our bulletin board as well! This is such an easy craft :) Here's a photo of what you will need to get started:

For your turkey you will need: 1 paper plate, 1 piece of brown construction paper cut into a shape of an egg plant, 1 orange paper diamond (for the beak), 1 red paper tear drop shape (for the wattle), 2 wiggley eyes, 2 orange paper feet, 2 strips of white paper crinkled (for legs), and 5 strips of colored paper (for feathers).

Once you've glued the turkey's face together, glue him to the paper plate. Then glue the legs and feet. Take your colorful strips of paper and make rings by either stapling them or gluing them. Then attach them to the paper plate around the turnkey's face. Here's what the finished product looks like.

Savanna's turkey

Samuel's turkey

We attached our turkeys to the bulletin board as well.It turned out really cute (FYI I used an old receiving blanket as the background for the board!)

 

Fall "Garland of Thankfulness"

Super easy, super cute. Get an 8pk of foam fall shapes (leaves, pumpkin, acorn) from the Dollar Tree. Punch a hole in each one. Have your child write on each shape something he/she is thankful for. If you want, you can make this a family activity where each member of the family gets a shape to write on. I split ours between my two oldest kids so they each had 4 shapes. Once they're filled out, string them up and display them for all to see!

 

 

 Happy Fall Y'all!!

Bye for now,

Kristina

 

 

 



Choo-Choo! All Aboard the Blends Train!

Blends Train


Here is a great project for you and your early reader to enjoy together! It's easy and she will enjoy practicing her blend words using the Blends Train!

Blends Train with 10 Letter Blend Box Cars!

For this project, you will be making a long train with each box car representing a specific letter blend. For example, our first box car is for letter blend "Br." Each box car is a pouch and will hold several words that begin with that letter blend. For our "Br" car we have the words brain, brake, brush, brave, bride, brown, broom, and bring. There are many more words you can use, these just happen to be the ones I chose. Our train consists of 10 cars with 8 words per car for a total of 80 words. You can make your train as short or as long as you'd like. I chose a couple of the most common letter blends but here is a list of Blend Letters and Words that you will find useful.

"Br" letter blend box car with words

Once you have your train assembled, your child can enjoy practicing her blend words by simple flash card repetition or by matching the words to their appropriate box car. You can also encourage creativity and thinking skills in your child by having her write silly sentences using the words from a specific box car. For our "Br" car, she could write a sentence like, "The brave bride asked a friend to brush her brown hair."

Materials needed:

• Card stock or poster board for the grass
• Manila folders for the box cars (keeping the fold as the bottom, cut into small squares)
• Stapler (staple sides of the squares making small pouches)
• Markers to write the letter blend on each box car and to draw wheels and connections between box cars
• Glue
• Blend Words List (I left this as a Word Doc so you can change the words if you want)
• Manila folder or card stock for train engine (I used manila folder so it all matched. Just draw and cut out a simple engine design).

Each Box car holds the words for that letter blend

This train looks cute and can be very helpful in teaching letter blends to your early reader!

Bye for now,
Kristina

Bird, Bird, Bird... Bird's the Word

So I have not posted in a while :( Life has been busy around here. We've been to two weddings and a funeral with over 15hrs of driving just this month. And then there's normal life. Even so, sorry I haven't kept up with this for y'all. Here are SEVERAL worksheets and projects we have done since my last post. If you want the template for any of these so that you can reuse them and fill in different words/numbers, just let me know! Enjoy :)

WORD BIRDS

My kids had a blast with this project and it gave us a really cute way to add decoration to our classroom! We made "Word Birds!" We designated each paper bird for a short vowel - a, e, i, o, u - but you could do this for long vowels, diagraphs, sight words, or even just the alphabet for preschoolers (we did letters A - D on my son's birds). Savanna chose the words she wanted to use for each bird. For example, on her short o bird she used the words fox, box, top, lock, hot, log, and job. This is a great way to let them be creative and see what words they can come up with! We hung them from the ceiling with string and they are really cute! Materials: construction paper, scissors, glue, markers, and some prep-work by mom.



I drew this out on a piece of construction paper
and then cut two or three pieces at a time. 

Body: Large circle
Wings: 2 circles cut in half, 2 of the halves
with small incisions to curl with a pencil
Chest Feathers: teardrop shapes
Tail Feathers: Strips glued to read and curled
with a pencil or marker
Feet, Beak, Eye
 

Glue one wing to the back facing up
Glue one wing to the side facing the left

Write the words directly on the bird



You should have at least 5 birds
a, e, i, o, and u

Display from the ceiling!

PHONICS
The Skunk and the Duck booklet teaches the short u sound
Frog's New Socks booklet teaches the short o sound
The AI Book teaches the diagraph -ai (long a sound)
The Sweet Sheep booklet teaches the diagraphs -ea and -ee (long e sound)
Phonics Word Graphing -ea
Phonics Word Search -oo


We are still in the middle of learning diagraphs (oo, ea, ee, oa, ai, ou, ew, aw, ow) and will post more worksheets as I make them. I also recommend going to LANTERNFISH and downloading their colorful vowel diagraph flashcards. I laminated them for Savanna and it has made it very easy for her to learn these sounds.

And, of course, practice, practice, practice!

LETTERS D - G for Preschoolers
We use a combination of lapbooks or pouches, flashcards, coloring pages, and crafts to teach one letter per week (sometimes 2 per week if he seems to really have a grasp on them). You can find more Printables & Craft Ideas here.

Letter D Lapbook Materials needed: manila folder, printables, scissors, glue, and crayons.
d is for dots was fun but messy! We emptied our hole punch and Samuel glued all the little dots the lowercase d.
D is for Doofenshmirtz (character on Phineas & Ferb). Other characters you could use that start with the letter D: Donald Duck, Daisy Duck, Deputy Dawg, Dora, Dexter, Daphne (from Scooby-Doo), Danny Phantom, and Dale (from Chip n' Dale).
Note: I like to use cartoon characters for my son because it helps keep him interested while at the same time learning his letters.

Letter E Pouch Materials needed: manila folder (cut in half), printables, scissors, glue, crayons, and stapler. Once you cut the manila folder in half and trim some off the top, just staple the sides to make a little pouch.
E is for Elevator (has Curious George at the elevator!). Other characters you could use that start with the letter E: elmo, "Ed, Ed, and Eddie," Ernie (from Sesame Street), Elmer Fudd, Esmeralda (from the Hunchback of Notre Dame).

Letter F Lapbook- My son likes frogs so for this lapbook we took a Natgeo for kids and cut out pictures of all sorts of frogs. This was fun and a little different from our normal routine. You can also use animals such as foxes, fish, ferrets, falcons, and fireflies to build your lapbook. Old magazines are great resources!

F is for Fantastic Four Other characters you use that start with the letter F: the Flinstones, Foxy Loxy, Flint Lockwood (from Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs), Friar Tuck, Flounder (from the Little Mermaid.

Letter G Lapbook Materials needed: manila folder, printables, scissors, glue, and crayons.

G is for Green Goblin (from Spiderman). Other characters you could use that start with the letter G: Grumpy, Goofy, Goosey Loosey, Garfield, Grinch, Gumby.

  

HAPPY FALL

A fun project for decorating your front walkway (or using as a centerpiece).  Your kids will LOVE making these (even the boys!) and your visitors will be quite impressed that your kids made them all by themselves! Materials needed: Terra cotta pots ($.99 at Michael's or A.C. Moore), fall color paints, paint brushes, fall colored artificial flowersn (you can get these from craft stores, dollar tree, wal-mart, etc), wire cutters (for mom to cut flowers off the stem), mini scarecrows and pumpkins on sticks ($.99 at Michael's or A.C. Moore), and rocks or dirt.

Getting ready to make our Fall Flowers

Samuel ended up mixing all this
colors to make orange :)

Savanna did two-tone pots :)

Samuel's finished flower pots!
His say "Be Thankful" on one and
"I Love Fall" on the other.

Savanna's finished flower pots!
Hers say "Fall for All" on one and
Happy Fall" on the other.

What a simple project that makes
the front walk look in season!

Other Fall worksheets can be found at Education.com (inluding the life-cycle of the pumplkin) and DLTK. Also here is a Pumpkin Poem that I made for Savanna.

MEASUREMENTS & TELLING TIME

Savanna is still making cakes each week and so we started teaching her measurements using measuring cups and spoons. We also have been studying measurements using rulers. I found Measurement Worksheets as well as Time Worksheets at Education.com that Savanna really enjoys! Here are some other worksheets I made for her:

Measuring Fourths- Cup

Measuring Thirds- Cup

Measuring Spoons 1

Measuring Spoons 2

COUNTING

Skip Counting by 10s (I left this one in Word format so you can change out the numbers and reuse the same page for practice).

Caterpillar #1-10 for preschoolers

Savanna's last 3 baking creations :)

Rooster Cake
From-scratch Pound Cake!



Flower Girl Cake
First time using Fondant!



Spice Cupcakes with homemade Pumpkin
and homemade Hazelnut frosting
Decorated by Savanna (and a few by Samuel)!

Bye for now,

Kristina

 

Cake Diaries

My daughter recently fell in love with specialty cake shows. She is amazed at how the Chef can take something as simple as sugar, butter, and flour, and turn it into a magnificent piece of art. (I think it's pretty cool too!) So she decided she wants to make cakes! And I said, "Let's do it!"

This is the first installment of our "Cake Diaries" about our adventures in cake making and decorating. This is an awesome project for homeschooling because cooking and baking are both so much fun, a great family activity, and can actually be useful in learning math, following instructions, working with others, and creativity. Also, keeping a cake diary helps with writing, reading, and story-telling. I am so excited to begin this journey with my daughter and I hope you enjoy it as well!

Cake Diaries by Savanna
Entry: 1
Cake: Agent P

"Today I made a yellow cake. We used 3 eggs, 1 cup of water, and 1/3 up of oil. I used 2 round cake pans and baked them for 23 minutes at 350*. My mom and my brother helped. We cut out shapes for eyes and a beak. We used blue, orange, white, and brown frosting. When we put it all together, it looked like Perry the Platypus from Phineas and Ferb! We wrote 'Agent P' with green frosting. I think it looks nice. By: Savanna"

(Note: We used a composition notebook for her cake diary. I pre-wrote words and left blanks for her to fill in. As she gets older she can write these entries on her.)

 

By for Now,
Kristina

Ps. Agent P is pretty easy to make if you want to try it :)

I love oo!

No, that's not a typo. I love "oo!" We recently took a short break from our short vowel sounds and jumped into double o's for a bit. And it was fun! We focused on long oo words first and it opened a whole new level of reading for Savanna. We did an OO Word Search, made an OO Book together, OO Worksheets, OO Vowel Diagraphs, and did some craft activities to practice this new sound. Some of the Simple long oo words we used in our book were:
moon
noon
soon
boom
tool
pool
cool
fool
roof
roots
room
hoots
too
zoo
boo

Also some more complex long oo words included:
school
kangaroo
baboon
bamboo
broom
achoo
blooms
scoop
spoon
bathroom
goofy
choose
balloon
bedroom

The oo is a fun new sound that your child will love and is a nice little break from the monotony of short vowel phonics :) It will also give her a confidence boost to see that she CAN read compound words and multi-syllable words!

Here is Savanna (5yrs) reading her OO book!

Bye for now,
Kristina

Fabulous Find!!

 

LANTERNFISH

Wow! This website is a fabulous find! It is meant to be used for ESL teachers (English as a second language) or TEFL teachers (teaching English as a foreign language); however, the worksheets, flashcards, games, and teaching resources are great and can work for any child learning to read!

Today I printed out all the Long Vowel Silent E flashcards for Savanna. There are 8 sets with color illustrations. I also printed several Long Vowel Spelling Sheets to introduce Savanna to the long vowel sounds. She loved it and it was so easy! They also have word searches, rhymes, bingo, text only flashcards (for assessment and review), and much more. I will be using this site often and I highly recommend it!

Bye for now,

Kristina

Ps. If you have trouble printing from their site as I did, just open a blank word doc, copy their page to your word doc, and print from there. No biggie!

All things A through C

Here's the lesson plans I used for teaching Samuel letters A through C. We are doing one letter per week using a combination of a preschool workbook, coloring pages, crafts, and lapbooks or pouches. All the activities not only teach letter recognition by sight and sound, but also strengthen those basic skills of cutting and pasting, coloring within the lines, sorting, matching, etc. Enjoy!

Letter A a

Letter Aa People - We created our own "A" people using our imagination. Samuel thought this was hilarious by the way! If you don't feel like getting creative though, here's a link to some pre-made templates for alphabet people and other crafts.

Letter Aa Lapbook - You'll need the lapbook printables, manilla folder, scissors, glue, and crayons.

Letter Aa Coloring Pages, Rhymes, and Letter Searches - We used our Starfall membership to print these out. If you don't have a membership, you can find several free coloring pages on the D L T K site that your child might enjoy. We also discovered really neat Bible Alphabet coloring pages that he might like as well.

Samuel's Letter Aa Study

Letter B b
Letter Bb Pouch - You'll need the pouch printables, manilla folder, stapler, scissors, glue, crayons. (Note: Cut the manilla folder in half while still folded. Then cut 1/4 off the top. The fold will act as the bottom of your pouch. Staple the sides.)














Letter Bb Scavenger Hunt - No supplies needed! Just go to a park, store, or even the backyard and look for things that start with the letter b sound. We did this at Target and Samuel had a blast! You can also look for the letter b on signs and advertisements around town.

Letter Bb Coloring Pages, Rhymes, and Letter Searches - We used our Starfall membership to print these out. If you don't have a membership, you can find several free coloring pages on the D L T K site that your child might enjoy. We also discovered really neat Bible Alphabet coloring pages that he might like as well.

Itsy Bitsy B Book - You'll need the book printable, scissors, crayons, and a stapler. Samuel thought this was really neat and wanted to read his itsy bitsy book to everyone!



Samuel's Letter Bb Study

Letter Cc
Letter Cc Lapbook - You'll need the lapbook printables, manilla folder, scissors, glue, and crayons.

Cookie Monster Craft - You'll need the cookie monster printable, a T.P. roll, and glue. I also made extra cookies and wrote big C's and little c's on them. Big hit!

C is for Captain America coloring page! Oh yeah! Samuel flipped when he saw this page hee-hee! I made this specifically for him but there are many characters that children love that you can make for your little one. Some ideas include:

• C is for Care Bears
• C is for Candace (from Phineas & Ferb)
• C is for Clifford
• C is for Cookie Monster
• C is for Mr. Crabs (from Spongebob)

C is for Crayons - We loved this! We took a bunch of old broken crayons and used them to glue to a big C and little c I drew on a piece of construction paper. Fun!

Letter Cc Coloring Pages, Rhymes, and Letter Searches - We used our Starfall membership to print these out. If you don't have a membership, you can find several free coloring pages on the D L T K site that your child might enjoy. We also discovered really neat Bible Alphabet coloring pages that he might like as well.

Samuel's Letter Cc Study

More letters to come!

Bye for now,

Kristina