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





Hammer Home Short Vowel Sounds

Here's a fun activity to hammer home short vowel sounds! Savanna loved it and I'm sure your child will too!

Materials:

• Pouch Printables
• Manilla folder
• Stapler
• Scissors
• Glue
• Crayons/Coloring Pencils

Step 1: Print out pouch printables using the link above. Separate the pages with words/letters from the pages with pictures.

Step 2: Trim the top of a manilla folder (the tab) to make it flat on the top. Use the stapler to staple the sides of the folder, leaving the top open to form the pouch. Trim off the bottom 1/4 of the pages with words/letters. Place the papers inside the pouch and have them ready for your student.
 


Step 3: Have your child cut out the pictures. Note: There are quite a few pictures so you can have her do one sheet while you cut out the other. This is what Savanna and I did, and it was just the right amount of scissors practice.

Step 4: Have your child color the pouch cover and all the vowel pages. Have her glue the cover to the pouch and decorate it as she likes.






Step 5: Spread out all the pictures in random order and have her identify the pictures that go with each vowel. Some pictures begin with the vowel, some have the vowel in the middle (ie. APPLE starts with a short A, CAT has a short A in the middle). Each vowel has 5 corresponding pictures. Glue the correct pictures to each vowel page.

Short A

Short E

Short I

Short O

Short U

Step 6: Insert the vowel sheets into the pouch and use them again and again for practice!

Insert the vowels sheets into pouch

Finished pouch :)

Bye for now,
Kristina

More Free Phonics Booklets

If your child liked reading and illustrating our Tig the Pig booklet, she will love our newest additions!

Tom the Kid is about a boy who has a lot of pets and a house that's too small. I know she will enjoy drawing the animals just as much as Savanna did!

Pam the Dog is about a dog that loves doing tricks but isn't too busy to stop and help out her mother. (Hint: Savanna made Pam and her mother sheep dogs.)

I hope your child is having a blast learning to read!! I know Savanna is enjoying it and very excited with each new word. What a blessing to be a part of her reading experience!

Bye for now,
Kristina

Superhero Shapes

My son loves superheroes! What 3yr old boy doesn't!? His favorite are the Marvel characters Spiderman and The Avengers. I decided to incorporate his love for superheroes with his love of learning and created some very simple shapes for him. Each shape has a character or symbol on it from the Marvel comics. With the help of superheroes, he has learned all the major shapes: circle, triangle, square, rectangle, star, heart, oval, and diamond.

You can look online and find clipart or black & white images of your child's favorite characters, (ie. Spiderman, My Little Pony, Chuck & Friends, Strawberry Shortcakes etc.) and cut & paste them onto cardstock. If you have laminating capabilities, that would help! If not, (I do not) you can use clear  packing tape and it will make a similar effect. This can be something you do together as a project (if you print black & white images he can help color them) or you can do it on your own.  Either way, he will love it and learn his shapes quickly!

My son liked the black & white look so ours are not colored.

Here's Samuel naming all his shapes!

Bye for now,
Kristina