Calendar Board

As I was seriously researching some 'best practices' for our at-home-supplemental-schooling I started reading Counting Coconuts.  Mari-Ann is a brilliant home schooling mama and I love her style.  After seeing her classroom calendar, I ran right out an made a near-replica.  I love how everything is contained in one space and it really focuses Munckin for 'calendar time'.

The corkboard itself is from IKEA and I pretty much copied Mari-Ann's fantastic board.  Both Munchkin & I absolutely love it.

Aaaand We're Back

Wow, it's been forever since I posted here.  Things got busy and while I was taking pictures of everything, I just wasn't following up with the posting...and then we took a little break from themes.  A theme a week was too much and we found it impossible to get through everything.  So now we're back to themes but at a more laid back pace.  I have the themes scheduled out in two-week slots for the rest of the year.

Although the pace is more laid back, the actual activities have become much more structured.  During the past 7 months we've transitioned into an eclectic Montessori/Workbox hybrid style with at least 8 boxes for Munchkin to work on each day.  In addition to those, there are also puzzles, playdough and art supplies that Munchkin can work with after he's finished his 'workboxes'.

I should also mention that I'm not a full-time stay at home mama and Munchkin does attend Preschool.  The boxes are worked as a supplement to his regular Preschool.

I have never pushed this blog as it has been my intention to simply document some of the fun stuff that Munchkin and I were doing.  That is my continuing goal, although it may intertwine with the Sweet Little Smoothie blog a bit more as I mesh this into a single blogging location.

Snowman Fun

Happy Monday!  Now that we're firmly in January, I thought that a snowman theme would be fitting...especially since we're forcasted to get upto another 6 inches in the next few days.  Munchkin absolutely loves the snow.  Loves wearing his snow suit and boots.  Loves helping Daddy shovel the driveway.  Loves shoveling snow back onto the driveway...  The only thing we haven't done yet is build a snowman.  I'm hoping that this storm will bring some better snowman snow - we've only had the powdery stuff so far this year.  Here are the snow-tivites that we'll be up to this week:

Letter of the Week: S
Crafty, Creative, Sensory Fun:

• S is for Snow letter craft
• Marshmallow Snowman collage
• Snowman paper collage
• 'Snowball' toss - tossing marshmallows into containers
• S word recognition
• Winter/snow themed sensory tub

Books:

• The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
• Jan Brett's Snow Treasury by Jan Brett
• A Snowman Just Named Bob by Mark Kimball Moulton
• All You Need for a Snowman by Alice Schertle
• Ten on the Sled by Kim Norman
• The Snowman by Raymond Briggs
• The Smiley Snowman by M. Christina Butler
• Sneezy the Snowman by Maureen Wright
• Caillou Makes a Snowman by Roger Harvey
• The Best Snowman by Margaret Nash

Happy 2011!

Happy 1st Monday of 2011!  This week Munchkin & I are going to be doing some miscellaneous winter projects and reading a hodge podge of books...yes, hodge podge.  Here's our first tot-tivities of 2011:
Letter of the Week: W
Creative, Crafty, Sensory Fun:

• W is for Winter letter craft
• Winter sensory tub (filled with cotton balls, glitter pom poms, foam-ball snowmen
• Build a snowman felt page
• Homemade playdough - I've wanted to make this for awhile but somehow never get around to it
• Car sorting - Munchkin got a car holder for Christmas...it has different sized slots for different sized cars/trucks
• Glove matching - using the 5 million extra gloves/mittens that we have

Books:
It's a hodge podge of a few new Christmas gifts and a few potty ones (yes, we're still working on it)

• Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr (still a beloved book by Munchkin)
• Little Hoot by Amy Krouse Rosenthal
• Thomas Breaks a Promise by Rev. W. Awdry
• Thomas and the Big Big Bridge by Rev. W. Awdry
• 
  May the Best Engine Win by Rev. W. Awdry
• The Potty Train by David Hochman
• Pirate Potty by Samantha Berger
• Caillou: Potty Time by Joceline Sanschagrin

Robots

Happy Monday!!  Hope everyone had a frightfully delightful Halloween!  Munchkin has been pretending to be a robot every now and again, and after all the birthday and Halloween festivities, I needed an easy theme ;)  Here's our planned robot fun for this week:

Letter of the Week: R
Creative, Crafty, Sensory Fun:

• R is for Robot letter craft
• Paper roll (TP) Robot
• Magnetic Build a Robot (found here at No Time for Flashcards)
• Build a Robot game
• Robot shape matching

Books:

• Robots! by Derek Matthews
• Me And My Robot by Tracey West
• Mama Robot by Davide Cali
• Clinks the Robot by Christianne Jones
• Rolie Polie Olie by William Joyce
• Little Robots by Jimmy Hibbert
• See Otto by David Milgrim
• Robots Everywhere by Dennis Hebson
  
  

Cupcake Matching

Happy Tuesday!  Here's one of our birthday-tivities - a cupcake matching game :)  It was so simple to make and so adapatable to ANY theme - just buy different wrapping/scrapbook paper to change the theme - easy peasy!

Supplies:
2 small foam sheets
cupcake wrapping paper
glue stick

1. Cut out individual cupcakes/images - we used 6 different images, but this could easily be expanded to increase the level of difficulty
2. Cut the same number of squares from your foam sheets (you could also use card stock)
3. Glue the images onto the foam squares

Frankenroll

Happy Tuesday!  Today we made a paper roll monster.  Munchkin got to work on his scissor skills and got to use glitter glue - he was in heaven :)  Here's what we used:

• TP Roll
• Black marker for the hair and scar
• Green markers and green glitter glue for the body
• Gems or googly eyes for the eyes
• Scissors to cut the hair with