Homeschool Group Stations

One thing I remember about elementary school was the fun stations you got to switch to when the teacher rang a bell. You would get to the next one and see a whole new thing to explore. Not only will my kids not miss out on fun things like that because we homeschool, but we also get the pleasure of doing such fun things with friends who homeschool too! I love this group!

 We had three little tables set up with two different activities so the kids did a total of 6 stations for five minutes each. Tons of gross and fine motor skills practiced!

Station #1: Transfer water from a dish using different types of syringes and spoons into an ice cube tray. 

 Station #2: Lacing practice.

Station #3: Shape Construction with Popsicle sticks.

Station #4: Puzzle assembly with math blocks.

 Station #5: Use tongs to pick up pom-poms and put in egg carton.

 Station #6: Get a glob of PlayDoh and hammer nails into it.

Letter Oo, Number 15, Diamond Week

 O for octopus (glued eyes for correct number), Hipp'O' paper bag puppets, circled Os, glued cheeriOs to our O letter, practiced name writing, and did some water coloring of numbers, the picture is of my mom who the kids call Oma

 Of course some O letter practice...

 Number practice...

 And shape tracing...

 Introduced P for next week (that's a playdoh penguin):

Star

 Rainbow Star!

 My 3 yr old cut out all of these shapes by himself and matched them to the shadow!

Our learning book is always a hit at the start of our week as we discuss the LOTW, NOTW, and Shape or Color of the week! We also did this follow the directions worksheet.

Heart

 Heart Play-Doh time with our heart mat & cookie cutters.

 Hearts made from the boys' hand prints.

 Heart tracing & shapes also enforced at our HGO.

Shapes HGO

 We start off with some shape sorting toys while we wait for the other mommies to arrive, but it turns out everyone's sick, so we start sorting our circle shapes onto the matching color plate.

 Alison talks to the boys about some shape matching on worksheets. The boys were really wild and did not want to sit and do work, but we encouraged them to listen even if they don't feel like it. (So I guess they learned about shapes and some behavioral stuff too this day...I originally didn't want to homeschool my kids because of issues like this, but the behavioral stuff is soooo much more important than shapes! We have a long way to go, but I love this process of shaping my boys' hearts.)

Alison has a cool shapes poster hanging from the chalkboard. She goes through all the shapes with the pointer and has the kids repeat the shape back to her. Then she points to a shape and has them say what it is. Then she says, "who can find the triangle?" and if they are sitting nice, raising their hand, they get to use the pointer and show her. 

 She read a book called Mouse Shapes and the boys ate rectangle crackers and circle blueberries.

 Alison had made cut outs of the shapes and put them in a little baggie for each child. As Alison called out a shape, the child looked in the baggie to find it, and raised it up into the air to show her. Each time they got more food...hehe.

 We walked down to the park and painted with shape cookie cutters. It worked really well and they were excited to pour glitter over their shapes when they finished.

 Lastly, we played this really fun running game. The kids stood at one end with cones and at the other end was more cones and a bunch more shapes cut out. Alison would blow her whistle and call out a shape. The kids would run to the other end and find the shape she had called, holding it up into the air. They would put it back down and she would blow the whistle again for them to run back to the starting point. They did this for about 20-30 min!

Oval

Playdough fun with our oval shape and 50 cent garage sale tool finds! 

We also made an oval penguin and some bumblebees that were mostly made of ovals. I really tried to let my three year old put the pieces where he thought they should go...I was trying to let him look at the picture of how it was supposed to be and then glue it down like that on his page. I am such a perfectionist that I want it to be right, but the wings are totally wrong and I had to catch myself from helping, but I love it more that he did it all himself rather than me guiding him as he placed it down.

It has been a snot-nosed couple of weeks--can't seem to shake these boogies and sickness, but pushing through!

Rectangle

 Glued pasta to our rectangle, did some dino shapes (coloring rectangles, making our own rectangles, shape match-up..) and a color by shape worksheet.

First "Homeschooling Friends" Outing

 My friend Amber and I decided somewhat recently to homeschool our kids, but it's hard homeschooling alone, so we started thinking that it would be really cool to have a little support group! This was our first little educational outing with our group and we went to the pumpkin patch. Eventually, I would love to have these small group outings once a month and then once a month have a big park day with anyone we know who has kids in our age range and is homeschooling too.

 I think overall at the end of the day I felt like we really poured into our kids all our energy and excitement for them to learn and grow in character. I love my job as a mommy, but I often feel like I fail these little ones. I know those failures can help me point my babies to their need for a Savior, but I rejoice on days like this one where I could let my Savior shine through me! 

 Nehemiah (my three year old) went away from the day struck with the thought that he is not the only kid who does school at his house. He kept saying "Joel does school at his house too? Like I do school at myyyy house?" He loved that other kids he knows does homeschool too like him. 

 We have two age groups--there's the 2 year olds and the 3/4 year olds.  For the younger group, Amber had prepared a goose shaped G to color (we were on the letter G this week). The older kids had a worksheet to trace the letter Gg and color objects that started with G including a "goose" and "goat"--both were at the petting zoo at the pumpkin patch.

 We had G for grapes and G for goldfish for a snack.

 A little immunity building and a little sharing! :)

 The kids start to lose it, so we pack up the markers and head over to the guh-guh-garden where things guh-guh-grow.

 We stop by the guh-guh-goldmine (and throw rocks into the water---sorry).

 Then we go see the piGs! Sometimes our letters aren't just at the beginning of a word--so pig ends with our lotw G! Haha--we were making this up on the fly...

 Piggy starts to bite so we move on...

 Time to count pumpkins! We change the number of pumpkins on top of a hay barrel and have the kids practice counting them. The younger kids just repeat us saying the numbers.

 For the older kid group Amber made a number line taped up with the number 1-10. After we count the number of pumpkins, they would write the number on little chalk boards.

 Nehemiah started explaining what he was doing to his little buddy Joel! So cute.

 Gracie (only one) wanted in on the fun too! She's going to be a little smarty...

 Isaiah (my 7 mo old) chills in the stroller this whole time--he's awesome. Brittny also has a baby who does super good hanging out. 

 The kids start to lose it and really need a pumpkin throwing--hay tossing break...

 This works out so while they play Amber glues some little shapes onto pumpkins. 

Then there's papers that have the same shapes on a printed picture and the kids have to run around and find the matching pumpkin. 

 We talked about the different shapes as we looked at the pumpkins.

 Alison shows the kids circles, rectangles, triangles, diamonds, ovals, and a new shape for my kids--crescent. 

 Then we rounded up the kids to get a little group picture!

 Ok--finally got em rounded up...from left we have Mommy Alison (preggo with baby #2), Joel (2), Gracie (1, in stroller), Avery (2), Joel (4), Nehemiah (3), Elijah (2), Mommy Amber, Chase (9 mos), Jake (2), Isaiah (7 mos in stroller), Mommy Brittny, and Mommy Melissa (behind camera).

 We take a quick peek at the goats and goose before we head to a much needed McDonalds slide ride and lunch...