For our Felt Board (Halloween Theme)

5 Little Ghosts

5 little ghosts flew through the door

One flew away, and then there were 4.

4 little ghost spooky as can be.

One flew away, and then there were 3.

3 little ghosts drinking Halloween brew,

One flew away, and then there were 2.

2 little ghosts having lots of fun,

One flew away, and then there was one.

1 little ghost is a real super hero,

He flew away, and then there was zero!

Halloween Songs

5 Little Pumpkins

Five little pumpkins sitting on a gate (Hold up open hand)

The first one says, "My, it's getting late." (Point at the thumb)

The second one says, "There are witches in the air." (Point to pointer finger)

The third one says, "But we don't care." (Point to the middle finger)

The fourth one says, "Let's run and run and run!" (Point to ring finger)

The fifth one says, "We're ready for some fun!" (Point to the little finger)

Ooooooooooo went the wind (Hold hands open beside mouth)

And out went the light (Clap hands together)

And the five little pumpkins rolled out of sight. (Roll hands around each other)

Hoo!

The owl goes Hoo
The owl goes Hoo
Hi ho on Halloween the owl goes Hoo
The ghost goes Boo
The ghost goes Boo
Hi ho on Halloween the ghost goes Boo

*Sung to Farmer in the Dell

Jack O Lantern

I'm a little Jack o lantern
Fat and Fine
They picked me off a pumpkin vine
Halloween is coming don't you know
just light my candle and watch me glow

*Sung to I'm a Little Teapot

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons

Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons, by Engelmann, Haddox, and Bruner is the book I have been using kind of to teach my daughter to read and learn the alphabet. But I am not using it in the way the book was meant to be used not at all. Here is how I am using it.

I took some cue cards/blank recipe cards purchased from the dollar store and a black sharpie and I put all the different letters and combinations on the cue cards that they teach. Complete with blend so she could see how to say them. I did all 44 letters/blends and every day we would do some cue cards... nothing hard core because I like to keep things simple with her. She prefers that and it is much less stress when your dealing with a 4 year old. So every day we are adding more and more cue cards until she can do them all without prompting.

After she is done with the letters/blends then we will go on to the words they have in the book. I will just take my cues from her. If she can say the blends without prompting then it is time to go onto the words.

This book is available at most libraries I have found and it is a wonderful resource to use to make up the cue cards and not do the lessons. Mind you some people have had wonderful luck with the lessons it just isnt' something my daughter can handle and I know that so I just changed it up for us.

Staying Motivated and feeling like your doing something...

I have had many conversations as of late with people who are concerned about if they are doing enough when it comes to homeschooling. Between not doing enough and staying motivated these seem to be a couple of areas many homeschooling parents struggle with.

As far as asking yourself if you are doing enough. There are many styles of homeschooling and just because "susie" uses a curriculum and you don't doesn't mean she is doing any more or less then you are. Children learn in different ways. I know that if I was to do just work sheets with my daughter I should just forget it. It won't work she would be totally bored to tears and be difficult to teach. I have chosen a literature based curriculum because after doing much research and sitting back and watching my daughter I realized that it was the fit for her and so far so good.

Just because one child learns one way doesn't mean the rest of your children will learn the same way. That is the beauty of homeschooling you can customize the curriculum to fit the child. Something that can not be done in a public school.

I have been homeschooling my daughter for about two months now and it is going well, we do have times when we dont' get done everything I want to in a day but I still walk away at the end of the day knowing we did accomplish things whether it was just a walk and talking about nature or baking something.

So staying motivated is harding than feeling like you have done something I think anyways or maybe they go hand in hand. You will still be motivated or will be motivated period if you know you are accomplishing something every day. Look at the little things. Keep a list of the things you do throughout the day so that you can look back at it at the end of the day and see that you have accomplished something. That would probably be a good start.

I will try to post more on this subject in another post. I have to get ready to start my day here this morning and set up things for my daughter and I.

Children's Museum... and schedule for the week...

We made our first trip into the Children's Museum and Shaylin loved it!!!!!

Shaylin loved working in the McDonald's and going in the Dinosaur cave. She loved playing the drums as well as meeting up with some new homeschool friends and a former nursery school friend Ani. It really was a good morning and I was impressed with the museum. I am sure we will be making many more trips back that way.

Today I am just getting ready to start school I know it is 3pm but Rob doesn't go into work until 2pm now so we start it late in the afternoon. It really doesn't take long we read some of the stories after bath too before bed. We do crafts in the morning as Shaylin likes it when her daddy helps. I have to decide on our outings this week.

Tuesday ~ eye doctors (nothing like making appointments learning time)
Wednesday ~ ice skating
Thursday ~ story time at the library
Friday ~ go to see High School Musical (might wait until cheap Tuesday)

Happy Thanksgiving

Wishing all my Canadian readers a
Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours!

Letter B Lapbook Butterflies

I hope your enjoying the links I am using to create my lapbooks. I will continue to post them as I go through the making my lapbooks as I find it easy for me to organize them this way also.

• Butterfly Crafts 1,
• Colouring pages 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6
  
• Activity Sheets 1,
• Butterfly Anatomy 1, 2,
  
• Lifecycle 1, 2,
  
• Homeshare Butterfly Links
• Butterfly activity kit free download near the bottom
  

Fall Songs to sing...

The Leaves are Falling Down
Sung to: "Farmer in the Dell"

The leaves are falling down
The leaves are falling down
Red, yellow, green, and brown
The leaves are falling down

Scarecrow
Sung to: "Teddy Bear, Teddy bear turn around"

Scarecrow, Scarecrow, turn around.
Scarecrow, scarecrow, jump up and down
Scarecrow, scarecrow, arms up high
Scarecrow, Scarecrow, wink one eye
Scarecrow, scarecrow, bend your knee
Scarecrow, scarecrow, flap in the breeze
Scarecrow, scarecrow, climb into bed
Scarecrow, scarecrow, rest your head

Letter A Lapbook - Ants

The ant pictured above almost makes ants seem cute... I did say almost.

Here are some links where I picked up some things to do on ants.

• Free printable Ant lesson plan
• Homeschool Share: Ant links
• Coloring pages: 1, 2, 3, 4
  
• Math Sheet 1
• Ant Anatomy Worksheet
• Ant online game

Question from my comments: How long does it take to do a lapbook or do I spend on them?
Lapbooks sometimes take a week to do but most often usually a couple of days because we add so much crafty stuff to them. I plan to do the ant lapbook in two days and of course I will be taking pictures of the lapbook once it is done and probably some during. We do others that work out to be more than a week to do at times. Just depends on Shaylin's interest but I have condensed these so they won't take long.

Week 5

Ideas for this week:

• ant lapbook ~started Monday
  
• butterfly lapbook
• count numbers on the clock
• collect leaves for a leaf rubbing
• play dress up
• bake a pie
• make soup
• build a spider web "Little Miss Muffet"
• nature walk "Jaffa maybe"
  
• Make a chart of Shaylin's daily schedule and post it
• musical band with kitchen utensils
  

What are we reading this week:

• Every insect
• The Ant
• Willie Winkie
• Little Miss Muffet
• The Four Friends
• Little PeeWee
• Busy Timmy
• The Hungry Caterpillar
• 5 3 pages from our Science book
• Math make patterns with coloured blocks
  

Matching colours today

Friday we decided to cruise some links that have been giving to me.
My daughter really enjoyed matching the colours together and it
was really good in helping with some fine motor skills with the work
she had to do with the mouse.

Here she is loving the game she is playing.