As a toddler, my daughter was obsessed with ducks. She called herself “Baby Duck” and if I did not call her that, she corrected me. I was, of course, “Mama Duck.” So it was a perfect time for finding all the books we can find about ducks. Below I’ve included a huge list of books. Some
My preschooler simply loves butterflies right now! As we prepared a report about butterflies for our recent project fair, we took the chance to act out the parts of the butterfly life cycle. This whole body gross motor play is just how she learns! I know she’ll not forget the details we discussed: egg, caterpillar,
Now that my daughter (age 5) is becoming more and more aware of words and sounds and even starting to sound out consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words, she was very excited to try a flower-themed word family picture sort. She loves flowers. The beautiful springtime is finally showing us tiny green buds and she cannot wait to
These last two weeks can be defined as thinking outside of the box. To be honest, I don’t usually think it is my style. I like to go down the checklist and get it done. But I’m finding my children are much more receptive, interested, and quick to learn when I’m more loose about finishing things,
I’ve fallen in love with word links (also called word ladders, word golf, or doublets): games that change just one letter at a time to get to a completely different word. The game of word links were created by Lewis Carroll in 1877. My son, although a very strong reader, did struggle with vocabulary as a first
I have always been fascinated by how marvelously the water cycle works for us on earth. Even the Lord recycles! He takes water that has rained on to the earth and given life to the plants and trees (and us too!), then He lets it collect and evaporate into the air, where it is condensed
After our participation in the Chicago Wildlife Watch project, I decided to use woodland animals as our nonfiction topic for my story times at our homeschool co-op this week! We began with some great books (both fiction and nonfiction) and then jumped in to forest animals activities in science stations!
I’ve been creating units for kindergarten using picture books to introduce the poetic concepts of rhythm, rhyme, and metaphor. Today I thought I’d write about another picture book that would help in teaching older children about metaphors in poetry: Red Sings from Treetops by Joyce Sidman and illustrated by Pamela Zagarenski.
Everything about the book Rosie Sprout’s Time to Shine by Allison Wortche and pictures by Patrice Barton is Spring-y, from the names of the children to the plants the children grow with their teacher. Overall, it is a book about selflessness and overcoming jealousy. As we read the book, five-year-old Strawberry and I discussed the feelings we
My four-year-old daughter is not yet reading. But the other day she was delighted to see the “Go Cubs Go” marquee in front of the doctor’s office. To her surprise (and mine!) she told me what it said! I have a one-track mind this week: Cubs baseball! We’ve also enjoyed counting the “W” banners as
My daughter has fallen in love with VeggieTales, which is now on Netflix! She loves that each episode ends with a reminder of God’s love for each of us, and I must admit that I like that too. We also happened to read a number of fun books about vegetables (named below), so this week
We are working on multiplication a little bit each week these days. I also discovered this week that my son could not remember the difference between area and perimeter! This week, I decided to give him a design challenge: plan a flower garden. It turned out to be a fun way to review area and perimeter!
