Advent

We're using a mix of Tired, Need Sleep's ornaments and Feel Like Home blog's Jesse Tree PDF.  The latter has a song and a verse to go with the ornament and scripture story of the day (He's got the whole world in his hands for Day 1, Jesus Loves Me for Day 2, Arky, Arky for Day 3 and so on). We love the addition of songs.

I started using Tired, Need Sleep's ornaments in 2009 when I didn't have a printer, so our ornaments are watercolors done by me, based on the other ornaments.  I love that you could just print them out and have your child color them though.

We're also using Truth in the Tinsel - instant love.  I got in on the Black Friday deal, but it is very much worth the full price (and that is not an affiliate link, although you can get one).  I won't be photographing us doing this though, as it wouldn't be fair to Amanda to give away all her ornament crafts! 


I also won an advent spiral last year from Nicole at One Hook Wonder.  I was wondering what we would do with it, as I hadn't purchased the wooden stars to affix to the little dowel pieces, when the kids started playing with Santa Lucia and Saint Nicholas along the "path."  This gave me the idea of making some wooden peg people for each day of December until Christmas. 
 

 I attempted to see if it might be doable with Bear.  We had just read Merry Christmas, Strega Nona and Country Angels, so we made angel peg people.  Bear's is the one with the smudged face.  I had to salvage the eyes a bit :)

 I was thinking we'd do people from the Nativity (Mary, Jospeh, shepherds, kings) and maybe some other saints who have feast days in December.  I haven't made a list though, or even looked into it.  It may indeed be a project that gets started this year and finished the next.  Or perhaps, I'll make two peg people per year to give the kids on December 6th (Saint Nicholas' feast day).  I haven't worked it all out, obviously.

A closer look at Saint Nick.  I made him last year, after drooling over the expensive (and sold out) Ostheimer figure. 

 A closer look at Santa Lucia.  I want to try to make a boy one (they wear tall conical star hats) this year for J-jo.

 Do you have a link to your Advent activities you would like to share?  Leave it in the comments.  I love to get new ideas to add to our traditions.

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We LOVE Artistic Pursuits - a TOS Review

I feel SO blessed to have had the chance to review the ARTistic Pursuits curriculum!  ARTistic Pursuits is a curriculum that spans preschool through 12th grade. We got to review ARTistic Pursuits book 1 geared for K-3. The link shows you sample pages of two of the lessons.  You can preview lessons from each of the books.

Each of the k-3 books (there are 3) are $42.95.  The books are bound with thick pages.  The first book, the one we reviewed, covers lessons on What Artists Do, What Artists See, and Where We Find Art.  Each lesson is 3 pages.  The first page is an introduction to the theme.  In lesson 1, Artists Compose, the introduction talks about how artists place things together to create something new.  The text reads well and is written to the student.  The second page of each lesson is for art appreciation.  Photos of great art are found, with blurbs explaining a bit about it.  In the case of lesson one, the blurb mentions the composition of the piece.  There are also questions to ask the student (or for the student to read) to have him focus on certain things in the painting.  I absolutely LOVE this.  The third page of each lesson is the project for the student. The directions for the project are clear and easy to follow and includes photos of a student sample.

The first volume focuses on Ancient art.  This will tie in perfectly with our Classical Conversations Cycle 1 next Fall.  In the meanwhile, we have been working our way through the first 17 lessons, which are more about what artists do when they create art.  

Bear loves this curriculum and so do I. I was right there drawing with her and was so absorbed, I forgot to take pictures:)  I will be purchasing the other volumes after we finish this first one.  It reminds me a lot of the Artists and Art lessons I do with Bear, but with ALL the work done for me already.  I've come to the conclusion this year that I would rather pay money to have it done for me and use the extra time to be with my children.

You can purchase ARTistic Pursuits Level 1 for $42.95.  ARTistic Pursuits also sells the artist supplies required by the curriculum (or you can find them at your nearest art store).

You can see what other TOS crew members thought of ARTistic Pursuits on the Crew Blog.

Disclaimer: I received ARTistic Pursuits Volume 1 in exchange for this honest review. 

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Christmas Montessori Practical Life Trays

Christmas Trays:

I created these with J-jo (2) in mind.  So far, only Bear (4) has gravitated toward them.  J-jo thinks the mini presents are candy.  And he squirreled away all the erasers from the second photo for his own purposes.

Color sorting presents (Bear NEVER wanted to sort as a 2 and 3 year old, so I should have expected J-jo to be the same). 

 Sorting the Christmas erasers.  As stated above., these erasers are now elsewhere, getting better use. :)

 Tweezing the candy (from a mini tree garland that I cut up) into the paint tray.

 Bear loves the idea of candy (she hardly gets to eat it) and of course gravitated to this often since I've set it up.

 Putting lollipop (also mini tree ornaments) into floral foam (Dollar Tree).  Another favorite of Bear's.  The only tray attempted by J-jo.

 Necklace making tray.  Yet to be used.

 Pattern block Christmas mats from prekinders.com.  She has other Christmas printables we may use.

That's all for now.  I'm sure we will add to this.  I dumped anything else Christmas related around the house into the bin I normally use for sensory bin for them to just use in play (things like red and green silvery pompoms and the extra candy and presents from the above trays).

Next week we'll be doing gingerbread related activities but I think I'll just leave these trays out until Christmas.

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El Espanol Facil! Junior - a TOS Review

It's hard to find a Spanish curriculum that is a good fit for our current situation.  My husband speaks to the children in Spanish 99% of the time and they understand it all.  The problem is that they speak to him 99% in English.  My search for a curriculum is to find one that will encourage my children to speak more readily in Spanish.  So far, El Espanol Facil, or the Easy Spanish, is helping, not to the point that they are now fluent with their father, but enough that they are interested in repeating in Spanish when prompted.

The Easy Spanish! Junior from Great Commission Languages has a good mix of written and fun, hands-on activities. The curriculum is based on Charlotte Mason and Dr. Jeanne Chall and their theories that language is learned by transferring your identity into the language. The lessons are short audio stories from a CD.  You can follow along in the soft-covered textbook. Most lessons have a go-along worksheet, available to print out from the CD.  The stories progress from easy to more challenging, and are a mix of Spanish sentences with some English responses, allowing you to figure out on your own what words mean.  Each lesson track is followed by a vocabulary track and everything is spoken slowly enough to really hear how the words are and this is very helpful if you are a visual person and "see" the words in your head as you hear them.

Some of the fun things we've done have included a search for "cosas viejas o nuevas en la casa" (old or new things around the house), a search for "cosas grandes y pequenas," (big and small items), and a game of "escondidos" (hide and seek).  We've also been filling out an All about Me booklet (in Spanish - also on said CD), which, at this level, is mostly just letting the child draw and then perhaps label with the Spanish words.  Bear has been LOVING this curriculum.  She asks for it when she doesn't see it in her boxes.  One day, I forgot to tell her to draw her house for the All About Me component, but she found the sheet and completed it herself!  That All About Me book sure is close to her heart.

One thing I have not liked with The Easy Spanish is the constant reference to the Ultimate Lap book Handbook - the use of lapbook components with this program is often listed as one of the possible activities.  I think it would have been good to list this as a needed or optional resource near the front of the book, but it just started popping up in the activities and threw me a bit off, making me feel like I missed something.  Also, I would love to pay just a bit more to have the lapbook components ready for you to print and cutout - like the viejo y nuevo flapbook.  I don't particularly want to be looking for photos of old and new items to paste into the flapbook, but if, like at Homeschool Share, I could just print it out and then cut, glue and paste, life would be even easier!

The Easy Spanish Junior is a good curriculum for children 5 to 8 and is $69.95 at the Great Commission Languages website.  I think a child as young as 3 could enjoy it.  Great Commission Languages also has The Easy French, as well as Spanish and French resources, and curriculum for older children.

Disclaimer: I was provided with a copy of The Easy Spanish for review purposes only.  I did not receive monetary compensation. The opinions expressed are my own.  To read other reviews of The Easy Spanish or even of The Easy French, please visit the TOS blog.

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Five in a Row - The Bee Tree

We rowed the Bee Tree after our row of Mirette on the High Wire.  The Bee Tree is a book by Patricia Polacco which tells the story of a little girl and her grandpa who chase the bees to their hive.  Along the way, a myriad of people join in.  It is a fun little story.

A lot of my craft ideas came from my Pinterest board.

Bee jars.

 

 We each made one

 We filled the bee jars with "pollen" (yellow pompoms) and later used them as math manipulatives to help with adding and subtracting.

 

 I also created a game in which we rolled a die and had to collect the correct amount of pollen from the flower for our bee jar.

 Two Teaching Mommies has a great Bee printable pack.  We did a lot from it.

 

I altered this one a bit to fit J-jo.  He loves to glue.  Upper case and lower case matching.  He is surprisingly extremely good at this, even without being able to tell me the letter sounds. (He does point to the correct letter sound when asked though.)

 Roll and make a bee.  Bear enjoyed this.

 

 Spin and graph.  Bear LOVED.

 Count and clip.  Too hard for J-jo alone and too easy for Bear.

Craft - make thumbprint bees.

 And Do-A-Dot the letter Bb.

 

 Of course, we also did most activities and discussions in the FIAR manual, but you'll need the book for those:)  We used Homeschool Share for those resources.  They included learning about Michigan and onomatopeia, to list our two favorites.

 Here is the flapbook for onomatopoeia.

We did some work on the parts of bees too.  Mostly in French.  I found a lot of French resources for bees, surprisingly, and I even found a book, from my childhood, about bees on the shelf.

 I threw in a couple of Montessori practical life items.

Tweezing pollen, or spooning it, or simply using your pincer grasp.  Skill - one-to-one correspondence.

 Tweezing bees - Dollar Tree beads, sharpie, wax liners from empty cereal box (parchment paper would work too) for the wings.

 The best part was making our very own paper mache beehive!

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Five in a Row - Mirette on the High Wire

I am so behind in my Five in a Row posts.  I haven't even taken the photos off my camera for a month!  This is usually something I do weekly. 

Mirette on the High Wire is a wonderful story of a little girl so determined to walk on the high wire after seeing Bellini do so.  She tries over and over again until she is able to do it.  I love the message to persevere.

 We did a circus theme to go with the story.

I used resources from 

Homeschool Share

All of a Kind Family (copywork sheet)

Homeschool Creations Circus Preschool Pack (I only used the prewriting skills section)

Enchanted Learning (the French circus book)

 I unfortunately did not source the printable preschool pack shown in part below (Circus Snacks, Balloon Patterns). It came with a circus poem too. If anyone stumbles across it (I've been looking for 30 minutes and am tired of it...sigh) I'd appreciate the link. edited: The pack came from Homeschool Share. Thank you, Jessica!

We made circus themed snacks.

 Monkey face sandwich

 Clown icecream

 Played carnival games.

Ping pong ball into cups.

 Knock down the tower.

 Leaping through hoop of flames.

 I even found a clown wig at WM after Halloween for $1.  

You can see my pinterest board for more carnival and circus ideas.

Delightful Learning, as usual, was a wonderful source of inspiration.

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Last Minute Thanksgiving Montessori Practical Life

 I opened a box looking for our Christmas tray material and found last year's Thanksgiving stuff.

 Clothespin turkeys.

 The yellow tray is a water transfer using interesting dishes instead of bowls.  I wanted to use a baster to make it more turkey related, but ours has disappeared.

 Button turkey which was inspired from Counting Coconuts.

And then I added this - stamp a turkey stamp and then color it.  Bear and her friend made lots of drawings based on this work with the stamp.

I've been setting up our December trays and photographing them and should have them posted soon.

Happy Thanksgiving. 

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