More Sight Word Fun

(44 Months)

We have been having a lot of fun playing our sight word games (see here).  I've been trying to sneak in an extra few minutes of playing throughout the day here and there to reinforce those sight words.  We are only working on a few at a time.  I'm pulling the list mostly from the BOB books:
           the
           and
           is
           has
           said
           that
           his
           her

Last May, we worked on a b, d, p, q letter identification matching game (see here).  To help us practice our sight words, here is another activity and it involves stickers.  My kids love stickers!  It's almost guaranteed that if I create a learning activity that incorporates stickers, they are going to participate. By the way, this is quick and easy activity can also be used as a formal assessment (for those of you who need to document progress).

At first Wild One did not want to come to the table.  That's fine.  I knew the lure of stickers would get him there.  Sure enough, "What are doing?"

 Aaahhh, yes the elusive smile.  It amazes me how horrible I am at taking pictures, I can never get a smile picture that isn't blurry.

Heh heh heh, sticker lure worked!

Dot markers are another fun way to work on this activity.  Since we were on our way out the door this morning, I chose a less messy option.

Monthly Journals

(44 Months)

We began monthly journals last month, when we started our homeschool preschool year.  My plan is to have Little Miss and Wild One repeat the same format each month so that we can show their progress (and it can be a cute keepsake for when they are older).

We're working on drawing a self-portrait, writing their name and practicing tracing the six letters that only have horizontal and vertical lines (according to Kumon they are supposed to be the easiest to master):  E F H I L T.

Sadly, this hasn't been their favorite part of homeschool.  In fact, they reluctantly come to the table to work on journals.  I thought they would really enjoy this process.  Since they don't, we only spend a few minutes on it and then move on.

They do get a lot of practice writing letters on the iPad (see here for our favorite apps).  I was looking forward to some good old fashioned pencil and paper practice.  Maybe next month they will want to work in their journals.  We're going to go play with play dough now.  Have a fun day!

We Are Reading!

(44 Months)

We've been working on reading our BOB Books almost every day.  Here's what I've learned so far (for my two):
           *  they try their best in the morning
           *  we only read for about ten minutes or until we finish a new book
           *  before we read a new book, I look through it to see if there are any new sight words and we
               review the sight words we've already learned
           *  when we get stuck on a CVC word, we use a flip book or our Lego letters to form words (if
               we are stuck on the word "tag", we practice words that end in -ag, bag, nag, rag, wag, tag to
               reinforce the pattern)
           *  after we figure out what the CVC or sight word is, we go back and reread the entire sentence.
           *  having a friend read makes it fun - if it looks like their interest is waning, I'll invite them to
               choose a friend to have read to them.  They then read as if they are the pretend friend.
           *  learning to read takes a lot of repetition.  They need to see the word again and again for it to
               begin to stick.  To help, while I'm reading aloud to them I'll pause on one of their BOB
               words.  If they are able to read the word, that's great, if not then before we move onto the next
               book we'll do a quick learning activity (magic spoon, flip book, Lego letters, paint chip
               words...) to reinforce the word.

What I've seen in these past few weeks has been amazing!  They are reading.  They are sounding out words and remembering sight words.  They are excited about reading on their own.  I almost cried the first time they read the first BOB book in it's entirety.  They're doing it!  They are reading!  We are reading our first BOB paragraphs (four sentences on one page- Set One, Book Six).  It's happening.  If you haven't tried BOB, I definitely recommend it (no, they are not a sponsor, this is completely my own opinion).

Here's a Pinterest page of sight word and CVC word activities that my little ones like playing with.

Delicious Beet Cupcakes, Cakes and Pancakes

(43 Months)

We LOVE roasted beets!  Ok, let me clarify.  We love baking with roasted beets.  If you haven't tried baking with roasted beets, you are missing out on some delicious and guilt-free desserts, muffins and pancakes.

Beets are a top ten superfood that are high in potassium, folic acid and fiber.  When they are baked into a sweet treat, they are undetectable!  Seriously, it's true.  I didn't believe it either, until I tried my first beet recipe.  Now, we bake with beets at least once a week!  Click here to learn how to roast beets.

Little Miss and Wild One love helping me bake sweet treats.  They help with every part of the recipe.  Cracking eggs, pouring milk, measuring out wet and dry ingredients, mixing.  They even have created their own recipes, by adding in an unexpected goody into the batter- peanut butter, chocolate chips, bananas, blueberries.  I love having them in the kitchen with me, even though each recipe takes twice as long to make and the mess is always bigger than I expected, I love having them on their stools with me.  They talk about it for days, narrating each part that they participated in.  They recreate the memory in their play kitchen.  I know that they won't remember this when they are older, but I will always cherish these moments.

All of the following recipes, they have helped make and passed their taste-test (we only use a pass/fail method of determining if a recipe is a keeper or not, no maybes here).  These are all kid-friendly baking recipes.

Here are our favorite roasted beet recipes.  They all have either whole wheat pastry flour or a blend of whole wheat and unbleached all purpose flour.  Some use non-fat Greek yogurt or applesauce in place of butter and oil.  All are delicious and practically guilt-free.

Fudgy Beet Cupcakes - we substituted dark chocolate
almond milk for the vanilla almond milk, and threw in
1/3 cup of melted bittersweet chocolate chips with the
wet ingredients.  The result was a beautifully rich,
glossy cupcake.  Light and yet fudgy.








Double Dark Chocolate Chip Muffins
from Pinch My Salt - these have noticeably
more chocolate, but ooooohhh they are so
delicious.  We even made this into a bundt
cake and it was devoured within a few days.





Red Beet Pancakes - in our home we call
these Pinkalicious Pancakes.  These pancakes
are definitely on their Top Five Pancakes list.
Sweet and gorgeous in color.  One batch will
make enough to feed your family, plus have
enough to freeze.

Red Velvet Cupcakes - we altered this recipe,
replacing the all-purpose flour with whole wheat
pastry flour.  We also only used 1 3/4 cups of flour,
and substituted 1/4 cup of unsweetened dark cocoa
powder.  Instead of canola oil, we have found that
unsweetened applesauce and non-fat Greek yogurt
both produce a light and fluffy cupcake.

Dark Chocolate Cake - this is sweetened with real maple
syrup and raw honey.  We never have light olive oil in the
pantry, so we substituted unsweetened applesauce.  This
was fantastic!








If you have never baked with roasted beets, try one of the above recipes and you'll be converted into a beet lover.  And when the kids ask for another cupcake or slice of cake, you can feel good about saying "yes".

Easy Baked Jack-O-Lanterns

(43 Months)

I love Autumn.  Crisp Fall apples, the mouthwatering scent of pumpkin bread baking, pumpkin apple muffins, pumpkin waffles, pumpkin spice lattes...  mmm...  Last year we were lucky enough to visit my sister's family during the Fall (I miss you all so much).  They took us out to an apple orchard and the three little ones picked their first apples off a tree together.  Little Miss and Wild One still talk about how much fun they had with their aunt, uncle and cousin "Buddy".  Here's our adventure.  Look how little they were.

Buddy and my brother-in-law.  I miss you!!!!!!!!

I've been wanting to make baked cotton balls for a few weeks now.  When I saw Asia's baked Jack-o-lantern on Fun At Home With Kids, I knew we were going to get messy in the kitchen soon.  This is an easy and fun project for the kids to work on.  Little Miss and Wild One helped mix the flour and water solution, combined the colors, and squished the flour solution onto the cotton balls.

After Wild One finished with the orange cotton balls, he was done.  He said he didn't want to get his hands dirty anymore.  Oh well.  Little Miss kept working at it, she loved that she was working on this almost independently, with no help from Mommy.  By the way, did you notice in the above pictures that she is tilting the mixing bowl as she mixes?  That's how we mix the wet ingredients into the dry ingredients when we are making batter for cupcakes, muffins, pancakes, waffles.....  She even said, "we lift the bowl to mix the wet into dry ingredients."  I love that girl!

Here's the recipe:
We first made a huge batch of plain colored flour/water solution in a large bowl.  For the two Jack-o-lanterns we used 3 cups of bleached all-purpose flour and about 2 1/2 cups of water.  Next, we whisked the flour into the water until there were no more lumps (it's going to be thick and goopy, perfect for little ones hands to squish).  Then, we took about 1/2 cup of the faux paint for the green cotton balls and ladled it into a small mixing bowl.  We used about 3/4 cup for the black cotton balls and ladled it into a medium mixing bowl.  We left the remaining flour/water in the large bowl for the orange cotton balls.  I love how Asia incorporated scent to her faux paint.  We mixed in 1/2 tsp of cinnamon to the black paint* and 1 tsp of pumpkin spice to the orange paint, before adding in the cotton balls.  Little Miss and Wild One loved the delicious scents. Bake it at 300 degrees for 80 minutes (on tinfoil for easy cleanup).  It took our creation about twenty minutes to cool down.  This was perfect timing to work on before lunch, then let it bake and cool to be ready for after nap (if they nap).

With the left over faux paint, we added in some extra cotton balls to smash!  I'm so glad we did, because they had so much fun using the hammers to whack the baked cotton balls.  They were so surprised that the soft, fluffy cotton balls baked into almost a rock!  Then, I told them that we are going to go outside with some hammers and smash them.  "Can I use Daddy's hammer?"  Once that first baked cotton ball was smashed and they saw that the inside was still white and fluffy, they were hooked.  They began smashing one after another.  "Mommy, can we do more please?" Even Grandpa got into the act.  "Mommy, can we do more please?"

*I first tried making the flour/water black with food dye.  It kept turning green or brown.  After a few tries, I remembered that I had black liquid watercolor.  We tried that and it still didn't turn out black.  However, after it was finished baking it did turn black.

The kidabunks loved this project.  Little Miss loved every part of it, mixing, squishing, creating and smashing.  Wild One's favorite part was mixing and smashing.  I love that I have a beautiful keepsake that will hopefully last past this season.  They already asked if we can make more (baked) cotton balls.  Fun and easy.  

Sight Word Fun

(43 Months)

We started a sight word search.  We were looking for just the word "the".  They have seen and practiced reading the word "the" in their BOB books (here is our first post about BOB).  When we were reading one of the apple-themed books, and I saw the word "the", I asked them to put on their spy glasses and start looking (that's a Grandma trick, thank you Grandma!).  I love seeing their faces when they discover it.  "I found it!" "There it is Mommy!"  Love it!

Awhile ago, I purchased these tin jelly roll pans from The Dollar Tree (love, love, love The Dollar Tree).  I used a dry erase marker to write some words on the pan (CVC words for Wild One and sight words for Little Miss), then invited Wild One and Little Miss over to find and place the letters.  Wild One went straight to work.  Little Miss decided that she wanted to erase the letters using her finger.  I tried encouraging her to match the letters, to which she replied "no, thank you."  I offered her a Q-tip to erase with, instead of using her fingeon't know why I didn't grab two Q-tips at the same time.  The activity went from matching letters to build words, to erasing letters.

Little Miss decided that she wanted to erase the letters using her finger (notice the pout).  I tried encouraging her to match the letters, to which she replied "no, thank you."  

I offered her a Q-tip to erase with, instead of using her finger, so that she can practice pre-writing and holding a pencil.  This, she liked!  In fact, they both liked it.  I don't know why I didn't grab two Q-tips at the same time.  The activity went from matching letters to build words, to erasing letters.   

We've had this puzzle for awhile now.  When they first received this gift from Grandma and Grandpa (thank you Grandma and Grandpa), the kids would sit down for almost an hour putting it together, and taking it apart and putting it together again.  Fast forward almost six months, and it's been sitting on our shelf untouched for the last two months.  I knew we would eventually find a fun activity to repurpose this puzzle.  The other day, I saw this on Pinterest at The KinderKid.  Isn't that great timing?

I used the back of an old packing box to trace each puzzle piece (it only took a couple of minutes) to make the template.  Then chose eight sight words to begin with (they came from the BOB books that we are currently reading).  Once we master the first eight, I'll introduce a few more sight words at a time.  It's amazing, all I did was create a puzzle template and write some sight words on the once-passed over puzzle and now it's one of their favorite items to play with!

We love our Mickey pointers, thank you Dollar Tree.  Wild One enjoys learning when there is a lot of movement involved.  So I created a spot the sight word game.  I taped the same eight sight words that I used in the puzzle around the playroom/preschool and kitchen.  Then, I would drum roll and say a word and they would quickly try to find and use their pointer to identify the word.

Do you need a storage place for your magnetic letters?  What about a metal lunch box?  If you have a flat top instead of a formed top, then you would be able to write the letters in dry erase marker and the child could place the letters on top.  Since our lunch box has a formed top, I write the word on an index card and leave the card next to the box.

Legos are also one of our favorite ways to build words.  

Here are some more ideas.

Have fun learning and playing.