Thursday, May 31, 2012

June Monthly Plan

BIBLE
Starting this month we are going to learn 2 verses a month.
*Bible Verses:
G verse- "Every Good Gift is from above." James 1:17
H verse- "Happy are the people whose God is the Lord."  Psalm 144:15
From Songs for Saplings 
We are making a little book for these verses and we sing them everyday during our "Bible study" time.
And while we learn our Bible verses for each letter of the alphabet we are also learning the sign language for that letter.

Bible verse activities and printables from Totally Tots

ALSO---We are reading a verse in the Bible every day this summer.  Come join our Summer Bible Reading Adventure and sign up HERE.

And this month we will start reading from a children's Bible that was given to us by grandma called The Bible Story Ten Volume Set by Arthur Maxwell.  I have read many Bibles and Bible story books to my kids, but I'm excited to start this longer series!  See my Summer Worship Series for ideas on what Bibles I have read to my kids.


LESSONS:
*Brightly Beaming Resources:  We are finished using the Preparatory Curriculum for 2-4 year olds for Shrade. Yay! A celebration will be coming soon!

This month we are starting Preschool.  I know it is summer, but it will take me about 2 years to get through all my stuff I have planned before I start teaching Kindergarten, so here we go!   See my Preschool Plans. I've been busy working on a lapbook that I will use for each letter.  This month we will at least do letter A.  See my Pinterest board for letter A.

Letter A- lapbook with books, crafts and activities
blog post will be coming with all my lesson plans attached


*Brightly Beaming Toddler:   Jessna is now 13 months old and has moved to the next level in the Nursery Age lessons. I am going to be more diligent in teaching her this summer.  She is a sponge!

This curriculum includes 24 lesson plans.  There are 2 lessons for each month of your toddler's life from 13 months to 24 months of age.  You can spend approximately 2 weeks on each lesson plan with your toddler.  The lessons are geared to a toddler's development as he/she progresses through the second year of life.  Keep everything fun and only do activities when your toddler wants to.
Lesson suggestions fall under these subject areas:




Literature
Bible
Poetry
Nursery Rhymes
Speech/Vocabulary
Sign Language
Indoor Games
Outdoor Games
Classical Music
Musical Exploration
Children's Songs
Lullabies
Foreign Languages
Puppetry
Exercise
Nature Study
Arts & Crafts
Art Appreciation
 



*Sensory Play:
-water play- loves this!
-playdough 
-outside!







We will be using a lot of these activities when we learn the letters!


*Literature Connection
Right now we are reading alphabet, color and counting books from lists at the library.

*Fun With Colors
Every month this year I will pick a different color to focus on for one week.  For June I will do PURPLE since we didn't get to it in April or May!   I will be using ideas from  Totline 123 Colors : Color Day Activities for Young Children (1-2-3 Series: Ages 3-6) by Jean Warren.

*Daily Music time: Songs from Music Notes and CD's we get at the library. 

*Pre-Math Activities
 I'll be using this book Totline 123 Math: Pre-Math Activities for Working With Young Children (1-2-3 Series, Math: Ages 3-6) by Jean Warren. 
.



*Art:
 -watercolor painting
-using paintbrush
-coloring
-chalk drawing outside

*Field Trips:
Playdates
MOPS Park Days
Library story time for Preschool
Mall playground
Nature Center
Exploring new parks with friends
Outdoor concerts


Pretend Play:
-building a fort
-cooking
-dress up with scarves and hats

*Other Activities
Check out my Pinterst Boards for Preschool Ideas! 
Follow Me on Pinterest

We are also working through a BIG Preschool Workbook for ages 3-5.

*Skills/Chores:
 What Shrade is working on: 3.5 years of age
-Responding with "yes, mama" without whining or crying-brushing teeth
-brush hair
-playing gently with sister
-setting the table
-wipe up spills
-sort laundry

*Academic
-cutting
-tracing
-letter sounds

Jessna is working on:
*first moments of discipline- what to touch, what not to touch
*learning how to sign "more"
*learning to sign "all done"
*playing in play pen for 10-15 min independently

I get a lot of these skills/chores from What Every Child Should Know Along the Way (Teaching practical life skills in every stage of life.) by Gail Martin.  I HIGHLY recommend this book that has so many practical ways to teacher your child along with many Bible verses.  I will be sharing more about this book this summer.

Monday, May 28, 2012

Summer Bible Reading Adventure with Reading Plan- Printable


Hi Everyone!  Are you ready to READ the Bible with your children EVERYDAY this summer?  I'm talking about reading ONE verse everyday.  I'm going to challenge myself to do that with my son Shrade.  We have a great resource from Scripture Adventures for a FREE download of a Summer Reading Calendar.  I also am giving you a FREE printable of all the verses we will being reading for the month of June today.  I will give you the verses for July and August at the end of each month.  So I will print the Scripture Adventures download off and then flip and print the Summer Bible Reading Plan that I created.  Every day we will read a verse and then mark off a number on the calendar.

Here's my Summer Bible Reading Plan for June.
I'm new to Google Docs, so I changed it to Shared and hope that it works.  If you have questions, please email me at shondaet@gmail.com.  Thanks!

Would you like to join me?  Fill out this form and every month I will email you to see how you did.  I will give a prize to the family that completes the challenge with the most days read and answers an ending survey.  Sound good!  Prize will be a children's Bible.  You do not have to read the same Bible verses that we are.





Brightly Beaming Resources Week #26: Airplanes

This is our last week with the Brightly Beaming Resources Prep Curriculum.  I can't believe it's been 1.5 years since I started. Shrade had just turned 2 and now he's 3.5.   I had no idea I would actually do all of this and I think I got more creative in the process as well as I had to make things a bit more challenging as Shrade got older.

This week we learned about airplanes.  We had a lot of fun pretending to fly around the house.  And whenever we were outside we would look for contrails.  We even drew grey contrails on a poster one day.  For letter Z, we made a zebra and built letter Z with blocks.  For 100, we counted 100 blocks and made them into a shape of an airplane!  And on the last day we made paper airplanes.  And our Nursery Rhyme was Old King Cole. What a fun week!
Flying like an airplane!
I'm an airplane!
Making letter Z with blocks/song chart
Z is for zebra


Drawing grey contrails behind planes
Our 100 block airplane!
Paper airplane
*Brightly Beaming Resources Lesson 26: Airplanes
*No Time for Flashcards- Zebra craft

Here's the video I used to make our paper airplane:


Books we read:



You can access all my Brightly Beaming Resources posts on my blog HERE.
You can access all my Brightly Beaming Resource posts on Pinterest HERE.

What's next?  Glad you asked!  Well, we are going to start doing lapbooks for each letter of the alphabet and I'm excited to try some new things with Shrade.  So stay tuned for my Preschool Posts and in the meantime, you can check out my Preschool Plans Page.










The Philosopher's Wife

Thursday, May 24, 2012

Parenting is Heart Work: Reaching Deep into a Child's Heart






Here we are at session #2- Reaching Deep into a Child's Heart.  I am so excited to share just a few things from Parenting Is Heart Work by Dr. Scott Turansky and Joanne Miller and our home group session.

The heart is the place where we process.  The Bible uses the phrase "said in his heart" 25 times.  Children behave according to what is in their heart.  So, our job as parents is to teach them good things to put in their heart.  And the best thing is Scripture!  So, how do you know what is in your child's heart?  Observe what they say and do.  Make a plan how to touch your child's heart in a positive way.

Questions:
*Is your child an external or internal processor?  Be on the watch for how your child behaves and address issues as they come up.

Make some changes today:
1. Remove old triggers and influences- arguing, negative communication
2. Provide a more structured life- create a balance of scheduled and free time
3. Give more love- learn to speak your child's love language
4.Use the Bible- memorize Scripture with your child

Taken from  Parenting Is Heart Work.

Next time: Correction Ideas that Touch the Heart






Bite Sized Science: 3 activities


 I picked up this book at the library and tried a few of the activities with Shrade: Bite-Sized Science: Activities for Children in 15 Minutes or Less.  We had some fun experimenting with science.  Here is what we did:

Shoebox Sounds
So we found 3 different toys and I put each one in the shoebox one at a time and we shook the shoebox to figure out what the toy was.  Then I had Shrade turn his back and I put a toy in and he shook it and had to guess what it was.  This is such a fun and easy activity!  Will do it again sometime!

Cupboard Talk
In this experiment I took 3 items from the cupboard and we shook them to see what they sounded like. Then Shrade turned around and I shook each one and he had to guess what food it was. Another easy activity!

Light Weight


This experiment was the most challenging, but it was a great way to learn about gravity.  We choose 4 items that were light weight, but some could weigh a bit more than others.  We dropped two at the same time, but before, we determined which was the heaviest and then tried it out.  Many ways to have fun with this.  Shrade couldn't figure out how to drop the items at the same time.

Well, hope this has given you a few new things to try with your little ones!  Thanks, Shonda







The Philosopher's Wife