August PreK Lesson Plans

*UPDATE: all the material/links below are assigned to days on the calendar. Please take a look at my calendar to see how I break the material up. This can easily be altered to your own needs.

~Here is my August calendar~

~Bible Stories~
Good Shepherd coloring, coloring activity
Jesus Blesses the Children: coloring
Daniel and the Lions: Read Together story, Angel Protects Daniel coloring, coloring, sequencing, Act Out with lion masks here, here, or here
Jesus Knows My Name: lesson & activities

~Bible Songs~
Jesus Loves The Little Children sing-along
Jesus Loves Me sing-along

~Chapel Music~

These are the 2 CD we use for our chapel music. The music is actually REALLY good! You can find the motions for her main songs on YouTube.

~Songs~
Mary Had A Little sing-along
Walking Through the Jungle sing-along
Animal Boogie sing-along
Let Me See Your Bugaloo action song from this CD pictured below

All of the songs on it are so much fun and really promote action movements. Reese LOVES this CD.

~Monthly~
Blends activity booklets, L Blends worksheets, R Blends worksheets
Zoo Shape & Count worksheets
Mary Had A Little Lamb: poem poster here & here, story props, coloring page here & here, color by number, numerical order counting, skip counting by 5s, rhyme booklet, craft

~Learn How To Pray~
Lord's Prayer IB book, Lord's Prayer coloring pages
When We Pray For Each Other song lyrics
Prayer Bubble here (cut out pictures & collage what they want to pray for *see how ours turned out below)

~Zoo~
Zookeeper stand up, coloring page here
Zoo Pack here
Goodnight Gorilla props
God Made the World coloring
Syllables at the Zoo worksheet
Put Me In The Zoo craft, Zoo Count by 2s here, Zoo Cage craft (may use foam sticker animals instead)
Feed the Giraffe playdoh mat, Feed the Elephant by 2s mat, Feed the Animals worksheet, Giraffe lunch here or here

~Jungle~
Monkey addition, Shapes maze, Money Puppet here, Monkey craft, Gorilla craft, Monkey snack (or lunch)
Sneaky Snakes part 1 & part 2, Practicing Curvy Lines tracer, Snake craft, Snack snack
Elephant Shapes maze, Animal mini book, Counting in 2s elephant
Tiger Puppet here, Jungle Tiger coloring, Stripey Fun folding
Frogs Pack here, Cross the River game, Find Way to the Frog ("go" & "off" sight words) pages 23-24, Tree Frog craft, Plate craft, Frog snack

~Safari~
Safari Counting in 2s here & Counting in 5s here
Zebra Connect Dots a-z, Zebra Puppet here, craft & plate craft here, Z maze, Zoo Count by 5s here
Giraffe Puppet here, worksheet (count by 2s), Giraffe paper bag
Cheetah craft, Lion Puppet here, craft, Lion snack & lunch
Ostrich craft
Rhino Puppet here, craft, coloring page
Safari Animal review

~Zoo~
Hide & Seek Animals link
Zoo Pack parts 1-4 & Tot pack
Put Me In The Zoo cut & paste

Please take a second to leave me a comment on this material! It is greatly appreciated!!!

Are We There Yet?! {Solution}

We recently went on a road trip that was 6 hours each way and we have 3 little girls (ages: 4, 2.5, & 18mo). Reese (age 4) is very good at the "Are we there yet?" phrase that most parents dread. Toddlers don't really understand how many hours away something is. Instead, I set up this very simple toddler timeline!

All I did was print out this car printable and had Reese color it. I then laminated it (which is not necessary but since this was our 2nd time doing this I wanted something I could keep around). After cutting it out, I simply used a craft blade to cut a tiny slit at each end of the car. Then I threaded through some curly ribbon and tied it across the back seat. I then took a Sharpie and made 6 lines across the ribbon to represent hours on the road.

All I had to do is say "When the car gets to the very last black line, we are there!" We didn't once hear the phrase "Are we there yet?!"

*NOTE For those who look at this as a choking hazard: #1 my girls couldn't each it from their carseats #2 we don't allow them to ever be in the backseat unbuckled & #3 the ribbon is just a simple bow so it will release if pulled on.

Preschool Accomplishments

The girls have been doing preschool at home since Mother's Day and we are starting to see some progress in their learning! It is so neat to know that I taught them this material! Although it has not been easy and we definitely have our moments... it is truly heartwarming to see them learning!

Reese can spell, write & read some sight words along with do simple addition from memory! (video from June 25, 2013)


She can also spell & write her last name, which is a whopping 8 letters long (video from today July 10, 2013 - same outfit not planned)


Emma (age 2.5) can now write her name without any tracer lines! Even though it is "floating away" she wrote the right letters in the correct order - so proud!

Emma can almost say the Pledge of Allegiance by herself! (she mixes it up with the Pledge to the Cross)


The girls can explain the Days of Creation Bible story that we have been working on for the past 1.5
weeks (hope you can hear them...Emma talks quietly)


Reese

• has started learning letter blends. We started with "Fl" this week.
• spells/read/writes her last name
• spells/reads/writes 9 sight words
• does simple addition and subtraction and has even memorized some on her own
• can count to 100 by 10's

Emma

• counts to 14 without starting to mess up. Then she skips to 16, 17, 18...
• spells/writes her first name
• traces lines
• cuts along a line
• colors in the lines without scribbling
• Says 95% of the Pledge of Allegiance
• knows how many days are in a week & what they are
• knows how many months are in a year & can almost say them all

Scarlett

• can count to 3
• attempts to say prayer
• is learning how to use scissors
• is learning how to be patient and follow directions

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July from our family to yours!

Can you guess where we got to go on the 4th of July?!?!

The Ringling Bros. and Barnum & Bailey Circus!!! I decided not to haul my heavy camera this time so we just got a bunch if iPhone pictures...

We all had a BLAST! We were on the very front row this time (which I didn't realize when we bought the tickets because it said "row 8" but apparently row 8 was the first row)! The girls each got a high five from the Ring Leader, which was so neat! 

I can't count how many times we got compliments on the girls' dresses! One lady even asked to take pictures of the backs of them so she could show her daughter. If you are interested in the dresses, I ordered them from Etsy seller: Bugs & Beez.

After the circus was over we went to dinner at Joe's Crab Shack (which was a 1st for the girls). The service was TERRIBLE but the girls had fun on the playground. We got home around 8:30pm and gave them baths and got them in bed around 9pm.

Our original plan was to go watch fireworks from the mall parking lot but I heard traffic was terrible. Once I realized I could see fireworks from our back patio, I went and got just Reese out of bed and we sat on the patio watching them together. Reese would look at me and smile so big...I knew that moment made her feel special! She didn't go back to bed till almost 10:30pm (which was the latest she has even been up)!

We had a wonderful 4th of July and we hop you did to!

Firecracker Cake

For the cake you will need:

1 box Super Moist Cake Mix (white or vanilla)

Required ingredients for cake mix (eggs/oil/water)

Red Food Gel (coloring)

Blue Food Gel (coloring)

Sprinkles of choice (I actually changed my mind at the last minute and used jimmies instead)

Bundt pan of choice

Pam & Flour or Wilton's Cake Release

 Step 1: Mix cake batter according to package & preheat oven

Step 2: Recruit some help :)

Separate batter equally into 3 bowls. Add red coloring to one bowl and mix well. Add blue coloring to another bowl and mix well. Leave the 3rd bowl of batter as is.

Step 3: Grease your bundt pan well with Pam + flour (or cake release) and pour your red batter in first. Then pour your white batter in on top of the red.

Followed by the blue batter.

Step 4: Bake according to box (*note: I never bake the full length of time. I baked this one for 30 minutes vs. the minimum 38 min. since my skewer came out clean at that point)

Step 5: Allow to cook in the pan completely! (I had a previous failure on St. Patrick's Day when I tried dumping the cake out too soon and it stuck to the pan and just crumbled apart). I seriously left this on the counter in the pan and went to lunch and came back this time.

Step 6: Take the platter you want to serve the cake on and put it upside down on top of the exposed cake above. Then carefully hold the platter and the bottom of the bundt pan and flip the two over together to get your cake onto the center of the platter gently :) The cake should just "slide" out!!

For the icing you will need:

Homemade Buttercream Recipe (4c powdered sugar, 1 stick butter, 1/2c Crisco, 1 tsp vanilla, 2 Tbsp milk)

Red food gel (coloring)

Blue food gel (coloring)

3 sandwich ziplocks or piping bags

Step 7: Make a batch of buttercream icing & put 1/3 of it into a sandwich size ziplock for piping. *note: to hold ziplock open while filling it with icing, place it into a cup and fold edges over the rim of the cup

Step 8: Put another 1/3 of icing into a bowl and set aside for a moment. Then to the remaining last 1/3 of icing in the mixer, add red coloring and mix well. 

Step 9: Put the red icing into a separate ziplock. Then add blue coloring the icing in the bowl and mix well. Put blue icing into a separate ziplock. 

Step 10: Cut a corner off each icing bag with scissors. Drizzle the icing over the cake & add sprinkles!

Step 11: Cut & Enjoy!!

Scarlett's 18 Month Stats

This morning Scarlett had her 18 month check up and she passed :) The pediatrician was pleased with her 18 month survey results, milestones, growth, etc. Scarlett has been taking oral Iron supplements for over a month now due to a low ferritin level.

Head Circumference: 19 inches (90%)
Weight: 22.6 lbs (22%)
Height: 32 inches tall (59%)*

*pedi said gravity pulls them down when measured standing up and would measure 60+% if measured laying down

So she actually grew a whole inch since her last appointment at the end of March but her weight remained the same, resulting in her weight percentage to drop from 48% to 22%. The pediatrician wasn't concerned with this once I told her how much she was eating. She said they just end up burning more energy being active than what they take in.

In September, we will go back for a weight check, follow up blood work for her iron levels, and a flu shot.