Classroom Confessions

:: Mondays make me nervous that I may not have the motivation to begin school work.
:: The closet of my classroom looks like 321 bins of classroom things threw up.

:: I have a secret stash of smarties hidden away, when caught chewing I swallow quickly!

:: Classical music plays throughout the day and sometimes I doze off

::My heart still soars when I visually see the children 'get' something.

:: I love organizing and reorganizing my book shelves

:: I have feelings of insecurity over their education daily
:: I love the smell of Expo markers

:: I worry

:: I laugh
:: I love

The kids each have Science labs in their bedrooms and the bases are IKEA coffee tables, needless to say they need to be replaced often. They get exploded on, wet, drawn on, experimented on and so much more...this leads to a lot of wear but I am so glad they love to create. As we replaced one, I was ready to toss this, but realized we could use it in the classroom as a gaming center or for group work. Our first project is to give it a makeover this month. Nothing that costs money and using things that are only found around the house. This should be interesting! Hahaha!

Last week I bit the bullet and signed up the children AND I for an adoration hour at our church. This is 1 hour spent in silence with the Lord. I know the big kids will be fine with it but I was worried about the youngest. I figured I would make Adoration Bags filled with things that they can do on their own to reflect and pray to the Lord. I will share 1 each day and they will remain linked over on my LITTLE CATHOLIC HOMESCHOOL post. This week the youngest will have a book on the 12 Disciples along with our foam playset of the 12 Disciples that he can use while reading the story. (I will post more on this playset on the LCH post later). He also has a chunky rosary with a Fr. Lovasik book on praying the rosary. A bible verses book to reflect quietly over and once he has done those things, he has his  Larry Boy book to read. This is more than enough to keep him occupied but I would rather have too much than not enough. All of it is tucked away in his Veggie Tales soft sided bag.

Enjoy every minute my friends!

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Learning to Read and Loving It!

Happy Saturday Readers!! I love to read, even that is an understatement. Barnes & Noble is my heaven, I can seriously be there from open to close and just look at the covers, smell the pages and feel the written word in my hands. As a child I would be shooed outside to play and would spend the entire time under a tree reading. The books were often larger than I was and I would be so lost in the story that I would lose track of time. I was the kid at recess with a book and at lunch reading. I bring books to parties, read in the car and even while waiting in line at the bank. I have a Nook and yet still purchase books like crazy. My home is bursting with books and I have this innate desire to keep purchasing more. It's an addiction, but a good one. My daughter is the same way and it makes me smile! My son is getting there and the youngest is just learning. I know with my enthusiasm for reading, it rubs off on them, but my husband only reads a magazine hear or there every now and then and I have to make sure he doesn't influence them too much! Hahaha!! This post is all about how we work on falling in love with reading!

For my youngest that is still a beginning reader, I HIGHLY suggest the BOB books. I've spoken about them here before, but I wanted to let you know how great these are again. My son is on Set 3 of 5 and he really enjoys feeling as though he mastered something when he completes a book.

5-A-Day is still another thing that we enjoy doing together. On Monday we pick 5 books that we read throughout the day all week long. This helps familiarize my son with certain words as we reach each.word.slowly.

You will ALWAYS find Sight Word flashcards in my purse. This is so that no matter where we are, we can create a game of some sort with the cards and learn all while having fun! Here we are playing on an ice cream date!

I make up fun worksheets for him too, I took words used in the Bob Books and put them in a chart-type sheet. I then had him say each word, then spell it with alphabet stickers and finally say it again. This is an activity that he can also do on the go or while waiting somewhere. It's perfectly portable and fun to do.

Even if you do not have alphabet stickers, you can do the same thing with colored markers and as they spell it, have your child use a colored marker to trace each letter and then a crayon to color the box when mastered! Get your sheet HERE!

We keep the learning love going and even involve Daddy with a BOOK CLUB! We have a family book club that meets once a week. We have snacks and games and spend quiet unplugged time in the classroom chatting. It's so easy to do this, because we pick up multiple book copies at thrift stores! For less than .60 a book, it works out even cheaper to do this for all the books we buy than just buying 1 book new! The kids love Book Club day and the youngest cannot wait to join us when he is reading on his own and not having Mommy, Daddy or his siblings read the book to him!

Enjoy every minute my friend and keep smiling!!

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Fun with Learning!

Happy Thursday! Any big weekend plans out there? Not too much going on for us, just picking up stuff to finish some yard work and the like. Today's post is fairly simple, I spent yesterday making up worksheets for my youngest child. Making your own worksheets allows you to cater the learning of your child to exactly what he or she needs help with and you can also make the type of sheets that your child enjoys. Roman loves to color, so I knew coloring sheets were right up his alley. 

For his addition sheets, I put in the numbers he struggles with along with easy ones, so his confidence is never completely zapped. If he still gets some right, he still feels good about his abilities. 

 On his Sight Word sheet, it's all about what he can read as soon as he sees it, then he colors the ones that he needs to sound out and then together we work on the ones that he struggles with. From there, I know what to use on the next sheet.

Sight Word worksheets are so simple to make, because there are always words to be learned. You could make them with spelling words, phonics sounds, letters, anything at all just make the sheets according to your child's ability. 

The subtraction sheet is a little more complex for my youngest but it turned out to be his favorite. It doesn't matter how much you put into the sheet, just give it a try or feel free to print these out!

Enjoy every moment my friends!

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Learning with Ladybugs!

Today we learned about ladybugs! The kids and I are all about hands on learning, so I pulled out our recycled lids and had them make ladybugs, while I read some simple facts. Picking out eyes in all sizes seemed to be their favorite part!

Underneath each cap, we put a number with the same black sharpie and each leaf also had a number on it. This was just a simple matching game for the little guy!

He had an absolute blast and quickly asked the big kids, if he could keep this game all by himself! He must have sat at the table for an hour just playing over and over again and then matching the colors groups together and the Daddy's and Baby's (big and little ones). So many games in 1!

The original intention was to put these in the garden and have them decorate, but when it was clear the little guy was not going to let them out of his sight, we popped them in a container and he even decorated the lid!

Then it was time to run errands and he wanted to bring his 'buggies' with him, so I used a hole punch and made holes in the bucket, added a pipe cleaner handle and he was golden all day! My 3 year old sat in a cart EACH place we went and just played with his bucket of buggies!

Since lady bugs have dots, what better thing to pull out than the Do-A-Dots?!?! Perfect timing! I made up some work sheets real quick and the kids went straight to work! First was just a sheet of plain ladies and they dotted them as the wished!

For the youngest, it was a numbered sheet where he had to fill in the dots based on the number next to each ladybug.

For the older 2, it was math facts. They solved the problem and the answer was the amount of dots that they had to put into the ladybug! It was so much fun for all of us! Want the worksheets? CLICK HERE!

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Studying Plants and Having Fun!

Our Strawberry plants have yielded their first harvest and as we went out to pick them, I knew there was a lesson in here somewhere! I wanted the kids to be able to pick their own fruits and veggies without pulling out the whole plant!

I found this fantastic worksheet online and printed it out, so that the kids would have something visual to work with. We studied a bit inside before taking out rules and scissors outside. As we were studying, the kids were so excited to learn parts, but more excited to get out and eat those berries! They were so careful outside, even the youngest (3years) said 'careful for root!'

What have you done outdoors lately?

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