Jonah & The Whale Puppets

We had lots of fun making these Jonah and the whale puppets. I just printed out a Jonah and a Whale that I found online (I can't seem to find the link now). Then after she colored them, I cut them out and glued them to popsicle sticks. She LOVED them. Then we used the puppets to tell the story of Jonah. Also, during our lesson, I discovered that if you hold the Jonah behind the whale and hold them up to the light you can see Jonah in the whale's "belly"!! My daughter thought that was pretty neat. :)

A couple of our favorite teaching aids....

We LOVE flash cards. They are fun and a great teaching tool.

My daughter LOVES Mickey Mouse, and I found these Mickey number flash cards at the dollar store!!

Another great tool for preschool kids is word books. I love word books with large colorful pictures, simple and not too busy. This one has one giant picture on each page with the word written below in big letters (pictures such as, dog, apple, boat, etc...). It's great for vocabulary and pre-reading skills!!

Animal Handprints!!

Read in the Bible about how God created all the animals, and how he created us.
Then make a list of all the animals you (and the kids) can think of.
Trace their hands and let them make two of the animals on the list from the hand prints.
Then let them color their "animals".
Very cute and fun craft!

Psalm 23

Last week we did a lesson on Psalm 23, we talked about how a shepherd loves and takes care of his sheep, just like Jesus loves and takes care of us! We had fun coloring a lamb and gluing cotton balls on a lamb. I love lessons about the Bible! Here are some pictures of our lambs...

Christmas Craft!

This reindeer Christmas craft was lots of fun!!
You just outline the kids hands, then decorate them like reindeer!!
TOO CUTE!! :)

Leaf Prints! :)

You may remember making these as a kid. You just put the leaves under the paper, and then rub the crayons over the top of the paper. The leaf prints will show through. Kids love this activity!! It's a great way to teach colors, and talk about leaves!! :)

Gluing Squares

Today we learned about squares, the colors pink & green, and practiced gluing skills by gluing squares to a white piece of paper. I used a glue stick and put glue on the back of the squares, then handed them to my preschooler. While she stuck them to the paper, we talked about the color of the paper, the shape of the squares, how the squares were big & little, and then counted how many squares were on the paper. It's amazing how many things you can learn with just one activity!! You can turn anything into a learning experience!! :)

Coloring

There is just something about a piece of paper and a box of crayons!! I've always loved to color, and my little girl loves it just as much. She's a very active little girl, and there is not much she will sit and work on for a long period of time. But she will sit and color for the longest time. Here is a couple of the pictures she's colored in our preschool lessons.....



This one is from a lesson we did on Jonah, and colored this picture of a whale.... :)

My Homeschool Notebook

As I said before, we decided to go with www.HandsOnHomeschooling.com for our preschool curriculum. So far it has been awesome. It's very simple easy lessons that can be altered to fit your children. We have really enjoyed our first week.

Here is my notebook.....

Here is the inside, it's divided very nicely into months, and also includes an introduction, planning section, and an overview of what the children will be learning this year.....

Each day has a page with the lessons on it. It's divided into different learning areas, and is very simple and easy to understand. The curriculum starts in September. Since we start in August, I'm just going to review and go over some lessons twice to draw out the first month. Then we will also be taking off a week or so in October to welcome our new baby. :)

Our first week is over...

Our first week went really well. We learned about colors, numbers, counting, circles, sorting, and various other activities. We also had a worksheet to help learn to draw straight lines. One thing I've noticed this week is that Candyce is doing much better with the colors "orange" and "blue", and she's starting to get "red" as well!! I can't believe how much they pick up in just one week!! I'm super excited to see how next week goes. :)

Here is our worksheet for this week....

We drew the lines together, then she got to color the balls. We also went over what each ball is called. :)