Note: After writing this I realized it is chock-full of links to products that are a huge part of our homeschool. These are NOT affiliate links; they are simply products that have already enhanced our PK4 homeschool year and I would recommend them to anyone with a preschooler! While the links are not affiliate links, the Amazon links are through the link that gives Rebecca a small percentage for her adoption fund. So, if you do purchase through my Amazon links, you will be helping Rebecca at no extra cost to you.

{Books We Read}

I messed up and realized I didn’t have the book for this week’s Ready-Made Preschool, so I improvised with what fall books I already had since this week’s theme was a Fall theme. We were suppose to read The Scarecrow’s Dance. We went to the library at the beginning of the week to see if they had it and they did not, so they ordered it for us. I did decide to purchase The Little Scarecrow Boy since it was about $5 and on the list of other book titles recommended for this week’s lessons. And, strangely enough, I was disappointed again because of disobedience with no consequences! Little Bug even said, “Mommy, that scarecrow boy did NOT obey his daddy.” All the other titles you see above are books that are already in our home library. We enjoyed reading all these stories this week.

{Activities We Did}

Little Bug got to make a scarecrow using her clothes! She balled up a bunch of newspaper and then we worked together to stuff the scarecrow. Then she glued the face on and the orange yarn for hair. The scarecrow has been sitting on our fireplace all week! This week was a review week for us and I added in some fun fall printables for us to do. We did Leaf Letter Matching and an Apple Numbers game both of which came from This Reading Mama (LOVE this site – such wonderful literacy activities). I also took a game we had played in Ready-Made Preschool and extended it further into another math learning activity for Little Bug. I cut up my sheet from the Apple Math Game and then Little Bug graphed the red, yellow and green apples. Then we talked about which color apple had the most and which had the least.

{Concepts We Reviewed}

We spent this week reviewing the letters and letter sounds we have learned so far through a variety of fun activities and games. This Leap Frog Letter Factory Phonics toy is absolutely AMAZING in teaching letter sounds. We use it almost daily in our Ready-Made Preschool. The link I’ve provided is for the newer version of this product because apparently the one we have is an antique!? This toy plays a fun song for each letter that teaches the sound that the letter makes. Both of my girls love this toy. If our antique ever breaks, I will be purchasing the newer version! I’ve written about the Leap Frog DVDs before. If there ever was an “educational DVD” this is most certainly IT. The price is right too at just $7.50! In the bottom right picture you can see Little Bug working in her ABC Uppercase Wipe off book. I didn’t plan to pull these out until Little Bug showed interest in actually writing her letters. She showed interest this week, so I pulled it out and she loved it. We did an ABC matching game with just the letters we’ve learned. We played Alphabet Bingo, which I found in the dollar section of Target. Grams made Little Bug some gluten free pasta and Little Bug found the letter A, B, H and F in her pasta. It was a fun week of playing games and using the resources I’ve collected over the years for these early years of homeschool to review our letters and sounds.

{Concepts We Learned}

Ready-Made Preschool’s academic focus this week was on vocabulary words and rhyming words within the book The Scarecrow’s Dance. So I found books we already had that had rhyming words in it and we read those. Ready-Made had a rhyming activity for Little Bug to do but I ended up just having her do this Rake Rhyming activity from This Reading Mama. Little Bug cut the pictures out that rhymed with “rake” and glued them on the paper. We also played with a Rhyming Puzzle game we have. Little Bug is very much into rhyming and understands the concept of rhyming very well. I am glad because rhyming is foundational to learning to read. We played a Roll the Scarecrow game from Ready-Made Preschool. Depending on what number Little Bug rolled, she could pick up another piece of the scarecrow to place on her paper. After she had made the scarecrow, she glued him down and then decorated him. She was trying to draw a “scary” face but ended up with a “sad” face which made her sad because she “didn’t draw it right”.

{ABC Stamps Sensory Box}

I put this ABC Stamps Sensory Box together as another way for Little Bug to review the four letters we have learned so far: Aa, Bb, Hh and Ff. We have the Melissa and Doug Alphabet Stamp set and I dumped all the lowercase stamps into the bin of beans. I divided a piece of yellow construction paper into four sections – one for each letter. As Little Bug found the a, b, f and h stamp in the beans she stamped the letters onto her paper.

{Fall Crafts}

We did a couple fall crafts this week! The girls made an Apple Tree by gluing the trunk of the their tree onto a blue piece of paper and then gluing green squares to make the tree. Then I put a plate with red paint between them and they dipped their pointer fingers in the paint and then made apples on their tree! This was a fun craft that both of them could do independent of help from an adult. Both of them did a very nice job on their apple trees!

The girls got to make a pretty leaf craft at homeschool group this week! They went outside and collected leaves, flowers and whatever else they wanted to collect from nature. Then they placed everything on a piece of contact paper that had been cut into a circle. After everything was on the circle, they put another circle on top. Then you hang them on the window by yarn and the sunlight coming through makes them look so pretty!

{Places We Went}

Our annual Pumpkin Patch trip was this week!

{Science}

Friday morning of this week, my mom asked if they could come over on Friday night to show Little Bug the lunar eclipse that was going to happen that evening. Through all the trees in our neighborhood we couldn’t see the moon, so we decided to jump in the car and drive to a parking lot where we would be able to see the moon. Little Bug was simply in awe of this adventure. She was so thrilled that she was allowed to go even though it was “night” and she was already in her pjs. She was so precious. Before we left, Gramps demonstrated to her using a flashlight (sun), our globe (Earth) and a baseball (moon) what happens during a lunar eclipse. Well, we got to the parking lot and never saw an eclipse! Apparently it was a penumbral lunar eclipse and it was so slight we just couldn’t see it. We didn’t see the eclipse but I will remember this night with my big girl for a long time. I love when we can do something so simple like this and make her feel so special and loved. We got home and Little Bug said, “I had so much fun….but I didn’t get to see an eclipse!”

Little Bug’s (and Sweet Pea’s) work at the end of the week:

This completes week 9 of our homeschool year! The teacher in me can’t get away from the “four 9 weeks” that I always taught by! It is crazy to think a fourth of our year is already over. We are truly having so much fun.

- Elaine