Sunday, March 30, 2014

The Runaway Bunny

Welcome to the Poppins Book Nook! The theme for this months is "Where in the World?" - adventures, explorations, travelling, and the discovery of new exciting things.

For our 2 year olds we chose "The Runaway Bunny" by Margaret Wise Brown.

We've built a hidden garden with flying insects from an old box.

 
Making flowers from construction paper and a TP tube was so much fun! We counted fish, rocks, flowers, birds, sailboats, carrots. The book gives meaning and motivation to counting - so great!

 

We reviewed letters while playing and building spring flowers with pattern blocks. If you haven't seen it, you can read about it here: Spring Flowers - Pattern Blocks


We have learned about circus and played "circus" on rainy/snowy days at home. Unbelievable, but we had snow on the ground this afternoon! What's with this long winter?


The simple matching vocabulary game: walk, climb, sail, drive, fly. We matched the objects to printed out scenes and reenacted the actions. Sorry, no pictures - I was too busy playing and the scenes got destroyed in action ;)

Camilla's all time favorite Do-A-Dots got used with these lovely printables: Crystal&Comp

Where in the world?

I am proud to join a group of these wonderful bloggers - hosts of Poppins Book  Nook!

Enchanted Homeschooling Mom ~ 3 Dinosaurs ~ To the Moon and Back ~ Planet Smarty Pants ~ Farm Fresh Adventures ~ Growing in God's Grace ~ Chestnut Grove Academy ~ Learning and Growing the Piwi Way ~ The Usual Mayhem~ Preschool Powol Packets ~ Monsters Ed Homeschool Academy ~ Adventures in Mommydom ~ Teach Beside Me ~ Life with Moore Babies ~ Kathy's Cluttered Mind ~ Are We There Yet? ~ Our Crafts N Things ~ Hopkins Homeschool ~ ABC Creative Learning ~ Joy Focused Learning ~ P is for Preschooler ~ Laugh and Learn ~ A Mommy's Adventures ~ Inspiring 2 New Hampshire Children ~ World for Learning ~ Ever After in the Woods ~ Golden Grasses ~ Our Simple Kinda Life ~ A glimpse of our life ~ Journey to Excellence ~ Happy Little Homemaker ~ Little Homeschool Blessings ~ Simplicity Breeds Happiness ~ Raventhreads ~ Learning Fundamentals ~ Tots and Me ~ As We Walk Along The Road ~ Stir the Wonder ~ For This Season ~ Where Imagination Grows ~ Lextin Academy ~ The Canadian Homeschooler ~ School Time Snippets ~ Peakle Pie ~ Mom's Heart ~ A Moment in our World ~ Every Bed of Roses ~ Finchnwren ~ At Home Where Life Happens ~ Suncoast Momma ~ The Library Adventure ~ Embracing Destiny ~ Day by Day in our World ~ Our Homeschool Studio ~ A "Peace" of Mind ~ Thou Shall Not Whine ~ SAHM I am ~ eLeMeNo-P Kids ~ Simple Living Mama

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Thursday, March 27, 2014

Spring Flowers - Pattern Blocks and Letter Review. Free Printables.

We are having a week of spring flowers: I combined learning the names of the flowers with the letter reviews and introduction to the pattern blocks. Camilla is happy and motivated to do the activities - YAY - it works!


Spring flowers

I chose pansy, crocus, daffodil, daisy, hyacinth, and tulip for her first exploration of the variety of beautiful flowers. It's not an easy task at this age: to name the flower correctly, they need to be able to compare the colors and shapes of different parts of the flowers. It always amazes me how fast little kids learn and how much they are able to accomplish when they are interested in a subject.

This subject is wonderful: the best colors of the Mother Nature!


There are several activities on each page: name the letter and trace with fingers, name the flower and the first sound of the flower, add the blocks to complete the leaves (and name the letter and the flower while doing it), make the letter from the patter blocks, trace the letters with the marker, match the magnetic letters to the name of the flower.


We are doing one page per day with the tracing the letter review for the next day. Camilla was able to trace the letters with her markers. I offered her to match the magnetic letters to the written word for the first time. She was able to do this, but it was challenging and she got bored quickly. I've realized my mistake: I should offer her only several letters that are in the given word.

Spring flowers - free printables

Here are the links to pattern blocks printables (6 pages of activities). We worked with triangles and squares only for the easiest difficulty level: this was my daughter's first experience with pattern blocks.
Pansy. Crocus.
Daffodil
Daisy
Hyacinth
Tulip

Pattern blocks

I chose magnetic foam pattern blocks: they are nice and thick, and don't slide around easily. They are available at Amazon from different brands. When choosing pattern blocks, make sure to buy the standard shapes and colors because they can be used with many patterns readily available for different difficulty levels.

 
 

Saturday, March 8, 2014

Where's de air?

That was a question my daughter asked me when she woke up after the nap. Land, water, and air sensory bin.

Sorry, we moved!
Please, find the updated version here:

Toddler curriculum review

Up to this point we were busy exploring different activities and media. Now I realized that Camilla is up for a next level of learning (she is 28 months at this time). We were in need of developing a nice new routine too so that Camilla knows what to expect and look forward to; and I have activities readily available for her at all times. I looked around and found the best ever set of activities for us!

I am very excited and Camilla loves our new curriculum that can be found here: Alphabet Printables & More Thank you, Carisa, for all your creativity, hard work and attention to detail! We are your huge fans!

To use Carisa's Tot Pack, I had to print out 14 pages for our letter of the week. We chose R for our Rainbow theme. I love that the pages are simple and not too busy with images, and at the same time, have enough spark to be very engaging for Camilla. The 14 pages cover all the points of interest for us: the letter activities, numbers, colors and shapes, new vocabulary activities, and a space for creative work and arts.


Here is Camilla's favorite at this time: do-a-dots. There are letters R hidden in the rain forest. I modeled a couple for her; and she surprised me by finding all the rest of the letters by herself!


Here are the two most challenging pages for us: color the rainforest with the color stated on each part, and numbers 1-20 activity. I was afraid she wouldn't be interested enough to keep attention, but she loved the activities! I offered her pens for the first time - that kept her busy until she went through everything on the pages, and then some. I didn't know she could name some numbers correctly and trace them - a wow factor!


She loved her new pack so much she went through almost everything in one sitting and kept me so busy I didn't have much time to take pictures. Here is another surprise: she was able to lace the card we made from the pack. I punched flower shaped holes - they have sharp edges which helped to keep the rope from slipping back out of the hole.


Our new 3 part rainforest puzzle looks very pretty!


I have also made matching to the shadow cards and sequencing cards. Love them!