Neat Alphabet Worksheets for Preschoolers

I've been finding lots of cool resources to help Holden learn his letters, both upper and lower case. We're working on both simultaneously, which is not the approach I used with either Hayden or Haylee. It seems to be working well with Holden so far.

In the process of looking for some activities that work on both cases, I found these super cool FREE printable worksheets. I've been having Holden find and mark the correct letter of the week using a Do-A-Dot marker. At the bottom of the worksheet, it says to print the letters in the boxes. We're not writing yet, so instead, I gave him a set of capital letter stamps I found in the Dollar Spot at Target and letting him stamp the correct letter in each box. He loves that!

Here's one he completed recently. He really enjoyed this activity, and I could really see his little brain working as he hunted for the right letters. I was impressed that he did it right all by himself!

I also got lucky and scored a brand new, unopened Grasshopper Preschool Prep Kit - Getting Our Hands Ready for $5! This retails for $30, so that was quite a score. I found it on Craigslist for $10 and offered her $5, and she went for it. I so love my negotiating skills! LOL. Anyway, I ran out and picked it up on Friday before Hurricane Irene made its appearance. We survived an earthquake and a hurricane, all in the same week. Sheesh! We've had a chance to try out most of the activities in the kit, which really are cute and useful. I must say, though, that I would never pay $30 for its contents...$5 was more appropriate! Feeding the froggy was really cute, and he loves stamping the bugs in the weird lightweight dough that feels like air. I laid out the crayons and coloring sheet for him, but he hasn't tried that one yet. He's never been big on coloring. He seems to only enjoy the Crayola Slick Stix. But I'll keeping coaxing him to try out those mini crayons in the kit so he can practice his pencil grip.

New School Year Just Around the Corner!!!

We managed to finish up our school year a little early this year, so we've enjoyed a nice break of about 3 weeks. We've never had a break that long before at any time of year! Now we are ready to start our new school year on Monday. Hooray! I'm just a bit excited about it myself. Hopefully, my enthusiasm will rub off on the kids, too.

Haylee tried out some of her first-day workboxes this week. She did 6 of the 12. She said she really enjoyed everything, so hopefully that's a good sign for the rest of the year! Holden tried out a little of his first-day workboxes, too, and that went pretty well. Hayden hasn't started his yet, but he and I were busy catching up on 20 weeks' worth of music lessons! We abandoned playing the recorder back around Christmas time when we all became terribly ill. Following that, one or the other of us seemed to be sick with something or other for months on end! I didn't want us spreading germs in our instruments, so we just abandoned our lessons and never got back to them. But we both love playing the recorder, so we got 60 songs done in 2 days this week! Now we're on track to start our new lesson book on Monday. It's Beyond the 9-Note Recorder Method for Alto. This will be our 4th year playing the recorder, and it's really been fun. We did the first two years on Soprano, and the 2nd two years on Alto. Next, we'd like to move on to Bass Recorder, but it's a little cost prohibitive at $100-$300 per bass recorder. We especially enjoy doing duets, so we may just move on to a book of duets for both soprano and alto combined.

I have a 7th grader, a 2nd grader, and a PKer this year, so it ought to be an interesting year! I'm looking forward to getting everybody back into a routine of being busy with schoolwork every day, as the extended time off has become a little chaotic for my liking!

Great Toy Find

At the thrift store this weekend, I found a really cool educational toy for Holden, and it only cost me 75 cents! It's called Sesame Street Light & Learn, and it's like an older version of the modern Hot Dots type of game. This one comes with 10 double-sided cards for a total of 20 learning activities that practice letter identification and matching cases and number identification and counting. You hold the Big Bird pen in your hand and touch the tip to the correct answer in order for the green light on top to light up and a positive sound is made. If you select the wrong answer, you get a negative sound and no lights. It's very cute, and Holden can play by himself with instant reinforcement. He really likes it!Here's a link: http://www.amazon.com/Sesame-Street-Light-Letter-Number/dp/B000WX7E3Q

Plans for School 2011-2012

Wow! It's been a long time since I've posted! It's been super busy. We all got super sick before the holidays with the plague...Norovirus, the horrible stomach flu. It spread like wildfire through every single one of us, and we were down for about 10 days before we could even think about eating any normal food. I lost 6 pounds in 4 days, and I was the only one who didn't throw up! It was just awful. I'm so glad that's over! It sort of spoiled all of our traditional holiday activities, and it didn't feel like Christmas until about Christmas Eve. But we had a really nice holiday, and we celebrated 3 birthdays...Holden turned 3 on Dec. 28th, I turned 39 on Jan. 1st, and Steve turned 40 on Jan. 7th. Then we had Holden's party on Jan. 8th. Plus, Steve and I are running the homeschool basketball and cheerleading program again, and practices just started this week with the first game this weekend. So it really has been like a whirlwind around here lately!

Now that it's January, I'm beginning to think about our plans for the new school year that begins in June for us. I started ordering textbooks yesterday.

So here is my plan for 2011-2012:

HAYDEN, age 11, Grade 7

Sonlight Core 7
Glencoe: The American Journey 2003 (Social Studies Supplement)
Sonlight Bible 7
Sonlight Science 7
Glencoe: Life Science 2002 (Science Supplement)
Saxon Math Algebra 1
Saxon Grammar & Writing 7
Wordly Wise 3000 Book 8
Switched on Schoolhouse Secondary Spanish (1st half)
Beyond the Nine-Note Recorder Method for Alto
Junior Scholastic Magazine or Science World Magazine


HAYLEE, age 6, Grade 2

Sonlight Core 2 with Readers 2 Advanced
Sonlight Bible 2
Sonlight Science 2
Silver Burdett Science Horizons 2
Silver Burdett English 2
Saxon Phonics & Spelling 3
Houghton Mifflin Spelling & Vocabulary 3
Saxon Math 3
A Reason for Handwriting C
Wordly Wise C
Complete Book of Spanish for Grades 1-3 (2nd half)
Harcourt Health & Fitness 2
Silver Burdett Music 2
Abeka Art Projects 2
Scholastic News 3


HOLDEN, age 3, grade PK

Sonlight PK 3/4 (2nd half)
Abeka Nursery Curriculum for 3's
Abeka PK Language Development Program
Tot Tray Activity Center (continuing with various Montessori type toys and activities)


So that's pretty much my plan for the coming school year. Hopefully, I'll be able to keep up better with Holden's stuff this year since Hayden will be dropping 2 workboxes from this year (he has completed 2 programs in spelling and art), and I'm switching Hayden's science and social studies supplements to programs he can work on independently with free online self-checking quizzes that correlate to his textbooks.

I signed up for the Amazon Mom program on December 2nd, so I get 3 months of Amazon Prime for free included with that. Then I made a qualifying purchase for Christmas of kids' toys and got another month of Prime added on for free. So that means I get free 2-day shipping on most items through April 2nd. I order from Sonlight on April 1st when the new catalog goes live, so that works out perfectly for me to order any remaining books from Amazon on the last day of my free 2-day shipping! That will really help me gets my books together faster than having to wait for shipments with super saver shipping, plus I don't have the $25 minumum order requirement with Prime. Amazon Prime has been such a convenience for the holidays that I might get suckered into buying the membership when this ends! LOL.

The kids are taking cooking classes at Young Chef's Academy this month on Fridays. I was able to get a large enough class together with my field trip group to hold private classes. That's always so nice! Holden just turned 3, so he is in the class, too. It gives me an hour and a half to go enjoy a coffee at Starbucks with my best friend, and it is a welcomed break!

I hope this new year is a lot better than 2010 was. It totally stunk! Hubby just got a raise and a nice holiday bonus, so that's a lot better than getting laid off as he did one year ago this month. Amen!

Tot Tray Activity Center Revealed!

So here are some photos of the new tot tray activity center and Holden enjoying some of the trays this morning.I put it right underneath the window in our school room.

Holden's initial reaction showed that he really liked what he saw!

The first activity he chose was this counting and fine motor skill tray called "Feed the Froggy" that was posted on my friend Stef's blog. He really likes this one! He first chooses a number card from the bowl and then he counts out that many flies and feeds them to the froggy (which is glued onto a cereal box and has a slit in its mouth for inserting the flies.

He especially likes it when I make gobbling sounds as he feeds the froggy the flies! LOL

Then when he saw me add his new Just Hammer Away activity, he chose that one next. He's had that one out a couple of times already today! It seems to be a big hit, even with his big sister.

His first creation was a house with a moon in the sky. He was still working on it here.

All in all, I'd call the new activity center a total success!

Oriental Trading Goodies

Our order from Oriental Trading should arrive today. I can't wait! Aside from the colorful trays I mentioned the other day, I also ordered this cool construction kit called Just Hammer Away for Holden to do as a tot tray activity. I think it will be a big hit 'cause he doesn't really have any good hammering activities right now. I think the older kids are going to like it, too, to be honest! I think I might reinforce the back of the cork board before I give it to him, as many of the reviewers suggested.

I was thrilled to see that Oriental Trading carried the bigger pack of Crayola Twistables Slick Stix with 12 colors. I've only been able to find the 5-pack of primary colors at Target here locally. They are awesome crayons for little ones, as they don't require a lot of pressure to color and really have rich, vibrant color. Holden isn't big on coloring in the first place, but he seems to enjoy these more than regular crayons, so we use them only for school. They have a lipstick consistency, much like the Colorix Silky Crayons, but more affordable.

Haylee could use some more practice with counting money, so I ordered these cool Double-Sided Math Money Cards for her.

And for Steve, I ordered this cool Scrap-Your-Own Flip Desk Calendar (which is on clearance) to make him for Christmas ('cause he's so hard to buy for). It's a perpetual calendar, so I thought he'd enjoy having some photos of the kids on it for his desk at work. I'm gonna use a spray adhesive to adhere background paper to it that goes with each month. I have a bunch of month-themed patterned paper that I got from a friend who designs for Karen Foster, and that will be perfect for this project.

I threw in an 80-cent box of crayons to get my order over $49 so I could use a free shipping +10% off coupon, so that made it an even better deal. The trays were $20 for 12, so that was the bulk of my order right there.

So I can't wait for our box to come! I'm anxious to get his tot activity center ready and post some pictures. What fun!

Steve cut both of the boys' hair last night...with clippers! Holden's mega-long bubble curls are all gone! Sniff, sniff. He looks so different this morning. I told Steve I'm so used to having my eyes drawn to his gorgeous hair that now I'm suddenly noticing his handsome face more!

Preparing a Tot School Activity Center

I've got so many cool tot school activities now for Holden, but they are all stored in drawers. That means they get used far less than they should be! I scored an awesome deal on the 9-cube organizer shelves by Martha Stewart Living at Home Depot over the weekend. Somebody posted on FatWallet.com that they were on clearance at their store for $12 (reg. $46 each), and I called all over locally trying to find them on clearance at one of this area's 12 HD stores. I was told that markdowns are regional, and that it is not marked down in this region. Bummer. But the same store that took the time to explain that to me said that the manager took pity on me and was willing to sell me the shelves at that price if I would only pick them up that day! Yay! So I got two sets for $12 each! What a savings! I had to drive all the way out to the last exit before the toll that takes you to NC, but it was worth it. I was thrilled!

So Steve put a set together for me, and I got out some of Holden's cool activities. I ordered 2 sets of colorful plastic trays from Oriental Trading Company. They should arrive tomorrow. I'll be setting up the activities on the trays, which will fit perfectly to slide into the cubes of the shelves. Then Holden will be able to choose some fun tot tray activities to do from the shelves during his school time. Yay! I think he's going to love it. After the trays arrive tomorrow, I'll post pics of his activity center. I'm so excited to finally get this set up! I had the perfect spot to put them in our school room, too, and it's right next to a small table and chairs where he can sit to work on the activities.