The Very Hungry Caterpillar

Theme: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by: Eric Carle  One of our and most kiddos favorites!  What's not to love.  GB used to read the story slightly different than the words... he eats and eats and eats and eats..... :)))  She now reads it right.  L's version is "eats a ___, I want some" and pretends to eat it off the page. ;)

Color: Blue
Letter: Hh
Number: 3
Shape: circle
RRS Verse: Honor your Father and Mother. Ex 20:12

Goals/Concepts:
Recognize color blue
Recognize Hh and sound /h/
Recognize number 3
recognize circles
Say days of the week
Understand (beginners) life cycle of butterfly
Pick out "good" foods from "junk" foods
Memorize and understand importance of Bible Verse
Improve counting

Books we used:  Of course The Very Hungry Caterpillar!  We also read Hermie several times.  Its a great kid version of God made you special just the way you are!    Both littles like to say the part  "but I'm not finished with you yet!"  Today is Monday is another great days of the week book, with lots of fun repetition.

Highlights of our week:

  

sequencing from small to large and large to small

patterns

GB decided to make up her own "work".  She sorting all the food and counted it.

Making a caterpillar out of Apple Jacks, lacing them on a pipe cleaner.

Counting/ number correspondence while making caterpillars

RRS work and Uppercase/Lowercase letter match game

Retelling the story and using pictures as the story is read.

Painting an egg carton caterpillar- we finished it with pipe cleaner antennas and paperclip legs

Handprint Caterpillars-

Handprint Butterfly-Rainbow and L's "Blue" painting

Glitter bag writing

letter puzzles

Colorforms!  Do you remember colorforms from childhood?  I do! :)
 

Purposeful play with potato heads-naming body parts/emotions

cooking

 Caterpillar Pizza

pin wheel caterpillars

We took a field trip to the State Fair and happen to find The Butterfly House.  A great review of what we have talk about this week, seeing the actual chysalis. 

showing us the very Hungry Caterpillar

Printables from 1+1+1=1, and confessions of a homeschooler

A is for Apple

Theme: Apples in honor of Johnny Appleseed's Birthday, Sept. 26th
Letter: Aa
color: green
Number: 5
RRS Bible verse: A soft answer turns away wrath. Proverbs 15:1
Other Verse: Keep me as the Apple of your eye. Ps. 17:8

Goals/Concepts: (some goals/concepts are for both littles, some just for GB, some for L)
Apples grow on trees
Apples are fruit
Parts of apple
Colors of apples
What Johnny Appleseed did
Recognize color green & red
Recognize number 5
memorize and understand Bible verse

Great books we used:  I am an Apple is a great easy explanation of everything apple.  We All Fall for Apples has been one of GB favorite books since about 14 months.  She likes to read it to us!

Picture Highlights of the Week:  You can tell I had the camera out this week!  Still not pictures of everything, but everything themed I think. :)

A is for Apple- gluing apples

Gb wrote her Aa all by herself.

The finished products

File Folder activity: Velco matching pictures, apple sequencing, and puzzle. 

Don't mind the pacifer, grrr!  I hate that he loves that thing so much.

Weighing and comparing apples.  I had them weigh 1 apple then 2, etc.  They had to try to get 1 lb then 2 lbs, etc.  Then we compared apple weight with other fuits.  They had a blast with the scale.

Then we did sink or float experiment.  Another favorite!  GB was amazed about those little grapes!  L just loved putting things in the water. :)

Apple lacing card- he stayed with it for about 4 holes.

tongs and numbers

Green day and building with foam blocks.  They love the blocks.

Torn paper apples with handprint leaves

GB's Apple painting

RRS work and file folder game

Apple Rice Krispies- we used tootsie rolls cut down the middle (so they would be skinnier) for stems and an apple jack as the leaf.  That's a self-timer photo!

Pouring bird seed from one cup to the other.

Fun with Apple Jacks:  Lacing

 Love how he sticks his tongue out.  He ate more than he laced!

patterns

sorting- again more interested in eating. :)

checking out the star and seeds

apple stamping

Making apple dumplings using Pioneer Woman recipe!  They were soo easy, smelled delicious cooking and tasted even better!  We halfed the recipe, so we wouldn't have tons.  1/2 recipe makes 8. 

Lots and lots of apple snack and meals.

Apple jelly toast

We had an all green lunch of tortilleni with pesto, edamame and kiwi.   Apple sandwiches (circle with pretzel stick as stem) Apple juice, Apple cereal bars, Apples and peanut butter, apples, apples and more apples!!

apple photos

Happy Birthday Johnny Appleseed!

Check out last years Johnny Appleseed day HERE. 

Community Helpers

Our theme this week:  Community Helpers: People that help and serve.
Our Letter: Ll
Color: Yellow
Verse: Let your Light shine among men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in Heaven. Matt. 5:16

Goals/concepts:
People have different jobs.
People serve others by doing different jobs.
People work together in a community.
Identify the letter L & sound /l/
Recognize color yellow
Memorize verse
What verse mean to them. 

We started our week with our intro to calendar time, RRSC(Raising Rockstar Cur.), verse, letter and color.  This took us forever!  I forgot how long new things take.  :)   GB loved changing the weather throughout the day.  "oh, wait it's windy, I need to change the board!"  She wants to use the snowy one, sooo bad!  No!!!!!

Intro to Communtiy helpers with the book "What's my Job?"
Other great books we used:

 
The best part of this theme was keeping it real for the littles.  The beauty of home-school!  Instead of just talking about these people and places, we went and met some helpers in our community! 
We went to the Store, Post Office, Beauty shop (Luke got his hair cut & GB washed) Police Station, and of course the library, church, and Leonardos. :)  We skipped the Dr. office (we have to go in a couple weeks) and fire station (we had just been there a couple months ago and Fire Safety month is in Oct.)  We had a lot of great discussion with the books and on our outings.   GB's favorite was the Post Office!

Here's some highlights from this week:

Yellow:  Color find game

cutting practice

RRS work

Painting a Ladybug.  I asked her if she could paint something that started with L

L painting

Lacing beads

She cut (oh my) her Bible verse out, taped and measured it.

That was a lot of straight or wavy line cutting!  The oh my was she didn't want to hold the scissors the correct way (I kept correcting).  It's amazing how pink scissors are easier to use than green! *wink*

number match game

patterns

The baby thogs are missing- these were a little more difficult!

shape puzzles

playing doctor

The weather was very pretty at the first of the week, so we did a lot of outside play and a little learning too!   hopping to the word, letter, # of the week

playing beauty shop

Little mailgirl sorting the mail

Trip to the post office to learn about mail! We bought a stamp and mailed Cruz a letter! The postmaster was super sweet, she let them use a key to unlock a mailbox, carry mail to the back for her and even got our address and mailed them a package (coloring books)!!  What fun getting mail and learning about it too! :)

Police Station- no tour. :(  They weren't as welcoming as I had hoped-maybe not Monday people. :) Anyways, we looked around and talk about badges and their job.  We met a nice polieman on the way out that talked to us and let them look in his car! ;)

Lunches/snacks

Well, we didn't make anything that went with our theme.  We had some L sandwiches and toast.  We had an all yellow lunch (I hope to do this with each color). We had letter snacks (cheez-its, cookies).  Nothing too exciting.