Archive for April, 2015

La La Logic Review

29
Apr

La La Logic Review at Our Crafts N Things

Preschool has been a bit of a challenge for us this year.  Last year when we did Tot School, Hunter begged to do school every day like Hailey did.  This year has been completely different.  He’s decided that he doesn’t like school and he doesn’t want to do it.  Since he’s only three, I haven’t pushed anything and I just let him play.  But, I’ve been looking for some ways to sneak school in, where he thinks he’s just playing but he’s really learning.  So, when I was offered a chance to review La La Logic, a Preschool Curriculum that uses puzzles and activities to teach, I was super excited to give it a try!

La La Logic Review
La La Logic is a curriculum for 3-6 year old children.  There are 100 weeks of different activities.  You can complete the activities at your own pace- you can stretch it out as long as you want, double up and work through it quicker, or skip around.  When you purchase the La La Logic Curriculum you pay a one time fee.  Since there is no time limit to worry about you really can go at any pace you like.  You do whatever works for you, and that is just how I like it!

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Each week you have an agenda to work on with your child.  This is an example of what week 2 of Hunter’s agenda looked like.  Every week there is a brain challenge- this is the part where the child does games, puzzles, and other activities online.  The games are based on concepts you might see in IQ testing for children.  These games can be done on your computer (PC or Mac) or on your iPad or tablet.  There is a suggested weekly schedule, but of course you can do what works well for you.  The enrichment set listed on the schedule is something you download.  Some weeks there will be games to play.   There might be a story to read with activities to go with it.  There could be a worksheet to practice writing, cutting, sorting, etc.  You get can do all of the activities, some of the activities, or just one.  At the end of the week you check off that the week is complete and add some notes if you want to.  Everything is very clearly laid out and very easy to navigate.

La La Logic Review

These are some of the games that your child will see during the brain challenge.

La La Logic Review

These are some examples of the worksheets you might see when you download your activities for the week.

So, how did we use La La Logic?

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We tried the brain challenge on my laptop at first, but that was hard for Hunter to do.  Since he’s only 3 he doesn’t quite have the coordination yet.  So, I had him try it on my tablet and that was perfect!  He was able to click on the screen or swipe the screen to play the games and that was much easier for him.  He really enjoyed all of the games.  In this picture he is playing one of his favorites- he loves this one because when he gets the answer correct there is a little monkey on the screen that dances.

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This is a screen shot of the monkey that Hunter loves.  Hunter laughs every time the monkey dances.

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This is an example of one of the enrichment activities that Hunter did.  We cut out the different insects and then he matched them up with their shadows.

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This was definitely Hunter’s favorite enrichment activity.  I put out 5 different toys and had him look at the toys.  Then I told him to go into his room.

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I hid one of the toys and called him back out of his room.  He came running out, so excited to see if he could figure out which character was missing.  We played this game over and over!

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Some activities I thought would be too hard for him to do, like this one.  But, he surprised me and did it.  He had to draw a line from each child to a balloon to see if there were enough balloons for all of the kids to have one.

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Another example of an enrichment activity- each shape had to be colored a certain color.  I colored in the key for him, but then he did the worksheet by himself.

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Another fun activity we did was to practice showing different emotions- Hunter had a great time with that too 🙂

La La Logic is an amazing early learning program!  I asked Hunter what he thought of it before I wrote my review and he said, “Let’s play it now!”  So, for him to say that is huge- because if he thinks he is “doing school” he doesn’t want any part of it.  He didn’t realize he was practicing his problem solving or critical thinking skills- he thought he was just playing games with mommy.  Even the worksheets seemed like games to him.

I absolutely love La La Logic and I very highly recommend it!!

Want to see some more of La La Logic:

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La La Logic Review
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Caps for Sale

20
Apr

Caps for Sale Activities

We have been having so much fun picking a book each week and doing activities based on that book. Our latest book was Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina.  We read the same book everyday, which is just what Hunter loves to do.  Then, I plan art projects and various activities based on the story we read.  Sometimes Hunter cooperates and wants to do the activities and other times he says he just wants to play.  Here are some of the things we did:

Caps for Sale Activities

Hailey read the book to Hunter and they both really enjoyed the story.  We also found it on YouTube and Hunter liked watching it there when Hailey and I were not available to read it to him.

Caps for Sale Activities

Hunter tried to balance a book on his head, the way the man in the story balanced the caps on his head.  It was definitely harder than he thought it was going to be.

I went into Hunter’s room and came out with all of his hats on my head, holding a fake mustache, and saying, “Caps for sale!  50 cents a cap!”  Hailey and Hunter thought it was pretty funny, so they both had to try it too.

Caps for Sale Activities

Hailey selling some caps.

Caps for Sale Activities

Hunter selling some caps.

Caps for Sale Activities

In the story the monkeys take the caps away from the man.  Monkeys eat bananas, so I wanted to come up with a banana snack to go along with the story.  I saw the idea to make chocolate covered bananas at Delightful Learning.  We didn’t follow her directions but they still turned out nice and yummy!

Caps for Sale Activities

I also saw this idea at Delightful Learning.  Hunter painted a tree brown,

Caps for Sale Activities

then we glued it onto some paper, and he made monkeys using his fingerprints.

Caps for Sale Activities

Hunter insisted that the tree needed the man and his caps- so we added those too.

Caps for Sale Activities

We made this lapbook about monkeys last year in Tot School, so I pulled it back out and we had fun looking at all of the monkey activities he did.

Caps for Sale is cute book and we enjoyed reading it and doing all these fun activities!

Preschool- Letter N

15
Apr

Preschool at Our Crafts N Things

Our last focus letter was the letter N and we did some fun activities to learn all about N.

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Hunter had a lot of fun painting a letter N.

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I drew a moon and stars on cardstock with a white crayon.  Then I had Hunter use water colors to paint and watch the moon and stars show up to make a night sky.  We put “N is for night” on the paper.

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Hunter used noodles (spaghetti) to paint a letter N.

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I made some extra noodles (spaghetti) for Hunter to use in a sensory bin, but he wanted to eat them instead.

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Hunter glued cut up pieces of newspaper onto the letter N.

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He practiced cutting- he was cutting out newts to glue onto the N that he painted with noodles.

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He ate M&Ms with a nut inside.  He decided he prefers the M&Ms without a nut.

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We made a necklace with cereal.

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Hunter very carefully painted this letter N using a q-tip.

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He added pegs to the N.

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Hunter loves Ninja Turtles- so we made hand print Ninja Turtles.

We had fun learning all about the letter N.

(All letter N printables are from Confessions of a Homeschooler1+1+1=1, and Enchanted Homeschooling Mom.)

There are Monsters Everywhere

11
Apr

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Hunter loves books about monsters, so we did a fun little unit all about monsters.

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We love Mercer Mayer books- so we read “There are Monsters Everywhere,” “There’s a Nightmare in my Closet,” and “There’s Something in my Attic.”

Here are some of the activities we did:

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Hailey wanted to make this project with us- first you make some drops of paint on cardstock.

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Then fold it in half and press down (wearing your monster pajamas, of course).

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Open it up and add some eyes

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These are the fun monsters Hailey and Hunter made.

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Hunter had a monster snack- he knew right away it was supposed to be Mike from Monsters Inc.

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When we read “There are Monsters Everywhere” the little boy in the story learns karate so he can scare the monsters off.  So, Hunter practiced his karate moves.

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Hailey tried out her karate moves too.

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Hunter wearing some monster feet and pretending to be a monster.

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We made a little monster snack.  Hailey and Hunter put a piece of baking chocolate onto a pretzel.

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Then we baked them for a few minutes, until the chocolate started to melt.  When we took them out we added a candy eye, then put them in the refrigerator until the chocolate hardened.

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They aren’t very scary looking monsters, but they were yummy.

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Hunter practiced his cutting to make spots for a monster craft.

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The finished monster.

We had so much fun with our monster theme!!  Hunter asked to read the books everyday- they are his favorite books!

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