Jul
Weekly Wrap Up
We have been busy having fun this summer! We need to keep a routine and have some structure, otherwise it gets a little crazy around here. Plus, I don’t want anyone to forget what they learned last year. So, here is what we’ve been up to:
Every day we do a short circle time. A lot of times, Hailey likes to be in charge of doing circle time. We do the pledge, calendar, days of the week, months, and weather. We also go over numbers, ABCs, and shapes. We usually have a story during circle time too. Here they were watching a 4th of July story that I found on YouTube, becuase I don’t have any books about the 4th of July. (As you can see, sometimes Harper joins in for circle time.)
Last week we sang some 4th of July songs and danced around waving flags.
Then the blasted off like rockets- they had to start on the couch, of course.
I used several July 4th printables from This Reading Mama. This book was one of the printables. It was perfect! Hunter was able to “read” it all by himself!
Anthony could “read” it too! They were both so proud of themselves for being able to read the book.
On this paper, I called out a number and they had to use a do-a-dot marker to stamp the number I said.
Every day we have table toys time. I get out a different toy, that is not normally played with, and they sit at the table and use the toy. This is one of their favorite times of the day! On Monday they used letters with pegs.
On Tuesday they built with Widgets.
On Wednesday they used playdough.
On Thursday they built with blocks.
On Friday they were able to pick their favorite from the week and do that again- they agreed that playdough was their favorite.
We also do a little writing each day. This is definitely not their favorite part, but we get it done. On this day they were decorating folders to keep all of their summer writing in.
We do art a few times each week too. One of the projects we made was a Chicka-Chicka-Boom-Boom tree with their names.
Since it was the week before the 4th of July, they made a fireworks painting. They used forks and dipped them into the paint, then made fireworks on their papers.
They also made flags using popsicle sticks and paint.
Hailey
Hunter
Anthony
Of course, there is also lots of free time to play, go outside, and relax. So far, we’re having a great summer!
Jul
Happy 4th of July
Be sure to like me on Facebook and follow me on Pinterest so you don’t miss any of our fun activities.
Jun
Where Did the Year Go?
I can not believe that this school year is already over! This year absolutely flew by!! We had a good year though and now we’re enjoying our summer vacation.
Hailey on her last day of 3rd grade.
Hunter on his last day of preschool.
Oh what a difference a school year makes. My babies are growing up too fast!
I haven’t finished posting about our school activities, plus we’re doing some fun things this summer too, so I’ll still be posting this summer 🙂
Jun
Tales from the Circle C Ranch Book and Lapbook Review
Our favorite time during our homeschool day is when we read together. On a typical day I read a chapter from a book and Hailey reads a chapter from a book. We both look forward to reading time and I am always on the lookout for a good book we can use for school. When the opportunity came up to review Tales from the Circle C Ranch by Susan K. Marlow author of the Circle C Adventures series, I went to the website to check it out. I was able to download the first story in the book and was I immediately hooked! There is also Andrea Carter’s Tales from the Circle C Ranch Learning Lapbook that goes along with the book, and we love lapbooks so we were excited to check that out too!
So, how did we use the book and the lapbook?
Each day we read a portion of the book. Some of the chapters were short, so we could read more than one and others were longer. Sometimes Hailey did the reading and sometimes I did the reading.
Then if there was a part of the lapbook that went with the reading for the day we would do that as well.
This is the front cover of the lapbook.
This is inside the first folder.
Hailey’s favorite part of the lapbook was the Mercantile activity on the bottom left side of the red folder. In it is a price list of items one might have found at the general store in the 1800s. Hailey had to pretend it was 1874 and that she had $2 to spend at the store. She was able to pick several items, including a toy whistle for 10 cents, a comb for 40 cents, a harmonica for 60 cents, and a few other items.
This is the inside of the second folder.
One of my favorite lapbook activities was the limerick section. We learned how to write a limerick and that the sillier the limerick is the better. I thought it was going to be a hard activity for Hailey to do, but she loved it! She wrote several limericks, and we spent the rest of the day making up more silly limericks. She picked one of her favorites for me to share with you:
I had a lovely cat,
who was ever so fat.
He had another owner,
who was covered with toner.
The owner was a stinky rat.
Pretty silly, but we had a lot of fun with it!
I asked Hailey what she thought about Tales from the Circle C Ranch and she said it was a lot of fun to read. She said her favorite short story was The Best Gift of All, a story where Andi was at the store trying to find the perfect gift to buy for her mother. The problem was that Andi had spent most of her money, rather than saving it, so she couldn’t find anything to buy. Hailey said she enjoyed that story because she thought it was more special that Andi made a present for her mom than it would have been if she had bought her one. She also said she really enjoyed making the lapbook and all of the parts in it were fun to make.
I really enjoyed Tales from the Circle C Ranch and would definitely recommend it. Not only does it include fun stories, but it’s a great way to learn about the 1800s. I love historical fiction and I think using a historical fiction book with a lapbook is one of the best ways to learn.
Want to learn more about Circle C Adventures:
