Tot-School

At least once a week, and sometimes more, we visit out local small library and pick out many books to accompany "Tot School".
A few weeks ago I discovered the author Sandra Boynton, and in doing this, we have found another wonderful author that we all enjoy tremendously. She has many, many books, most of which we haven't seen yet, but we are really looking forward too them from our interloan library service. We talked about about living and non-living things this week. I have a matching game that has many, many photo pictures, so I picked out 10 sets of things to look at. First we talked about each picture and decided if it was alive or not, and then the child picked up the match and put it in their pile. Luke, 3 1/2, caught on very quickly, he even was correct when I added plants to the mix. He said, "Yes, they are alive because they grow and you feed them water."
Kimberly, 2 1/2, on the other hand, doesn't quite get this concept yet.

Kimberly is still having fun with her favorite book, Brown Brown Bear, What do you See?

I made this activity last year, she just simply finds, and places the animals in the correct order as we come to them in the book.

We have had a lot of fun fishing this week. You can see this fun here.

New this week are our Hands on Learning Counting Mats. This has the cutest little foamie fat fish that you put into fishbowls. We used the numbers 1-3, the numbers we are working on. An added bonus that Luke discovered is that it also is a great (and hard) puzzle. The fish came in the box not removed from their packaging. Luke found the foam in the garbage, got it out and proceeded to spend 45 minutes fitting tricky, similarly shaped fish into the form-he amazed me and accomplished this after a lot of hard work.

I also found this workbook on a shelf in my room. I copied pages and thought that it would be something to keep the littles busy while I worked with the big kids. Kimberly enjoyed coloring the whole pictures, filling in the paths, and playing with toys on the lovely mazes, but Luke, on the other hand,

would only use a pencil (like the big kids) and carefully followed the maze, (usually correctly) and then asked for more. I may need to figure out the cost of color copying the pages out of these books, or just buying new copies every now then.

Make sure you visit the other Tot-School posts from this week.

If you could also say a pray for this lovely family who started the Tot-School posts. Carisa's husband Frank was diagnosed with cancer this week, so they can use all of our prayers. Here at Ten Kids and a Dog we know that prayers can lead to miracles. Carisa is also expected her and Frank's third child-so say a prayer for everyone, including this little blessing.

Goin' fishin'-Tot Style

We are going fishing, fishing for letters, shapes and numbers.
First I cut different color fish out of foam sheets, and then inserted a brass brad fastener to make a fish eyeball. This fastener is also what is attracted to the magnet on the fishpole.

For the fishing poles, we used a 7/16"- three foot dowel, cut in half to make two poles. These are very sturdy. Daddy drilled a hole in the end of each "pole" to tie the fishing line on to. I used a circle magnet for the "hook" and embroidery floss for the line. The kids have since broke this line, so I am going to try regular yarn next. Luke enjoys "reeling" his line in. This takes a lot of patience on his part, but he takes his time and succeeds.

Everyone has been having fun with this. Above, Gracie appears to be helping someone catch a fish.

I have added the letters of Luke's and Kim's names to the fish, along with the numbers we are learning (1-3) and some different shapes.
I have all sorts of ideas for other "fish" we could make. Basically anything we are learning about could be made into "fish" to help in learning, such are little felt animals, or we could even make pictures of stories in sequential order that the kids could catch in the proper order. I'm thinking it would be simple to laminate small pictures and just stick a paperclip on them to catch the magnet.
I am sure there will be updates about this activity as I add to it.

All I Want for Christmas.....

I am honored!!

Liz from "Holy Family Classical Acadamy" gave me this lovely "I Love Your Blog" award.

I am just tickled pink!!! I never really know if folks are reading this blog, so this makes me so happy! I am glad some people enjoy "visiting" with my family and I.

1. Where is your cell phone? In my purse.

2. Where is dh? Picking up Becky from work.

3. What is your hair color? Dark brown, with suspicious gray roots.

4. Your mother? One of my best friends.

5. Your father? Will always be my Daddy.

6. Your favorite thing? Quiet times when it is just my husband and children-with no outside interruptions.

7. Your dream last night? That I was sick, they are always about being sick.

8. Your dream/goal? Growing old with my children remaining close to me and each other.

9. The room you are in? Living room.

10. Your hobby? Sewing, crafting, and knitting.

11. Your fear? Losing a loved one.

12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? Here, with my family.

13. Where were you last night? In my chair, cross stitching.

14. What you're not? Enjoying sunset at 4:30.

15. One of your wish list items? More room.

16. Where you grew up? Central New York, 10 miles from right here.

17. The last thing you did? Put in the third load of laundry for the day.

18. What are you wearing? Beige pants, light blue HCA t-shirt.

19. Your TV? Nanny McPhee.

20. Your pet? Hit by car, one year ago.

21. Your computer? My lifeline.

22.Your mood? Peaceful.

23. Missing someone? Matthew, who flew the nest 2 months ago, but he has been home every week.

24. Your car? 15 passanger van.

25. Something you're not wearing? Shoes and make-up.

26.Favorite store? Any store online.

27. Your summer? Way to short.

28. Love someone? Yes!! Many!

29. Your favorite color? Blues.

30. When is the last time you laughed? Yesterday, at Kimberly's arguement.

31. Last time you cried? Today, but only a little.

Now for my three favorite blogs:

My Three Girls

Our Elsie Rae of Sunshine

Ava Elizabeth and Brendan James

And in turn, For the recipients of this award...here's the deal:*Display your award*Link back to the person who gave you the award*Nominate at least 3 other blogs*Put links to those blogs on yours*Leave a message on the blogs you nominated*Enjoy your award!!!

Only if you homeschool....

can you read 3 pages out of a birdbook for ten minutes, and then introduce your young children to Roadrunner and Wil. E. Coyote on Youtube for the rest of the afternoon.
We were wondering if roadrunners could fly.....

We Are The Champions.....My Friend

The HCA boy's soccer team retained the North Country Athletic Conference championship by defeating Faith Fellowship in a 5-0 blow-out win.

School spirit was everywhere, including all over Amy,

and on Tess and Michaela.

Daddy got down to business and announced the team players. We started the game at 3:30 because we knew the lack of sunlight would be a factor near the end of the game.

Line-up, boys!

All the family was at the game to cheer on Danny, our goalie, who was trying to make it 5 games in a row with no goals scored against him.

Luke was happy to have big brother attention.
By 4:30 the sun was setting on the 2008 soccer season.

Danny did it-a perfect goalie game-and another championship!!

In the darkness, the boys were awarded the big trophy.

Congratulations, team!!!! Great game!!!!

And until next year, goodbye from the HCA soccer field!

Quick and Easy Ten Commandment Tablets

Mark and Grace are learning about Moses and the Ten Commandments during religion time, so I decided that we needed a visual to hang on one of our "learning walls". (Our "learning wall" has now become just about every wall in the house-therefore, "walls")

Mark posed nicely to show the foam core board that Daddy cut out the night before in the shape of our tablets. He used an exacto-knife to do this. Anything else would have squished the board.
He then mixed the perfect stone gray color with black and white tempra paint.

Sponging on the paint gave it a nice stone texture.

The kids then helped type the Ten Commandments on Microsoft Word. We enlarged it until it seemed to be the perfect fit.
The finished product, along with two of the books we are using for this unit. The main text we are using in Seton's Third Grade religion.

They also worked as a perfect All-Saint's Day costume accompaniment.

Tot School

It has been a very busy Tot School week. It is amazing the amount of learning that is geared to the littlest kids around here. Until I kept the camera close by to catch the learning, I thought the "babies" were getting a little neglected, with the big kids schooling and all the extra-curricular activies associated with ten children, but I have come to realize that these two small children get a lot of "schooling."

The highlight of the week has to be this great Thomas the Tank Engine tot-book from Carissa at 1+1+1=1. She has other great tot- books also, so make sure to check them out.

I only made one tot-book and Kim and Luke share it. (I thought about making two, and in the future I might do that.)

The favorite part of the book for both kids is the fact that Luke is in the Thomas book. Kimberly discovered this first, and hurried to tell Luke, he was so excited he ran to me to show me "his" page. He still can't seem to believe he is in a Thomas book.
Here is Kim checking out Luke's page.
They both have taken turns coloring a page in the "colors" book. I am amazed how careful they color when I stress that it is their schoolwork. It changes their whole approach to an activity. They seem to know that they should pay attention and try their best.

We also got out this Workshop Toy Color Bear. Luke at 3 and a 1/2 does this with ease, and even sorts all the colors and and does it in layers.

Kimberly, 2 and 1/2, has a challenge to get all the pieces put together correctly, but she is beginning to have success almost everytime.

Mark found this amazing game in the basement this week. I have no idea where it came from. It has to be from my parents camp that was sold a few years ago, but I don't remember it from my childhood.

It has all these wonderful letters that are hard plastic and very tough. (They don't make things like this anymore!) The board has letters throughout that Kim and Luke (mostly Luke) use to match the letters to. It also has word cards that Gracie (1st grade) uses.Here is Luke after he had matched many of the letters and then was lining other letters around the board. I have a lot of ideas for different uses for these great letters.

We have been working on recognizing the numbers 1-3 this week. I use the PBS website to find coloring pages for all our number and letter work.

Kimberly's favorite book is Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See, and a year ago I made this shadow matching game to go along with the book. I pulled it out this week and Kimberly was just as happy with it as when I first made it. She is so cute when she works on it because she repeats the lines of the book as she matches the animals to their shadows.

Of course, a big part of the week was getting ready for Halloween. Luke remembered carving pumpkins last year, but Kim had no idea. It is such fun to teach these little ones about our family traditions and include them in the excitement.
They were totally enthralled with all the parts of a pumpkin.

This was the best part.

Tot-school wouldn't be complete without a lesson from mother nature. This lesson is called "Ha! Ha! Mother Nature wins again!"

It was so exciting that some kids ran outside in the morning without the proper footwear, and footwear that was not even the right size.

Make sure you go and visit the other great posts in this weeks Tot-School.

Pictures of the Day