Goodnight Moon Unit

Grace is 18 months

Jonathan is 37 months

A couple weeks ago we did a Goodnight Moon unit. Goodnight Moon is included as a book in Sonlight P3/4 as well as Before Five in a Row. We combined activities from several different sites (see links at bottom of post). 

Sensory Bin

I made the kids a Goodnight Moon themed sensory bin. I tried to get a good picture of what was inside, but all the pictures were blurry. The green "room" had black beans, silver stars, white "moon" (pom poms), three bears from our counting bears, a cow, red "balloons" (pom poms), and a cat. Both Jonathan and Grace had a lot of fun pouring, spooning, transferring the beans back and forth. 

Books 


We read Goodnight Moon several times as well as:

* Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes
* Papa, Please Get the Moon for Me by Eric Carle
* The Three Bears illustrated by Byron Barton

All of the books were a hit with Jonathan. Grace liked Goodnight Moon the best, but also sat through the Three Bears.




Misc

We talked about balloons and reviewed colors, using a printable from Homeschool share. We also had fun playing volleyball with a red balloon. (And we listened to Nena's 99 Luftballoons while we played!)

We practiced beginning sounds, which he aced!

And worked on categorizing things into single or pair:

We counted stars:

Played with our shape clock:

And worked on putting mittens and socks on a clothesline for some fine motor work:

 Some things I didn't get pictures of include playing Volleyball with a red balloon, matching rhyming words, playing Teddy Mix & Match, eating teddy grahams and "full moon" cookies (Oreos)


We had a lot of fun with this unit-- be sure to check out these wonderful resources!

Resources 


Goodnight Moon Printables @ Homeschool Share
Goodnight Moon Printables @ Homeschool Creations
Goodnight Moon Activities @ Delightful Learning
My Goodnight Moon Pinterest board

Linking this up to:

Tot School @ 1+1+1=1
Preschool Corner @ Homeschool Creations
Link & Learn @ No Time for Flashcards


Have a great week!

January In Review-- Homemade BeanBags, Cinnamon Rolls, First Art Experiences,

Jonathan is 36 Months
Grace is 17 Months

Well, I need to get caught up on posting! Hoped to start last week, but a round of illness hit us (high fevers, respiratory infections, ear infections, pinkeye...). My poor Jonathan was miserable! He's finally feeling better so I'm excited to start some more activities with him this coming week. :) 

Here are some highlights of the last couple weeks (what little we did):

Colors- Grace and I have been trying to work on colors. Here are a few activities we've done:

•   I made pairs of beanbags out of fat quarters ($1 per color at Walmart). I got a new sewing machine for Christmas and they were so easy to make (I'm a sewing newbie). We work on identifying colors and matching colors with these. They're also a lot of fun to throw!

Homemade beanbags

• I've also been making her "color baskets". We put several toys of the same color in one basket and talk about the colors.

Our red basket.

Books & Vocabulary- Grace is talking quite a bit. Right now she loves finding books and curling up in our laps. She especially likes the books with pictures of everyday objects (such as Roger Priddy books). She likes pointing to the items and trying to say or repeat the names.

Cooking- Jonathan and Grace enjoy standing in the learning tower and watching us cook. They had fun watching daddy make homemade cinnamon rolls the other day:

Art-

Grace tried fingerpainting for the first time, as well as dot painting with our Do-A-Dot Markers. They also love coloring on our new easel they got for Christmas. Grace is a sneaky one though-- she likes to walk off with the crayons and color on other objects.

Jonathan got a paint with water book for Christmas, and he has fun painting the cars:

Motor Skills- After being cooped up, we went to our park district's open gym time. We were nearly the only ones there! It was fun and it let them get some of that energy out:

Grace was so tired by the end of the hour that she just laid down:

Thanks for visiting!

I'm linking this post up to:

Tot School at 1+1+1=1
Link & Learn at No Time for Flashcards
Sunday Showcase @ Mom to 2 Posh Lil Divas

Tot School: T is for Trains

Jonathan is 34 months
Grace is 14.5 months

Bible 


We've been continuing with our weekly Bible stories and this week we learned about King Josiah. We played games, sang songs and did crafts along with our story. Check in on Wednesday for our Kids in the Word post to see what we've been doing!


Reading & Language Arts 


This week, we focused a lot on trains. Jonathan loves his trains and his train table and even Grace has a lot of fun with them. We've been reading lots of books about trains. Here are some favorites:

Jonathan has a bunch of Kumon workbooks and we recently started working on his tracing book. He's really enjoyed tracing lines on some of the printables that Carisa does over at 1+1+1=1 so I thought this book might be of interest to him. We started doing one worksheet a day and he always asks for more. His pencil grip still needs a lot of work, but he's been having fun with it. You can check out some of his lines here:

Psst. You can also download some tracing worksheets over at SchoolSparks.

Art 


We did a little finger painting with a friend this week and we also pulled out the play dough:

We also did a bit of a picture study, looking at a painting by James Clarke Hook called Blackberry Picking:

We talked about what the people in the picture were doing and compared it to our experience of going to an apple orchard. I got the idea from Language Lessons for Little Ones by Sandi Queen.


Math & Science 


We talked about friction this week after reading about how trains travel on tracks to reduce the amount of friction. To do a simple experiment, we got out some of Jonathan's trains and attempted to roll them on the hardwood floor and then compared how they rolled on a rug. We talked about which trains went the farthest.

We also did a bit of a nature walk and went to the park this week. As we walked we talked about the different colors of leaves we found and tried to find red, orange and yellow leaves. When we got home, we did leaf rubbings and then pressed the leaves between two pieces of contact paper:

Sensory Play 


We walked through leaves and talked about the crunching sound they made. We also pulled out our fall sensory bin and Grace had fun playing with the silk leaves:

Motor Skills 

I threw some balls in our pack & play and this was a great way for the kids to get some energy out:

But the biggest news is Grace is finally standing on her own:

and she's taken three steps. So maybe we'll have a walker soon!

Pretend Play 


Of course, we played with our trains a lot:

and Grace has been enjoying her tea set from Nana:

Practical Life 


We've worked on learning how to get dressed-- this week we've been trying to do snappers:

and as far as potty training... ugh. Jonathan did so well with potty training and initiating going to the bathroom. Then, he just wasn't interested. We started having accidents and he told me he didn't want to stop what he was doing and go potty. So I'd love to hear advice-- what do I do? It isn't that he can't go potty but that he won't. He'll still go if I initiate and he wants to earn stars and get matchbox cars. But he won't stop what he's doing and tell me. Should I move him back to diapers? Keep pressing forward? It's tiring and frustrating to boot!



So, that's been our week. We're all a little under the weather this weekend, so I hope that we'll be up for some of the activities I hope to do next week. Thanks for stopping by!

Linking up to:

Tot School @ 1+1+1=1

Link n' Learn @ No Time for Flashcards

Sunday Showcase @ Mom to 2 Posh Little Divas & Classified Mom

Read Explore Learn @ J Daniel4's Mom

Preschool Corner @ Homeschool Creations

For the Kids Fridays @ Sun Scholars

Tot School: Grace's Week (14 Months & 33 months)

I had grand intentions for this week, but we didn't get as much done as I had hoped! My pictures were mostly of Grace, so here's what she did this week:


We had unseasonably warm weather, so we went on several walks:

Grace really enjoyed our busy gears this week:

And this busy box toy. She just figured out how to push the button to make the panda come up-- she's so proud of herself!

She's started standing a little bit more. She's figured out how to stand with her back to an object, so she's learning better how to be aligned.

Jonathan got a doll to help with potty training and she became quite the little mother:

giving kisses

Trying to feed the baby

She decided that she wanted the bottle herself

Jonathan's Week

Jonathan and I did do a little bit of "Tot School" this week-- mostly reading about robots and rockets. I think I'll carry some of the ideas into next week. One thing that is so fun to see is that he's really developed good phonological awareness recently. He's started pointing out to me when words rhyme and can tell me what letter a lot of words start with. It's amazing to see how quickly this has developed! I'm thinking about starting working on reading after Christmas. Any recommendations on what to use?


Next week is also... potty training {enter ominous music}. He's 33 months old and he will go potty every time I put him on the potty, but he won't initiate. He knows he's gone potty-- but won't tell me beforehand! So, we're going to move to big boy pants and we'll see how it goes! Any advice?

Mom's Favorite 


I love seeing my children be sweet to one another!  (I promise it's not a choke hold!)

See what other Moms are doing over at 1+1+1=1! Have a great week!