Kids in the Word: Abraham

Abraham was our next stop in our toddler-friendly Bible lessons. It surprised me how much Jonathan picked up from this lesson. Here's what we did:


Books 

We read portions of the story each morning from Jonathan's Bible. Our Bible divided the story up into five portions, so we covered one per day. 

- Abraham is God's friend

- God Gives Abraham the Best

- God Promises Abraham a Son

- Three Men from Heaven

- God Tests Abraham's Love

The third story resonated the most with Jonathan. He told me that Abraham wanted a little boy "just like Jonathan" and that he looked up to see the stars and God promised him a little boy. It was so sweet!

To reinforce this story we read:

Abraham's Search for God by Jacqueline Jules

This book tells how Abraham came to be a believer in the one true God. Jules draws from rabbinical literature to recount stories from Abraham's childhood. Abraham is portrayed as an inquisitive boy who doesn't understand why his family would worship an idol that was manmade. Abraham considers worshiping different aspects of nature until he ultimately decides to worship the One who created them all. It's an interesting story, but obviously uses extrabiblical sources. I couldn't find any other children's books about Abraham in our local library. Any recommendations?



Math 


We used an activity from Hubbard's Cupboard where we made a "Count the Stars" booklet. Each half page had a number and Jonathan had to put that many stars on each page. He made it up to page seven and then he got distracted. He did a great job up until that point! He's doing really well with his one-to-one correspondence.

Movie & Music 


We sang Father Abraham a lot this week! Jonathan really loved this silly song, but he didn't really participate in the motions.

We watched Abe and the Amazing Promise. This is a Veggie Tales movie in which the first half recounts the story of Abraham. Jonathan enjoyed seeing how this tied in with what we read this week.

b is for bug- sensory bin

This week we're reviewing the letter Bb while exploring bugs. I found some great resources to help me with a bug unit, so I'm excited for this week. Our farm sensory bin was such a hit last week, that I decided to make Jonathan another bin this week:

I made this sensory bin using green rice as "grass" and throwing in bugs from our Safari Insects Toob. To dye the rice, I followed a recipe I found at a great site called Teach Preschool: 


1 tbsp rubbing alcohol
green gel food coloring
3 cups white rice 


I combined the alcohol with the food coloring and mixed it in a baggie. Next, I threw in the rice and mixed it up until it was a nice grassy green color. I spread the rice out in the sensory tub overnight and set it by a dehumidifier to get rid of the alcohol smell. By the morning, it was ready to play with! Easy peasy! Deborah @ Teach Preschool also has a recipe for making colored rice using Kool-Aid. I think I may try that next time.

Tot School- on the farm (30 Months)

Jonathan is 30 Months

This week we've been learning about farms and farm animals. Grace has been enjoying looking at pictures of animals, so this was a theme both children could enjoy. We had a lot of fun! 

Bible 

This week we covered Isaac and Jacob during our Bible story time. We used some resources from Hubbard's Cupboard as well as some resources I personally own. Look for an upcoming post to cover what we did for Jacob. 

Stories, Nursery Rhymes & Read Alouds 

We read lots of books about farms and farm animals this week. I selected some that would appeal to Gracie as well as some longer ones that would be for Jonathan. Some favorites (click on the title to see our reviews, as well as additional books we enjoyed). 

• The Complete Book of Farmyard Tales by Heather Amery
• Baby Danced the Polka by Karen Beaumont
• Barnyard Dance by Sandra Boynton
• Does a Cow Say Boo? by Judy Hindley
• Poke-A-Dot- Old MacDonald's Farm (Jonathan's favorite!)

Language Arts 

We continued trying to do some worksheets about beginning sounds.We tried to do some our Explode the Code primers and also tried some from School Sparks.  (Have you seen the School Sparks blog yet? It's a great resource for phonics worksheets.) 

While Jonathan can easily tell you that F says "fffffff", he at least hasn't been successful at pointing out pictures of words that start with the "fffff" sound. He also hasn't been patient enough to sit through a worksheet. He just wants to color everything. So, that's okay. We'll save it for another time. 

We did some Montessori nomenclature cards that Carisa over at 1+1+1=1 designed. The purpose was for Jonathan to match up the farm animals with the words for the animals. We also used her Memory & Match Up cards. Both of these sets were used throughout the week. 

The biggest use was matching our farm toob animals with the pictures. Jonathan had fun doing this over and over again. 

We also continued to work on name recognition. He's gotten pretty proficient at finding his name on the morning message board. 

Math 

Jonathan loved the book Poke-A-Dot Old MacDonald's farm. It is a great counting book, counting down from ten cows to one rooster. The clever and kid-appealing part of the book is their "Pop-a-tronic" technology-- each page has clear, clickable buttons for children to push, one for each number. It helps to reinforce counting and teach one-to-one number correspondence. Jonathan loved popping the buttons and wanted to read this book over, and over, and over again. Sometimes he was so excited about the buttons that he'd forget to count. This was a huge hit!

Sensory Play


We had a sensory bin this week. I used unpopped popcorn and gave Jonathan some cups and spoons to practice spooning, pouring and transferring. We also stuck his farm toob animals in the corn and he just spent lots of time with this this week.

Practicing spooning

Picking up spills

Transferring 

Playing with animals

Pretend Play

We played with his farm animals a lot as well as his Little People barn. He had fun building fences for his animals:

Art 

We made some farm animals this week. Jonathan finger painted a "dirty pig" and we also made a sheep:

I got the ideas from Usborne Farm Fun, part of their Preschool Activities series.

Music & Movies


We sang Old MacDonald a lot this week. We also watched Signing Time: Leah's Farm and reviewed our signs for different animals.

Games 


We looked through our 1001 Things to Spot on the Farm book and tried to find the different animals. We also did several of our farm puzzles and played with our See & Say.

Field Trip 


Finally, we attempted to go on a field trip to a local farm that had a petting zoo. Unfortunately, the petting zoo wasn't open. But we did come home with some good fresh produce! The state fair is in a couple weeks, so we'll get our petting zoo fix there.

Thanks for visiting! To see what other families have done, be sure to visit Carisa's blog at 1+1+1=1. Have a great week!

f is for farm: books for toddlers/preschoolers

In addition to the farm board books that we read this week, Jonathan and I also read some longer stories aimed at preschoolers. We found several keepers that we really enjoyed:

The Complete Book of Farmyard Tales by Heather Amery

This is a collection of 20 different stories about life on Apple Tree farm from Usborne Books. Each tale is about the animals or adventures of the Boot family- Mrs. Boot, the farmer, and her two children Poppy and Sam. The stories are short and entertaining. Stephen Cartwright's charming illustrations hide a duck on each page and Jonathan had lots of fun trying to find the duck.  Jonathan has really enjoyed these-- he remembered the stories long after we read them and even acted some of them out with his farm animals, such as having his little pig get stuck in a fence. Very cute and lots of value-- the stories have simple text at the top and more complex sentences at the bottom of each page. These will make great early readers as well.

Poke-A-Dot! Old MacDonald's Farm

Oh how Jonathan just loves this book. I requested it from our library after seeing it recommended in the Timberdoodle catalog. This is a book that is about the traditional folk song Old MacDonald's Farm. It's a counting book, counting down from ten cows to one rooster. The clever and kid-appealing part of the book is their "Pop-a-tronic" technology-- each page has clear, clickable buttons for children to push, one for each number. It helps to reinforce counting and teach one-to-one number correspondence. Jonathan loved popping the buttons and wanted to read this book over, and over, and over again. Sometimes he was so excited about the buttons that he'd forget to count. This was a huge hit!

Mrs. Wishy-Washy's Farm by Joy Cowley

Mrs. Wishy-Washy is a farm woman who just loves to have everything clean-- including her animals! She scrubs the animals down regularly and one day cow, pig, and duck decide they've had enough. They run away to the big city and have adventures until they decide maybe the farm is the best place to live after all. The rhyming verse is very catchy and easy to read-aloud. The illustrations are equally engaging. Jonathan had fun listening to this read-aloud and saying "wishy-washy". As a fun read along activity, we brought his Little People farm animals into the tub one night and "wishy-washeyed" them until they were squeaky clean!

The Year at Maple Hill Farm by Alice and Martin Provensen

This was a bit of a longer read-aloud that we read over breakfast one morning. It's about farm animals and what happens of the course of a year on a farm. As the months and seasons change, the animals respond accordingly. In the winter, the animals stay close to the farm. In the Spring, the baby animals are born. In the summer, the bugs come out and the weather gets hot and the fall brings pumpkins and frost. It's a beautiful book that helped us talk about the changing seasons and life on a farm. Some aspects of the farm Jonathan could relate to, as my husband's parents live on a horse farm. I think this will be a book we come back to as we learn about seasons and the passing of time.

Stay tuned tomorrow to see our farm activities. :)

f is for farm-- books for babies and toddlers

This week we've been doing a unit on farms. I'm trying to make an effort to read with Grace, so I picked out several books that would be appropriate for her age level. I've been making the different animal sounds for her when she pats the pages. Although these books are geared for the littlest ones, toddlers and preschoolers will enjoy them as well:



Baby at the Farm by Karen Katz

Karen Katz has written several baby friendly books that we enjoy. This one is a "touch and feel" book that Grace enjoyed exploring. The simple text is about a baby exploring a farm. Grace patted the different animals, exploring their different textures- the mane of horses, the wool of sheep, etc. This is a nice first farm book.



Baby Danced the Polka by Karen Beaumont

We have owned this lift-the-flap book for a while and both Jonathan and Grace have enjoyed it very much. It's a lively story about a baby on a farm who just does not want to go to bed. The story is told in an engaging rhyme that will get your toes tapping: "While papa hauled the water/and momma cooked the chow/baby danced the cha cha/with the chocolate-colored cow". It's a fun, interactive book that both you and your children will love!


Does a Cow Say Boo? by Judy Hindley

This is another old favorite of ours. This board book is about some energetic toddlers exploring a barnyard. The toddlers are trying to figure out which animal says "boo!". As they explore barns, fields and pastures, the children encounter different animals and the sounds they make. Jonathan enjoyed this book as a baby, and Grace seems to be interested as well. It's great for interaction- the children learn animal sounds and enjoy a bit of peek-a-boo at the end. Highly recommend!

Barnyard Dance! by Sandra Boynton

What's not to love about a Sandra Boynton book? This lively board book encourages your toddler to get up and square dance with the barnyard animals! Dancing cows, twirling pigs fill the pages of this silly book. It's been a great one for teaching Jonathan how to move and dance like the animals. Boynton's text is very vibrant and fun-- you can't go wrong with this one!




Animal Babies on the Farm by Vicky Weber

This cute board book is a guessing game. The first page gives an animal sound and a clue and then asks "Who is my mommy?"The next page reveals the mommy and gives the name of the baby: "My mommy is a pig. I am her piglet" Grace liked looking at the pictures of the animals while Jonathan enjoyed the guessing game. It's another fun board book.

Kids in the Word: The Tower of Babel

After learning about Noah and the ark, we moved on to Genesis 11 and spent a week learning about the Tower of Babel.

Books 

We read portions of the story each morning from Jonathan's Bible. This Bible had one short reading, so we reviewed it each day. 

Jibber Jabber (The Tower of Babel) by Mary Manz Simon

We also read this easy reader Bible story. The story uses simple words to talk about the prideful men who built the tower of Babel. It uses the same refrain over again and Jonathan was able to "read along" by the end of the week. Jonathan liked it a lot and walked around saying "Jibber jabber" over and over again. :)

Foreign Language 

This was a great opportunity to talk about other languages. We read the following books:

Say Hello! by Rachel Isadora

In this book, a little girl and her mother take a walk to her abuela's house. As they walk through their urban neighborhood, they see people of many different nationalities and say hello in the respective languages. This was a great introduction to the fact that people speak many different languages. Jonathan and I had fun trying to pronounce the greetings. 

After reading this, we pulled out some of our Usborne First Hundred Words dictionaries. Jonathan really had fun looking through these with daddy. They would compare words such as "ball" in different languages and Jonathan really enjoyed this. They often did this over breakfast or dinner. 

        

Activities 

We used our big construction blocks to build a tower and knock it down! We also did a coloring page for the story. 

After doing this unit, I found out that Carisa over at 1+1+1=1 has some printables for this story, as well as many other Old Testament stories. It's a great resource- I wish I had known about earlier! 

Homemade Baby Books

Now that Jonathan knows his letters and their sounds, I've started to think about the process of teaching reading. I was recently asking Jackie over at Ready, Set Read 2 Me some questions about this topic (she is a former Reading Specialist) and she kindly answered my questions and pointed me to a great resource that I wanted to share with you today. 

Raising Confident Readers: How To Teach Your Child to Read and Write from Baby to Age 7 by Dr. J. Richard Gentry

This book is such a helpful resource for parents who want to encourage their child's interest in reading and writing. It outlines five phases of literary development and gives fun activities you can do at each phase.

The only caveat I have is that book lumps reading and writing together. They are certainly connected skills, there's no doubt about that. But it made the stages a little confusing for me. For example, Jonathan's writing skills are far behind his reading skills. For writing, he would be a stage "0" - he can make lines and circles, but no letters. His pencil grip also leaves much to be desired! For reading, he knows and recognizes his letters, and can tell you the sounds they make. He points out letters in words, and can recognize his name. This book would classify him as a stage "2". So for activities, I have been trying to pull things out of stages 0-2 depending on the skill they are emphasizing. This has worked very well. 

Grace, is easily still in "stage 0". She won't sit still for books as easily as Jonathan would at her age. We've been trying to ensure we have some one on one time with her to sit and read. One of the activities Gentry recommends at this stage is making homemade books featuring your baby. I've seen this featured on other blogs, but this is the first time I've attempted this. 

One of the books he recommends is "Who is this?" It's pictures of people you want your baby to recognize. For this book, I printed off pictures of Grace and her immediate family members (parents, grandparents, aunts & uncles). I put text under each picture such as This is Jonathan" and pasted them onto double-sided scrapbook paper. I inserted each page into a gallon-sized ziplock bag and used duct tape to "bind" the baggies together. 

Grace loves this book! She opens it and pats the pages of the family members she recognizes. I sit with her and we read the book together. It was super easy to make-- I think I'll be making more for her!