An Alphabet Search: Some Preschool Fun

Here is a fun alphabet letter project that my preschool-age son enjoyed this week. It's great for upper case/lower case letter recognition and also for fine motor skills.

I got this fun idea from Playful Learning~the chart is here for downloading. I am loving this site, by the way! I can't wait to browse through it entirely for more great resources.

After I printed off the chart for the upper case alphabet letters, I got out a stack of magazines that were headed for recycling, a pair of childrens' scissors and some stick glue. Then my son got busy searching through the magazines for the letters. He had so much fun cutting out the letters, then gluing them onto the chart. I have to say, I felt a little bad that I hadn't let him use the scissors more before now, because he was a little rusty on how to use them properly. He's just so *all boy* that I've been a little afraid of what might happen if he got a hold of scissors-ha! But he got the hang of them quite nicely and did such a great job--and had so much fun doing it, too! He's very proud of his finished chart.

My son is four years old and really does know the alphabet and letter sounds quite well. In fact, he's starting to sight read words all on his own. I'm feeling a little behind on starting to teach him to read. He's SO full of energy and can hardly sit still that I didn't realize until recently just how ready he is to read. I had planned to take one more year to do simple preschool worksheets and fun projects with him. And while we will still do a lot of that, I plan to start phonics with him this month. Teaching my daughter to read has been one of the most rewarding things I've ever done and I'm looking forward to teaching my son, too!

One Way I Refresh During the Summer as a Homeschool Mom

As our homeschool takes some time off this summer, my mind almost never stops thinking of and planning ahead for the upcoming school year. This is probably because I'm Type A and an obsessive planner...lol Whatever the reason, I do enjoy this season of planning. But I also need to be refreshed as a homeschool mom. Homeschooling can be incredibly exhausting and all-consuming. It's not easy and it's a lot of responsibility. And I take that very seriously when I am researching curriculum and planning toward the next school year. So also taking some time to rejuvenate and refocus myself is very important. How do I do this? Each summer I take some time to read something inspiring and motivating that speaks to me as a homeschool mom. Some of my fave reads from past years--that I have nearby on my shelf and refer to often--are Educating the Wholehearted Child, The Well-Trained Mind, The Charlotte Mason Companion, A T...

The Making of an Egyptian Death Mask

We are learning all about the ancient world this year with Story of the World I and loving it! We've been learning a lot about Egypt, of course, which is completely fascinating. Most recently we have studied the New Kingdom of Egypt, which includes the story of King Tut. So we decided making an Egyptian death mask in the style of King Tut's would be a fun project. First since it was too cold at the time to paper mache in the garage (it probably would have frozen instead of dried-ha) and it was too messy to do it in the house, we decided to pick up a couple of cheap craft masks at Hobby Lobby. Next we cut out cardboard shapes to complete the shape of the death mask, attaching them with hot glue. Vince even put a little detail on the *beard* with the hot glue per The Princess' request. Then the kiddos started to paint them with this metallic gold tempera paint. It worked okay for the cardboard, but would not coat the plastic of the mask. We thought maybe a second coat ...

Door Hanger Chore Charts

My kids have had a chore chart for a while. It's one of those magnetic boards and they share it. However, it's not by their rooms and often they (and I) forget to update it. Plus it's a little bulky. When I saw the concept of a door hanger chore chart on Pinterest, I loved it! It was compact, right there were the kiddos could see it coming out and going into their rooms, and it costs almost nothing to make. I headed over to one of my favorite stores: Hobby Lobby, of course. They have these little wooden door hangers for .79. I also grabbed a couple of packets of decorative buttons for $1.99 each. I already had the clothes pins and the paint so those cost me nothing. I began by painting the door hangers (I used tempera paints because that's what I had). Then I grabbed a fine point Sharpie and the clothes pins and started writing chores on them, making sure to write them correctly so they will ...

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