Math Journal

My super smart friend Maile started doing these awesome math journals with her boys and when she offered to e-mail them out on her blog I was super happy. They've been a big hit with Finley! I may start something similar with Rowynn soon.

For this entry, we talked about objects that were bigger/smaller than my hand. I modeled some examples for her then asked her to go around the room to find objects. She did a fantastic job! I asked her what sound she heard at the beginning of each word and she wrote that letter.

I love her three stick people! She kept wanting to count the eyes as a set "one, two, one, two, one, two," so I had to ask her a few times how many there were all together. She finally got it!

This was a fun activity. I had Finley count the objects and then we talked about which one was more and which was less. I told her about the more than sign looking like an alligator's mouth and demonstrated with my hands. She picked up on this really quickly. We did it a few times and then she glued it down.

I wrote down numbers 0-9 and Finley had to decide if the numbers were straight or curvy. She did great!

I love how she and RoRo are wearing dresses and the other 3 kiddos are T, James & Remi. She wrote the E as a 3 and we practiced writing the 3 correctly.

I love her little apple trees. This one I used a couple of red unifix cubes to give her a more hands on approach and it worked well. She wrote the "1" and I spelled the word "Apple" for her and she wrote each letter...what a super smart girl!

Zoo!

The day after Thanksgiving we went with Kyle's parents to the zoo. We all had a wonderful time! So thankful to create these fun memories with my sweet family!

Rowynn was a bit terrified the first few minutes and refused to look. She just clung to her Daddy! She warmed up pretty quickly though!



Riding along :)

Emerson pretty much slept the entire time!

Grandma & Grandpa with the girlies!

The Hippo!

Kyle, his mom, and the girls

Grandpa made sure his girls had crowns!

About 2 minutes after loading up I looked back and this is what I saw. And Emerson pretty much screamed for 20 minutes but the girls slept right on through it! We let them each pick out a small animal. I love getting souvenirs from special places. Finley picked out a purple and white panda that she named "Princess Panda." She has slept with it ever since. Rowynn picked out a purple elephant that we named Ellie.

Thanksgiving 2012

We spent Thanksgiving (and a couple of extra days) with Kyle's parents. It was a lot of fun! Kyle's mom out did herself once again. She worked hard and cooked a lot of food! It was all delicious. We ate, played outside with the kids, Finley worked on the dollhouse with Grandpa, ate some more, played Memory, danced, played with glow sticks, went to the zoo, and ate, ate, ate, ate!

Working on the dollhouse. Finley loves to help Grandpa.

My guys!

Glow stick fun in Grandma's big tub!

The girls had countless tea parties and at one point their was a heart "cookie" (coaster) on Emerson...apparently he was having a tea party too!

Finley dancing with the Rockettes!

Grandma dancing with the girls! They have such a fun grandma!

Stephen Kyle & Emerson Kyle

The girls helping with the rolls.

Getting ready to dig in!

 

Playing Princess Memory

 

My two turkeys playing outside! I wish I had gotten a pic of all three kiddos, or a family pic...oh well!

Fall Learning

Here is some fun fall activities we've done the last few weeks. I know that fall is over (well, not really, but we're moving on to Christmas fun) but I wanted to document what we've done so I can remember for next year.






I saw this on pinterest. Basically you cut the top off of a small pumpkin, fill it with soil, water, place in sunlight and the seeds will grow!




I was really surprised at how well it grew! Finley & I talked about the steps we took and she drew a picture of her pumpkin. Both girls loved running to the window each morning to hold the pumpkin.




We did this neat little chart of how a pumpkin grows!

 

Acorn painting. (Put paper in a pan, add paint and an acorn and roll the acorn around)




Indian Corn. Ro's is on the left, Finley's is on the right. I love how Finley did hers all in a line.

 



Here is another picture sort Finley did. She sorted the pictures based on whether or not the word started with a M or S. I don't know if you can see it, but at the bottom Finley wrote out "M" and "S."



Here is the Indian Corn we grew. It is out.of.control.. Seriously! I just stuck it in water and the thing exploded with green! I've never been able to grow anything, but this was just super easy. Each kernel is a seed and you can really tell, some of them fell off and the girls could see the roots, seed, and shoots. Very cool learning experience!



I printed out this little calendar to put with our big calendar. The math curriculum we're using does a big lesson on calendars and I wanted to make it more meaningful for Finley. Maile gave me the idea of letting Finley add special days on a calendar. So we added a turkey sticker for Thanksgiving day, Finley wrote a "D" on each Tuesday for dance class. She also wrote a "C" on each Wednesday for Cubbies. We added a flower sticker on the 20th since that was Grandma's birthday. Finley also crossed out each day with a red marker.



This is a little activity found here. It was great to practice counting and number identification with Rowynn. She did pretty good too!



Finley, working on fine motor skills.



Finley practicing counting, number identification, and fine motor skills (circling the correct number).



This was a new kind of activity. I read the description to Finley and she had to circle the correct picture. We had to practice and I showed her different examples, but she got the idea and it was great practice for her following directions.



Rowynn did great on this small, medium, big sort.



Our thankful tree. The girls said they were thankful for: Mac-n-cheese, froggie, my toys, my books, princesses, Mimi & Papaw, Grandma & Grandpa, their sister & brother, Mrs. Lisa the dance teacher, Jesus, Momma, Daddy, Cinderella, God, food, tea parties, bananas, Lenny & Lemonade (our pets), sisters, my bed, eyes, and cupcakes. Such a fun family tradition!

 

 

I love how this turned out! I did it on a canvas so it can be a part of our Thanksgiving décor each year. If you notice the "feathers" are each personalized. Finley got purple (her current favorite color) Rowynn got "froggie" since she adores her froggie and thinks it is an actual color. And Em got blue since he is a boy!