Lesson T

Raising Rock Stars Lesson "Tt" "2" "the" and a focus on The 10 Commandments this week.  He enjoyed ALL of it.  He also did GREAT with the reading cards.  They were all about Turtles this week and the short sentences use the sight words we've learned so far {'see' / 'the'} so the child can READ the cards. 

He did A-W-E-S-O-M-E and he was super proud of himself!

THIS WEEK WE ALSO USED ~

 Other Books Like This One ~

 OTHER QUICK PHONE PIC ~

{left }Great 'Melissa & Doug' Alphabet Train Puzzle with both Upper and Lower Case letters  {right} color by numbers book, a little hard for him at first, but very fun to color ~ find numbers ~ associate/assign a number to a color (Target Dollar Spot)

AUDIO / VISUAL ~ LEAP FROG DVD's ~
- Letter Factory {Highly Recommend for ages 3+}
- Word Factory {once they have the letter sounds down}
- Math Circus {it has been very helpful for us and is now at newly 4 yrs old}

MATH ~
We are just beginning math with numbers.  My son SharkMan just turned 4 in August.  Up to this point we have focused on shapes, basic counting out loud, and patterns.  AtlantaMama recommends Team UmiZoomi on NickJr for early math skills set to great music and vivid color. 

~ AtlantaMama

Shark Themed Birthday Pool Party

My birthday boy wanted to have a "SHARK PARTY" this year!  A theme he came up with on his own.  So we made plans to swim and I got my creative juices flowing for ideas to make the SHARKS a theme throughout the party.  Here are some SHARK PARTY IDEAS from AtlantaMama:

Rock the SHARK swim wear and Target Dollar Spot hat

Add in some SHARK themed food like 1/2 of a banana with a strawberry fin (with or without the magic shell chocolate)

Great White Shark Cookies (sugar cookies)

The SHARK CAKE is really 4 layers of chocolate chip cookie cakes with layers of butter cream icing in between, topped with chocolate icing - a toy shark - and candles!  It's very rich, yummy, and not on my healthy eating list.  He helped me with the whole process & he was super proud to have a 3D SHARK CAKE!!  I recommend baking about two - two & 1/2 cups of cccd and then cutting out your shape right when you pull it out of the oven... it's much easier to form it while it's still warm.  I did free hand each layer... I know, I know, the hard way.  But he was happy!!

His grandmother found these Goldfish Brand sandwich bread packs, so I used them to make grilled cheese sandwiches (in the oven) for our friends party.  Super easy!

For our friends party we also made cupcakes with gummy sharks (and a few with toy sharks for those who cannot have dye) that you can order on line.  The gummy sharks where a little large for the cupcakes but the kids loved them!

If you are not trying to avoid food dye, you can also buy shallow clear plastic cups.... make blue JELLO and after the Jello has set about 1/2 way, add in Swedish fish candy and or gold fish crackers... after it sets in the frig you'll have a tray of little fish in the sea cups ready to party down!

As you can also see, I used fish nets (from the Dollar Tree) on my food and gifts tables along with blue table covers to cheaply and creatively add to the SHARK THEME overall.

Our two SHARK PARTIES were a lot of fun!!

~ AtlantaMama

Homeschool Prep

While preparing to officially start homeschooling my soon-to-be 4 year old this year, I bought out the Target Dollar Spot with workbooks, connect the dots, games (like alphabet bingo), small puzzles, two kinds of dry erase boards, crayons, glue, flash cards and more. 
Then I ran into a problem S T O R A G E?!  Large magazine style storage bins are not cheap, so I came up with a crafty idea... recycle...

 1.) Buy a membership to COSTCO so you can re purpose your large boxes in to FREE STORAGE bins (which means they are not free... $50 membership + $18 for products... + scrapbook paper & glue... = not really "free" after all!  But if you've got some large boxes ANYWAY, it feels "free"! lol)

2.) Cut the boxes into the shape you'd like & add clear tape to bottom

3.) Choose your fun scrapbook paper and start pasting!

4.) Add decorative touches or labels to the outside & line the inside with solid paper (if you'd like to)
5.) Fill those bad boys up with workbooks, flash cards, and school supplies!

Options & Details:
On the plaid box, I only cut the paper when I had to and I was aiming for clean lines.  By contrast, on the polk-a-dot box, I cut the paper into lots of pieces first and then started gluing.  If one shape overlaps another by a lot, cut off the extra like you are making a puzzle piece and save that extra piece for an open spot.  After doing the project both ways, I like the 2nd option best.  I had enough paper (I used two sheets of 12x12 per box) and the process went MUCH FASTER because the randomness allowed for less precision.  Plus, if you have an older preschooler (or older child) they could help you cut and paste pieces until the box is covered.  They will enjoy getting messy with the glue or mog pog.  On the polk-a-dot box, I made the white "belt" from the extra paper that I had to cut off (some scrapbook paper has an extra white section for the branding and bar code).  I also plan to add letter stickers to the tag.  The "E" is cut from a fabric sample (because I had it... I am a big fan of use what you have around).  It's a fun little afternoon project and it's useful!

~ AtlantaMama