Joy School: Unit 1: Rules & KR2

We started the lesson by doing exercises. The activity's purpose is to give the students a good experience at following instructions. Hailey did great at all the exercises. When I said it's time to do a push-up, she put her legs on the couch and bopped her head up and down. I have no idea where she got that from but I that it was funny.
Since I took a picture of her doing a push up she wanted to take a picture of me doing a push up.

Then we talked about how school would be without rules and about different home rules and city laws. To give Hailey an opportunity to make her own rules, she set up the rules to our art activity like wearing an apron and sharing the paints.

Here's my lovely painting.

We used sponges as our paint brushes.

We ended the lesson talking about repenting. Hailey is using Tinkerbell and Belle to show how to make good choices and how to repent if someone won't share baby lambie.

We talked about how repenting is like erasing a line.

For Kindergarten Readiness today we focused on the first letter of our names. Horse for Hailey and Monies for Mommy. I showed her the monies for my name and she didn't get it and told me they were quarters. Sometimes she can be too smart.

Then she practiced making the Uppercase H using the lines in the kindergarten paper.

Preschool: B is for Bubble Bear

I watch Gabe and Kira on Tuesdays for almost two hours. We had preschool during their time here. But first, they wanted snacks.
Then we went over Humpty Dumpty. Kira and Gabe haven't done Humpty Dumpty before, so it was fun going over it. The main reason why my kids are familiar with nursery rhymes is because of story time at the library.

Then we read Bubble Bear out of the AlphaTales book. After that I wanted them to turn their capital B's into bears. Kira really wanted a bunny instead.

It ended up just having fun with glue.

Then to get everyone familiar with the lowercase b we turned them into boats.

Gabe loved gluing but the bottle was running out and he had a hard time with that. I love his facial expression.

Robert went crazy over gluing! It must be a boy thing.

So here is my example.

While we were doing this, I thought of another way to make a lowercase b with a baseball theme. I tried my hardest to get the ball to touch the bat to look like a b but it was too difficult. Anyways you get the idea.

Morning Devotional: Child of God L1b

I broke up the first lesson in the Sunbeam Manual into 3 parts. Yesterday was that we are child of God and God knows us. Today I emphasised that we are children of God and like a puppy becoming a dog we can become gods also. This is a doctrine that makes our church very different from other beliefs. I think it's pretty cool and makes logical sense. Tomorrow, we will focus on how God knows what is best for us and talk about Moses.

For our fun art activity, we colored little dolls and their clothing.

The whole time Miss Piggy is eating vanilla crackers and baby oatmeal.

After only two days of devotionals, I have noticed that I am a lot calmer and more patient with the kids. I enjoy this feeling a lot.

Joy School: Unit 1: Intro to Rules &KR1

Before Joy School, I wanted to set up the "class room" (our dining area) a little more. Hailey's Joy School house is up. This time I added magnets so we can actually open and close the windows and they stay how we want them. Also was have the Weather Chart back. A little change is using a magnet calendar instead of a homemade paper one.
Then I found the two alphabet posters at the dollar store. I also found the map for $2 and still am looking for a cheap world map.

Now with our classroom set up we sang some songs and introduced Joy Boy who is a helper to add conversation some days. Hailey really wanted her two puppets Sally and Dick to join us.

*Side note: My mom sent Hailey two big books that had collections of Dick and Jane books. The younger sister's name is Sally. Despite being a little old fashion and very simple, Hailey love these books. They will be great as first reader books. Anyways, those books are where she got the names for the puppets.*

We went over the Joy school rules since this first unit is the Joy of Obedience and Decisions. Then we did a fun art activity of melting crayon shavings with an iron to show how objects have certain rules they must obey also.

My picture is the top right one.

Hailey choose blue, black and brown. I like how this picture turned out.

One thing that differs Year 1 of Joy School with Year 2 is the Kindergarten Readiness mini lessons. The first one is just to get the kids excited to learn letters and get used to the extra activity and rules.

The main activity was to observe the similarities and differences between people and then make a portrait of them. Hailey wanted to do Sally while I did Hailey.

Then she wanted to turn Sally into a dog and then a cat. She also got mad at me because I didn't make paper Hailey look like her paper Sally. Silly Hailey!

It was a good first day and took about an hour. Hailey then wanted me to repeat the preschool lesson I had with Robert so she could do the activities. However, after 4 lessons I was kind of ready for my down time.

Overall I think it was a great first day of morning devotional, preschool, and joy school. Especially since I blogged all about it in the same day. Go Super Mom!

Preschool: Big A, Little a

This is the first time doing a lesson with just Robert, so I'm still trying to figure out what he is ready and interested in. First, we did a nursery rhyme. His favorite is Humpty Dumpty which he acts out a lot in Hailey's bed by falling off the railing.

Robert says Humpty Humpty, which is so cute!

Then we read Abby Alligator in our big AlphaTales Book. Robert already knows all his letters and can recognize both uppercase and lowercase most of the time. After our book, we turned the Uppercase A into an awesome alligator.

Here's my example.

Then using an idea from notimeforflashcards.com, we turned the lowercase a into an apple.

My example.

Finally, I wanted to see how much he could do so I gave him two worksheets.

This one is from Winnie-the-Pooh to trace and write the letters. He is not ready for that but it is still good to go through the motions and give him practice with a pencil.

The astronaut came from "My Kindergarten Learning Book" by Bright Start: Learn & Grow (got it at Costco). It has little a's and Big A's to find and count. Robert wasn't into that today.

Our lesson lasted 30 minutes and it was nice having time with just him. Hailey was very jealous but a good sport and stayed in the front room.

Morning Devotional: Child of God L1a

I am not sure what sparked this thought of having a daily devotional. I knew for a while I wanted to do something but didn't know when. Last week, I realized doing it at breakfast would work out perfectly since they are already at the table. It wasn't until yesterday that I figured out how I want the devotional to go.

Until I run out of lessons, I am going to go through the church manual "Primary 1: I Am a Child of God. Nursery and age 3". Also I am using printouts from Primary Partners: Nursery/Sunbeam Vol 1 & 2. In additional I will use things from the Friend (church magazine) when it applies. I also want to teach the children songs. Every year the primary has about 6 songs they want the kids to learn. "Sunday Savers" then produces a book that has illustrations that will help the kids learn each song. I've been coloring them and will eventually laminate them.

So back to today's lesson. We sang "I lived in Heaven" and then talked about who Heavenly Father is and how we are His children. We made fun crowns to remind us. It was a big hit and the whole thing might of taken 15-20 minutes (most of the time was cutting the crowns out).

(picture taken by Hailey)

New School Year

I am ready for Fall Semester! I am doing a couple of new things this year. I am going to do morning devotionals during breakfast. Then around 9:30 when Hannah naps, I'll have preschool with just Robert for 30 minutes. Hailey will have computer time during preschool. Then at 1:00pm when Hannah and Robert are napping, Hailey and I will do Joy School.

Wish me luck!

*Just beware that there are going to be a lot of posts because I want to keep each lesson separate for organization reasons.*