Preschool: U is for Umbrella

It was my turn to do the letter U so I choose to do umbrella and talk about the weather.
We put a rain suit on Little Critter to get ready for the rain.

Then I gave out a worksheet when they finished the first craft.

Halloween Crafts

We had a free day on Friday since I combined the library lesson with another one. So, we did Halloween crafts.

First, Hailey helped me make cupcakes since I needed to bring a dozen to the ward trunk-or-treat party tonight.
Then we painted our jack-o-lantern faces on our small pie pumpkins. I like painting better then craving and probably won't have them crave until their 8 unless they ask for it.

Here's my pumpkin.

Hailey started making a face and then painted all over it.

*Side note: Once again I'm using the Styrofoam egg carton to hold the paint. However, only four of the twelve sections are without holes.

Then we tried to make the witch craft that Joy School provided but it wasn't easy to work with. I ended up doing all the gluing. There's supposed to be shoulders and she's supposed to be able to stand up on her own but the instructions didn't make sense to me.

Then Hailey and I did a Corduroy Halloween sticker book together while the cupcakes cooled.

Then Hailey got to decorate 6 cupcakes all by herself.

Surprisingly she didn't put a huge amount of frosting like I thought she would.

Then we added sprinkles. She only wanted to put on perfect, whole sprinkles so she ate the broken ones.

We had a lot of Halloween fun together. I'm glad that we did it.

Joy School: Unit 7: Dramatizations

This lesson seemed a bit scattered to me but I think that was because I'm a little more tired with the pregnancy.

We started with painting with Clorox and Q-tips on colored paper.

They enjoyed this effect and painted for a long time.

Then we sang "Doodle Caboodle" and "Spontaneous Delight".

Next, we did "Five Little Monkeys" and acted out "Five Little Ducks". They did very well with pretending to be ducks and going away and coming back when the song said to.

The ended this lesson with first reading "Caps for Sale" by E. Slobodkina and then acting it out.

Chloe was the peddler. Luc and Hailey were the monkeys. I got the cowboy hats from the dollar store.

The kids did great and really got into it. Hailey loves the cowboy hats and plays with them all the time now.

I remember doing this with the Joy School I was apart of when I was little. I have a picture of me being the peddler. Too bad it's in a box in the back of the storage unit or I would've uploaded that cute picture of me too. I remember this activity specifically because of that picture which is why I try to keep this blog as updated as possible, so Hailey can remember.

Joy School: Unit 7: Silly Playing

We started Unit 7 which also has two parts. The first is the Joy of Spontaneous Delight and the second part is the Joy of Trust and Confidence.

Joy of Spontaneous Delight only had two lessons and it's all about having fun and being silly.

First we started the lesson by playing with balloons. Then singing "If You're Happy and You Know It".
Then we got to do silly things like shaking hands with a door handle, jumping out of a box, and acting like a turtle which Hailey is demonstrating.

Following that, they could blow bubbles using a straw. Luc went a little over board with it.

Hailey couldn't blow and kept sucking it up, so I blew the bubbles and she popped them.

Then we did a silly story with flannel board pictures. I had a random selection of pictures that they could use to fill up the story. Hailey didn't get it but it cracked Luc up. (Luc didn't have school, so I had him all day.)

After that, they painted with shaving cream that I added a little bit of paint to the shaving cream piles.

We finished the lesson by reading "The Monster at the End of This Book" which is a Sesame Street book that I got from Walmart for $3. Hailey was very nervous about the monster at the end and didn't want the pages turned. When we got to the end, Hailey just didn't understand that the Grover is the monster at the end of the book since she's not scared of Grover. She keeps telling me that this book belongs to the library since she doesn't want us to keep it.

Preschool: T is for Turtle

Hailey had fun at preschool at Audrey's house. They went on a treasure hunt and made a turtle.
They also had a teeth and a toothbrush to make the letter T.

Joy School: Unit 6: Library and Magic

Earlier we went to the Library for Book Babies and Hailey picked out a book to go along with Joy School. She found "Waiting for Baby" which is a very cute book about a little boy waiting for his mommy to have his baby sister. At the end, the dad tells him his sister came in the middle of the night and that he can go see her at the hospital. Hailey won't be able to come to the hospital to see Hannah due to the H1N1 flu. (No visitors at the hospital under 18 years old.) This reality hit me hard while reading the book and made me sad.

Anyways, to start Joy School and to finish lesson 3, we read the book.

Now, we spent the rest of the time doing the last lesson of this unit. First, I needed to do magic tricks. I had a hard time figuring out the magic tricks that they supplied me with, so I went to the dollar store and got 3 magic sets. I only did two "tricks" which Hailey liked.
Then we made baking powder biscuits to amaze the kids when the rise in the oven all by themselves. Hailey loves to cook.

Then while it baked, we played with soap suds. I mixed equal parts water and liquid dish soap but it never got as stiff as the lesson described just really foamy. So, I check the book again, to realize that the water needed to be hot. Oh well, Hailey still had fun playing with it.

After that, I sent Hailey on a treasure hunt. The first clue told to her look behind the door where we dry our clothes. Hailey wouldn't look on the door, she just looked further into the dryer. At this point, Chloe came and joined Hailey with the treasure hunt.

The dryer took her to the coat closet, then the stairs, then the bath tub.

The bath tub said to look for the treasure under 8 pillows. However, since Hailey helped me make the bed this morning she didn't want to mess up the pillows, so Chloe gladly helped.

In the treasure box was princess fruit snacks.

We ended Joy School with fruit snacks and the biscuits. Also, they were supposed to take turns helping me make butter but the jar was too heavy for Hailey.

I thought making butter was pretty cool. All it takes is whipping cream (by the half and half) at room temperature and 20 minutes of shaking. The hardest part was separating the butter from the buttermilk. Then it needs a lot of salt.

Joy School: Unit 6: Experiments

This lesson had a lot of activities to it. The main point of the lesson is to ask questions and be amazed with the different experiments.


First we made jello. Today was early release for Chloe so she decided to join us. They mixed the lemon jello powder with the boiling water.
Early I froze 1c. of water with blue food coloring, so they were able to mix blue ice with yellow jello. They thought green jello was pretty cool.

Then we read "When the Wind Stops" by Charlotte Zolotow.

Following that we played 20 questions so the kids could figure out what was in my box. This was too hard for them, even with Chloe there. The objects I had was a marshmallow and a purple mitten. They did ask good questions but it was still hard to get them to near it down to figure out the object.

Now we started the experiments which had interesting results.

First I had 1c. of sugar in the jar and added 1T of baking soda (it was only supposed to be 1 tsp but when I went to double check it my eyes went to the experiment below it which had 1T). Then I added 1c of vinegar which kept bubbling over. The kids were amazed by this. However, the cool thing about this experiment was supposed to be the reaction when 6 mothballs were added. The mothballs were supposed to dance, which if they did, we shouldn't see it through the bubbles. I'm not sure how I could have done with better except changing the baking soda amount.
The next experiment was adding food coloring to water and see it slowly mix together.

Then, in a different cup, we mixed water and sugar to discover what happened with the sugar.

Another one we did was about mixing colors together. Hailey punctured a hole in the Styrofoam egg carton, so purple started to leak everywhere. The mess come up but our hands were dyed for a couple of days. I guess around Easter, I'll see if there are any plastic egg cartons.

Then they got to do discoveries with magnets.

And with what floats.

There were a few experiments that I didn't do but still it was a full lesson (especially with the spills and needing to clean up.) At the end of this lesson, normally Joy School would be doing the Valentine's Day party.

Now, I try to look ahead and be prepare for the whole week at a time. So, I looked at the next lesson and it was all about going to the library for a field trip. The library activity is to get the kids interested in the books and to learn how to find answers to their questions. However, we go to story time twice a week (on Tuesday for Book Babies and on Thursdays for 3-5 year olds). Also, Robert sleeps during Joy School so we can't leave the house.

To adjust for that and still do the lesson, we did the question mark craft today and will go to the library tomorrow for Book Babies and Hailey can pick out a book she wants then.

So, here are there necklaces that pieced together to remind them that questions are good.