Joy School: Unit 10: Family Chain

Since Hannah was born, I have been doing very short lessons (and haven't had the chance to really blog about it.) I'm writing now at the end of August about events that happened several months ago. In this lesson we built a house out of yarn. We did a puppet show about family members loving each other.

Finally we made a family circle chain. Hailey enjoyed this activity. Each family member has their name on a different slip of paper. However, just our names isn't enough. To complete the circle and have a great family you need, Joy and Love! (those are on the yellow and white slips)
Luc joined us for Joy School today.

Joy School: Unit 10: Traditions and Family

Since this lesson had a lot of big class projects to get ready for a graduation program, we worked on our tradition calender that was apart of the previous lesson. Here's baby Hannah, joining us at school today. It's been hard to finish off the lessons with a newborn around to take care of.

We did a felt story board game about Katie's school and family.

The final activity was using felt people to model our family after. Hailey liked playing with the little people.

Joy School: Unit 10: Mothers and Homes

In this lesson we introduce the importance of the last name. Hailey who has been hanging out with Emily recently, tried to included her in our family with the same last name. I reminded her that Emily if a good friend but has her own family and therefore a different last name.

Then we read "The Kissing Hand" by Audrey Pen about an animal who is afraid to leave his mommy and go to school. She kissed his hand to help him remember she'll always be close and will always love him. It's a cute book and Hailey likes it. Next time I'm allowed to buy books, I'll get this one.

After we listen to a song, Hailey made a Mother's Day card. This lesson was supposed to line up with Mother's Day. However, I think everyday should be Mother's Day so we kept this activity in. The front of the card says "A Mother Like No Other." Then in the inside is a picture of me (with the whole family since I don't have any good pictures of my alone). Then Hailey filled in the blanks of the poem inside. It says:

"Happy is what I feel when my mother ... kisses me.

Her hands ... hold mine tight.

She's funny when she ... is pretty.

I love her because ... we are a family."

Then we read "The Sleepy Book" by Charlotte Zolotow and had a puppet show about family love.

We finished the lesson with drawing our house. The activity was supposed to be decorating a house in a shoe box and making it a 3D model. I was excited about this but ended up dreading this activity due to the work involved to make a little table, chairs, bed, couch, etc. So I ended up drawing it instead. Hailey loved it and turned it into her map.

Here's a video of Hailey talking about her map.

Preschool: Abby Alligator

I have done "preschool" twice so far with the alphabet. (The first time was the beginning of Hailey School and the second time was with Josie's girl Audrey). One of the hardest things is getting good books for a certain letter. I got "Izzy Iguana" (which is about of the AlphaTales series) once and loved all the words they used with the letter I. Last year I saw that in the school's book orders there were selling AlphaTales books for $45. I loved on Amazon and was able to get all the books into one big book for less than $10 including shipping.

I've been wanting to do more activities with Robert was finally the house was calm enough that I could do this mini preschool lesson. First we read "Abby Alligator".

Then they colored their letter A's with markers.

After that, I cut out the letters and they could glue triangles for teeth to the A to look like an alligator's mouth. I thought it was a cute idea and Robert loves glue!!!

So here's there final product of turning the letter A into an alligator.

Joy School: Unit 10: Belong

This is the first lesson in Unit 10: The Joy of Family Security, Identity, and Pride. This is also our last unit for year 1 which I'm kind of excited about.

We started the lesson talking about a story that had a little boy who had a bad week but everything ended well because his parents where there to support him.

After that we learned a new song "Because we are Family". This is a very long song (3 verses) so each verse is taught in different lessons.

Then we did a flannel board story of "Peter's Family" to identify who is in our family and the different roles they have. This story's family had a dog so Hailey was convinced that she had a dog too. So we talked about our family for a little. Then we talked about what other types of groups we're apart of like Joy School, tumbling class, Sunbeams (church), a playgroup, and a neighborhood. I asked her who her neighbor was and she said Aunt Kerstin (who lives in Utah while we're in Idaho).

This led into our art activity of putting a circle of friends together. This was supposed to be our the Joy School classmates but instead I just asked her who she wanted in her circle and she said Mommy, Hailey, Hannah, Robert, Daddy, and Gramma.


We ended the lesson reading Corduroy. I'm glad we were able to do Joy School again.

Joy School: Unit 9: Imagination Summary

This is the last lesson of Unit 9. To start the lesson, we talked about whether stories can have different endings. I told the story of The Little Little Pigs and then we changed the ending. After some prompting, Hailey added that the wolf took the pigs back to his house and gave them muffins. As our alternative ending for Goldilocks and the Three Bears, Goldilocks and baby bear became friends and played together.


Then we learned a new song called "Imagination" and read a little story about "Little Miss Different". We talked about how it is okay to be different and colored on the same piece of paper as the activity to be different. Hailey wanted to color with markers.

And I used watercolors.

After that we read "Is Your Mama a Llama?" by Deborah Guarino. It's a cute book that talks to a lot of animals and has a lot of rhyming words. Then I tried to have Hailey fill in the blank with rhyming word but she had a hard time with it.

Then we pretend to go to the Movie Theater by using pretend money for a ticket and a snack. Then I did a little show about Winnie-the-Pooh. Hailey wanted a turn performing so I got to "buy" a ticket from her and she danced for me. She's also singing very quickly. It was very cute.

We ended the lesson by reading "Harold and the Purple Crayon" by Crockett Johnson.

Joy School: Unit 9: Creative Art

We started with lesson with talking about pretend friends. This wasn't hard because Hailey pretends that Lambie is alive all the time. We read "Danny and the Dinosaur goes to Camp" by Syd Hoff. Then we read "Ella's New Coat" which is about an elephant that slowly buttons her coat up and when it's all buttoned the buttons pop off because it's too small. We our art activity involved used buttons, straws, and toothpicks.

I had a lot of fun making pictures.

Then we did more creativity movement.

Then we ended the lesson playing hide-and-seek with the red car. Hailey loves this games and actually hid the car in different places when it was her turn to hide it. However she also told me where it was before I had a chance to look for it.