Tea Time

One of my homeschooling friends recently attended the homeschooling conference in Cincinatti. While there, she heard Julie Bogart, the creator of BraveWriter.com, speak. My friend passed along an idea that Julie shared. It's called Tea Time. She suggests having a special reading time with your children once a week. Do it in the dining room, serve special drinks such as tea, use fancy plates, and read poetry. I thought it was such a fun idea! And who says having a tea party is just for girls? We tried it out yesterday with the boys after they woke up from their naps and they loved it.
To adapt the idea to smaller children, I decided that we'd have a little treat with our drinks {meringues}. The snack keeps The Noodle quiet longer and it adds to the "specialness" of our Tea Time. The boys chose between decaf tea or Milo {a chocolate drink mix like Ovaltine}. Instead of doing poetry, we decided to start by reading The Lion, The Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S. Lewis. I read for about 15-20 minutes. By then The Noodle was ready to get down from the table and play but Boo asked me to keep reading. While reading, I paused every couple of pages to answer any pressing questions he had about the storyline or words that were unfamiliar. At the end, I asked him several questions about what we read. It's a great story to start with as he followed it well. We all really enjoyed our Tea Time and Boo's been asking when we can do it again. It's a great way to introduce more advanced literature and improve listening skills. I'm going to dig around in our storage to look for some old teacups and saucers we can use next time. I have several mismatched pieces of fine china I've picked up at garage sales and thrift stores over the years and our Tea Time would be a perfect use for them.

Let me know if you try it.

Hubbard's Cupboard

Some homeschooling friends recently shared this great site with me: Hubbard's Cupboard. There are great lesson plan ideas, even for pre-K. She even has a section full of family time activities. For free. Yay! Check it out.

Preschool Co-Op: If You Give a Moose a Muffin

We adore the "If You Give..." books and I thought it would be fun to use one of them as a theme for preschool. Last week I taught our preschool and based our activities on the "If You Give a Moose a Muffin."
We started by reading the story. It was a bonus that we had the stuffed moose {my MIL got from Kohl's} as our storytime buddy. He listened with us.

Muffins
First, just like in the book, we made muffins. Each child got a turn dumping in a handful of raisins and mixing the batter. They also helped scoop out batter into the muffin tins. Sort of messy, but they liked it. The muffins baked while we worked on other activities.

Weather
Then, like Moose did, we went outside to feel what the weather was like. The kids made observations about the weather before we came inside. I had several weather symbols cutout from construction paper and the kids put the appropriate symbols for the day's weather on the board.

I also had a basket full of different types of clothes, shoes and accessories. Each child chose two things from the basket and we took turns explaining what weather we would need those items for - gloves for snowy & cold weather, an umbrella for rainy and cloudy weather, etc.

Sweater
In the story, Moose mended a button on the sweater he put on. So the kids picked out their favorite colored large button and, using plastic needles, sewed the buttons onto felt "sweaters". I admit that this was a bit advanced for them and they all required help. But they were all proud of their sweaters and it was good practice at fine motor skills.

Muffin Color Match
The kids each picked a muffin top {cut from construction paper} and took turns matching their muffin top with the muffin cup that had the color's name written on it. They really enjoyed this activity and we did it several times.

Puppets
Like Moose, we made mouse puppets for our puppet show. I had found some gray fleece socks on clearance at JoAnn's a while back and we used those. Since I wanted the kids to be able to keep their puppets to use for a long time without falling apart, I used hot glue to attach the pieces. The kids just picked out the parts of their mouse and put them on the sock where they should go. Then I glued them on while they were busy with their next activity.

Scenery
Moose made a big mess painting scenery for his puppet show. I didn't want to go the messy route so I had the kids use crayons instead of paint. I drew an outdoor scene {I'm no artist so it's pretty basic} and they each picked a part to color while I worked on the puppets. It's funny to watch the difference between how the girls and boys color. Both girls carefully colored in the lines. The boys had a slightly different, more "free" approach.
Before doing playing with our puppets in the makeshift puppet theather, the kids snacked on their muffins. They got two types of jam on their plates and practiced spreading the jam on with a butter knife.
Puppet Show
I wasn't sure how into the puppet show the kids would be. Of course they loved playing in the puppet theater {which we made from a cardboard box}, but they didn't get into the puppet acting or storytelling much on their own. They mostly just played which is fine.


It was a fun lesson. Check out this site for more activity ideas from the book {I used several of them here}.

Finished Holy Week Calendar

I realized I hadn't posted a picture of our completed Holy Week calendar. {Read more about it here.}

Our crafted symbols weren't fancy but they were nice and simple to do with the kids. We really enjoyed this new tradition and will definitely do it again next year. I may work on a more permanent calendar, either laminated or using felt, so we can reuse it every year.

Lately

Wow, I've been pretty absent around here. Between Easter, having family in town for the last two weeks and recovering from bouts of random sickness in our house, I just haven't been online much. Well, I did spend a good amount of computer time working on taxes. Grrr.

Anyways, I'm looking forward to the slower pace that'll come with summer. More to come around here soon. I taught our preschool co-op the other day and will be doing a post in the next few days about the theme: "If You Give a Moose a Muffin". It was a lot of fun!

Giveaway Winner

Thanks for all who entered the apron giveaway. It was nice to hear everyone's Easter plans. Hope you all had a wonderful time celebrating our risen Lord. We had a lovely Easter with my parents in town and the boys had a great time celebrating.

The winner of the apron is....

Lauren. {comment #12}

Congrats, Lauren! Let me know which apron you'd like. {I closed the entries at noon yesterday so if you entered after that, sorry!}

Child's Apron Giveaway

I'm giving away an apron of your choice from my etsy shop. These are handmade aprons and you can choose either an art apron made of high quality oilcloth {wipes clean!} or a cooking apron made from patterned cotton fabric with solid cotton fabric lining.

To enter, simply shout out your Easter plans. The giveaway will close on Sunday at noon {Mountain Time} and I'll announce a winner Sunday evening.

As for our Easter plans, we're excited to have my parents coming in town tomorrow morning to celebrate the weekend with us. Boo has his very first soccer "game" {it's more of a fun practice with a scrimmage at the end} on Saturday and we're glad they'll be here to watch.

Happy Easter!!