Pumpkin Books

Here are the books we are reading right now for this unit....

The Biggest Pumpkin Ever  by: Steven Kroll

It's Pumpkin Time    by:Zoe Hall

The Littlest Pumpkin    by: R.A. Herman

The Three Friends and the Pumpkins   by: Tomie dePaola (8 pages they are going to memorize)

From Seed to Pumpkin   by: Wendy Pfeffer
(my favorite)

We are also going to listen to Pumpkin Soup  by: Helen Cooper

And since I am catering to girls I couldn't resist Pinkalicious and the pink pumpkin    by: Victoria Kann

Apple Books

The Seasons of Arnold's Apple Tree

Ten Apples Up on Top

I love this book.

Autumn is for Apples

my kids love this one.

Apple Picking Time

How do Apples Grow?

I also grabbed this from the library

American Legends

There is a whole segment on Johnny Appleseed!

There are so many books about apples. These are just the ones I picked.

For the next two weeks we will be continuing on the APPLE theme.

Community Helpers - 4

I tried posting this last week 3x but Blogger was all over the place so here it is...

Community Helper Snack!

We talked about Policemen and then had their favorite snack!

 Milk and Donuts!

I used this time to teach them through the stick puppets I made and reading the books more about the community helpers!  Toddlers love Community Helpers!

Community Helpers - 3

Our library has a bunch of Rebus books.

Rebus means words for pictures.

or word puzzles.

Here is an example...

Our library has a whole section on rebus books.  I grabbed a bunch on Community Helpers.

It was fun to read to the kids and have them "read" me the parts of the book that they know. A Policeman rides a Horse. etc..

Super fun and Quiet one on one time!

Schedule for Toddlers - 8

On Mondays I am going to have tips on what has worked for me with my many kids.  I have received emails about my daily schedule and so I am going to go in order every Monday.  Please comment with anything that you do or don't do or if this has helped you so we all can benefit from everyone's experiences.

7-8               Breakfast, practicing letters and morning review of the day.

8-9               Morning Task Sheet, get ready basically tidy up and morning chores.

9-10             Free Play w/Mom - No chore time slot...you will be amazed how much your kids will love this!

10-11           Quiet Activities

11-11:30       Clean Up

11:30-12       Lunch

12-12:30       TV/Show

12:30-3:00     Nap/Rest Time 

3-3:30           Snack

3:30-4:00      Reading/Books

Ignore me in these - the hubs insisted...remember my newborn is 12 days old and I don't normally look like that. ;)

My kids love to read.  I like to save it for after naps and snack because its a good focus activity for them.  My 4 year old son can read - and likes to read to his sisters.  So usually I will read to one kid and we switch, I then read a few more to them.  My favorite thing to do is let them each pick 2-3 books for themselves and then I will pick 5 or 6 that have to do with a specific theme.  I then have them guess what the theme is.  Usually its for the specific weeks like Pirate week or Farm week.  Its fun and gets them to pay attention.

At the end of the week we pick the best book and add it to our we want to buy it list.  

Hope this helps! :)

Sale

I am taking this week off to have a baby.

Until then enjoy this awesome DOLLAR sale at Scholastic!
HERE IS THE SITE

Happy Shopping!

Valerie

Not a Box!

I love books. We live walking distance to a library and we try and go every monday.  During Christmas break we found this gem of a book...

It is now one of my favorite books for 12-24 months.  Here is why...

So as you can imagine my kids thought they needed a Not Box!

So we found one and got markers out... 

 and went to town decorating every side. This lasted about 1.5 hours of coloring and playing.

 I did end up buying the book because they played happily and uninterrupted long enough for me and my husband to put ALL of the Christmas stuff away.

I will keep it and save it again (the book) for a rainy day along with a bigger box!

We played until the box was destroyed!

Easy Toddler Christmas Idea #7

Have you ever heard this story?  The Christmas Orange? My husband and I for Family Home Evening every Monday of the month of December try to find a different kind of story to share with our kids.  Christmas is more than just Santa right?

Here is the story we shared this week. It is my most favorite and I try to use it every December if I can.  Here it is:

Jake was nine years old with tousled brown hair with blue eyes as bright as a heavenly angel. For as long as Jake could remember he had lived within the walls of a poor orphanage. He was just one of ten children supported by what meager contributions the orphan home could obtain in a continuous struggle seeking donations from townsfolk.

There was very little to eat, but at Christmas time there always seemed to be a little more than usual to eat, the orphanage seemed a little warmer, and it was time for a little holiday enjoyment. But more than this, there was the Christmas orange!

Christmas was the only time of year that such a rare treat was provided and it was treasured by each child like no other food admiring it, feeling it, prizing it and slowly enjoying each juicy section. Truly, it was the light of each orphan's Christmas and their best gift of the season. How joyful would be the moment when Jake received his orange!

Unknown to him, Jake had somehow managed to track a small amount of mud on his shoes through the front door of the orphanage, muddying the new carpet. He hadn't even noticed. Now it was too late and there was nothing he could do to avoid punishment. The punishment was swift and unrelenting. Jake would not be allowed his Christmas orange! It was the only gift he would receive from the harsh world he lived in, yet after a year of waiting for his Christmas orange, is was to be denied him.

Tearfully, Jake pleaded that he be forgiven and promised never to track mud into the orphanage again, but to no avail. He felt hopeless and totally rejected. Jake cried into his pillow all that night and spent Christmas Day feeling empty and alone. He felt that the other children didn't want to be with a boy who had been punished with such a cruel punishment. Perhaps they feared he would ruin their only day of happiness. Maybe, he reasoned, the gulf between him and his friends existed because they feared he would ask for a little of their oranges. Jake spent the day upstairs, alone, in the unheated dormitory. Huddled under his only blanket, he read about a family marooned on an island. Jake wouldn't mind spending the rest of his life on an isolated island, if he could only have a real family that cared about him.

Bedtime came, and worst of all, Jake couldn't sleep. How could he say his prayers? How could there be a God in Heaven that would allow a little soul such as his, to suffer so much all by himself? Silently, he sobbed for the future of mankind that God might end the suffering in the world, both for himself and all others like him.

As he climbed back into bed from the cold, hard floor, a soft hand touched Jake's shoulder, startling him momentarily and an object was silently placed in his hands. The giver disappeared into the darkness, leaving Jake with what, he did not immediately know!

Looking closely at it in the dim light, he saw that it looked like an orange! Not a regular orange, smooth and shiny, but a special orange, very special. Inside a patched together peal were the segments of nine other oranges, making one whole orange for Jake! The nine other children in the orphanage had each donated one segment of their own precious oranges to make a whole orange as a gift for Jake.

Sharing what we truly value is the true spirit of Christmas. Our Heavenly Father gave us His beloved Son. May we, like the children in the orphanage, find ways to share His love with others less blessed.

Isn't that an awesome story?  L was a little teary eyed about it. S of course was all ears...

 It was fun and for snack we of course had...Oranges! :)  Or Clementongues. aka Clementines.

 Just thought I would share something that we usually do at Christmas time.

Healthy Kids Activities - Eyes #1

We switched over to Eyes!

We talked about eyes.  We read The Eyes Have It by Melissa Stewart, Sight by Annalise Bekkering, and Eyes by Shannon Caster. There were lots more at the Library but these were the ones I chose.

My daughter B was so happy to have her friends A and N over again!

Then we made a project that I got from another book that I can't post, but if you email me I can send it to you! valeriewitte@yahoo.com

A knew that her eyes were Blue and B's were brown.  They colored and colored and colored.

N, A's twin was into it for a bit.

We talked about all of the things our eyes can see. Like Flowers and Trees and stuff like that.

Then we put them on!

Everyone seemed to like the project!

You should do it too!

Healthy Kids Activities - Ears #1

So this week is going to be about ears and eyes.  I am combining the 2 so I can move on to better stuff next week.  So it will be brief but good! :)

You need playdoh for this activity.  You also should print this Diagram on the EAR HERE.

We stamped everyone's ears with playdoh then we discussed what each part of the ear does.

The Books we are reading are from the Library.  We liked...Hearing by Sharon Gordon, The Ear Book by Al Perkins, and My Ears by Lloyd G. Douglas. I am sure there are more out there, these are just the ones I picked up.

Outer Ear - These are the bits we can see, and also the ear canal. They act like a funnel to catch sound waves and direct them to the ear drum.

(A canal is a pathway for water, but the ear canal is a pathway for sound)

Middle Ear - This is a small air-filled space on the inside of the eardrum.

There are 3 tiny bones called ossicles in this part.

They are called the hammer, anvil and stirrup (because that is what they look like).

When the sound waves move the eardrum, these bones move and pass on the vibration to the very much smaller oval shaped window of the cochlea (the bit that looks like a shell). The hammer is touching the ear drum so it shakes when the sound comes through, and the movement goes right through the anvil to the stirrup, which is touching the cochlea.

Because of the difference in size between the eardrum and the oval window, the middle ear is very good at changing vibrations in the outside air into vibrations in the watery fluid inside the cochlea (you can tell, if you put your head under the sea, pool or bath water, that sound does not usually pass very easily from air to water).

Inner Ear -The cochlea has fluid in it, which moves and bends hairs on the outside of cells. There are about 17,000 hair cells in each ear, so they really are tiny. They are not like the hair on your head

Some of these hair cells (the 'inner hair cells') create an electrical impulse(signal), which is sent along the auditory nerve to the brain. Most of them (the 'outer' ones), however, are like tiny muscle cells, which react to the vibrations in the fluid by trembling and shaking; in this way they work like high quality amplifiers and make the vibrations much stronger and clearer for the smaller number of inner hair cells.

The brain then works out what you are hearing.

	The semi-circular canals in your inner ear contain fluid too.
	They send messages to your brain to help you keep your balance when you move.

(all of this information is from...Children and Womens health services.

Healthy Kids Activities - Teeth #1

This month is Healthy Kids Month in my house, so I thought I would post everything I am doing so you can do it too!  If you have any ideas you would like to share please email me at valeriewitte@yahoo.com and I will try and post those too.

This week is Teeth Week.

My kids love to brush, do yours?  I let them brush themselves in the morning while I sing the ABC's AND Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.  At night me or my husband brush their teeth while we sing 2 Primary Songs of their choice. I have to say that our method works because every time we go to the dentist (feb and august) our kids get great reports and never have cavities (knock on wood)

Today to kick start our Teeth Week we read some books from the Library.  There isn't much out there but
ABC Dentist is a good one because it goes through the different parts of the teeth and the different parts of going to the Dentist.  The kids liked this because they already knew most of the words! I also really liked All About Teeth and Do I have to Go to the Dentist?

Then I printed these coloring pages from the internet...

Single Tooth       Lots of Teeth

This was just an introduction, but we worked on reading and coloring for a full hour!

Funny Farmers

Okay so I took 3 quick pictures...

Then I printed them out on fast print, cut the heads out and pre-glued them to the construction paper.

Then I pre-cut outfits and let them glue their own outfit to the farmer...including pitch fork and arms and hands and feet...

Here they are...

Then I ran all of the sheets through the laminator and here is the book...

All of these pages have touchy feeley things on them.  They turned out pretty cute. I hope you all liked Farm Theme, as much as we did!