"A Growing Garden"

Remember the other day when I posted that Tessa has requested more art. Well, someone pat me on the back, I broke out the tempera paint today!

Tessa's one requirement was that we make something with hand prints. I flipped through my handy dandy Hooray for Art!: A Year's Worth of Arts-and-Crafts Projects book by The Mailbox and found "A Growing Garden." Perfect.

One 12 x 18-in. piece of white construction paper, a little tempera paint and a few paintbrushes later...voila, a pint-sized masterpiece!

Shapes for Singapore Math 1A, Unit 7

Although this page of shapes could be printed multiple times onto various sheets of colored paper, I decided to print them onto a single sheet of white card stock. Then, I strategically colored them the old-fashioned way.

Shapes for Singapore Math 1A, Unit 7

Download Shapes for Singapore Math 1A, Unit 7.

Tessa sorted paper shapes by a variety of attributes. I was proud of her for thinking to divide these into a group of shapes with corners and a group of shapes with no corners.

Preschool Portfolio

With the start of Tessa's official kindergarten year just around the corner, I figured it was high time to sort through her preschool work and get it all put into a binder. I ended up with about a foot-tall stack of loose paper to go through. I had such a hard time deciding what to save. She will probably look at this portfolio more than any other from here through adulthood. Although homeschoolers are not required to submit portfolios for review in our state, I still wanted to create one for our family. I finally decided to keep Tessa's work from the first and last lessons of each subject and then every fifth one in between. I kept her math and handwriting workbooks as well.

Our school room is currently just a little corner of Tessa's playroom (and a third of the room's closet). It works well enough, but I do find myself wishing for a wee bit more space.

We really like Staples Better Binders. Stronger, thicker, nicer...they really are "better." Tessa chose pink for her preschool portfolio. I can hardly believe these word family helpers are from nearly a year ago. She's come a long way since then.

See Spot Spell

We played See Spot Spell by Learning Resources for the first time today. It was so dog gone good that we are going to play again tomorrow. Hah!

See Spot Spell is a fun way to practice reading and spelling three-, four- or five-letter words. I love that it takes just a few minutes to play (wink, wink).

Tessa was excited to find a dog biscuit when she turned over her blue chip. That meant she got to choose any letter she wanted.

Today, we practiced three-letter words. Tomorrow, we will try four-letter ones.

Once a word is made, it goes on that player's dog bowl. Five successful matches wins.

Enjoying the Final Lazy Days of Summer

Tessa completed Beginning Geography this week. (Excellent resource, by the way. A favorite for sure!) That just leaves Hooked on Phonics and Singapore Math for the rest of summer. Tessa has requested more art, so we'll be doing a little of that too since we have the time. Gymnastics start next week.

We have a vacation planned for mid-September, so we will start our fall schedule a little later than most. Until then, we plan to take it easy and enjoy the final lazy days of summer. Well, Tessa does anyway, I'm still fine-tuning lesson plans for fall.

Today, Tessa gathered "food" and built homes for the critters from her Safari Ltd. North American Wildlife Toob.

It's always fun to see what Tessa comes up with. I thought the big pile of mulch, grass and who knows what else on the lower left was a beaver dam. No, it's food for the raccoon, her favorite animal from this Toob.

Tessa put her critters to work. The moose has the biggest antlers, so he gets the biggest stick.

Notebook Pages for History Odyssey

Tessa will be studying ancient history this fall using History Odyssey: Ancients, Level 1 by Pandia Press. The following notebook pages feature medium-spaced triple lines and a wider margin on the left-hand side for three-hole punching. The dictionary definition with picture notebook page is an alternate version of the dictionary definition page I created just for the sake of variety.

Dictionary Definition Notebook Page for History Odyssey

Download Dictionary Definition Notebook Page for History Odyssey.

Dictionary Definition with Picture Notebook Page for History Odyssey

Download Dictionary Definition with Picture Notebook Page for History Odyssey.

Draw & Color Notebook Page for History Odyssey

Download Draw & Color Notebook Page for History Odyssey.

10-Frame for Singapore Math 1A, Unit 6

10-Frame for Singapore Math 1A, Unit 6

Download 10-Frame for Singapore Math 1A, Unit 6.