Joanie sent me a note the other day which led me to her blog. She happened to have just linked to Mrs Newingham’s Classroom site.  Wow! Plethora of resources there.  Most intriguing to me were the pics of her classroom library. You can see more here.  The woman may just be the container queen.   

Joanie recently posted pics of her own homeschool room which is exceptional as well. (with a library organized like the one above) Take a look at both.

V is for Virus and vomit and such

We figured they wouldn’t appreciate much

Sharing our germs when they came here to play

So we will revisit ‘B’ when we see them Wednesday.

We issued a rain check for Friday Funschool yesterday due to queasy kids. Therefore there will be no new letter this coming week and we will resume the next. God bless!

Twining Oaks has a post today that says volumes about teaching through example.  We can be expert lesson planners. We can instruct til we are blue in the face. In the end they watch more than they listen. They are observing first and foremost.  What am I modeling?  Am I being persistent?  Am I willing to work, "really work at something until I mastered it. To completion. Without giving up. WIthout whining, sulking, or throwing things."  Am I demonstrating that "self-mastery only comes by developing sound learning habits and putting in the requisite time, energy, and effort."

Honestly?  Not every day and not as well as I would like. But my little ‘audience’ of eager learners motivates me to wake up daily and keep on trying.  This may be the best lesson we can give them. To get up every morning and keep on trying to do a little better than the day before.  : )

Here are our plans for this week’s co-op(it won’t all happen in class!):

Letter B  (intro Montessori sandpaper letter B this week)

ASL Signs: B,  bee (ck out the video demo of the word)

Letter sort:  Paper plate with a pocket made of half paper plate and stapled down the center to form a divider. Sort cards with As and Bs into the pockets

B template : glue beans to letter B.  Can also make with bubble wrap : )

Walk the line: Masking tape on the floor will be in the shape of the week (hexagon).

Number of the week 2:

The Two Brothers (Grimm)

2 notebook page – use two paper clips attached or two beans or two bee stickers or make a dividing line from corner to corner and draw a pair of contrasting things in each section (ie sun/moon, two brothers, two natures of God – God/man, 2 testaments of bible)

Color – yellow

Shape: trace hexagons (with pattern block or download block template from net) on yellow paper. Color some in with light brown to show them full of honey just like the beehive. Sort hexagon blocks from other shapes.

Trays:

bean pouring, bean sort, playdough, A and B sort/match

Biscuit and honey for snack.  The children will make biscuits from a tube for snacks. Serve with honey and berry juice. Optional this week – bananas, broccoli, black jelly beans

My favorite bee book is Bees by Deborah Hodges.  Its a Kids Can series book with lots of large graphics that lend themselves to reproduction in notebooks for olders. From this book we are making a model bee from small, med, and large sized stryrofoam balls painted yellow. The small ball is cut in half for the head. The half ball is stuck to the med ball which is stuck (with toothpicks) to the largest ball to make the 3 body sections. Black pipe cleaners make the legs and antennae. Wings are made from wax paper.

This is a big-ish project but very tactile and involves a lot of fine motor skill work as well as providing a good teaching model. You can tape labels to toothpicks to make this a hands on teaching model for elementary kids.

Make a beekeeper’s outfit with large white shirt, rubber gloves, straw hat, and a remnant of netting from fabric store. Use a small window screen for the hive tray.

Fingerplay/song: Baby Bumblebee

Here is the Beehive

Here is the beehive. Where are the bees?
(hold up fist)

Hidden away where nobody sees.
(move other hand around fist)

Watch and you’ll see them come out of the hive
(bend head close to fist)

One, two, three, four, five.
(hold fingers up one at a time)

Bzzzzzzzz… all fly away!
(wave fingers)

Poem:

"How doth the Little Bee" is one Isaac Watts’s didactic poems for children that Lewis Carroll parodies in Alice in Wonderland:

How doth the little busy Bee
     Improve each shining Hour,
And gather Honey all the day
     From every opening Flower!

How skilfully she builds her Cell!
     How neat she spreads the Wax!
And labours hard to store it well
     With the sweet Food she makes.

In Works of Labour or of Skill
     I would be busy too:
For Satan finds some Mischief still
     For idle Hands to do.

In Books, or Work, or healthful Play
     Let my first Years be past,
That I may give for every Day
     Some good Account at last. [1715]

Lit:

The Honey Makers  (note to self – never do a lesson without Gail Gibbons)

The Bee Tree

King Solomon and the Bee (Aidan says, "I LOVE this book!")

Gran’s Bees having just visited my Gram, it was moving

St Benedict or St Brigid

Preschool B activities for later in week

B book

Bee unit with elementary activities

I have gleaned several fun ideas from this blog. Yesterday we played What’s My Rule on the way to the bookmobile.

Here are our plans for this week’s co-op:

Letter A   (intro Montessori sandpaper letter A this week)

ASL Signs: A,  apple

Lotto – printing matching images of different varieties of apple photos onto squares, cut.

A template color with

How to Make an Apple Pie and See the World

Ten Apples Up on Top – for counting and physical ed. (see below)

Walk the line: Masking tape on the floor will be in the shape of the week. Kids will practice balancing bean bags on their heads like in the apple bk when we do the walk the line exercise.  Later in week we will toss rolled red sock ‘apples’ into the basket.

Animal crackers and apples for snack.  The older children will use the special apple corer/slicer with the handles on it to prepare the apples. The youngers will distribute the paper plates, napkins, and juice. All will clean up. I am putting all the snack gear in a rubbermaid to keep in the school room. We will bring a wastebasket to the table for clean up. A spray bottle and paper towel for finishing wipedown. The children should be able to manage all the above with help. Plenty of practical life skills involved in snack prep/cleanup!  (later in week we will make pie per the Apple Pie bk above)

Apples hide and seek – I will hide the apples around the room and they can find the before snack time

Fingerplay:

Way up high in the apple tree (stretch both arms above your head, hands open)
      Five little apples smiled at me (keep arms above head, close hands into fists)
       I shook that tree as hard as I could (keep arms above head, "shake" tree)
       Down came the apples (bring fists down toward stomach)
       Mmmm, they were good! (rub stomach)

Adam and Eve and the apple story : sequencing cards and coloring page 

Apple Tree painting project   

ideas for rest of week

more ideas