Life With a 3 Year Old

Today I share a little of what I get to see every day with the life of a 3 year old boy.

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Little boy takes a pint jar and fills it with a tea towel - so half in, half out. He proceeds to toss the jar on the bed and throws himself away. Then he makes a huge dramatic ka-boom sound with motions and falls limp to the bed in mock death - his eyes closed and his tongue drooping to one side. Then repeats because he can see me laughing my head off.

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Noah was playing a game of fishing off the side of my bed last night. { I was trying to read } He throws his tea towel line off the bed and pulls it back in. Removes his imaginary fish and throws the line back out. Again, he brings his line back in and then starts wildly thrashing about and yelling that a "shark eating my butt, shark eating my butt".

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Here's two ways that I use a magnetic board with alphabet letters:

1. have the letters all mixed up all over the place. Put the board down leaning on a wall and call that the ocean - then label the bed as a boat. Ask your 3 year old to dive down to the bottom of the ocean and bring back a particular letter. Repeat for all the letters that he knows.

2. have all the letters all mixed up all over the place and then call them out one by one in alphabetical order and line them up as you go.

The Legend of Ulysses

Now, while it's true to some large extent that I haven't been one for much mythology in our homeschool journey, even when we were very devoted to doing Classical Education many years ago, I will still put some on the shelves occasionally.  It's more or less about ensuring that the children have a broader awareness of literature and vocabulary than anything else.  

At any rate, I wasn't particularly looking for anything in this particular department while out recently, so when I spied this little treasure, I snatched it up because of the quality of the book itself.  

Sometimes book collecting is more about availability and usefulness than getting my wish list fulfilled.

In it's cover there is a handy and helpful map which enables his travels to come more to life.

 Medium type, short chapters, and beautiful illustrations make it an excellent children's book.

An excellent addition to any Ancients year study.

Letter Nn Worksheets

It's been a bit of a while since I made any new worksheets, even longer was when I worked on my Letter of the Week program.

Now that I am back to using it again, I have discovered that I didn't need so many options and choices and pages, so I've considerably cut the main pack down.  I'm still going to add the two secondary packs as downloads as usual when they are done, but I haven't gotten to those at this point for this letter, but I thought I'd still share this one as it is.

Handwriting practice.

Cut and Paste activities.

Sorting activity between upper and lower case Nn.

I've also included a two paged game board as well.

There are a few other things in there, but that is the main gist of it.

Feel free to click on any of the pages above to download this FREE pack for your preschooler.

Thanks so much for visiting.

The Nightingale

The story of the Nightingale is what I consider a " children's classic".  It has been around for donkeys years.  In fact, the original was written in 1843.  It's something that every child should hear in their childhood growing up, even if it's only once.  Coupled with amazing illustrations the child is swept in by curiosity and delight.

It was by sheer chance that I happened upon this gorgeously illustrated version.

Another book that I cannot wait to share with Charlotte!

Noah's FIRST Worksheet

This morning I took a bit of chance and offered Noah a worksheet....

He had been asking for "school work" or an "activity", so I figured, sure, why not.

I thought he did an awesome job!

He's 3y7m.

A Little Mermaid

Today I relaxed and did some Art.

When you view an altered children's book tutorial on youtube and suddenly remember that you have a book in the bin { ok, there were several in the kitchen bin this morning } and you quickly run out to the kitchen and scab on through - thank goodness it was in the recycles and not the mess one, anyway, yes, scab on through and pick out an old children's book: a berensteins bears book and decide, yep, let's make that into an art album. So then you hunt down the jar of gesso and a brayer and do your thing.... 

Next thing you know after that, you've got a picture on the page:

And some paint too:

And then she's all done:

Glitter and all......

Australian Bush Birds

An awesome little find at a second hand market morning.

The dust cover was a little torn and damaged, so I just removed it after I took this photo.  I prefer my books to look old, if they can - so if it's a hard cover, I will generally remove the covers if they're not doing much in the way of making the book look lovely, inviting, or beautiful.

Inside it has a simple contents page:

I LOVED that it had so much introductory and helpful information!

Perfect for beginner bird watchers.

It will lend itself to so many bird lessons.

Awesome!

And then when we get to the birds themselves, we find colour plates on the right hand side, with the text on the left.

The end part of the book has many more photographs - in black and white with other pertinent information.

If you can find a copy of this book, I highly recommend it.

This Saturday Morning

Chloe getting ready for her Pathfinders this morning.

and what Phebe and Hannah gave me this morning - since they aren't going anywhere.....

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Composer Study

I got this awesome set last weekend.  Works out great since we're supposed to be doing Composers as well with AO - so they'll provide the background and then we'll look on youtube for the music.

We've already made a really good start this week.  Super interesting.

Spurgeon

Still book collecting, and found these earlier this week.

Really looking forward to walking through his notes.

Preschool Memory

A fun new game that Noah is enjoying is 'Memory'.

They're wood with a nice varnish, and a sturdy little wooden box to keep them in.

I particularly like that they are REAL pictures of animals.

And because a game of Memory usually has more than one player, Charlotte has been playing with him.

This was a cheap find.  I think from K-Mart for about the $5 or $6 mark.

Art Monday - The Side View of a Mosquito

This was a follow up lesson on the Mosquito.  We'd already done a birds eye view down, today we did the side view.

Our example:

which came from this book:

Charlotte was first done...

Then me....

Then Chloe...

Then Phebe...

Then Hannah...

and Noah joined in by painting the color blue...

The Story Book of Science

For those moments when it's nice to have others do the reading for us.

To listen to this book, chapter by chapter,

click HERE....

Magnetic Alphabets

I decided to give these a try and see how they work:

I'm a little concerned that the coloring may make things somewhat problematic and, or difficult; but I have this idea that I can paint over them - to give them uniformity if there are any problems.

I am certainly getting all my little ducks in a row for Noah these days.