(Milk) Bottle Cap Activities

So I haven't posted anything particular to what we are working on here on the homeschool front for awhile and, frankly, that's because I've been a little uninspired!  You know how that goes-- what I'm learning is just part of the "ebb and flow" of the homeschool year.  Well, with this wonderful weather and growing interest of a certain now 5 year old girl, I've had a slight change of tune-- and attitude.  Though I'm still finding it difficult to really give as much attention as I'd like to my daughter, these oldies (but goodies!) have once again come off of our shelves and into our daily homeschooling life.  What are the "oldies", you may ask?

BOTTLE CAPS!!!!!!! 

Earlier in the year, I had printed and laminated a couple sets of letter disks from Erica over at Confessions and then glued them to my growing collection of bottle caps.  (Of course, one can always just write the letters on bottle caps and skip the printing, laminating, and gluing, but I'm not too fond of my handwriting and a little on the perfectionist side so I wanted them all to match!)  I then started to create a few printables to give my Pre-Ker something to do on her own while I worked with the olders.  After a few dull attempts (the inspiration had yet to really hit;), I thought to look online ( I know, it takes me awhile sometimes) to see what others were doing with these WONDERFUL, RECYCLABLE caps!  I found just a couple of blogs that had much of anything on them but it was enough to give me that much needed inspiration.  Posted below you'll see those sites -- one that I really liked was applying these to teaching/learning music staff and notes!  I already use these site reading activities from 1+1+1=1 so I just made another activity to go along with it.  PLEASE check her if you like the activity I made with those out if you haven't already and download her site reading activities for free! 

Here's an example of one activity we did this week using the caps: 

Click on these for the Alphabet Mat (lower case), Sight Word Set 1, Sight Word Set 2 (both site word sets correspond with You Can Read units by Carisa at 1plus1plus1equals1).

You'll find lots of way to make and use these wonderful caps at these following sites:

For many ideas to use with pre-schoolers click here (highly recommend, lots of ideas!)

For use with math click here.

For use with music click here.

I will be adding my own alphabet mat (seen in the pictures above) and the activity mat that goes with the You Can Read sets hopefully later tonight-- but it probably will be over the weekend!  (They are made, but supper is not and right now that's more pressing!) So PLEASE, check back if you are interested in printing those off for your use! 

** Why I like bottle caps:

•  SO easy to collect (just ask a couple friends and in no time you'll be overrun, I promise!)
• Easy for little people to get their fingers around
• perfect to come up with many activities all using the same manipulatives
• my own "littles" love them!  (Didn't get a picture of it, but my 3 year old matched letter this week too-- and right now he only knows one of those actual letters-- so it's fun to see him drawn into learning with these, too!)

What do YOU do with bottle caps?!?  Leave a comment and let me know!  (Even if it's to say "throw them away" ;)

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HOD Spelling

Since I decided to go ahead and make these up each week for our spelling, I thought I'd make it easier and just create one page that included the links.  I hope this helps any of you out there that may use Heart of Dakota for your curriculum -- specifically the Beyond that we are using and to which these lists coordinate.  (I will add on going back and forward as I have time. This is what I have for now=)

Unit 8, short words ending in 'y' (i.e. try, shy, etc.)
Unit 9, long 'a' words (with silent 'e')
Unit 10, long 'i' words (with silent 'e') List One      List Two



Happy Word Tiling!

Kristen J.

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WORD TILES (for Heart of Dakota Spelling)

I've been working on a growing number of Word Tile sets to go with my children's  letter tiles.  I actually picked our set of letter tiles up from Meijer when we were shopping there shortly before school started for us, but I can't seem to find that exact set online anyway.  No biggy-- they actually were a bit more expensive, but if you have any set of square letter tiles(as can be found here), they should fit pretty well on these same sets if you'd like to print them out.

I use these sets to help practice their spelling for our Heart of Dakota Curriculum that just happens to (usually;) match up with our regular language lessons.  This week it's words that end in 'y' and next week it's words that have the long 'a' sound made by using a silent 'e' at the end (with a few "exceptions").  Take a peek-- if it's helpful, great!  If not, go on with life as usual=)

A NOTE ABOUT LETTER TILES
I find that using letter tiles helps alleviate the frustration child # 2 has with writing and helps change things up a bit for child # 1.  In the picture below you can see I made a little "tool" with foam to help create a window that they can slide the word stripes through.  This also has made the kids feel more like they are playing some sort of "game" instead of just doing school "work." 

You can find my HOD Spelling printables on my 4shared account.  So far I've only got Unit 8 and Unit 9 done, but will add more if I hear from others that this would be helpful to them.

What are YOU doing that helps make school seem a little more "fun"?  I'd love to hear!

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SEE it! COVER it! WRITE it!

We just finished up week six for school and I'm beginning to figure out what it takes to make my days go as smoothly as possible: "entertain" Little Lady with school stuff-- and LOTS of school stuff! On our best days, I've spent a good 2 hrs. (minimum) preping for the next day. This would be no different than any other normal el. ed teacher-- only they would be preping to teach 28-30 little bodies and, I'm only prepping for ONE! (Yeah. I know, I'm not even getting to the two that really need to be in school yet!=)

Anyway, after downloading LOTS of materials from my sites listed over on the right (thanks, confessions and 1+1+1 ladies) I've begun to realize that there are other materials I already have and other reading programs I want to use and need to create some other documents of my own for this purpose.  If these aid you in someway, great!  If not, maybe they will give you ideas for your own or lead you to sites that help you with your prep for that child(ren) that may need LOTS of hands-on "busy work"! 

We'll be working on the ltr. D this week so this is one activity that I've applied to that letter. It's called "SEE it! COVER it! WRITE it!" (very original, I know, creativity in this way is not my thing) The object is to SEE a word, then COVER it with the dollar store magnetic letters for refrigerators, and then WRITE it in the LARGE space provided, made especially for children who are not yet used to writing in any small space at all. Print out and laminate, or simply print on paper and put in a sheet protector for binders.  (I find sheet protectors are easier to remove expo marker from.  For papers that I won't plan on using over and over, I'll probably just stick with these.)

I will be adding many more of these printables using this activity, so be sure to check back for more!

Here are some examples of SEE it! COVER it! WRITE it!

(Stars are for privacy reasons;)  She wrote her name below the fridge magnets but was a little...um...unsure of using the whole space, so I dotted the next word for her as can be seen below.

Adding the dotted lines for the letters really helped, and I'll probably do this until she's a little better with her writing.  oh, and she liked to cover the TOP letters...I wasn't too picky about that.

If you find yourselves using these print outs, let me know! (And make sure to pass them on.)  I'll be adding many more as we continue to learn.  She LOVED them!!!

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Draw-N-Sort, A, B, C

Hey, ladies!  I've been working with my dd "Little Lady" learning/reviewing letters and their sounds.  So far this school year we've covered A, B, and C.  I thought it'd be fun for her to have an activity to do really working on sorting sounds, etc. so I came up with this printable.  Hope you are able to use it for your family!  Let me know if you do!

Draw-N-Sort, A-C

(Not sure how to post a picture of my docs yet...working on that!=)

Enjoy!

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