Into Their Hearts

Learning about senses at co-op

noreply@blogger.com (~Into Their Hearts~) — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 04:35:00 +0000

JayBird had another great day at his homeschool co-op. They have been learning about the senses. He did a great job applying information he learned at the co-op with information he has learned elsewhere, as after the co-op he went on to tell me that our sense all work together so they can do more than what they could do alone. He learned over the summer that team work is working together to do more than you can do alone. So he applied it to his lessons on the senses. I love how he makes all these connections! They tried tasting some foods with their nose plugged, which made it difficult to taste – so the senses were not working together in that situation. JayBird informed me that his favorite activity of the day was touching stuff, like squishy things, cold things, rough things.

Co-op was very hands on this week with the activities that they did and the crafts that they made. Here is what JayBird made in just the few hours that he was there:

A Model Tongue

A Nature Frame

A Marker Holder

Now on to field trips for the rest of the week! It is a packed week!

Just doing their thing…

noreply@blogger.com (~Into Their Hearts~) — Mon, 13 Sep 2010 05:31:00 +0000

We finished up our week of learning about Abraham and God’s promises to Abraham, though I will detail this more after we finish our week learning about Isaac.

In the meantime, here are some random pictures of JayBird and JellyBean doing what they do best…playing! And of course, learning through that play!

Window Art

Puzzles

JayBird has always amazed me with his puzzles skills. He is definitely better and faster than me! This Noah’s Ark puzzle is a big circle, so no edges and corners, and there are no outlines to help know where to put the pieces in the circle. He also has this Melissa & Doug puzzle of the United States. It does have outlines on it but nonetheless, I would think it would be more difficult for him, yet he completes it in no time at all, maybe only getting frustrated when something isn’t fitting because he may have mixed up North and South Dakota.

Reading some beginner reading books online with Mom.

JellyBean playing her very own computer game for the very first time! She enjoyed playing this game from Fisher-Price. She simply had to touch any key on the keyboard and a new letter would appear along with a voice saying the letter name. At the end, you see and hear the entire alphabet. She loved it!

Building the alphabet together

Finished….and acting crazy for the camera as usual.

And here’s JellyBean copying what JayBird was doing with his “crazy arms” in the above picture.

And here is the final product of the ABC tower, along with song!

1st Day of Co-op 2010!!

noreply@blogger.com (~Into Their Hearts~) — Wed, 08 Sep 2010 03:26:00 +0000

Today was our first day of the Love2Homeschool Co-op! Hmmm…not the best picture of both kids there, but we were in a rush to get “first day of co-op” pictures so we wouldn’t be late!

It seemed that JayBird had a great time! He is in the Kindergarten class. He did preschool with last year’s co-op and this year he is better suited for Kindergarten. I had to explain that one to him though since he is so used to calling himself a preschooler and he is still technically preschool age. JayBird enjoyed art and then learning about the sense of hearing. They had this awesome HUGE ear diagram that the kids got to look at, look through, and even crawl through. Yes…it was that big! When I passed by him while he was in line to explore the ear, he was happy to see me, excitedly saying “Hi Mommy!” like usual, though this time he didn’t run to me with his arms open wide as normal. I went over to him and he told me about the ear he was going to see…then I messed with his ears. He then turns to me and says “Okay Mom, you can go back and be with JellyBean now!” as he pushes me and ushers me away! Usually after not seeing me for a while, he would want me to stay with him or may want to come along with me. Well, apparently he has grown up in just a few hours of Kindergarten co-op and didn’t need/want me there with him anymore! My little guy is growing up!

JellyBean had fun playing during co-op time while the other moms and I planned just what we would be doing with our toddlers during that time. We have lots of fun gymboree inspired activities to do with them and at times they will join the preschoolers when the activity is age appropriate for them too.

More pictures quickly taken right before we left…

JellyBean was SO excited to have her very own backpack, At first, when I brought out JayBird’s, she exclaimed “Elmo!” I explained it was not hers but that I have one for her. She was very happy with her backpack saying “Mine!” and it is the perfect little size for her!

Just for fun, here is JayBird’s “First Day of Co-op” picture from last year, along with a random picture of JellyBean from that time last year as well. My how they have changed and grown up!!

Huh? What? I can’t understand you!

noreply@blogger.com (~Into Their Hearts~) — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 04:58:00 +0000

The tower you see here in this picture represents the Tower of Babel that JayBird made from blocks and using a simple color pattern. The little wooden guys? Yep, they are the prideful men that tried to build such a great tall tower to show how great they are. But as JayBird will share with you, as he did with many members of our extended family, God is the greatest of all and He showed this to the men by “making them talk funny.” (BTW, thanks to our family members for dialoging with JayBird as he continues to share what he learns. It is a perfect way to help retain and understand what he is learning!)

Building the tower with blocks did not catch JayBird’s attention much at all…until I suggested bringing out the wooden people and using them to act out the story. He was all about doing that! Just another example of how he loves to be more hands on…and he also loves to act! (Hoping to start some preschool drama classes soon…we’ll see!)

We then babbled to each other in our own made up languages to show that we could not help each other much if we couldn’t communicate and understand each other. This brought lots of laughter!

Fun with Yoga!

noreply@blogger.com (~Into Their Hearts~) — Fri, 27 Aug 2010 05:21:00 +0000

In order for Mom to get any exercise done around here (which honestly, very rarely happens), I have to get the kids involved somehow. It’s easy when you find a fun kid’s yoga video set to music on YouTube. Both JayBird and JellyBean are learning lunges, tree poses, and downward facing dog. They catch on quickly to the terms and bounce right into the pose. Otherwise they can be found crawling under Mommy while she is in bridge pose or climbing on her back while in cobra pose. And I have to be careful, or my yoga mat will be taken over by little ones! I think they will be happily surprised come Christmas time when they have their own type of mats waiting for them under the tree. No more taking over mine or sliding around on towels. I do hope to continue some forms of exercise for my well-being. And hey, it may be even more involved with the kiddos around and they learn to love exercise too! PE is indeed a subject in the homeschool home!

Art, Science, and Lessons for the Heart through Noah

noreply@blogger.com (~Into Their Hearts~) — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 06:41:00 +0000

Interestingly, before even beginning learning activities revolving around Noah’s Ark, JayBird wanted to make an ark craft. Originally he wanted to make it out of popsicle sticks, but it worked out better to cut strips of paper. This also gave him practice cutting on straight lines.

We then talked about a variety of things that God wants him to be obedient in. As you can see, it is written on the ark, each in a different color of the rainbow. This was such a fun spur of the moment activity!

And then, onto some drawing to fulfill his passion for art! This is a giraffe for the ark.

In learning that Noah was obedient and had to follow careful instructions to build the ark, we practiced our listening and problem solving skills with a scavenger hunt. Special little treasures were hidden around our backyard. JayBird (and JellyBean) were given simple clues to find these treasures.

Clues eventually led to the best treasure of all…

JESUS!!

We used our children’s Bible to count by 2’s by counting the animals entering the ark, but JayBird being the active boy and kinesthetic learner that he is jumped up, grabbed some counting bears, and made his own game of counting by two’s. He put the red and yellow bears in pairs of two. The blue bears are laying their side was to represent a dash in between each pair. For him, this made sense and helped distinguish each pair. He then practiced counting by 2’s up to 12…and almost 14 but not quite. He problem solved and did the math on his own to go from ten to twelve and when he figured it out, we hugged and were so giddy together that he figured it out on his own! He didn’t want any help at all or even for me to look while he was figuring out what came after ten while counting by two’s. :-)

(Oh, and those black crescent shaped moons on his shirt…well he was pretending to be a cow with moon shaped spots earlier in the day. LOL)

Here JellyBean works on a brand new Noah’s Ark puzzle. I think her favorite part was making the birds fly in the air. :-)

When learning about the flood, our science experiment was seeing if items would sink or float. JayBird would make a hypothesis for each item and then place the items on a chart.

And of course we had to see if Noah’s Ark would float…

We also acted out the scene of Noah and his family coming off the ark and praising God for keeping them safe. Then we made banana rainbows! JayBird sliced up bananas that we arranged into the shape of a rainbow.

Both JayBird and JellyBean then sprinkled colored/flavored gelatin onto the banana slices to resemble a rainbow. I realized later that this probably could also have been done with kool-aid powder, and at a fraction of the cost!

They thoroughly enjoyed their creations! Mmmm! Such a good way to have fun with healthy food! My kiddos go through phases of loving bananas and not wanting them so much. So this is a wonderful activity to encourage them to eat bananas when they are in their no banana stage! We’ve already done it a second time!

A beautiful rainbow represents God’s promise to never again flood the earth.

A first? Or just a rare moment?

noreply@blogger.com (~Into Their Hearts~) — Tue, 24 Aug 2010 04:14:00 +0000

This picture here is a very rare moment. Actually, I am hoping it is the first of many! JayBird and JellyBean were both playing blocks…without knocking each other’s blocks down! Mainly it is JellyBean bugging her big brother and knocking down his block towers and castles. But today, ahhhh, today they allowed each other the space to create. It was a wonderful site to see! And yes, now it is marked down in history so that if it never happens again, I can remember the one time it did. Or better yet, remind them of what it looks like!

Adam & Eve…and the serpent

noreply@blogger.com (~Into Their Hearts~) — Thu, 19 Aug 2010 05:52:00 +0000

JayBird spent a nice amount of time making this scene of Adam & Eve, the Tree of Knowledge, and the serpent. In fact, he used every single color of playdough that we had and pretty much used up every amount of it! (I have since bought some more to increase our stash!) This was completely his idea to make and he seemed to really enjoy doing it. It was very time intensive for him but he continued through to completion!

Here the kids brought in different kinds of play food to represent the fruit in the Garden of Eden. Their task in these pictures were to jump over the serpent (a puppet snake) without touching it. This was good jumping practice for JellyBean…not sure that she actually jumped though. Almost looks like it in the picture though! JayBird practiced jumping over the “serpent” forwards and backwards. Then we just had fun with the puppet as we teased each other with it and tried to run away, staying far away from it as possible, just like we want to stay far away from temptation and sin.

JellyBean’s recent activities…

noreply@blogger.com (~Into Their Hearts~) — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 05:31:00 +0000

t JellyBean is taking some developmental leaps. She is getting much more verbal, saying more words, and learning some of the words to Jesus Loves Me and some of the letters to the ABC song. Oh, and let’s not forget Barney’s I Love You song! (TV…what? Nah, that doesn’t happen here! Hehe) We have saved Barney's ABC episode because she loves singing the ABCs with Barney. I think that will be one of her best learning tools in learning the alphabet because of her love affair with Barney.

JellyBean has enjoyed getting right in there with JayBird with drawing (well, scribbling) and cutting. Yes, she’s using scissors! She doesn’t hold them correctly, but she does manage to cut the paper all around the edges.

Through our summer adventures, she has gotten over her sensory fear of sand and has gotten down and dirty at the beach…well, maybe not that dirty, but she did play in the sand! (Oh, and JayBird got over his fear of the water and the waves. Yay!)

Okay, well…she almost got over her sensory issues with sand…

JellyBean continues to take part in some tot school activities. Some she loved and others she could do without. She was not into dropping stacking pegs into the cardboard of a paper towel roll, but she LOVES sorting colors with our counting bears. She caught on quickly and always caught herself if she made a mistake. JayBird joins right in with her tot school activities, sometimes because they love to play together and sometimes because they are just fighting over toys.

And here is a video of JellyBean’s favorite activity…the one that left her saying “More!” She caught on so fast with sorting the colors. We also tried working on verbally saying and remembering the color names and sign names, but that is still definitely a work in progress.

Back…and finally blogging!

noreply@blogger.com (~Into Their Hearts~) — Tue, 17 Aug 2010 03:40:00 +0000

I’m back! :-) So where have we been? Well, back in July we went on vacation for a week and a half to visit friends and family many states away. Once we arrived home my husband Jonathan went on a missions trip to Belize for a week. In that time the kids and I tried to get unpacked and back into the swing of things here at home…not that I really know yet what the “swing of things” is! Really, I keep thinking about forming more of a routine for our day. I know it would help us out. I know that when I have more of an idea of how our day will go and the activities and projects we will do that our days will go smoother. So why don’t I do this more consistently? I am just not sure! We just have not found our “swing of things” yet. We need to find our groove! And in these past few weeks that we have been back home, while I have wanted to write a blog post (or two or three), I have just done other things higher up on the priority list.

Though we have not consistently worked on our actual preschool curriculum since we’ve been back (another reason I haven’t blogged), we have done plenty of things that we can go right ahead and classify as preschool (which is why I actually DO have a lot to update about)! We have enjoyed some fun in the sun summer activities with friends, squeezing in some playdates and such before many of our friends start preschool at school. We of course have have been reading books and playing play dough…and really, just having a fun time playing together in our home!

And of course, JayBird turned play dough time into letter time. He loves forming letters our of everything and anything.

The main thing that JayBird has been doing lately is art! While traveling in the car on vacation something just clicked in JayBird’s brain and he began drawing all sorts of things! Where he used to just draw and paint a rainbow, he was then in the car on vacation with his dry erase board drawing pirate ships (lots of pirate ships!), and cars, and Noah’s Ark. Now he LOVES to draw! He took his new love into our home after vacation and just keeps on drawing. ..and cutting…and drawing some more. So fun to see! And now my house is adorned with artwork taped to the wall everywhere and my dining room floor is cluttered with markers and paper scraps. This new found love of drawing has taken away from his interest in reading…but that is coming back and will as he is ready to continue to learn to read.

I captured some of his drawings in the car with my cell phone…

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More drawings done after vacation…

These are of me doing yoga. :-) JayBird said the first drawing is the warrior pose and the other is my arms up in the air getting ready to stretch to the side.

Mommy, JellyBean, and JayBird on a sunny day.

A Beautiful Butterfly

Cooking with…children?? And a Surprising Lunch Creation

noreply@blogger.com (~Into Their Hearts~) — Thu, 08 Jul 2010 13:38:00 +0000

Cooking with my children is not my forte. Well, cooking in general is not my forte! It takes me so much time to plan out meals and prepare for them only to:

* have plans rearranged so we can’t stick with our meal plan (this happens a lot in our busy life and schedules with a husband in full-time ministry)

* have the meal not be liked by the kids

* have the meal not be liked by me or my husband

* a gigantic mess…and a husband stating that I just need to clean as I go, which I can’t seem to do otherwise something will get burned!

* end up frustrated in the kitchen while I cook (often with something spilled all over the floor or glass shattered everywhere…or both!)

So the idea of cooking in the kitchen with my kids “helping” is even more difficult for me. Since my natural tendency is to get frustrated in the kitchen, adding children into the cooking mix just makes it more likely that I am going to become frustrated with them and not be the mom I want to be.

As I write this out, it is making me realize that I think we need to begin cooking more together. In addition to all the normal lessons that cooking can provide children (math, science, reading, home economics), I think that cooking together will be able to help JayBird learn to cooperate and follow directions better (which is the main source of my frustration when he is helping me cook) and will help me learn more patience and self-control! I will have to be purposeful about creating some menu ideas that JayBird and JellyBean can help me with.

The Homeschool Village is discussing cooking with your children this week. As you have gathered, this is not something I regularly do or encourage with my children, but coincidentally, JayBird made his own lunch creation this week. I walked in on him creating a, um, delicious (??) butter and grape sandwich (grapes were his second choice as we were out of bananas). He was quite proud of himself and ate the WHOLE thing…and thoroughly enjoyed it! The recipe? Well…I think you can easily figure that one out on your own! :-)

What’s In The Bible? 3

noreply@blogger.com (~Into Their Hearts~) — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 18:54:00 +0000

Woohoo! I don’t enter a whole lot of contests, but this would be a fun and beneficial one to win! A Few Short Cuts is offering a give away for the video What’s In The Bible? 3. I’d love to have this for my kids! JayBird learns so quickly and remembers so much, that I already find myself looking for more to read, do, and see with him to enhance our Bible learning together. What a great addition this would be to our resources and video library, which right now only consists of Signing Time DVDs (thanks Mimi!), a couple of Veggie Tales DVDs (thanks Aunt Lisa and Aunt Laura!), and a couple of Praise Baby DVDs (thanks Freecycle!) As you can see, we just don’t put our money into videos. Though What’s In The Bible looks like a video series I would be happy to spend money on. But hey, if I can win won of their videos, even better! Check out A Few Short Cuts giveaway and video review with the link above and enter for your chance to win! (Oh, and yes, I get an entry for blogging this…thanks for reading!!)

Learning Room…or Play Room?

noreply@blogger.com (~Into Their Hearts~) — Mon, 05 Jul 2010 21:07:00 +0000

As I have mentioned before, JayBird and JellyBean really love the new learning room. They often bring toys from their bedroom into there, which is not what I intended, but is fine by me so long as we tidy up at the end. They also enjoy using the Tot School toys for open ended play fun. I try not to interrupt them during these times they are playing nicely together. Even if I have an activity or preschool oriented thing for them to do, I don't interrupt the sweet, and sometimes rare (but getting more common) times. I certainly won’t squelch their desire to play and have fun together…and maybe even learn a little something along the way (counting? colors? cooperation?)

Happy 4th of July!

noreply@blogger.com (~Into Their Hearts~) — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 19:43:00 +0000

Here is what we did in honor of the 4th of July!!

* Learned about the parts of the American flag and counted each stripe and star.

* Found what was missing on a flag printout and therefore added the stars back in using our fingers dipped in white paint.

Jelly Bean looks so enthused, doesn’t she? We tried to get her to dip her finger in the paint, but she would have nothing to do with that. She still doesn’t like to get messy..except when eating, but even then she wants to use a million napkins.

* Made firework art. It was Jaybird that remembered about the smiley face fireworks he has seen. So of course he had to add that! :-)

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* After firework art, JayBird had the idea of making a firework out of Tinker Toys. Love his creativity!

* Made an American flag cake! Mmmm!!

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Into my readers' hearts:
~ What did you do to celebrate and learn about Independence Day?
~ I found myself having a difficult time trying to share what this holiday is about with my preschooler. How do you share this day's significance with your preschooler?

Thank you God for making me!

noreply@blogger.com (~Into Their Hearts~) — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 03:17:00 +0000

We have almost completed our first full week of Heart of Dakota’s little Hands to Heaven. But for us, an HOD week will really be a week and half or so in most cases since we are going at half speed and adding in other activities. This week we sprinkled in some 4th of July activities.

We have been learning about God’s creation this week…how God created everything from nothing. And that He made you and me! Other activities included:

Learning to count by two’s (up to 10)

Learning about patterns…stripes, polka dots, plaid, checkers, floral…

He learned these patterns through Mom and Dad’s clothes then went into his own closet to find similar patterns. Here he is below being goofy as always!

Drawing his own patterns

We did some activities and songs with the letter ‘A’, which was largely taped to our floor. For JayBird, these are just fun activities as he knows all his letters and letter sounds. We have yet to see if these might be a benefit to JellyBean at her young age (not quite 2 years old yet). Certainly it at least exposes her to a world of letters. She played with JayBird making stuffed animals dance on the letter ‘A’, tracing the letter ‘A’, and having races on the letter ‘A’. Through all this, she has become quite good at saying the ‘A’ sound (“ah”). We’ll see if she catches on to ‘B’ and its sound later…or if she just thinks that all letters taped onto our floor sound like the letter ‘A’. lol

We acted out the creation of Adam and Eve. JayBird decided that he would play the part of God (hmm…), I would be Adam, and JellyBean would be Eve. JayBird, as God, pretended to pick up dust from the earth and blow it into the air forming Adam(me). He then pretended to take a rib from Adam (me) to form Eve (JellyBean). Even JellyBean enjoyed acting with us…but then she thought she needed a rib taken out of her too. LOL

Here is JayBird shouting “Thank you God for making me!”

First day of Little Hands to Heaven Preschool!

noreply@blogger.com (~Into Their Hearts~) — Sat, 26 Jun 2010 03:39:00 +0000

JayBird, with JellyBean alongside, enjoyed his first day of our preschool curriculum today. Yes…today…on a Friday. We decided to start our non-traditional schooling on a non-traditional day. We have that flexibility with homeschooling. Besides, it’s summertime. And it’s preschool. So we’re relaxed.

We are going through Heart of Dakota’s Little Hands to Heaven this year for preschool. You can read more about this on Our Curriculum page. I’m very excited about all that JayBird will learn this year in all subjects through the use of Bible stories and activities. We are starting now, mid summer, because it is HOT! So we need some fun things to do indoors. And since JayBird is ready and eager to learn, and I too am ready to start Little Hands to Heaven with him, we are ready to start!

Little Hands to Heaven will teach us math, science, literature, art, and music as it takes us chronologically through the Bible. So of course on day 1, we learned about Creation and how God created everything. The kids enjoyed the finger play song focusing on the letter ‘A’ and roaming the room as different types of animals. I’ll have to take a video of that later! In learning about how God made everything from nothing, we turned off the lights and closed our eyes to exemplify nothing and then opened them again.Then, for the art project…painting! JayBird saw that this was coming from looking at the painting icon in our guide book. He loves to do art.

We drew with white crayon on white paper and used black paint to show that God made everything out of nothing! JayBird didn’t understand what we were doing at first, but as the first picture shows, he was excited when he realized he could see his tree, flower, sun, and grass through the dark paint. JellyBean, well she was much less impressed, but she enjoys doing everything that Big Brother does so she was sure to be right there with us.

Story Time

noreply@blogger.com (~Into Their Hearts~) — Tue, 22 Jun 2010 03:14:00 +0000

JellyBean (20mos) has never been fond of reading. Whereas JayBird has loved to sit and read since he was an infant, JellyBean screams and tries to take the book out of my hands if I am reading to her or her brother. It has made it quite difficult to read and enjoy stories together.

I recently heard about a mom that used carpet squares for her wiggly kids during circle time. I thought that was a great idea! The next day I happened to be at a community garage sale and was able to purchase some carpet squares for 25 cents each! Perfect! I thought carpet squares would also work well for my active JayBird. What I didn't realize is how wonderful it would actually be for JellyBean!

As much as it can be nice to cuddle up on the couch with your kids to read a story, I have found that it just doesn't work for us...well, at least not for JellyBean. One afternoon I decided to use our carpet squares for a story time. The kids sat on the floor on their carpet squares while I sat on the couch. It definitely had the feel of a library story time and felt a little odd to be like that in my home since I was "above" the kids reading a story and not sitting cozily right next to them. But...it worked! I sang a little story time song and we read The Very Hungry Caterpillar. Having JellyBean on a carpet square below me kept her far enough away from the book that she didn't try to tear it out of my hands. And she really loves her carpet square! If she did stand up and wouldn't sit back down, I would just sing a sit down song and she would immediately sit down. She really responded to my instruction through song! And The Very Hungry Caterpillar was coincidentally the perfect book to read because there were several words that we could all say in sign language, many of which JellyBean had just learned that week! So it was very fun for us!

And now...JellyBean LOVES to read! The carpet squares were like magic in regards JellyBean and reading! She even brings books to me now and signs "book" and says "re...re". Gone are the days of her screaming and closing the book on us. She is requesting I read to her. And she happily goes to get her carpet square for story time. I'm sure one day she will like to cuddle up to read with me, but for now, having our more formal, library-like story time is what works for our family so that we ALL enjoy reading together!

Into my readers' hearts:
~ What have you done to encourage a love of reading with your little ones?

We have some exciting news for you!!

noreply@blogger.com (~Into Their Hearts~) — Fri, 18 Jun 2010 05:36:00 +0000

JayBird is sharing with everyone that "We have some exciting news for you!! I was reading Hop on Pop!" That's right...JayBird is reading!! We have been going through Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons the past two weeks. We were just going through lesson 7 and quickly combined some lessons through to the end of lesson 11. Then I asked him to get the Hop on Pop book and sure enough, he could read from it! Truly amazing since we have only been practicing our reading for two weeks! (I promise he was also excited, despite the looks of his picture here.)

JayBird has been interested in learning to read and would do very well with our lessons until the last few minutes of each lesson, even though the lessons are very short. On average, they are suppose to take 15 minutes, but could take as long as 20 minutes or as little as 10 minutes. Ours generally take 10-15 minutes depending on if we do everything within each task and how squirmy JayBird is. Each lesson is broken into 6-8 tasks. Examples of the various tasks are learning new sounds, saying things fast and slow, and rhyming. Even in just the first two lessons I could see a difference in how he would sound words out. Instead of pausing in between sounds and saying "pih-ih-guh...pihihguh?? What's that?" he learned to instead smoothly sound out "piiig...pig!"

JayBird would do great on each day's lesson until the last couple of tasks when he would then be ready to be done. But together we persevered and would finish the lesson. When doing lesson 7, some sounds were put together for the first time to form words. This was very exciting for JayBird! He wanted to go on and do more and read more words, which prompted us to combine lessons 7 through 11, which had a lot of repetition that we skimmed over (too much repetition and review for his desire) and just a few new things, like putting already learned sounds together to form new words.

It is so wonderful to see this progress so soon. Exciting for me as a mom and encouraging for JayBird as an early reader! So Hop on Pop goes down as his first book, which interestingly, is the first book his Dad ever read as an early reader too. Like father like son.

Into my readers’ hearts:

~ What was your child’s “first book”?

~ What (very) early reader books, such as Bob books, have you loved? Share your links and resources, especially if you know any free online resources!

Our Learning Room

noreply@blogger.com (~Into Their Hearts~) — Thu, 17 Jun 2010 05:53:00 +0000

After four garage sales to raise money, many coats of paint, and several trips to Ikea, the Learning Room is complete. As JayBird would say, "First it was an office. Then it was an office and a bedroom. Now it is the Learning Room!"

We made these bookshelves out of rain gutters from Lowes. They are completely customizable so you can size them exactly how you'd like. They make a great place to put books facing out so that your children can see them better.

Covers of books are much more attractive than the spines of books.

Below the bookshelves are two woven baskets to keep library books in or to easily move book around the house. Above the bookshelves is a curtain wire from Ikea to hang the kids' artwork.

The little desks are actually side tables from Ikea. They are only $7.99 and come in 8 different colors! We looked at several children's desks and decided to go with this inexpensive option that works even better for us. They can each have their separate space, which is needed right now since JellyBean is a toddler and wants to grab everything, but then we can also pull the desks out and put them together if we want a joint space. We then added children's chairs from the children's dept.

My desk (which is no longer available in white) is in the middle which, as you can tell, hides my computer when closed (and any junk and clutter that may accumulate!) It also has three spacious drawers. One drawer houses our current home school books and curriculum. The other two are not yet being utilized. The bins on the top are also from Ikea, though I can not find a link for them. We also have this corner basket organizer, however it is not up yet because I have not decided where to put it and sort of forgot about it as we designed the room and put up the bookshelves.

This is JellyBean's Tot School cubby area from Target which hold her Tot Trays. Tot Trays hold fun activities that toddlers can do on their own or with others. These activities expose tots to early learning skills in a fun way. They can easily take a tray down all by themselves, do the activity, and ideally they learn to then put the activity back on the tray and back into the cubby. I will rotate the activities that go in the cubbies, especially as I build up my activity stash. Activities can be anything like drawing, gluing, stacking, pouring, sorting, and so much more. Anything that teaches some sort of early learning concept or fine motor skill works! And later, activities can coordinate with learning numbers and the alphabet. Have a fun activity idea? Please share! To read more about Tot School and Tot Trays, click the linked phrases above.

Since homeschooling mamas are always interested in storage, here is a picture of my closet. A little more than half of it has shelves. I also added some plastic drawers. My closet filled up fast! I really could use even more space! I must keep pretty organized (although it is not as organized as I would like) otherwise it starts to overflow with things and then I feel like I really don’t have enough room in their! I store things in a variety ways, but mainly in storage totes or in cardboard magazine files.

Now this wall, although it looks quite barren, has a pretty neat function. Did you notice my kid's "names" on there? The wall is magnetic! This is so much fun for all of us! JayBird enjoys spelling out words with magnetic letters. JellyBean enjoys forcefully pushing them off the wall. (She's sort of in a destructive mode these days.) It is only magnetic half way up the wall. I will probably hang learning posters on the upper half as needed.

I have even more pockets of storage hanging on our door. Not all of the pockets are in use yet, but I am sure I will find things for to occupy them. This happened to be on clearance at Joann's a while back. Below is our calendar purchased from the Dollar Tree. It is a good starter calendar, but I don't think it will hold up very well. I'm already in the market for a more durable one.

We are so happy about this room! In fact, it is my favorite room in the house because it is so bright! The intention of this room is to be a learning room and not a play room, although I can't seem to keep the kids out of it! I often find toys from their bedroom have wandered in. The room definitely has the new and fresh feel to it for them. We all end up spending a lot of time in this room, whether it is for focused learning ("school") time or for learning through lots of play.

Now we all know...looks can be deceiving! Our Learning Room might make me seem creative and such, but really, I can't take the credit. My inspiration came from another home schooling mama's Reading Room. She was my inspiration and now I have a truly inspiring room! I just love it in there with the bright colors. And thankfully, so do the kids!

Into my readers' hearts:
~ Do you have any Tot School activity ideas to share?
~ Do you have a calendar that you love to use with your children to teach them the month, days, etc? If so, send me a link if it can be purchased online!
~ Do you have a designated "school room" or area? Feel free to share information about what is working for you or share a link to your blog with pictures of your school room.

Ready to Learn!

noreply@blogger.com (~Into Their Hearts~) — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 19:03:00 +0000

"Mom...let's learn!"

"When are we going to learn?"

"Mom, let's go learn in the Learning Room."

These have all been comments from JayBird (age 4) in the last couple of weeks since we have finished the formation of our "Learning Room". He is obviously excited about it...and so am I! JayBird will eagerly share with others that "First it was an office. Then it was an office and a bedroom. And now it is the Learning Room! We are going to LEARN stuff in the Learning Room!"

I'm so glad that JayBird is excited to learn. What he doesn't realize though, is that he is learning all the time, whether in the Learning Room or not. It's like sneaking in veggies. I still serve vegetables with our meal at the dinner table as normal but I also sneak veggies into other unsuspecting places. You know, like adding pureed red pepper to spaghetti sauce or zucchini into scrambled eggs or muffins. Or even spinach into brownies! You do know what I'm talking about, right? (Well if not, then you should try it sometime! Your kids will never know!) So just like I sneak veggies into my kids' food, I also sneak learning opportunities into so much of what we do. Although, it isn't really sneaking because JayBird loves to learn! So I don't have to be sneaky about it. Now we also just happen to have a beautiful space for some of our learning to occur, though we are undoubtedly using the rest of our home, our yard, and the whole world around us to learn every day...with everything we do....everywhere we go. We turn many opportunities into a learning opportunity. But for those more planned, focused times of learning (like when serving vegetables at the dinner table in all their full glory) we now have our Learning Room. It is done just in time to start our Little Hearts to Heaven (from Heart of Dakota) preschool curriculum. I'll share more about our Learning Room with pictures in another post soon.

Join us as we all learn together, in our Learning Room and out! Much of our focus will be on what we are learning through our Heart of Dakota preschool program as we learn phonics, math, science, art, drama, and music through Bible stories. This is mainly JayBird's preschool program, but JellyBean will be along for the ride and join right in with us as she can. Afterall, she does seem to think she is as big as her big brother (whether that is a good thing or a bad thing depends on the circumstances!) We will certainly share many other things we do in addition to our actual curriculum since learning continues to happen all around us. Please let us know that you are here, learning along side us! Send us a comment here and there. Share your ideas with us! Let us all learn together and inspire one another!