Califoregon Living

Poor ‘R’ is still sick.  He spiked fever again and is just feeling lousy.  Here is my poor little guy.  Don’t you just want to snuggle? (I am typing one handed to do just that.)

We had a short lesson today.  ‘A’ participated while ‘R’ listened from the couch.  ‘A’ was the ‘teacher’ today and gave me the directions (with alot of help :))

Fingerplay
"Jesus Wipes Your Sins Clean"

Bible story
Matthew 22:34-39
Children’s Bible: The greatest command

Spanish
‘A’ and I walked through the house and looked at items that were open and closed.  He would say ‘abierto’ for open and ‘cerrado’ for closed.

Letter Activity
‘A’ practiced writing the letter ‘w’:

Bible activity
We talked about loving God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and also loving our neighbor as ourselves.

Reading
‘A’ read Bob Book Volume 1/Book 6
New word: ‘Hid’.  The sentences were longer and they introduced the question mark.

Fingerplay
"Jesus wipes your sins clean"

Bible Story
Luke 18:15-17, 13:34-35
John 12:2-3 and Luke 21:1-4
Children’s Bible: Children came to Jesus, the people of Jerusalem made Jesus sad, Giving to the Lord

Devotional Activity
1 John 4:19 "We love Him because He first loved us.
We read a story surrounding this verse and talked about Jesus love for us.
We reviewed four other verses.

Letter Activity
The boys glued cotton balls to the letter ‘W’

Hide and Seek ‘W’.  ‘A’ founf them all without assistance, ‘R’ needed assistance with one, and missed one.

Drama
The boys acted out the Bible story.  They were Jesus and they had their stuffed animals (the children) sit on their laps.  I was the "disciples" who said Jesus was too busy for them.

The boys built the city of Jerusalem, then marched in as an arym and destroyed it.

Color Activity
My computer was down for the day, so instead of printing grpahics, I traced these from a sticker book.
My mothers helper, D, joined us for this activity.

Math Activity
I made five index cards, each with colored dots on them, ranging from 1-5.  ‘D’ helped the boys count and place the number of pennies needed for each card.  She also taught them that five pennies equals one nickel, and that one nickel equals five pennies.

Read Aloud
We just checked out four ‘Henry and Mudge’ books form the library and have read two so far.  The stories about about a boy and his very large dog.

Reading
‘A’ has been verbally sounding and spelling simple words for about a month.  Thanks to Elizabeth (mamabear2003) suggestion, I purchased the first volume of ‘Bob Books’.  There are 12.  Each book is more advanced than the previous. ‘A’ read the first five books over the course of this day.  Here are the words he can read.  He struggles with the word ‘the’, always wanting to sound it out, instead of memorizing it.:

The
(Names): Mat, Sam, Dot, Mac, Mit, Mag
Sat
On
End
Cat
Sad
O.K.
Has
A
Hat
Dog
Rag
Had
Bag
Can
Tag
Got
Sat
And
Has
Is
Mat
Sit
Hot

This was the day I had my nieces with us.  P (age 11) offered to be the teacher for the day.  She did an incredible job!  She took it on herself to gather all the material and was able to manage everything admirably!

Fingerplay
"If you believe in Jesus"
"Jesus wipes your sins clean"

Bible Story
Luke 12:22, 27-31
Mark 9:2-4, 7-8
Children’s Bible: Jesus said not to worry/God spoke from heaven

Art Activity
We taped three crayons together and the kids drew flowers with them. (A did not like the way his turned out, so his cousins helped him make one that looked like a flower)

The kids drew a dark mountain and a bright sun.  They took a cotton ball and rubbed oil on the bakc of the paper to make it transparent.

Letter activity
P taped the letter ‘V’ on the floor and the boys played cars on it.

She then introduced the letter ‘w’.  ‘A’ brainstormed words that began with the letter ‘w’ (R had fallen asleep).
‘A’: wolf, water, wow, was, what, wall, whale, would

My friend L came over (HSB friend mamabear2003) with her two kids.  They joined in on the activities.

Bible Activity
P guided the children to become "flowers".  She gave them directions, like lift your arms and faces to the sun, sway back and forth in the wind, etc.

Fingerplay
"If you believe in Jesus"

Bible story
Luke 10:38-42
Luke 11:39-42
Children’s Bible: Mary and Martha/Jesus talks to the Pharisees

Letter Activity
Hide and Seek ‘V’: ‘A’ found them all, but also circled a ‘u’/ ‘R’ missed two

The boys also practiced writing the letter ‘V’:

Math
I had the boys recited numbers 1 to 100.  The numbers circled (squared) are the ones that ‘A’ needed prompting.   ‘R’ could recite 1-29 without assistance. (He cannot recognize them, though).

Devotional activity
John 6:47 "Verily, verily, I say unto you, he that believes on me has everlasting life."
We read a story that accompanied this verse in our devotional book,  discussed everlasting life, and reviewed four previous verses.

Bible activity
We talked about how God actually owns everything.  I had them point and say items that GOd owns:
‘A’: capes, clothes, bodies, cups, pillows, stools, books, magazines
‘R’: cars, tummys, pictures, tin flutes, sunglasses

Copywork
‘A’ copied our menu for this night:

Life Skills
The boys assited placing items in the skillets and stirring.

Music
Jam session with Daddy!

Screening Overview

I just gave this screening to both boys, ages 3 and 4.  It is a 20-question research-based screening tool to be used with 4-year-olds. The score will show if a child’s pre-reading skills are weak, strong, or somewhere in between.

‘A’s score was 18 out of 20.  Your child has strong skills and is probably ready to learn how to read and write. Continue to do everything you can to reinforce those skills. All 4-year-olds enjoy and benefit from playful activities that help prepare them to read — even those who already have strong skills and plenty of experience with books and print.

‘R’s score was 16 out of 20 (better than I anticipated). Your child has strong skills and is probably ready to learn how to read and write. Continue to do everything you can to reinforce those skills. All 4-year-olds enjoy and benefit from playful activities that help prepare them to read — even those who already have strong skills and plenty of experience with books and print.

I had a mother’s helper with me today so I could work on some MOPS items.  She did the fingerplay, read the Bible stories and the math activity.

Fingerplay
"If you believe in Jesus"

Bible Story
John 3:16-18
Children’s Bible: Jesus and Nicodemus

Math Activity
I made 10 hearts.  On each heart was a cross.  I drew a cloud on one index card (heaven) and fire on another card (hell).  We shuffled the hearts and tossed them in the air.  The hearts that landed with the cross up was placed by the heaven card, and the ones without the cross was placed by the hell card.

The boys counted and I recorded the results onto a table.   We did this about five times.

Letter Activity
I drew the letter ‘V’ and the boys watercolored it in.

Bible Activity
I asked:  "How do we get to heaven?"
‘A’ responded: "By doing good stuff, then dying, then we get buried,  then go to heaven."
‘R’ chimed in: "No, we go in a tomb".
I told them that although God appreciates it when we are good and do good things, that is not how we get to heaven.  We get to heaven by believing in Jesus and accepting him as our Lord.

I asked: "What does Jesus want us to do?
‘A’ responded: "Do good stuff and not bad stuff"
‘R’ said: "By loving him and playing with him"

I asked: "What does Jesus do for us?"
‘A’ said: "He died for us and our sins, he loves eating dinner with us sometimes"
‘R’ said: "He draws pictures with us"