Advent Calendar Idea: Coin Recognition

The time for advent calendars is here! Can you believe it? Where does the time go! I was getting our advent calendar ready with treats and had an idea to easily incorporate coin recognition over the 25 day advent calendar time period. The total cost for this activity? A mere 25 cents. Objective? To learn the coins: penny, nickel, dime, quarter.
Inside each little cubby in our advent calendar (and next to our little treat of course!) I will place a penny. If you don't have an advent with cubbies, you can just give your child one penny every day in December until Christmas. The penny will be placed in a little canvas wallet that I will have my daughter decorate with fabric markers, but any wallet/purse/baggie will work to hold the coins. Every morning we will open the advent cubby, take out the penny, add it with any previous coins, and stamp how much money we have so far in the "My Christmas Money" book. (This book is just a stack of index cards connected with a book ring! Simple but efficient!!)

After we have counted and stamped our daily total, I will have my daughter write the number. This might take a bit since we have NEVER written numbers (and she can write just a handful of letters) but I know she will be OK. On day #5 we will introduce a nickel and she will be able to trade in her pennies for one nickel; Day #10 She will trade in five pennies for a nickel, and then the two nickels for a dime; etc. We will finish the activity by eating the advent treat. :) I am hoping the treat will act as a little motivation for her money work!

Happy Teaching and COUNTING down to Christmas!

12 Days of Christmas: Literacy Style

I love Christmas! And I love books! So of course I love Christmas books!! I wanted to do something fun with Christmas books this year for my daughter and her cousin that lives "far far away" so I came up with the idea to do the 12 days of Christmas: literacy style. I envisioned reading a different children's Christmas book for all 12 days and doing corresponding activities for each book. (I also plan on doing numbers/coins with my daughter during this time, but that is another post for another day!)

1st Step: Find 12 books

I was able to find really good deals on 12 Christmas books through Scholastic's book clubs page. While these might not be the hottest Christmas books out there, they are really cute! And 11 out of 12 of them were a dollar!

1. Jingle Bells
2. Let it Snow
3. Counting Christmas
4. I love Snow!
5. Deck the Halls
6. A Very Special Snowflake
7. Corduroy's Christmas Surprise
8. Merry Christmas, Curious George
9. The Gingerbread Man
10. The Little Red Sled
11. The Berenstain Bears and the Joy of Giving
12. The Night Before the Night Before Christmas

2nd Step: Add activities

Inserted in each book is a sticker with three corresponding activities. For example, inside the book Jingle Bells is a sticker that says "Make bell shakers to use while singing "Jingle Bells", Act out like you are riding in a one horse open sleigh, Play jingle bell tag." Prior to reading the book, I can easily glance at the list and choose an activity (or two) to do with my daughter after reading (or before reading- depending on the prior knowledge required for the activity).

I am really excited to share these Christmas stories with my daughter and not only build up our Christmas book collection, but build more memories together!! :)

Happy Teaching!!

Scholastic Book Clubs

Good news for all you homeschooling parents out there. In case you didn't know, YOU can order from scholastic book clubs! Why would anyone want to do that? You get books at exceptional deals! I recently bought 12 books for $13! I am doing a literacy 12 days of Christmas project for my daughter and her cousin and needed to get some cheap Christmas books. (I will be posting more on this later). I was not disappointed by the price, quality, or selection!

Just go to Scholastic's home page and create a teacher account. After you place your order, the books can be mailed directly to your home. As a home teacher and an enormous book fan, this site is great! Getting the paper book club forms bring back memories of my teaching days... :) but of course you can order books online without the form as well!

Happy Teaching!

My Favorite Things

I watched a little of Oprah's favorite things this afternoon. I have to admit that I was a tiny bit jealous of some of those amazing gifts! As my mind was thinking about how fun it would be to have been a part of that lucky studio audience, I had a thought.

I was once part of an audience where a selfless young woman gave me my most favorite and treasured gift. The location was a small room. The audience consisted of seven people, including my husband and I. The gift, given by the sweetest and kindest of earthly angels, was my daughter. Without the love and sacrifice of our birthmother, I would not be the mommy I am today. I would not feel the deep JOY that I know now. I am so immensely thankful for this gift.

Top that off with my sweet husband and I KNOW that I am greatly blessed.

No plane ticket to Chicago required.

happy thanksgiving :)

Easy Jingle Bell Tutu

I love Christmas! And nothing sounds like Christmas more than the jingling of bells. This year I had the idea to make my daughter a special Merry Christmas skirt to help her practice her dance moves (more on that another day) and spread the jingling sounds of this holiday season!

Here is the finished product. It was SO easy to make. And my daughter loves it- she runs around the living room in circles wearing this!

Step 1: Google "no sew tutu". Find a site that has a cute tutu (I used this site and this site, but there are SO many great tutorials out there!)

Step 2: Go to the craft store and purchase rolls of green and red tulle. I used four rolls (2 red and 2 green) because I like my tutus nice and fluffy!

Step 3: Follow the steps to make the tutu- basically just stapling (for people like me that really want NO SEW!) or sewing the elastic in a waistband about 3 inches smaller than your child's waist. After the elastic is ready, simply tie a series of knots until the skirt is as full as you like! (great site here for the basic steps in tying the tutu knots)

Step 4: Cut several ribbons twice the length of the skirt. Tie small jingle bells on to both ends. It may help to use a strong adhesive to ensure that the bell will stay on the ribbon. I just tied a double knot and it has been holding up fine. Then attach the jingle bell ribbons to various places throughout the skirt using the same knot as the tulle.

You could use this tutu for so many things- Christmas parties, family night dance performances, or just plain fun around the house!

Happy Teaching!

Two Thanksgiving Painting Activities

I love painting! (minus the set up and clean up!) Last week we did a couple of Thanksgiving painting activities. My daughter painted a turkey and a vegetable/fruit wreath. I love that she loves to paint- especially since she has very little interest in other art activities. I just wish it was more accesible!

Here are some pics of the painting:

Two painting tips: Use a paintbrush that is the same color for each of the paints you will be using. This will help your child to remember which brush goes with each color. I also love using old tin foil muffin tins for painting trays- it keeps the paint so nice and organized! (Until the paint mixing begins- and then its all a mess!!!)

Putting the turkey together...

Our wreath of food! After making this my daughter told me it sure made her hungry! :)

I would be happy to share one or both of the Thanksgiving files with anyone who is interested- just leave a commet and let me know your email!

Happy Teaching and Happy Thanksgiving!

Christmas Advent Activity Calendar

I LOVE spending hours visiting mommy/teacher websites. I really learn so much and get great ideas! One of my favorite mommy bloggers is the Activity Mom. She comes up with some amazing, educational ideas! And lucky for us she shares them with the blogging world!!

She does this darling advent calendar with her kids each year- I did some of the activities last year, and my daughter loved them! Anyway, she posted her Advent Activity Calendar for this year- go check it out!!

Merry Christmas and Happy Teaching!

Christmas card done- check!

It is so nice to have one thing done from my Christmas list! For all you bloggers- if you post your Shutterfly card on your blog or webpage, you will get a $25 gift certificate! Wahoo!

Holly Jolly Christmas Card

Shop Shutterfly.com for elegant Christmas photo cards.

View the entire collection of cards.

Thanksgiving Alphabet Dot to Dot

I recently copied this activity page from my teacher files. It is great for my daughter to review alphabet order and practice drawing those lines. I thought some of you preschooler mommys might be able to use it as well. Click here or go to the hometeacher wiki and you will find this under the holiday tab. Enjoy!

Happy Teaching!

Educational Toy Review

A little post to let you know that I have been given the chance through CSN (seriously, so nice!) to review another product. As a teacher I LOVE being able to receive an extra educational toy and check it out to see if it REALLY works, and how much learning actually takes place. My plan is to choose something that I can add to our restaurant playtime kit. (This is one of my daughter's favorite things to role play right now!) I am thinking either more Melissa and Doug food sets or a cash register.... decisions, decisions! I am leaning towards a cash register JUST because CSN has one that has educational games and supposedly counts money! I found a website that has free printable menus that I want to download and laminate- and I also want to pick up some cheap serving baskets for this kit as well.

Back to the holiday planning... I love this time of year!

And if you are interested, they have some extra tall bar stools as well!

The Bibbety Bobbety BOO! Party and Halloween!

Well, our Boo Halloween/princess party was quite a smash! We had a great time decorating trick or treat bags, playing preschool Halloween games, and going trick or treating to several classrooms at the church. My daughter agreed to wear her Cinderella costume (she decided a week before Halloween that she wanted to be a cat instead of a princess. So there was a costume change prior to trick or treating! Luckily her cat costume fit perfectly from last year!)

My favorite party moments:
1. The dessert table. It was everything I pictured in my mind- I am happy I was able to bring to life this vision of mine!

2. Reading my Boo her special Mommy-made book. This book had everything important to my daughter- and I think it will be something she can treasure!

3. Playing Bibbety Bobbety, Bibbety Bobbety, Boo! (aka Duck Duck Goose) using wands with a bunch of three year olds. It was too funny to see them run haphazardly across the room. We all got a good laugh from this game!

4. The guest party favors- simple yet went great with our theme!

5. Opening lots of pink packages with dinosaurs inside! That's our girl!
6. And most importantly, celebrating my sweet girl's birthday! I love her curiosity, love of animals (prehistoric included), her want for ME to play with her, her bubbling personality first thing in the morning, and the way she sings the "abc's" in a different order just to be silly.

Halloween side-note:
Room on the Broom is a darling Halloween book! We have a tradition of getting holiday picture books and this is a must-have for any Halloween book collection. Our other top Halloween book pick would be The Little Old Lady who wasn't Afraid of Anything. We have read both these books countless times the past month!!!

As some of you know, my daughter's birthday is on Halloween. We did all the partying/trick or treating stuff on Saturday, and Sunday was strictly my daughter's birthday. We gave her a darling cupcake bathrobe, ate sticky cinnamon rolls for breakfast, and pretend played all morning before church. Her special dinner request was chicken nuggets, corn, and applesauce (of course she decided that she wanted a different dinner after that was prepared.) My daughter saw the recipe for this "blood juice" and she knew at once she had to have this for her birthday dinner. :)