Thanksgiving Wrap Up

We took a few days off last week to rest and enjoy a little holiday, but yesterday and today we were back in school mode full force.

I wanted to use up all the Thanksgiving printables I'd been collecting, so we did lots of themed worksheets. 

Thanksgiving subtraction problems made math a lot more interesting and gave us much-needed practice writing numbers. 

We practiced writing letters with qtip paintings themed to the holiday. 

Jack enjoyed painting with qtips too. 

We cut out pumpkins and did some pumpkin measuring to see how many pumpkins long thing like a pencil, crayon, paper clip, and finger are. This was one of Peyton's favorites. 

I got a foam puzzle of the United States that we've done about five times the last two days because Peyton loves it so much. 

This is the counting game we usually play with Pom Poms, only with paper lips because we misplaced the Poms that day. 

I made a Feelings Face for us to practice talking about feelings. We've had a lot of fun making different faces. All the pieces rotate and the cheeks flip to have tears on the other side. 

Here we wrote big numbers, taped them to the floor, and played grasshopper jumping on numbers as I called them out. To make it more interesting I later had him walk like different animals from one number to another. 

We built a block train and I would line up letters with one missing in alphabetical order. Peyton found the missing letters to complete the train cars.

And these are our shape penguins! We have some penguin themed activities the next couple days before we go into full out Christmas, so this got us started. I cut out the pieces and Peyton matched the shapes and glued them down.

We will do lots of Christmas activities throughout December so be prepared for holiday overload. 

Thankfulness and Trains

We had a few days off so Peyton was anxious to get back to it and begging for a full day of activities. 

We worked on R, S, and T. First we did dot pages. 

Then we made the letters out of train tracks and had the trains follow the path to write them. 

R was the trickiest one but we did all three. Jack had some fun with the train tracks too. 

 Then we made sticker pages for R and S. We did T a couple weeks ago. 

We do lots with letters and not as much with math, so today I tried to include lots of counting and math today to make things more balanced. 

This is a very simple counting game where you roll the dice and get Pompoms for the number you rolled. The first person to reach ten wins. It's short and simple but gives lots of chances to count, add, and even subtract. "You need ten but you have six, so how many empty spaces are left?"  He always impresses me with how much he knows without going back to the board and counting. 

Thanks to our crazy schedule, we're celebrating Thanksgiving tomorrow. So today we made a shopping list for the foods we'll need. Peyton helped me think of dishes and wrote a list. 

Our story time hit on Thanksgiving too talking about being thankful. 

Peyton's been begging to make a hopscotch court for ages so today he wrote out the numbers for me and we made one on the floor. 

He counted and jumped on it for a long time, and Jack even got in on the fun. 

We worked with a new rhyming family using the flash cards I made last week and wrote a list of rhyming words. 

Finally we did an alphabet matching game putting the pictures next to the letters. 

Tomorrow is our Thanksgiving so come back for lots more activities and fun! Peyton still isn't satisfied with today since he's pulling out a number puzzle as I type and teaching Jack to count so we may have more from this evening to share too!

Cleaning and Crafts

We honestly spent most of the day trying to get on top of chores before our weekend, but I tried to make it as educational as possible and at the end of the day Peyton was begging for more activities so we had a fun evening.

Practicing sorting with socks!

Sorting googly eyes. 

 Making a ribbon turkey! Lots of practice with counting and colors! He's a big fan of green so it's a green turkey with green eyes. 

Peyton worked on reading with his Hot Dots books. 

And we finished the day with some worksheets. Brushed up on B and C. 

We also wrote a list for Santa, did lots of reading, and learned about hygiene with Barney. I don't usually consider TV too educational but Peyton came and quizzed me on dental health afterwards so he got something out of Jack's new favorite character. 

Rhyming and Thanksgiving

Today involved lots of life skills since the kids "helped" me put away laundry, clean a clogged dishwasher pipe, and bandage up a cut toe. But we fit in some organized activities too!

We made flash cards for word families and practiced reading and making rhyming words. Peyton also wrote out lists of rhyming words. 

We made a toilet paper roll turkey. 

And we practiced patterns making this placemat. 

Peyton also wanted to work on same and different, so we did several pages in this workbook. 

Add in lots of story time, counting, and building (shapes, sizes, and positioning practice) and we had a pretty good day!

Thankful Days

We've had some slower days activity wise, but still lots of fun and endless reading, talking, spelling, and asking questions. Here's what we did today. 

Practicing letters with qtips and paint. We have several Thanksgiving themed sheets. 

Then we headed to the park to meet up with some friends. We got to feed ducks, watch turtles, play in sand, and run and run and run. 

This has been an ongoing science experiment. We put some beans in a plastic bag with a damp paper towel. They sprouted big time. Peytons a little unsure about it all though. 

Finally we made a thankful tree and Peyton told me all the things he's thankful for. Afterward he spent a lot of time looking at the tree and practicing reading the leaves. 

All About Thanksgiving

Yesterday we read a great book about where food comes from, so today we were able to follow up on that while continuing the Thanksgiving theme by sorting play food into piles according to whether or not it was something the pilgrims could have had, or whether it was a processed food that we only have today.

Sorting play foods

Once we had our food sorted out, Peyton wanted to play grocery store. Instead of setting up a modern grocery store, we talked about how Native Americans used wampum and used our own collection of seashells as play money. We practiced counting out enough wampum to buy different food items and got to work in addition and subtraction as well.

Counting out wampum.

Next we discussed Native American sand paintings. We pretended we didn't feel very well after we ate all the food we traded for, so we needed a healer. Since we don't have sand, we made out version of sand paintings with glitter. 

Glitter paintings

In preparation for our own Thanksgiving feast, our next activity was to practice setting the table. I drew a sample place mat that we could line up his play food pieces with.

Practicing place settings

Then he set up place settings without the mat for himself and Jack. Jack was thrilled.

His outfit changed, but this is just later in the day (we found clearance clothes at Target, and he liked them so much he wanted to wear them the rest of the day). We brushed up on our numbers a bit and did worksheets for 2, 3, and 4.

Number worksheets

Meanwhile Jack had a blast coloring.

Keeping with our Thanksgiving theme, we did Thanksgiving addition sheets.

Then we practiced reading comprehension with this great little story. He had to listen to the short story and answer the questions about it. He also got to practice reading. I read the questions for him, but he read the answer choices.

Reading comprehension

Then we went out and burned off some energy with a bubble walk. Who doesn't love a bubble walk?

Bubble walk!

T is for Thanksgiving and Trains

We had a really big day today with lots of fun. Since it's already Christmas at the Magic Kingdom, I figured we might as well get a jump on learning about Thanksgiving. We did several Thanksgiving songs and finger plays this morning and ended up singing one in particular all day long. We'll keep practicing and maybe Peyton will have a live performance to share later in the week.

We built a pilgrim village with Lincoln Logs. (It was later demolished by a tornado...we happened to talk about tornadoes in the car yesterday and it was apparently still fresh in Peyton's head.)

Next we practiced playing (oatmeal container) drums like the Native Americans. Peyton and I went back and forth copying each other's patterns. Jack was just happy to bang on a drum.

Playing the drums

We made an awesome turkey craft using coffee filters and Jack had lots of fun making his own. You color the filters with markers then dip them gently in water so you can watch the colors bleed. They were dry in a couple hours and ready to become turkey feathers.

While I was working on lunch, Peyton practiced numbers and counting on ABC Mouse. We have a free trial for now, but he really likes it so it may be something with stick with for this year at least.

Computer time

Since Thanksgiving and turkey have a common letter, we did our letter T page today. Peyton kept wanting to add stickers for words that had T in the middle or end as well, but I got him to stick to those that start with T or else our book is going to get pretty confusing!

Turtle, tiger, turkey, tree, tent, truck, "T", trumpet, treasure

My favorite part of this activity was when we found a page of Thanksgiving stickers. Peyton recognized the Mayflower, the pilgrims, and the pilgrim's houses. He was so excited he said "These tell the story we're learning!"

Since Peyton loves trains and it also starts with "T", we did some train activities today, too. We read these books and then Peyton brought me the pieces to help him make a train. The design was entirely his. I just helped tape. 

After reading the books, Peyton reminded me to get out our story cube and answer a question, so that's a big hit.

Peyton also made an oil car for his train. He asked me to take this picture. I asked him why the train wasn't pulling the oil car behind it and he said it's shunting the oil car instead.