Another Preschool Printable Site!

I found this great Preschool Printable Worksheet site today! It actually lists stuff for several grades! Check it out!!!

http://www.education.com/worksheets/preschool/

Recognition!!

I just wanted to quickly post that I have fallen in LOVE with the following 2 sites:

Confessions of a Homeschooler

Home Grown Hearts

I'm getting a LOT of ideas if not ALL of them from the Confessions of a Homeschooler site....all of my "Learning the Alphabet" stuff. This site is soooooo well set up for teaching the Alphabet that you really don't need to hunt around for multiple sites to teach your child the basics. She uses tons of "Themed" activities for her lessons and has links to everything that you could possibly want to print off or purchase!!! I can't say enough about this site!!!

I also LOVE the Home Grown Hearts site!! I've found soooooooo many great printables there! I think that the confessions site also uses a lot of printables from there and will link you to the this site when necessary.

Both of the women who have created these 2 sites have put sooooo much time and effort into their blogs/sites and I just wanted to let each of you know that so that you too can go there to find a lot of inspiration!!!

As I do various activities with Creston, I will post pictures of what we've done, but since most of the things we'll be doing will be coming from these 2 sites, I won't post the links to everything. That's just toooo much "linking up" for me to do. Just please remember to go to these sites to find the great ideas that I'm using and as I do find other great sites to utilize, I'll post those links!

I've got both sites in my "favorites" section on my sidebar! (along with a few other great sites that I've found!!) You can get to any of them easily!!!

Thanks for looking and if any of you find great sites, please pass them along to me!!!

What we've been up to!

O.k.!!! I had mentioned that we were going to work on the color Gray. This was one of the worksheets that allowed Creston to see the color gray and to pick out the pictures of things that were gray.

He glued the 2 things that were NOT gray onto the back of the worksheet.

This is the "Letter A" folder that I have all of the activities for him that deal with the Letter "A". He really seems to be getting A! Hopefully he'll take to the rest of the letters this way! I have no complaints so far!

Here are all of the activities that are in his "A" folder. I'll keep everything and then have most of it for when I start to teach Mackie!

I've been having Creston work on the spelling of his name. I created these word documents that have his name on them....I changed the color of the ink to a light gray so that he could still see the letters, but still color over them to draw his name himself!
This has worked rather well so far! I printed off SEVERAL of these pages and will have him do a couple each day until he can spell his name and recognize it and each of the letters!

Today, after he attempted his name several times, he got brave and tried to write it himself in-between each word! He was alllll about making his letters BIG! We've also been working with him on the direction to start his letters when writing them. He likes to start from the bottom up, and I've been working on getting him to start from the top down.
Here was his best attempt (with enough room to do it in!)

Here is a pile of stuff that we'll be working on next so he can learn the letter "B"! Lots of neat activities to work on!!! I also found a printable for numbers, so we'll start working on recognizing the number 1.

His "B" folder!

And HERE are several boards of cardboard that I glued sheets of "workbox" id tags on to. I saw these and thought that these would make good Memory games! There's pictures and numbers and each card has different colors or movie characters on them. I just glued them to some thick cardboard and then......

....cut them all up into squares and seperated them into little workable piles that Creston can start to play with! I think that he'll like this game and there's several to switch between, so he shouldn't get bored toooo soon!!! I think this would also be a good way to start showing him 2 or 3 letter words once he gets his Alphabet down pat.

O.k.! So..........that's what we've been doing this last week!!!!! Hope that this next week goes as smoothly! I think we may work some on things this weekend. Mark has to work tomorrow, and to Creston, it's all fun anyway! I'd like to go through 2 letters a week instead of just one, but we'll have to see how he does with them!

Color Worksheets!

If you're working with your child to recognize colors, this is a neat little activity! Creston has all of his basic colors down pretty well....except for Gray! So I'm printing off the Gray worksheets and will go over this with him.

http://www.dltk-teach.com/colors/worksheets.htm

This and that...

After asking Mark today to help me teach Creston a few things in his workbook that I couldn't figure out how to get him to understand.....and after Mark tried, but couldn't get him to understand it either, we had a little talk (which resulted in ME flopping my head onto my arms on the dining room table and sighing loudly...) and decided that I should focus on the Alphabet and only the Alphabet until he got that down pat. Then Mark also said that I should also focus on having Creston work on his name......tracing the letters...spelling his name.....ect.

I had already decided to work mainly on the Alphabet and had found some activities to focus on, so that wasn't such an up-roar for us to decide to stay away from more advanced things. I just sometimes get frustrated that I'm not able to explain things correctly enough to allow Creston to "Get it" and it makes me sad.

However, we sat down with the following "A" tracing worksheet and he did pretty good with that!

Then, I had found this little printable that showed Upper ad Lower-case "A's" and had Vreston match the big and little a's to the page. He did this really well.

All was going good until the very end when I said "What letter is this again?" and he said "R!!!!" and looked so pleased with himself............head on table again......siiiiiiiiggggghhhhhhh.......

"We're done for the day, Creston....you can go play now....."

All about the Alphabet

I have found several really great sites for helping to teach your child about the alphabet.
Here are a few and I will be adding more to this post later!!!

Lesson Pathways ~ http://www.lessonpathways.com/
This is a great site that I was able to get in on when they asked for users to check their site out and provide feedback for a free year of use! I believe that you can join up for a free trial, but I'm not sure how long it is! On this site, you can "build" learning paths for all of your children (even Pre-K!) I've got a learning path set up for Both of the boys dealing with the Alphabet and numbers 1-10. They've got a complete listing of subjects for Kindergarten level through 5th grade. I have not yet looked to see if they offer the higher grades or not. I like this site so far!!! However, if you're wanting something that you can do for free.....you can try it for free and print off everything that you think that you will need for your child and go from there!

Lesson Pathways Subscription Plan Monthly Subscription ~ $12.95/month
6 Month Subscription ~ $59.00/6 months
12 Month Subscription ~ $99.00/12 months
24 Month Subscription ~ $149.00/24 months

I will post several useful items from Lesson Pathways and the links to some of the materials for those of you who wish to see if it's right for you or helpful!

Prep. for introducing the Alphabet ~ http://www.letteroftheweek.com/Preparatory.html


The Alphabet Song ~ http://www.hello-world.com/English/song/alphabet.php
The song is sung while showing the letters on your computer screen! There is also another Alphabet song here at Starfall... http://www.starfall.com/n/level-k/song-abcs/play.htm?f this one kinda scared me, though, as I feel it would probably confuse smaller kids that haven't yet figured out the basics of hearing the Alphabet Song...

Introducing the Alphabet ~ http://www.letteroftheweek.com/alphabet_intro_week.html#alphabet%20songs
This shows several different activities that can be used to help introduce the Alphabet to your child!

Alphabet Flashcards ~ http://abcteach.com/directory/basics/abc_activities/az_flashcards/
(print them onto photo paper for the x-tra thickness and glue them to colored cardstock for variety and even more thinkness)

Alphabet Tracking Sheet ~ http://talibiddeenjr.amanahwebs.com/downloads/la_english_alphabet_Alphabet%20Tracking%20Sheet.pdf
(this allows you to keep track of your child's progress in alphabet recognition by date!)

Make an Alphabet Book ~ http://www.education.com/activity/article/letterbook_preschool/
Take 26 pages and paste/glue/color things that start with that letter, then make the pages into a book!!!

Printable Alphabet Coloring Pages ~ http://www.preschoolcoloringbook.com/color/cpletter.shtml
There are severla different kinds to print off for your little person!!!

Alphabet Catepillars ~ http://www.dltk-kids.com/crafts/insects/mcaterpillar-letters.htm
Print off the B&W or color catepillar letters and make your own ABC bug or your child's name!

Build the Alphabet Activity on the Computer ~ http://www.literacycenter.net/parents_teacher/letter_center.php#
Here, your child uses the computer mouse to drag and drop different shapes onto the actual letters of the alphabet! This might be for older pre-schoolers.....not sure yet how Creston will do with this one!

Other Alphabet Sites with Great ideas! ~ http://www.dltk-teach.com/alphabuddies/links/a.htm

Creston Tied his SHOE!!!!!

I've been wanting to teach Creston to tie his shoe.....and last week, we talked about putting on his shoes, pulling the tongue of his shoe up so that it woudn't bunch up around his toes, and then I showed him how to pull the laces tight. Then I left it alone!!!

Today, I sat down with him and just slowly showed him how to make a loop and wrap the other lace around the loop, poke it though the hole, and then pull both loops tight! He did it!!! (With a little help from me, but he did it!!!)

We'll be practicing this a lot and he'll be an old pro in no time!!!!GOOD JOB, CRESTON!!!!