Big Energy-Little Learners...Can I do it all?

The Elf on The Shelf continued to bring us giggles and gifts for the month of December.  Week 2   Day 7- Fizban was found in the bathroom with a small message written on the mirror with toothpaste.  Day 8 - With a busy month we were a bit late getting decorations up so Fizban helped get us started by initiating decorating.        Day 9- We woke to Fizban reaching for the star. Crooked star that is.  Day 10 - The sneaky Elf made it onto the children's bedroom to watch over them as they slept.  Day 11 - Fizban was at play this morning sack racing with his stuffed friends.  Day 12 - Our friendly family elf brought gifts! Stickers for Little Dragon and gems for Doll Dragon. The Dragons woke before me on this weekend morning to find their stickers.  They promptly got to using them.  In their excitement they played with Fizban, which was revealed to me by the dragons them...

This was a wonderful activity we did together, dragons of all ages.   Doll Dragon brought home the activity and it went very well with our weekly book. I made copies of the worksheet she brought home so we could all make our own turkeys.  The idea was to disguise the turkey so when it came to be Thanksgiving Day the turkey could not be found.  We brainstormed ideas that could hide a turkey the best.  I set out the craft supplies felt scissors glue tape pom poms pipe cleaner glitter markers I left this activity very open.  I tried to help when the dragons would get off topic and grab for something that didn't match their idea or have them think about how they were going to use the tool they were grabbing.  After taking a minute to think about it they would either use it or put it back.   Doll Dragons disguise kept jumping between 3 ideas so she had things that matched all of her ideas.  When the crafting was all finishe...

Our fun family Elf on the Shelf, Fizban,  is back for another December month of fun!  The dragons were thrilled to see him back this year. He has already brought a sweet treat and silliness in only 6 days.  Week 1 with Fizban Day 1 he came back with his Elf on the Shelf book to give us a reminder of why he was here and what Santa's rules are.  Doll Dragon had left Twilight out that night with her hair all in a mess so Fizban helped tidy up her hair. :) Day 2 Fizban was all webbed! Spider-Man got to him and stuck him to the door with his spider webs.   Little Dragon was tickled the next morning when he saw this and was bursting with questions.  'Why would Spider-Man do that?'   I asked him what he thought.  "Because Twilight is Spider-Man's honey so he was protecting her"  Who knew?  Day 3 He was in the freezer.  No picture though.  The dragons were searching all over for him and it took until early afternoo...

After reading A Turkey For Thanksgiving  we conducted a turkey race!  In the story the turkey tries running from the group so our turkeys were running to see who's turkey would get away.  The first race we rolled a die and moved that many spaces.  We used the finger movement method.  You place your finger in front of the turkey, then move/jump the turkey to the other side of you finger.  Thus 1 move.  There was counting and patience involved for this type of racing.  We played this until we had a winner.  If we rolled a 1 though we were stuck in the mud for that round.  Next we tried blowing the turkeys.   This was a much more fun way to race the turkey's.  There was much more movement for the kids.  They raced this was a few times.  Cheap, quick, and fun!  Perfect thanksgiving activity! :)

Apples are a standard representation of the first sin in the bible.  The bible doesn't actually say the fruit was an apple but for some reason that is assumed.   During our reading of Adam and Eve we used apples to demonstrate how sin affects our hearts.  We each took a bite out of the apple to represent sin We let the apple sit for a week and watched the sin rot the apple  We compared the apples This really opens up discussion.  I asked Jerry to lead this discussion and he did an awesome job!  He reviewed what each apple represented then asked which apple The Dragons would like to eat. Which one would their friends eat if they were asked to choose between the two?  Then he asked 'why wouldn't you want the second apple?' He went into a discussion about how sin can negatively affect our lives and our relationships especially with God.   Next he asked how do we fix the rotten apple?  This w...

Week 3 Letter: S Theme: snakes Number: 3 Bible story: Adam and Eve Bible verse: "Seek first His kingdom and His righteousness"  -Matthew 6:33 I forgot to hide the letter and number magnet at the beginning of the week but remembered on Wednesday and was still able to hide it in a couple different places.   Start There was a big letter S out of masking tape on the preschool floor this week.  We used this for gross motor skills at the beginning of our days.  The boys stomped, slithered, slid, skipped, slapped, shook, slammed, and slowly made their way along the tape.  Bible Day 1:  Moving on from creation is the story of the Garden of Eden.  We didn't take a ton of time for this story, just 1 day.    Activity: Make your own garden Day 2: We moved onto our main focus story, Snake in the Garden.   Activity: Sin Apple Science   Day 3: Read Snake in the Garden again this time talking mo...

I am planning for a 5 day lesson plan.  These links only document 4 days.  If I find the time I will try to upload the 5th days lesson. I have them handwritten in my binder right now. There is an activity book I am using for the lesson plan as well that has handwriting practice in it and a few activity pages that correlate to the theme.  This can be easily substituted for any other handwriting activity or activity book that has A-Z and 1-10 practice in it. Week 9:  Letter: Review Theme: Halloween Number: Review Bible story: Review Bible verse: Review You can review my daily lesson plans here Week 9 Week 9 end In addition to the lesson plans I am creating a week folder to supplement the lessons. These I use for any down time and extra core curriculum practice. Inside this week folder:  Ziploc with M&M's and toilet paper strip of spider webs  bingo page find the spooks letter review number review letter p pumpkin which is ...