Week at a Glance:

• Book of the Week GIVEAWAY: Growing Frogs by Vivian French
• word work and sentence writing
• FREE printable book: Life Cycle of a Frog Blank
• FREE printable book: Life Cycle of a Frog Illustrated
• FREE printable cards: Life Cycle of a Frog Illustrated
• FREE printable cards: Life Cycle of a Frog Blank

Book of the Week GIVEAWAY with Read-Along CD : Growing Frogs by Vivian French

Why we love this book:

Read along as a little girl and her mother collect frog spawn from a pond. Bright illustrations chronicle their frog adventure. Through the story and facts on each page, children learn about the life cycle of a frog. If your children are lucky enough to collect frog spawn of their own, the book teaches how to care for the developing tadpoles.

The book is narrated by Alan Marriott, best known for the voices on the Bob the Builder T.V. show.

Life Cycle of a Frog

Alrighty, let me try to summarize all of this:

• I’ve included the Life Cycles of a Frog blank book Miss Enigma illustrated. Your children can create their own illustrations.
• Miss Enigma was so proud of the her illustrated book that she asked me to make her version available for you to print.
• If you have little ones, you may want to print the illustrated version of Life Cycles of a Frog.
• In addition, MacGyver illustrated picture cards of each stage of the frog’s life cycle.
• Little ones can simply glue the correct picture on the correct page of the blank book.
• The cards can also be cut apart and kiddos can put them in the correct order.
• I’ve also included a blank template of the picture cards, so children can create their own illustrations.

So here we go . . .

Word Work and Sentence Writing

I have started a little box of word cards with Miss Enigma. It includes family names and a few easy familiar words. I’ve selected the words from our easy reader books and her journal writing.

• First, I introduced the new word frog. I always write the word card with Miss Enigma. I do not do it before class.
• Next, I dictated the sentence, “I see a frog.”
• Miss Enigma selected the correct word cards from her known words.
• Miss Enigma used the cards to build the sentence, “I see a frog.” She always leaves a finger space between the words.
• Last she wrote the sentence, with spaces between each word and a period at the end of the sentence.

Life Cycle of a Frog Book

FREE printable book

Life Cycle of a Frog Picture Cards

Print this book FREE: Life Cycle of a Frog Blank

Print this book FREE: Life Cycle of a Frog Illustrated

Print these picture cards FREE: Life Cycle of a Frog (blank & illustrated)

We’re GIVING AWAY one copy of Growing Frogs by Vivian French Read-Along CD

To enter this contest, use the Rafflecopter to answer the following question. After you leave a comment, you can move ahead with more entries.

Answer the following question in the comments section of this post.

Have you ever grown frogs, chicks, seeds, crystals, triops . . .? How did it go?  (Or just say “Hey.” We’re flexible around here.)

The Rules:

No entries after 11:59 pm Central Time, Thursday, April 11, 2013

The winner must be a resident of The United States.

The winner will be selected at random and announced Friday, April 12, 2013. Check back to claim your prize. It might be you!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sharing this week at:

Hip Homeschool Moms

3 Boys and a Dog

Week at a Glance:

• GIVEAWAY of the Week: Story Cubes
• Story Cubes Easter Basket Stuffer
• Story Cubes Illustration Game
• Dog Loves Drawing Story Telling Inspiration
• The Coloring Book Easter Basket Recommendation

Toy Review and GIVEAWAY of the Week: Rory’s Story Cubes

Why we love Story Cubes:

When it comes to Birthday’s and Holidays, I like giving gifts that spark creativity, thinking and problem solving. Rory’s Story Cubes are a fun little Easter Basket Stuffer. And yes, they make you think. Rory’s Story Cubes include 9 cubes with simple pictures on each side. The picture cubes act as story starters. The slogan for the game says it all, “Story Cubes let your imagination roll wild!”

I love the flexibility of this game. You can pretty much make up your own rules.

Here are our simple game rules:

• Each person gets 3 cubes (we just divide the cubes equally among 3 players)
• The first player creates a title for the story.  The title becomes the theme of our story.
• The game moves from player to player.
• Each turn the player rolls a cube and uses the picture starter to add onto the story.

If you missed my review of Dog Loves Drawing last week, you really missed something fantastic. NOT my review. You missed the fabulous drawing world of Dog and his friends. When Dog receives a sketch book from his Aunt Dora he knows just what to do . . .

Dog and his illustrated friends sketch their way through a creative story telling adventure. You must meet dog. He is the newest love in my life!

During my first reading of Dog Loves Drawing, I had a story telling brainstorm . . .

Rory’s Story Cubes Illustration Game

Supplies:

• Dog Loves Drawing by Louise Yates
• Rory’s Story Cubes
• Colored Pencils or Markers
• White Paper

Step 1: Read Aloud Dog Loves Drawing by Louise Yates

• Such story telling inspiration!
• My kiddos are totally infatuated with Dog and his story telling illustrations!

Character Drawing, Chi-Chi the chick by Miss Enigma, age 6

Step 2: Main Character Drawing

• Before we began our Story Cube Illustrations, we each drew our main character.

Character Drawing, Moonshine the Spirit by MacGyver, age 9

Character Drawing, Jellybean the rabbit by Mommy

“Chi-Chi is drawing her friend Dee-Dee the Dinosaur,” Miss Enigma, age 6

Step 3: Story Cubes Illustration Game

• Each player gets 3 cubes (we just divide the cubes equally among 3 players)
• The first player rolls a cube.
• All players draw the same cube.
• Each player adds his own interpretation of the Story Cube to his story illustration.
• The second player rolls a cube.
• All players add his own interpretation of the Story Cube to his story illustration.
• The game continues going around and around until all of the cubes have been rolled and drawn.

*Out-side-of the box thinking is encouraged! The players are NOT required to draw the cube picture. Rather the players use the cube as inspiration.

• The Story Cube above looks like a “monster.” Miss Enigma decided to interpret the “monster” Story Cube as a friendly dinosaur.

Chi-Chi the Chick’s Adventure by Miss Enigma, age 6

“Chi-Chi drew her friend Dee-Dee the Dinosaur. Chi-Chi the Chick  and her friend Dee-Dee the Dinosaur went on an adventure in the forest. They were searching for food. Dee-Dee the Dinosaur is always hungry! They found a magic key hole with delicious treats hidden inside a basket. After they ate, Chi-Chi’s little friends the birds, brought funny books for Chi-Chi and Dee-Dee the Dinosaur to read. They all read their books to each other before they went to sleep.”

The Spirit’s Flight by MacGyver, age 9

“Moonshine and Midnight are spirits that roam the earth each night. They are friendly spirits who hide from the people of our earth. The spirits must return to the spirit world before daylight or they will forever be lost on the earth. If the spirits are locked out of the spirit world they have one chance to return. They must find a book hidden by a great spirit under a tree. Within the book is a magic key that the spirits must fit into a key hole at the mouth of the spirit world. Moonshine and Midnight must follow the shooting star to find the tree with the hidden book.”

Jellybean and The Great Carrot Obsession, by Mommy

Have you ever tried to write a story? It’s hard! That is why we highly treasure the story telling we find in great children’s literature. Story telling truly is a magical talent.  Story Cubes free my children’s imagination. The roll of the cubes force the players to push the ideas of the story.

All of our story telling illustrations were drawn from the exact same roll of the Story Cubes. How wonderful that they are so very different!

MacGyver is a child that is all about the facts! He enjoys when I read aloud fiction; however, he much prefers to read and write about true facts. The Story Cubes encourage him to develop a story. From time to time we use the Story Cubes as a warm-up to journal writing time. What a fun warm-up!

Life with Jeannine

Another creative Easter Basket Stuffer: The Coloring Book by Herve Tullet. Ties in nicely with the Story Cubes and Dog Loves Drawing.

We’re GIVING AWAY one set of Rory’s Story Cubes

To enter this contest, use the Rafflecopter to answer the following question. After you leave a comment, you can move ahead with more entries.

Do you have a story teller in your family?  Miss Enigma is our story teller! Hold on to your hats. She tells some wild ones. (Or just say “Hey.” We’re flexible around here.)

The Rules:

No entries after 11:59  pm Central Time, Thursday, March 14, 2013

The winner must be a resident of The United States.

The winner will be selected at random and announced Friday, March 15, 2013. Check back to claim your prize. It might be you!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sharing this week at:

Hip Homeschool Moms

Week  at a glance . . .

• Book of the Week GIVEAWAY: COUNT by Dwell Studio
• Art explorations: Winter Lace Collage with Birds
• Book making: I See Birds
• FREE printable book: Birds Up In a Tree
• FREE printable bird counters

I don’t have much free time to peruse the thumbnails at pinterest. But occasionally one jumps right out at me and sparks a little inspiration. When I stumbled upon a piece of artwork featuring a beautifully simple winter lace collage scene with a little bird, I knew I had just the book . . .

Book of the Week GIVEAWAY: COUNT by Swell Studio

Why we love this book:

At heart I am a simple person. The older I get the more I appreciate the simple things in life. The simplicity of the little book COUNT immediately tugged at my simple nature. I adore the little birds sitting up in the tree on each page. The repetitive text is a familiar pattern, “Blue bird, blue bird what do you see?” The book highlights both cardinal numbers and the corresponding number words. Don’t let these simple books scare you away. They are ideal for beginning readers and help build a core of easy, familiar words.

Winter Lace Collage Art

Supplies:

• Books COUNT by Dwell Studios and Snowballs by Lois Ehlert
• white cardstock
• assorted colored paper and tissue paper
• markers (we used sharpies)
• scissors
• glue
• lace or tulle

We couldn’t find lace fabric that we liked. The children helped me pick a roll of tulle with glittery dots like snow. The roll cost me $2.00 and the leftovers will make lovely gift bows.

Step 1: Collage Winter Background

• The kiddos used white cardstock as a sturdy snow background.
• Then they cut snow drifts into their sky backdrop.

Step 2: Draw a Simple Line Tree

• Both children added little birdseed feeders for their birds.
• How did these kids get so darn thoughtful? You’ll let a Mommy have a moment, won’t you?

Step 3: Draw, Cut and Collage Birds

• Miss Engima, age 6, chose to make many colorful little birds.
• Tweet, tweet, tweet! Cute, cute, cute!

• MacGyver, age 9, chose a different path and collaged one colorful bird.
• The book Snowballs by Lois Ehlert was one of his inspirations.
• Our bird mats from IKEA were another inspiration.
• Yes, it’s your weekly IKEA recommendation. Sorry, they have fun, quirky stuff!

Winter Lace Collage, Miss Enigma, age 6

Winter Lace Collage, MacGyver, age 9

Step 4: Glue Birds into Tree

Step 5: Glue Lace Snow onto Scene

Miss Enigma’s Winter Collage Art is already framed and proudly on display on her art shelf.

Math, Reading and Writing Extensions

FREE printable bird counters

•  Just by luck, I ran across these FREE printable birds at small things blog
• In vain, I have been searching for birds and couldn’t find what I was looking for. Yeah to lucky timing!

Book Making:

• First, Miss Enigma has a little practice run on her dry erase board.
• She is making a bird counting book inspired by the book COUNT.

•  Miss Enigma loooooooves cutting! She is cutting out her little birds for her book.

FREE printable book: Birds Up In a TREE

• FREE printable bird counters

Sample pages from FREE printable book Birds Up in a Tree

Life with Jeannine

We’re GIVING AWAY one board book copy of  COUNT by Dwell Studio

To enter this contest, use the Rafflecopter to answer the following question. After you leave a comment, you can move ahead with more entries.

To enter this contest, just answer the following question in the comments section of this post.

What is one of your simple pleasures?  (Or just say “Hey.” We’re flexible around here.)

The Rules:

One entry per person, please.

No entries after 8:00 pm Central Time, Thursday, January 24, 2013

The winner must be a resident of The United States.

The winner will be selected at random and announced Friday, January 25, 2013. Check back to claim your prize. It might be you!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Sharing this week at:

ABC and 123 Learning

Hip Homeschool Moms

3 Boys and a Dog

Book of the Week GIVEAWAY: Elephants by Steve Bloom

Why we love this book:

Have you considered giving your children an elephant for Christmas this year? Yes, a real elephant! Last year, our family adopted a baby elephant. Yes, a real elephant. Since then books about elephants catch my eye. This elephant book by Steve Bloom is an especially good nonfiction book. The fabulous photos and facts are divided into five sections teaching everything from each elephant body part to how elephants interact with other animals. The kiddos have soaked up all of the elephant information. After all if you’re going to adopt an elephant you need to know all about it!

Later this week, I’ll share a bit more about our elephant adoption and an art drawing and water color lesson based on our GIVEAWAY book Elephants. This week it’s all about an unexpected teachable moment that took us to the zoo and on a safari! Please join us . . .

Zoo Construction and Signs, Miss Enigma, kindergarten

Day 1: Let’s Build a Zoo

One morning as we began homeschool Miss Enigma announced, “Mommy I have an idea! I’m want to build a zoo and then write a book that goes like, ‘I went to the zoo. What did you see? I saw an elephant looking at me.’ I’ll do it for all of the animals in the zoo!”

We had been reading books like Brown Bear by Bill Martin Jr. and I Went Walking by Sue Williams. I was intrigued to hear her spin on these pattern books. She went off to her room to build a zoo!

When Miss Enigma completed her zoo, she invited me to take a tour. Yes, Polly Pocket and friends were already at the zoo taking a tour. I decided to make the most of this teachable moment,

• “How would you like signs for your zoo? You can tell me the animals and I’ll write the signs for you.”
• As I made the signs, we listened to the beginning letter sounds.
• That was it for Day 1. What a fun day of planning, construction, letter sounds and writing!

I Went On a Safari Book, Miss Enigma, kindergarten

Day 2: I Went On a Safari Book

• First, we established the pattern for the book: On safari I saw a __________.
• Next, Miss Enigma selected an animal, including the name card, from her zoo.
• She used the name cards to independently write the animal names.
• She studied each animal carefully and used a black sharpie marker to draw an outline.
• We only did one or two pages a day.

I Went on Safari book, Miss Enigma, kindergarten

Page 1: On safari I saw a lion sleeping.

• We used interactive writing to write the book together.
• I used a black marker for writing and Miss Enigma selected a color marker for her writing.
• On page one, she copied the word lion from her animal card and wrote the letter s at he beginning of sleeping.

I Went on Safari book, Miss Enigma, kindergarten

Page 2: On safari I saw a tiger fighting.

• You can see that on page 2, Miss Enigma took on a little bit more of the writing.

 I Went on Safari book, Miss Enigma, kindergarten

 Page 4: On safari I saw a hippopotamus.

• By the fourth page, Miss Enigma wanted to do the writing all by herself!
• We can see the progress from interactive writing to independent writing.
• Yes, there are mistakes. Children need the freedom to independently have-a-go at writing.

At the other end of the table the teachable moment continues. . .

While Miss Enigma was busy building her zoo, MacGyver came up with his own zoo book idea,

• “Mommy, during journal time can I make a book for Miss Enigma? I want to make a pattern book about her zoo that she can read.”
• Since we had been busy, busy, busy learning about the American Revolution and the presidential election, I thought it was time for a fun writing activity!
• MacGyver headed to our home library to collect books about zoo animals.

I Went to the Zoo book, MacGyver, age 9

• Each page of MacGyver’s book includes a picture clue . . .

• When you turn the page the animal is revealed.
• Can you guess what you’ll find on the next page?
• Did you guess a butterfly?

What began as a whim by a kindergartner turned into a week of engaged learning. One thing I’ve learned about Mommies and teachers is we like to plan and most of us like to be in control! While it’s good to be organized, it’s also good to follow our children. Their natural curiosity and creativity offer us endless teachable moments!

Life with Jeannine

We’re GIVING AWAY Elephants by Steve Bloom

To enter this contest, use the Rafflecopter to answer the following question. After you leave a comment, you can move ahead with more entries. Please leave a comment letting us know that you pinned.

What unique gift do you have on your Christmas list this year? A baby elephant?  (Or just say “Hey.” We’re flexible around here.)

The Rules:

The winner must be a resident of The United States.

The winner will be selected at random and announced Friday, November 29, 2012. Check back to claim your prize. It might be you!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

We also have a Zoomorphs Christmas Toy Review and GIVEAWAY Your children will love these interchangeable animal pieces. Come take a peek and enter the GIVEAWAY!

Sharing this week at:

ABC and 123 Learning

Hey Mommy, Chocolate Milk

Hip Homeschool Moms

Book of the Week GIVEAWAY: ME I AM by Jack Prelutsky

We introduced ME I AM yesterday in Joyce’s post: Tips on How to Start and Organize Preschool Portfolios. Yes, we are GIVING AWAY two copies this week. Increase your chances and enter on both posts this week. Leave a comment here and then head back to yesterday’s post to enter again.

Why we love this book: (In case you missed it yesterday)

In celebration of all preschoolers and their unique selves, we like to begin the school year with an All About Me unit. It’s a wonderful way to highlight how we are all alike and all different and how each of us are perfectly made! Me I Am is written in poetry form with repetitive text and rhyming patterns. It shows how different children have unique thoughts, feelings and interests.

Preschool Self Portrait, age 4

Yesterday, Joyce shared preschool portfolios and a lesson on self portraits done in a preschool setting.

Self Portrait, Miss Enigma, age 5

Today I’m taking those portraits one step further with a writing lesson for Kindergarten and First Grade. Many preschoolers are also ready to experiment with writing. You just have to know your children and follow their lead. This is a lesson that is easily adapted to both the homeschool and classroom setting.

Self Portrait Writing Lesson

Kindergarten and First Grade

Supplies:

• ME I AM! by Jack Prelutsky
• white paper
• markers
• small sentence strips cut from 8.5  x 11 paper
• scissors
• small dry erase board optional

Step 1: Read Aloud ME I AM! by Jack Prelutsky

• Invite the children to share the special things they enjoy doing.
• After sharing, explain to the children that they will draw a picture of themselves doing one of their favorite things.
• I knew for certain that Miss Enigma would draw a picture of herself playing with our dog Shadow! I was certain!
• Wrong again. She insisted that she wanted to draw a picture of herself saving a bird like the child in the book.
• Mommy: “But you love playing with Shadow. This is a picture about you and what you love not a picture about the book.”
• Miss Enigma: “I love birds and I want to save a bird. I’m going to draw me with a bird.”
• Mommy: “Great!”
• Why do I bother making assumptions?! When will I learn this lesson?!

Step 2: Cut Apart Sentence Lesson (steps 2 and 3 are interchangeable)

• objectives: letter formation, letter sounds, core words, name, left to right, word spacing, period
• I told Miss Engima we were going to write the sentence: I am ______.
• Miss Enigma wrote the word “I” on her sentence strip.
• On the dry erase board, we listened to the 2 letter sounds in “am“.
• The sound boxes help children put the letter sounds in the correct order.
• On the dry erase board, we had a quick lesson on letter formation.
• I could feel Miss Enigma getting overwhelmed so I wrote the word “am” for her on her strip.
• Miss Enigma wrote her name independently on her sentence strip.
• I cut the strip apart into 3 words.
• Miss Enigma glued the words onto the bottom of her paper in correct order, leaving a finger space between each word.
• This lesson took 5 -10 minutes.

First Grade Adaptation

• Children can write the sentence: I like to _____________.
• This would be an excellent journal entry mini-lesson.
• Journal Writing with First Graders: advanced sound boxes and sentence writing.

Step 3: Draw Self Portrait (steps 2 and 3 are interchangeable)

• I gave Miss Enigma a mirror.
• We discussed the shape of her face and the color of her hair, eyes and skin.
• Miss Enigma drew the outline with a black sharpie.
• I have previously modeled how to draw with a black sharpie.

• Last, she colored in her drawing with markers.

Step 4: Share and Celebrate!

• Display on a bulletin board as Joyce highlighted yesterday.
• Miss Enigma shared with MacGyver, our neighbor, Aunt Joyce, Alyssa, Daddy, Grandma, Grandpa . . .
• Yep, she was proud!
• I will add this drawing to her portfolio to mark the beginning of kindergarten.

Life with Jeannine

We’re GIVING AWAY one copy of  ME I AM by Jack Perlutsky.

To enter this contest, just answer the following question in the comments section of this post.

Share something that interest you. What do you like to do? Finish the sentence: I like  _________. (Or just say “Hey.” We’re flexible around here.)

The Rules:

One entry per person, please.

No entries after 8:00 pm Central Time, Sunday, September 16, 2012

The winner must be a resident of The United States.

The winner will be selected at random and announced Monday, September 17, 2012. Check back to claim your prize. It might be you!

Sharing this week at:

Hip Homeschool Moms

mama smiles