Thursday, October 15, 2015

Preschool - Jonah - Part 1

One of Ella's absolute favorite stories is Jonah, so I knew this week in preschool was going to be a huge hit. Every single time I sit to read the Bible with her, on matter the story we studying or the Bible we are using, she gives you about 1 minute before she asks you to read her Jonah.

Our story, and again, flannel graph characters from Keeping Life Creative. She has also been watching our Veggie Tales Jonah video after nap. She loves it and giggles every time we see Jonah riding a camel. :)

Putting Jonah in the belly of the whale.
Letter matching activity - the upper case letters are printed on the whales, in alphabetic order and there are coordinating hearts with each lower case letter. She loved the activity and had me save it on the table so "Daddy see when he home at dinner?" [Resource from Mrs. Home Economist]


Ella, and I'm sure every toddler on the planet, loves clothes pins - so this counting activity was right up her alley. She had to count the numbers of sea creatures on each card, then select the correct corresponding number and use the clothes pin and attach it to the right number. [I bought 3 packs of clothes pins at the beginning of the year at the dollar store, they are a life saver]. [Resource from 3 Dinosaurs Ocean Pack.]


This "Animal Race" game is also from Mrs. Home Economist. Ella and I took turns rolling a die, then she would tell me what number we rolled (she is actually very good at quickly determining the number of dots on the upside of the die from all the times we have played Cooties together.) and then cover up that animal. Naturally, we turned this into snack time - we covered up the rolled animal with a dollar store version of "Goldfish snacks" -- these ones are whales!





We are reading the learning about ocean life this week in our library books. Here are some of them. I really really loved the Eric Carle book, 10 Little Rubber Ducks, oh it was just so cute - probably my new favorite of all of his books.



After reading through this book on coral reefs Ella kept saying "Oh, interesting" as she walked around the house -- I had very little knowledge on coral reefs and basically just kept reading it for my own knowledge :)
On Wednesday both of the girls woke up with runny noses and extra whinny attitudes....so we just stuck to some file folder games that I got at my best-ever yardsale day. I got all of these for $1 -- thank you Lord for the blessing!




Sometimes you just need a giant umbrella for your pictures.... :)



Wednesday, October 14, 2015

Fall Living Treasures Trip with Friends

Last week we took advantage of the beautiful weather and went to Living Treasures with our friends from small group. It was a gorgeous day, especially for the fall, but cool enough that the animals were more active - most notably the lions, porcupines, and cattle. The highland cattle were doing their best to repopulate the earth, but luckily Ella doesn't like them so just cruised right past. #win

Ella loved having her buddy Landon along with us, but seriously wanted to hold his hand. I don't think I've said "He doesn't want to hold hands, sweetie" so much in my life...they were cute together, though. My favorite was that they would take each others carrots from their buckets and then offer them back to each other. "Here, I stole your carrot, want it?" :)

The lions were actually being a little intimating - the girl lion barely took her eyes off the neighboring zebra...she was looking for lunch. And then the boy lion (you can tell I talk to a 2-year old most of the day) was roaring. We have heard him do this before, but it doesn't loose it's awesomeness. 


I'm trying to be better about getting Evie into pictures.



The kiddos loved the kangaroos. I know these aren't great pictures because of the sun - but praise the Lord we had such gorgeous weather!




Barbara Anne and my attempt to get a picture of the two kids together...for two toddlers, it works!

Ella did turn around and pinch the gorillas nipple and say "Baby food from here" ... Oh boy, we may need to wean Evie early...
Ella always wants a picture on this turtle, but each time we go she sits for less and less time, so it's becoming a great challenge to capture.

The tigers - which she totally isn't afraid of, same as the lions, but....literally 13 seconds after taking this picture with the tigers she screamed bloody murder and threw her carrot bucket because she felt she was in danger from.....A PEACOCK! Oh goodness....

...BUT previously she checked out the peacocks with now issues...


One animals we have never seen before this season (she say it only once last year) was the tapir - and two of them were out! It was so awesome. Ella cared way less then me, but I've been sad they haven't been there at all, its the little things. :)


Zebra - I think they are just so gorgeous!


One of Ella's consistent favorites - the miniature deer. 


 Longhorn:


Buffalo:

And finally, the active porcupines. Again we have never seen them actually move before - but they seemed to be having a custody battle over their 1 month old baby. The parents were charging each other and poking the baby. It was quite hectic, but to each his own in their parenting. :)





Tuesday, October 13, 2015

Preschool - David & Goliath

Going into this week my main goal was to balance Ella's love for "Goalia" and David. She squeals with delight when she  sees Goliath in her children's Bible. We talked about Goliath being mean, but she still loves him :( she does now say David & Goliath, but she still has a clear favorite. I'll blame it on her Daddy being tall and her association between a terrorizing giant and her loving Daddy. 😉

We made a life-sized Goliath -- 9 ft 6 in. 

Measuring the paper...Evie was a huge help....NOT!

Tracing Ella for size comparison:

Coloring Ella:


Comparing Daddy to Goliath: 

Mean Goliath faces:

Our verse - Joshua 1:9. "Be strong and courageous for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go." 

Chalk Goliath & David:

Jumping on Goliath's head, not Biblically sound. 

We had MOPs last week, and although they learned about Esther, check out their verse for the week!!! So awesome! 

Picking our 5 stones (from our neighbors French drain ON OUR SIDE OF THE FENCE! 😡 ...must return....


Using our stones with our story and flannel-graph looking characters. Her brain is a little sponge, it is so awesome - she now matches around saying "I'm not scared! The Lord is on my side!" Our sweet small group friends also shared their Veggie Tales "Dave and the Giant Pickle" with us, so she has been watching that in the car.



Coloring: 

We talked mostly about opposites; big and small, nice and mean, etc. here are some books we used. I liked Animal opposites and Polar opposites the most. 

And because I found it hard to find great resources on David & Goliath, we did random school resources I have around: 

Animal matching:

Shape matching:

Bean box -- oh what a difference a few months makes. She was so much more controlled playing with this!!!