Innovation at Work

Rebekah's latest craze this week has involved lots of paper, scissors, crayons, and requests for me to staple her work together. Most of the time she creates books or cards. However, she got the bright idea today to design her own shirt with her name on it. She came to me with the paper already decorated and placed an S where she wanted me to staple. Everything was done on her own accord. I thought this took some creativity on her part to come up with the idea and create it. There is also another piece of paper that goes around the back of her torso which you can barely see behind her hand. Funny how she was ready to model as well.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!

While looking for fun books and units to study in our homeschooling pursuit I found some great ideas for Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. Many of the ideas came from Homeschool Share's website, but I found a couple other resources as well. It took us three weeks to do five days' worth of lessons because Rebekah had swim lessons. We started by putting a bucket full of sand with letters buried inside. Rebekah dug for the letters then set them up alphabetically. Joshua played in the sand too, but he wasn't big on digging for letters. We then sang the alphabet song, which both the kids loved. We found some photos online of real palm trees and discovered where they are found, and I showed her on the globe where you would find palm trees. I also reminded her that palm branches were used when Jesus rode through Jerusalem on a donkey.

We did a lot discussing the book before we read the book and with each reading every day of our unit study. Rebekah learned how many letters are in the alphabet, she made a bar graph to show how many letters there were of each color, and she acted out the story with her Fridge Phonics letters. The kids made a number of palm tree crafts and they made maracas using a small Coke bottle and Alphabits and Cocoa Puffs cereals (Alphabits representing the letters and Cocoa Puffs for coconuts). We learned about rhyming as well as why the book was more interesting with the rhyming as well as the rhythm throughout. We played the maracas to instrumental Reggae music on the words "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" (shake, shake, hit, hit) while I read the story to the music. We discussed personification and how the letters acted like people, we did some patterns using ABC's and colors, and we learned about day and night using a flashlight shining on a globe. We also explored a coconut starting from the outside and making observations to opening it and discovering the inside. Rebekah didn't want to eat it, but Joshua tried a few bites. I included Joshua in the lessons as much as I could since he is learning his letters as well.

We finished the unit with a coconut party. I checked out "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" and "Chicka Chicka 1, 2, 3" DVD's from the library, and the kids watched them between activities while I set up the table. Rebekah helped me make Rice Krispy treats using the Alphabits and Cocoa Puffs cereals in place of Rice Krispies. While it cooled the kids painted paper towel tubes and made palm trees. We ended with our coconut party. The kids had their Rice Krispy treats along with tropical fruit kabobs and a tropical fruit smoothie in coconut cups.

Here are some photos of the crafts we made as well as from our party from yesterday.


The trunk is the child's arm, and the palm leaves are their hand prints.


Collage in the style of the artist who illustrated the book.


Painting paper towel rolls to make palm trees




I think Joshua got more paint on the table than his tree.


The finished product. Joshua's is on the left and Rebekah's on the right.


The party food




Dressed for the occasion



During the party I played some music from a CD called Steel Drums of the Islands. It really set the atmosphere perfectly.

An Assortment of Things

A number of things have kept me from the blogging world over the last few days. In fact, I have a number of things I have been meaning to blog about, so I'll just post them here in one place to update you on things going on in our household lately.

Sunday night Rebekah earned her last patch for her first year book in Cubbies. I am so proud of the way she has worked to memorize her verses and retained them. All the kids have done a really great job! They have one more week of Cubbies before they dismiss for the summer.

Monday morning Rebekah came to me with a stuffy nose. It sounded like she had come down with a possible cold, but it didn't seem to bother her too much, until around 2:00 when she began to complain that her left ear hurt. I had just gotten Joshua to bed for a nap, although he had not gone to sleep yet. I didn't want to cut his nap altogether, so I took the later appointment available so that Darrin would not have to take off much work and Joshua could stay in bed. We had to drive downtown since our regular pediatrician was booked. My hunch was correct: Rebekah had an ear infection, but it was caught early, so it should clear up quickly. She began the antibiotic that night and I put her on some cough syrup before bed.

The next morning she seemed like she was dragging, and I wondered if it might be best to keep her home from preschool. She really wanted to go, so we prepared for it, but a few minutes before it was time to leave Rebekah told me she wanted to stay home. I knew she had to be feeling pretty badly to make such a request. An hour later she vomited her medicine. After talking to the pharmacist I gave her another dosage of medicine along with some food. I figured she probably was coughing so much from the congestion that it caused her to vomit, and the pharmacist said that taking the medicine on an empty stomach could have made her feel sick as well. About two hours later she threw up again. Poor thing had some weird virus to give her a cold and a stomach bug.

Rebekah played a little bit off and on throughout the day, but she spent a lot of time just laying on the couch and watching TV. By this morning she was feeling quite a bit better, although her nose was still runny and she dealt with some cough. She did have a slight fever last night, but today it never flaired up, and I never treated it with Tylenol or Motrin because it was so low-grade, so it broke on its own. This evening I needed to run some errands, buying gifts for Rebekah's preschool teacher and to also get some things to make a gift for her. Rebekah really wanted to go, and I didn't want to leave her out of helping me since the gifts would be from her. Since she was feeling so much better by this afternoon Darrin and I decided she could help me. It took us a good while to pick up everything that I decided to take Rebekah out for dinner and skip choir practice since I was already going to be pretty late. We had a really nice time shopping and eating together, just the two of us. We went to Steak 'N' Shake, and Rebekah loved the kid things they gave her, especially the paper Mustang you fold together. It was just a really great time for us to hang together and for me to give her some undivided attention.

I never posted this, but we finally finished our unit for The Parable of the Lily. We learned some vocabulary words, reviewed the Easter story, discussed different feelings throughout the book, and read a couple of other books that went beautifully with the theme of seed planting: Zinnia's Garden and The Parable of the Sunflower.

Here are some pictures of Rebekah's lapbook.







Rebekah drew the basic story of Easter. The picture on the left is of Jesus on the cross, and the picture on the right is of the angel in front of the empty tomb with the stone rolled away.


Flower cards for playing Memory


We have now started a new unit for Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. I have not done much planning myself, but I've found a ton of ideas that I want to use. We will probably just play it by ear and spread it out over the summer. The great thing about this unit is that I can incorporate some things to include Joshua as well. He loves the book also, and this is a great way to introduce him to the letters. Not that he hasn't been introduced to them, but he can begin to learn them. Joshua knows the letter 'O' very well and has for quite some time. The other letter names he knows, but he misidentifies them, so he can learn while Rebekah does some other things with the letters.

For our first lesson I spread out the kids' beach towels on the floor and put a bucket of lowercase letters buried in sand in the middle of the towels. Rebekah dug for all the letters. Joshua lost interest pretty quickly, but he did want to play with the sand. Rebekah put all the letters in alphabetical order, counted them, and then we all sang the ABC song. Rebekah is familiar with Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, so she was able to answer some pre-questions about what the story would be about, but we talked a little bit about coconut palm trees, where they come from, and we found some locations on the globe where you would find such trees. I also pulled up some images of coconut palm trees on the internet, and I reminded her that palm branches were used to wave to Jesus when He came riding on the donkey. While reading the story I asked Rebekah some questions about what was happening and why, and then we sang the ABC song at the end. We finished our lesson with a craft recreating the first page in the book. Joshua wasn't as much into putting the glued pieces on the paper, and after a while he finally kept throwing his page on the floor, but I got him to help me finish his artwork. Rebekah got to be a little more creative and color her own images. She was quite creative with her colors.


I had planned to do some more activities today, but I let Rebekah make her teacher Ms. Amy a card instead since tomorrow is the last day of preschool. I also didn't have time to do the activities before Joshua's nap, and I want to include him as much as I can on this unit. I have some exciting ideas planned!

Lily Learning

As we continued our Easter unit with The Parable of the Lily we focused on the Easter lily today. I had purchased a plant to go along with today's lesson so that Rebekah not only could see the flower itself but that she could also experience it and learn the flower parts since the lily is such a great flower for this exercise.

We started our lesson with our regular daily devotions, and while flipping to today's devotional we came across one about flowers and nature in general. We decided to do it in addition to today's devotional since it tied in so well with our lesson for today. Following a reading of The Parable of the Lily Rebekah counted all the flowers in the story. She then played a game of Memory with some matching flower cards I printed, cut, and glued to construction paper. Each card had a picture of a flower with the name underneath, so we were able to identify the flowers before and as she played the game.

We then took time to observe our Easter lilies closely and learn some of the parts of the flower. Although I mentioned a number of parts and Rebekah repeated them, also asking about other parts, we reviewed the most familiar parts throughout the lesson - petals and stem, as well as leaves. Next Rebekah drew a lily for her lapbook.

Next we discussed a couple of Bible verses using the word lily, and I explained what they meant, and I told her that Jesus was called the "Lily of the Valley". After this we worked together to make an acrostic for LILY. This was even difficult for me! We decided on: Lovely, Interesting, Leaves, and Yellow (because some lilies are yellow). I cut out small copies of various types of lilies and Rebekah glued them in the appropriate place of her "Types of Lilies" booklet for her lapbook. We finished with a craft making a bouquet of lilies using cutouts of Rebekah's hands. Although this was more work for me since I had to cut out, roll up, curl and tape/staple the flowers this was Rebekah's favorite part of the lesson. She walked around proudly with her bouquet for the rest of the afternoon.

Easter Egg Fun

Since we didn't get to homeschool yesterday we condensed yesterday's and today's lesson plans into one day. I had originally planned to read Benjamin's Box with the Resurrection Eggs again, but I dropped it in order to do some other activities. We also didn't start homeschooling until 2:00. Rebekah was rather irritable this morning, I think just because yesterday was such a long day. Once I got Joshua down for a nap we were able to get a lot accomplished in three hours.

We began by reviewing the entire story of Easter from Palm Sunday through Easter Sunday. In her Easter Celebrations page for her lapbook Rebekah was supposed to dictate what happened on Good Friday and Easter Sunday, but I had her draw a picture for each day instead. I felt like she would retain it better this way, and it involved her putting her own creativity into it instead of me writing what she said. So I just had her verbalize it first then draw the pictures.

We then read The Legend of the Easter Egg and discussed the times in which different things happened in the book. I was going to forego doing the clock activities, but Rebekah wanted to try them, so we did. I figured this would give her a bit of an introduction to telling time. Next we reviewed the symbolism of the Easter egg and Rebekah colored her cover page (Easter basket with eggs) for her lapbook.

Then the real fun began...dying Easter eggs! We had five colors and twelve eggs, so we mixed some colors to see what they would create. We ended up with several shades of green before it was all over.





Rebekah decorated her eggs with stickers once they dried and then she did a sequencing page on dying eggs.





We then made a poem accordion page about dying Easter eggs and put her lapbook together.












By the time we finished it was dinner time. Rebekah asked for eggs and toast for supper. How appropriate!