Building and Baking

We've been baking a lot lately! Mr. T is all about being in the kitchen right now. He's doing such a great job, I try to always say yes unless we just can't for some reason. He's becoming quite the little chef. I love how good he is getting at setting the table, too.

Since we've been spending so much time in the kitchen I though a kitchen tool discovery bowl would be fun for Mr. F. He's fallen in love with the Egg egg beater and takes it everywhere now. He also likes beating things with the rolling pin. As long as it isn't his big brother, I'm cool with that.

We picked up a bird feeder kit at Hobby Lobby per Mr. T's request. Mommy didn't pay close enough attention, though. It did not come with pre-drilled starter holes like the kits from Lowe's and Home Depot, so I had to help more than we usually do, but we did eventually get it glued and nailed together and we had a good time doing it.

Mr. T got my camera (I actually got it out, I've been taking all iPhone pictures lately and decided it was time to get out my big girl camera) and he began snapping pictures and got this one of the bird feeder that I thought was really cool. Mr. T's camera is on the fritz, so we will be needing to replace it soon. I love seeing the world from his perspective.

He's very serious about his wood working. I love that he is able to focus for such long periods of time when it's a project he is really taking interest in. I think we will be incorporating a lot more delight directed learning into our pre-k learning this fall.

Here is the wonderful bird feeder all put together! Mr. T painted it and it looks lovely! We just need to get some seed in it and find it a home outside and the birdies can go to town! Do your little ones like to build things? And do you make your own or buy kits? I'd love to have a new kit resource!

We are linked up here:

Butterflies Unit Study Part 2

 

Here is a lovely Painted Lady up close. We have really enjoyed our lapbook and unit study. Mr. T is still pulling out his butterfly cards to look at them every day, and it is too cool to hear him say larvae and pupa! You can see a list of resources and a lot of the books we used here, in part 1.

Our lapbook printables came from Homeschool share here. And our Montessori cards were from several different places on the web. The above lesson was on butterfly symmetry.

Mr. T is doing beautifully with his letters, so I think we may be moving to sight words soon. It's sometimes difficult to know where he is on knowing things because of his speech issues, so I just go with the theory that it's all sticking. He usually surprises me with what he knows anyway. He's also doing better on the coloring, but we still have a ways to go.

Watching the process of larvae to butterfly is fascinating. I recommend doing at least one Butterfly Garden over the course of your homeschool or summer school at home fun! It is worth every penny!

You can see the skins from where the caterpillars molted as they grew. Kinda icky, but cool. As a lot of things in science and nature study are.

Say it with me: Proboscis. You can see these butterflies really loving the sugar water on the orange slices! Mr. T loved helping me "fee b-uh-fwy" every day.

He liked the butterfly cards and flower book best. He had fun gluing and pasting, too. I laminated the things I thought he would use the most so they would last a lot longer. A laminator is worth it's weight in gold when you are homeschooling a toddler!

We are learning our numbers and counting to 5 currently. I was tickled pink with how good Mr. T did with his bug counters. I just drew out little square space for him to put the bugs over. He likes this game a lot, especially when he pays attention and gets lots of high fives!

After almost 7 weeks of having these guys, we finally had good enough weather to release them, although they didn't appear to have much umph left. Mr. T was amazed that he got to hold a butterfly. I think it helped that his hands are almost constantly sticky ;)

Mr. T and Mr. J putting the butterfly on the butterfly house they made last year. Our garden needs a little work, but I think it is going to be awesome in another month!

Here's our lapbook. We used 2 Corinthians 5:17 as our verse for this study: "Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!"

I found some great nomenclature cards to use in our 3 part card tray Mr. J made for us. He's such a handy and wonderful homeschool dad!

And I'm trying to get a video of Mr. T identifying these cards. It's pretty awesome. What kind of fun did you have this week?

We are linked up here:

Cleaning up for Tea

Mr. T has a sweeper! It is a wonderful Bissel sweeper and because the handle came in sections, I could just leave one off and it's the perfect length for him. The biggest bonus is that he thinks it's fun, so when I make him clean up a mess he made, he still enjoys it. It is so neat to see him taking initiative and cleaning up when he sees a mess, even if he didn't make it. I hope that we never have to assign "chores" and that he always views helping out the family as a joyful way to serve.

Mr. T got a new ceramic tea set for his birthday. The old one had seen better days and had lost a few pieces (which is why I purchased it hodge podge from thrift store to begin with, but it lasted from Mr. T's 18 month tea discovery till his 3rd birthday) over the year and a half we had it.

He picked out his own cup and saucer. I love the colors of the Fiesta Ware. It is a very happy colored tea set and very sturdy. I am also very fond of Mr. T's big boy haircut, but I wonder where my little boy has gone.

And here he is focusing to make sure the tea pours into the cup, and only into the cup. There was a little spillage, but his coordination has gotten very good. And when we were finished he took his cup and saucer and pot all over to the dishwasher. I think we will be learning about tea sandwiches and making some scones for tea this week. I love how he has really begun to enjoy serving and how easily please and thank you come. I am so proud of the little gentleman and the big helper he is becoming! What is your favorite special time each week with your little ones?

And so he doesn't feel left out, Mr. F has been exploring quite a lot now that he is crawling and trying to pull up!

We are linked up here: