Animals, animals. What a lovely world with all the animals. They fill the sky, they fill the sea. They fill the earth. For you and me. They show the wonder of God's Love. The animals so small and tall. Animals... animals.... animals...animals.....ani...mals we love them all.No. I did not write that little jiggle. It is lyrics to a very old Animal song we used to sing in my church. I used to have it on cassette tape when I was around 7 and played it ALL the time. I've been humming that song all week. Our official 1st week of home school has started. As I stated before I am taking a different approach this year and doing themed weeks to go along with our normal lessons.
Our reading books for the week.
One Animal themed activity book. From Target's $1 isle! I didn't take pics of all our other workbooks. But I'll tell you we start out the day with prayer and then we say our names and stand up. Then we get out our workbooks and begin with English, Math, Science and then on to snack and reading time then we did 2 pages or more each day from this book.
Lucas ready for story time.
Playing the Game Ah-Chu! During storytime this week we read the book The Mitten. Its basically about a little boy who looses his mitten and animals find it and start to live inside it. Alot of animals fit into this mitten, its nice to see in this story how the animals make room and share with others. Then soon enough there are too many animals and one of them sneezes Ah-chu and OUT ALL the animals fly from inside the mitten. I read this book in school and I believe we used socks and small toys to act this out. My cousin did this with pillowcases and stuffed animals and I knew my kids would get a kick out of it!! See Lucas above saying Ah-chu! Its his favorite new game!
Sneezing out all of his animals!
The pillowcase or mitten flew so high it fell on Lucas' head! giggles
For our craft this week I ordered these Build a Bear kits via Ebay for around $10 each during the summer.We made them this week.
They come with clothes and more and even the little hearts to kiss and make a wish.
Edward got the Puppy and Lucas the bear since he loves Pooh bear so much.
Yes, my husband and I had to hand sew these up. This is what took the longest. Hurt our eyes. It was fun letting the kids see how a stuff animal is made. They were fascinated.
You sew these up inside out then leave the crotch area open to stuff!
Edward learning how to stuff them. He was ready to stuff but we had to sew it ALL up 1st!
Lucas could not believe this is what is inside all his Pooh bears!!
Edward thought this was awesome and felt way cool!!
The Puppy waiting to be sewn.
Edward loved being able to color and design his clothes for his puppy.
Lucas was so cute he put stickers and choose lime green marker to color his shirt cause it matched. Can you tell he's been learning his colors?
We let the clothes dry and finished making the animals. The also came with Birth Certificates. This is Pluto Stitch Ater.
Lucas trying to decide a name. I think him and the bear were talking. I love this pic!!
Introducing Teddy Pooh Ater. What a name. Lucas picked it. He was amazed how he was made.
Posing with his Puppy.
Lucas loving his bear.
After a long week of school. We took our Friday or Free Day and took the kiddos to Animal Kingdom to see some REAL animals. We also quizzed them to identify some and hunt for others.
Hippos!!
Up close with a Giraffe he was almost at arms length from me!
Elephants and we got to see the New baby elephant at AK and WDW.
On the train to RAFIKI'S PLANET WATCH. Its basically a backstage peek at how the park's animals are kept happy and healthy.
The kids petting a bunny Rabbit. The story we were told is this bunny was found inside Animal Kingdom's Savannah and some person just left him out in the wilderness there. This is a domesticated bunny and is very lucky to have been found by a cast member. He would have NEVER survived out there with all the REAL wild animals Disney has at Animal Kingdom. Can you believe some person just dropped him there? Poor bunny. Glad he has a home now.So a quick rap up of the week.
Home school Theme: Animals
Week Number: One
Books we read: The Creation, The Mitten, Play With Me, Bible Animals, and 1001 Animals to Spot
Crafts we Made: Build A Bear, Puppy and Bear at home
Snack we Ate: Animal Crackers
Chapel Bible Lesson: Creation/Adam and Eve
Friday Free Day: Went to Animal Kingdom to see Live Animals
Games: Animal math(I say a number and the kids have to bring me the correct number of animals) and Ah-Chu game
Highs: Playing Ah-chu! giggles and Animal Kingdom
Lows: Wish we had more time to bake animal cookies in the oven and explore outside for animals. Its just been too hot.