April Preschool Highlights!

CHAPTER BOOKS! I have been sooooo looking forward to the time where I could read kid chapter books to my kids and they would really get into them - that time has come for Carolyn and I am loving every min. of it! (I have a huge love for children literature) The first "real" chapter book we read together was from the Magic Tree House series...I fell inlove with this series during my student teaching. Of course, the book Carolyn chose from the series had an alligator on it :) It was so fun reading it to her...if you know "reserved" Jannie's theatric side, you might be able to imagine the animation I used while telling the story. Carolyn was totally fixed on what I was shouting, whispering, and my facial expressions while I read - and it was so cute to watch her react :) Angela was even excited at times :) We read this book in almost one sitting (we would have finished it in one sitting but had to take a break due to the other cute kids' needs) - Carolyn didn't want me to stop reading and even brought the book to the park so we could read on there. In Carolyn's words after each chapter, "One more chapter!!!!" Sooooooo fun! And we read it again the next day (today). Guesses are we'll read it tomorrow, too. These books are great because, for instance, this one teaches about rain forests. Carolyn learned so much about the rain forest from the book and then we continued talking about the rain forest after the book was done. I think we'll finish reading this kids' series in no time! Next on our list in the series is about volcanoes!

I can't wait for all the books Carolyn and I will read this summer! Yay! (...and now I'll anxiously await the time to read her Harry Potter :)

This month's highlight was also "How to Draw..." books. My sister-in-law, Janeil, has a "How to Draw..." book for her kids that totally inspired me! There are these books at the library and websites for kids to learn how to draw (one I like - http://kidsfront.com/how_to_draw/ ). I also made some flip books for the girls to follow (I drew the ending result on the cover and then each page in the book shows one step at a time). Carolyn loves this activity. Her cat :)
Carolyn's math work...Put the strips of mathematical equations into the right egg (i.e. put "3-1" in the "2" egg).
This idea I stole right from my sissy, Michelle...transfer beans with plucker's into the egg carton (1 bean goes in slot "1"; two beans in slot "2"...etc.)
Angela putting together her name. I wrote her name out in an egg carton with little colored paper and also pasted letters on eggs for her to match up to create her name.
Inside the eggs with labeled letters had an additional letter inside for more matching practice.

We also did some story telling this month using our learning board.

Carolyn telling the story of Lehi's dream...
Some stories the girls told used pictures from, for instance, The Friend, some used pictures they colored, some pictures from online, etc.