Letter Hop for the Littles

My 3 year old loves to sing her alphabet. It’s never correct but she sings with all the gusto her little body can muster. It’s seriously the cutest thing BUT as cute as it is, I thought I should probably help her out with a simple and fun activity…the Letter Hop!!

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It has really helped with letter recognition and sounds. The best part is that she is having a blast being active while learning. Mom win! As she hops to each letter we either say its name or its sound. For my oldest(6) I scramble the letters and she sees how fast she can get through all upper and lower case sounds…it’s pretty fun…and funny!

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Another bonus…it has just got to be helping with their lack of balance haha See photos below, Another WIN!

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I have attached the pdf of the letter cards below. All you have to do is download, print and laminate and you are ready to go. The file has all 26 Upper Case and Lower Case letters. Enjoy!

Alphabet Letter Hop

P.s. if your wondering why I don’t have ‘Y’ and ‘Z’ laid down, it’s because the littlest took off with them and we haven’t seen them since!

When Little Hands Become Antsy!

We were working on our math lessons when I started to become frustrated at the lack of attention my Little Lo(6) was putting into her work. When it hit me! Rather than both of us become too frustrated and upset, we should put the books down for the day and put our hands to work in learning something new!

I quickly gathered the supplies and gathered the little ones into the kitchen!

Here’s what we did and here’s what you will need!

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We searched the house for books about Bees (you can find some of those here and here) and flipped through the pages as I let the Littles run their fingers through a bowl of  beeswax pellets. After looking at the shape of a honeycomb I pulled out the hexagon shape tiles from the Melissa and Doug Pattern Blocks and Boards Set and helped the girls make their own honeycomb patterns. It was a lot of fun until the destroyer (our one year old) scattered our carefully placed tiles haha ohhhh the joys of home education with a toddler! I thought at that point we might as well add more mess to our lesson!

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Now I MUST say I am by no means a candle making expert…in fact  I am certain there are better ways but this is what I did and it worked!! I started with a mason jar full of the beeswax pellets. Put the mason jar into a pot of water and brought it to a roaring boil. Once boiling you can turn it down to a medium low heat.

When all the wax is melted you can start dipping your wick. We dipped two candles at a time to speed the process along for a three year old who looses interest quickly!

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TWO BIG TIPS, if I may! TIP #1 It can be so messy especially so if you have little hands helping along the way. So lay down paper towels, news paper, trash bags, whatever you have to save you from hours of scraping wax off every surface of your kitchen lol TIP #2 Use a cup of cold water in between dips of the wax. Dip in wax then cold water, then back to wax then back to the cold water…repeat until you have hit your desired size.

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We hung them to cool on a dowel and waited until the next day to use them 🙂 The mason jar full of melted wax was still pretty full when we were finished. SO I stuck a piece of wick in and have been using it as a candle in the school room, the smell and ambiance given to our little room was lovely!

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This one will definitely be on repeat here in our home!! Message me on INSTA if you have any questions, this one was just too fun not to share 🙂

ENJOY, my friends!

 

Here We Are

a      young      mother      of      three      decided to educate her children at home. a decision found after much prayer and preparation. the more prayer and preparation, the more peace and confidence in her decision. jump forward three months and here she stands. ready to document their day to day. days full of togetherness and real conversations. real people learning and growing in a peaceful atmosphere. real parents choosing what their children learn. choosing the good and the beautiful things in life. spending their days outside playing in the woods, the grass, the trails, the sand. we use our brushes to paint the scenes before us. we look upon the paintings of Monet and spend our mornings reading the words of the prophets. the preludes of Bach and Vivaldi thunder through our school room. the stories of little Laura Ingalls fill our imaginations. we sketch our favorite birds and sing our favorite hymns. living our family moto each day to “seek after light and choose the right”.

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 i’m andrea. i’m this mom. i’m this mom who fails but who tries again. i love my children. i love my days with them. teaching them, talking with them. learning with them. being an example of kindness and goodness to them. here is our journey.

 

p.s. I will have grammatical errors. I am not eloquent in my writings. I may have a sentence or two that can claim clever or witty status but I’m not hopeful 🙂