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Batman School

So I totally had to prepare for this in secret. Planned, printed and laminated while Nadia was asleep and then put everything into hiding until I was sure we had time to complete it. The scream of delight was worth it all 🙂

Batman School
Click on the photo to see album

This is what we started with and most of the printables came from the 1+1+1=1 site. I picked up an activity book at SuperTarget and some easy readers from the library. Nadia also wanted to wear her Batman PJ’s as much as possible while we worked on this throughout the week.

Batman School Batman School
We did sizing and patterns. Here Nadia had Batman say, “Look how BIG I got!”

Batman School
We put together a Heroes and Villains book. At the end I had a photo of Nadia on the “I am a good guy” page and she was thrilled! I should have video taped her going through the book and then seeing that at the end. Then we used the letter tiles to spell all the words in the book.

Batman School
We practiced writing upper and lower case B’s.

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Grammie was over one day so she played a game in the activity book.

Batman School IMG_4242
Nadia glued the heroes on one side and villains on the other. We did a find the letter game where I said letters and she had to find them as fast as possible.

Batman School Batman School
We did more pages out of the activity book and she did a lot of coloring. We also did numbers and a little addition.

Batman School
Are these guys cute or WHAT? I found them on the Toy a Day site.

On the last day I gave Nadia all the stickers from the activity book and she used them to decorate the lapbook. Here is what her lapbook looked like by the end.

Batman School

Batman School

Batman School

Mike read Nadia some of the “Brave and Bold” comics. Plus “My Frozen Valentine” and “Double Trouble” easy readers. We recorded the always campy original Batman from the 60s and let her watch an episode each night. She LOVED it; especially if BatGirl or the Joker were a part of the episode.

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Mother’s Day 2011

Mother's Day 2011

We had a very busy, but fun weekend! In our usual tradition we went to PF Changs on Friday night. It’s a great way to avoid the Mother’s Day crowds and have a meal in peace. I got my favorite entree there – Shrimp and Candied Walnuts with honeydew melon. YUM!

Mother's Day 2011

Saturday we headed to the homeschool bookfair. We had an idea of what we wanted to buy for Nadia’s next level, but it’s always good to see it in person. We went in the morning and checked everything out, took the girls home for a nap and then returned to buy the things we wanted. That night my brain was exhausted, but I was happy with our choices. Instead of doing a complete curriculum we decided to piece stuff together. So we got a math, phonics/spelling and art. Then I got a bunch of biographies about missionaries and other historical figures. I will read all of those first and then read them to Nadia.

The most fun for Nadia right now are all the “color by number” and “color by letter” workbooks I found for her. She LOVES these and it’s been hard to find entire books of them.

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An exciting gift was waiting for me when we came home to give the girls a nap – A Kindle with a red case! WOOT!! I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE to read and totally loved being shocked by Mike.

Sunday we got up and headed for church. Then we hit Costco like we always do and went to Pei Wei for lunch. We didn’t plan it that way, but it’s just what happened. Tasty food all around!

Mother's Day 2011

Mother's Day 2011

Mother's Day 2011

 

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School Last Week

Last week we did a lot of goofing off and playing with friends. Which Nadia really needed! She is still getting used to being the big sister to a toddler and what that means. So having some fun with friends who could pretend play and speak in sentences was great for her.

On Monday my friend Tricia brought Elliott and Jude over and the 2 big kids immediately headed upstairs. Amelie was following Jude around unsure of what to do with this little baby. She was also busy trying to get food from Tricia 🙂 Tuesday was our first visit with the social worker to see how Amelie is doing so we didn’t do any school that day. Mike took Nadia with him to the gym Wednesday morning so she could play with her buddies there. Thursday Linda and Reagan came over and the girls had a blast! They had not seen each other since the week before we left for China and there have been tears in both houses asking for a playdate. Friday was museum school and Good Friday. Whew!

Here is what we did squeeze in.

April 18 -22 school

We made a mini book about the Days of Creation.

April 18-22, 2011 April 18-22, 2011

This is a random workbook I found in my stash. Nadia liked the “color by letter”. We should finish this book next week.

April 18-22, 2011

Kumon Workbook – Capital Letters. (On a side note, I took all the large Kumon workbooks apart and dropped them off at Office Depot to be hole punched. They did the entire stack for $4 and I will be able to reuse these for Amelie. And when Nadia needs to do something again we just erase and go again with the dry erase marker)

April 18-22, 2011

This “map of America” puzzle was a gift from Reagan. Nadia put a lot of work into it and was very proud. She didn’t want me to take it apart the next day either.

Amelie has decided that she does NOT like to be left out of school. So here is what I did to keep her busy this week.

April 18-22, 2011

Pretty impressive with the cast I thought.

April 18-22, 2011

The puzzles are a little ahead of her, but she did have fun using the drum stick on them.

We also did some work out of our Critical Thinking Pre K curriculum, but I didn’t take any photos since we do that every week. She is half way through the Pre K bundle. We highly recommend the Critical Thinking stuff for building logical thinking skills.

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Astronaut & Space School

Next up for Nadia’s preschool packs is Astronaut and Space.  I downloaded the pack from Homeschool Creations. The verse for this pack was Psalm 148:3 “Praise Him sun and moon; praise Him all you shining stars.” Here is what we started with (click the photo to see the  whole album):

Astronaunt Preschool Pack
Click on the photo to see album

We read the following books:

  • On the Launch Pad – Michael Dahl
  • Space Boy – Leo Landry
  • There’s no place like Space – Tish Rabe
  • If you decide to go to the Moon – Faith McNulty
  • I want to be an Astronaut – Byron Barton

Astronaut Preschool Pack Astronaut Preschool Pack

We worked on shape-sizing and practiced writing colors.

Astronaut Preschool Pack Astronaut Preschool Pack

Nadia did several worksheets and had fun with her Do-A-Dots. Multiple worksheets came from here.

Astronaut Preschool Pack

Practiced spelling and talked about planets in our solar system. I also got a Solar System Pack from Carisa’s site.

Astronaut Preschool Pack

We played the following game from Mama Jenn.

Astronaut Preschool Pack

And we played MANY games of “space tic tac toe”. I made sure this was laminated because Nadia likes to play over and over.

Astronaut Preschool Pack

We also looked at photos of all the planets (used flash cards from the Solar System pack). Janis brought over quite a few posters we had fun with. Nadia liked the phases of the moon and sun poster the best. She exclaimed, “I had no IDEA the sun was on fire!!!” Nadia decided the coolest thing about going to space would be the weightless part and stuff floating around the shuttle. She said, “Just like when Curious George let all the ants go when he went to space.” We also played with Toy Story playdough. Lots of fun planet and star molds came with it. Nadia also made “earth balls”.

Astronaut Preschool Pack

And the post wouldn’t be complete without a photo of Nadia and her favorite Space Ranger Buzz Lightyear. (those are Buzz goggles too)