Alphabet: The Letter O

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For the most part Letter O had our readers thinking of the Ocean and Octopus!


The Harris Family had all sorts of Octopus and Ocean fun with letter O! They did letter O art and turned their letter into an Octopus, watercolored an ocean scene with an octopus in it, ate ocean in cup, made a cute paperbag octopus - this one I'd never seen before, and more!

Brandy at Adventures of a Flake has done several Letter O activities, but we especially like how they made oobleck, a fictional green precipitation invented by Dr. Seuss and featured in his book Bartholomew and the Oobleck.

Green Eggs and Olives worked on O is for Opposites, with this activity she made.

Confessions of a Homeschooler has done it again, and provided many downloadable O is for Octopus activities like this puzzle. She's also got How Many? cards, Size Sort Game, Color Matching, Number Clip Cards. Visit her post for the links to her downloads.

We love the tissue paper legs on Our Crafts N' Thing's O is for Octopus.

Our Journey at Hillside Manor got really creative with their O snack and oatmeal O's.

The Fifth Street Academy spent an entire day at the ocean, during their O week and also did letter O search. The stamped owl activity is also a good way to combine alphabet and math practice in one activity.

Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations has posted several Letter O activities, but our favorite is this ocean in a bottle, how fun! She also provides a Letter O collage sheet you can download.

Let's Talk Turkeys

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Has November flown by at your house? Seems like we just finished trick-or-treating and it's already time for planning the big turkey dinner for Thanksgiving!

Katie from Katie's Nesting Spot shared three of the turkey themed centers she used to use when teaching kindergarten: Turkey Letters, Turkey Feather Numbers, and Turkey Numbers

Teaching Two had a great way to practice your name and can be done over and over. Be sure to see their cute coffee filter turkeys in the same post.

Michelle at Green Olives and Ham shows off her matching file folder game, that she suggests can also be played as a Memory Match up type game.

We love this cute felt ABC turkey sent in by Starr at http://www.examiner.com/! Click through the slideshow and see how the feathers can be used to spell out words such as Thursday and Thanks.

Our Journey at Hillside Manor reviewed the alphabet with this turkey activity, done during their letter T week. The template she used is link to in her post, so you can try it out too!

Amy at Preschooling at Home made their turkey handprint craft using foam, and the artist is shown proudly showing off her work.

At My Family My Forever, they made their turkey with a butternut squash print. What fun and it is the perfect shape for a turkey body!

They also made this adorable play-doh turkey, using handmade glitter play-doh. Susana shares the recipe and two favorite Thanksgiving books in the same post.

Silly Eagle Books shared these handprint turkeys, done after they read Setting the Turkeys Free

Isn't this a cute hand and foot turkey, sent to us by The Fifth Street Academy?

The Adventures of Bear sent us this magnetic turkey, that can be used to pratice patterns.

We thought we'd end on really fun note, and get you all thinking about how to devise your own Turkey Trap!

Bobbi at Casa Camacho and her family made this turkey trap, and then caught their family's "poor, defenseless" Guinea Pig in it!

We've Been Nominated: Best Family or Group Blog

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We are so pleased to share with you that our blog has been nominated at The Homeschool Blog Awards site for Best Family or Group Blog 2009! We are honored and touched to be included with some of the best education based blogs out there!

We'd really appreciate your vote! It only takes a second!

Thank you to all our readers, contributors, and those who've commented and supported us during the past 8 months! We appreciate each and everyone of you!

The Color Gray

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Typically, here in Michigan November brings with it shades of gray (grey), as our sky seems little more than clouds. Pleasantly, we are enjoying a break from the gray clouds today but will be posting gray activities and ideas as promised.

Learn a little bit about the color gray. Did you know that unlike many other colors, gray is not known to evoke a specific emotion, although we often associate it with moodiness?

Is Gray a real color?
Technically, gray is not a color. Light can not be mixed to create gray.

Enchanted Learning identifies shades of gray and familiar gray objects.

Print off a Gray Coloring Sheet.

Think of and write (or draw) 8 gray-colored things. Perhaps you could also use this worksheet to record items found on a gray hunt.

Paint gray clouds on blue paper. Or take a look at some of these other gray art projects.

Play a little gray guessing game using the following rhyme:
“I know an animal that is colored gray.It moves around like this, all day!”
Let your children take turns reciting the poem and moving like a gray animal.
Other children try to guess what animal they are supposed to be.
Ex. Hopping bunnies; scurrying mice; elephants stomping around or horses galloping

Fingerpaint with black and white until it turns gray.

With older children experiment with this Gray Step exploration.

Read about elephants and make gray elephant art projects.
Watch Dumbo

Preserve your child's handprint forever using a stepping stone mold and gray cement

Snack Idea:
~Frost cookies with gray frosting and decorate with licorice whiskers to make gray creatures.
~Oatmeal
~Make a castle cake and frost it with stone gray
~Mushrooms

Sing a song of gray!
GRAY "London Bridge"

G-R-A-Y THAT SPELLS GRAY,
THAT SPELLS GRAY,
THAT SPELLS GRAY.
G-R-A-Y THAT SPELLS GRAY,
GRAY IS A COLOR!

ELEPHANTS AND MICE ARE GRAY,
MICE ARE GRAY,
MICE ARE GRAY.
ELEPHANTS AND MICE ARE GRAY.
GRAY IS A COLOR!

Musical Monday: Music for Toddlers

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Recently we were reading through MaryAnne's blog archive at Thrifty Crafty Mama and came across a great post she wrote that we really wanted to share with you. She has graciously allowed us to repost it her, thanks for guesting MaryAnne! Join MaryAnne at her new blog Mama Smiles, for more from one of our frequent contributors.



Music has always played a large role in my life. Here are a few ways my kids and I enjoy music together:

• Children’s CDs: Some of our favorites to sing and dance along to are The Best of Kindermusik, Signing Time! Songs, and the Wee Sing series (our favorite is the "Best of Wee Sing” collection). These CDs have been a lifesaving distraction for my car-hating children.
• Classical music: My kids enjoy dancing to some classical music, and sometimes Emma will make up a story to describe what an instrumental piece is about. You can also have your child draw a picture to go with a piece of music.
• Mainstream music: Mike is good at finding songs by mainstream artists that put our kids to sleep, and he likes to dance with them to more upbeat songs. As an infant, Emma had a “magic” song written and recorded by a college friend of ours. She was a pretty fussy baby, but this song nearly always calmed her down up until she was six or seven months old. She also liked Jewel, James Blunt, Eric Clapton, and Sting. Johnny has a strong preference for Bruce Springsteen, particularly “The River”. Emma did not like classical music at all as an infant; Johnny does. Ironically, I listened to a lot of classical music while I was pregnant with Emma and hardly any with Johnny. Actually, Emma threw out the entire “your child will like the music they hear in the womb” theory, because she didn’t like many of the mainstream artists I listened to while pregnant with her either.
• Make your own musical instruments: Valerie has a great post on using recyclables to make musical instruments on her Frugal Family Fun Blog.
• Exploring real instruments: Johnny started “playing” our piano when he was a few months old. I also let my kids play around with my guitar (under close supervision), and I have two small violins that I let them try out every once in a while (again under close supervision). We also have a set of children’s percussion instruments that they can play with any time. Just be aware of your own noise tolerance limits when you chose instruments – if you buy your child a whistle, be prepared to hear it all day long. We do have whistles, but they conveniently “disappear” most of the time because I’m just not that into high-pitched noises – especially in our tile-floor home.
• Musical Games:
  
• Classic musical chairs
• Freeze when the music stops playing
• Beat out the rhythm of a song using your hands, feet or a percussion instrument
• Move fast/slow according to the pace of the music
• Play or sing a few notes or even just the rhythm of a song and have your child guess what it is.
  
• If you don’t have a large music collection of your own, pandora.com is a great, legal, free resource. You can create your own stations, and it learns and tries to cater to your musical preferences based on your ratings of songs.

I don’t know that playing Mozart will raise your child’s IQ, but here are a few benefits I think music can have for toddlers.

• Opportunities for self-expression and non-verbal interaction
• Development of a sense of rhythm
• Source of creative inspiration
• Calming effect (obviously only true for certain pieces of music)
• Motivator: I sometimes play a fun, active song to help my kids garner the energy to clean up
• Learning/memory tool: Emma knows the sounds of the letters of the alphabet largely due to the theme song from the Leap Frog - Letter Factory DVD. And I can still recite the states in alphabetical order because of a song I learned when I was 11 or 12 years old. There are songs out there to help learn or memorize just about anything, just try a web search or make up your own song.

What role does music play in your home?

Wow!

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Today we are spotlighting Wubbzy and his friends who took center stage on October 13th with the release of their newest DVD Wubb Idol.

Wow! Wow! Wubbzy is a top-rated animated Nickelodeon show for preschool aged children. Each episode entertains children while supporting a range of important preschool social skills including: sharing, listening, compromising, helping and appreciating others, self-awareness and the use of humor as a coping skill.



Although their world is more fanciful and imaginative than our own, Wubbzy and his friends deal with the same social and developmental issues faced by preschoolers. They learn how they fit into the group, how to understand their own feelings and those of others, and how to get along with one another. Young viewers learn the value of friendship and community as they have fun watching Wubbzy and his friends tackle these issues in each new adventure. Wubbzy has previously starred in 2 full length movies, Wubb-able and One and Only Wubbzy.

In this most recent feature film, Wubbzy and his best friends (Walden, Widget and Daizy) can’t wait for the popular girl group, The Wubb Girlz, to pay them a visit. The girls are hosting the Wuzzleburg Idol talent show, that everyone in town is hoping to win. If Wubbzy can wow the judges, he’ll get the chance to go on to Wuzzlewood and perform with Sparkle, Shimmer, and Shine (voiced by the award winning singer Beyonce' Knowles)! Throughout the show Wubbzy is faced with the challenge of remembering the importance of being himself. “With its engaging storyline and catchy music, kids of all ages won’t be able to resist singing, dancing, and laughing along – and that’s what Wubbzy is all about.” says Julie Cartwright.

To celebrate the release of Wubb Idol, Grand Communication is offering one of our readers a fantastic prize-pack just in time for holiday gift giving.

WIN!
The giveaway pack includes:
~The Brand New Wubb Idol DVD
~2 Wubb Idol themed books from Scholastic
~Wow! Wow! Wubbzy's new Sing-A-Song CD

To be entered to win please leave a comment on this post.
~Have your children seen Wow! Wow! Wubbsy?
~Who is the most popular Nickelodeon character in your house?

This giveaway will close at 10 PM EST on November 15th.

Grand Communications sent us a pre-release of Wubb Idol DVD, as well as press release information, for the purpose of writing this Saturday Spotlight.

Toddler and Preschool Idea Round Up

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Today we've put together an assortment of great activities that would all be appropriate for toddler and preschool aged learners, enjoy!



Starr from examiner.com shares how you can use beans to practice sequencing and patterning.

Melissa from Max and Ellie, has created a phases of the moon matching game inspired by the book I Took The Moon For A Walk by Carolyn Curtis. What a great book extension and she's provided downloads in several different colors for you to use too!

We also like Melissa's Color's of Nature sacavenger hunt, which didn't go as planned but we agree it is a good idea!

While we're talking about colors, Jess at Making of a Montessori Mum shared a colour matching activities for toddlers. We also like her idea to make matching cards, shared in the same post.


Did you kids get any twizzlers for treats last Saturday? The Pink and Green Mama has a great idea for using to practice making shapes. This would also be a fun way to practice forming letters as well. We also like her recent posts on sorting pom poms with tweezers and her one of practicing with scissors.

Melinda at Mama Bear's Clubhouse sent us two great activities that work on fine motor skills and get them ready to be more independent in the all important realm of self care skills.

Buttoning and

Practicing using hair clips

Nicole from Tired, Need Sleep make a game book for her son with several activities that help him practice prewriting skills. She provides links to where she found the ones she included in her book.