Mommy School ~ Tt is for Tiger and Turkey

Tt is for Tiger

Craft idea from Mrs Ricca's Kindergarten

Tiger printables from 1+1+1=1

Tt is for Turkey (on Thanksgiving Day!)

The turkey feathers were made using Kai's handprints.

Thanksgiving printables from Our Little Monkeys and Over the Big Moon

Our little Pilgrim boy!

Mommy School ~ Rr is for Rain

Somehow this autumn, we have been getting A LOT of rain which works great with our letter Rr week!  We made rain clouds in a jar yesterday evening while Belle and Keefe were around.  The kids had never seen (or touched!) shaving cream so they found this experiement very interesting.

We read a non-fiction book called Down Comes the Rain today, but Kai was bored after we read half of the book so we made our rain craft.

Kai worked on rain-themed printables (mostly from here and some I created myself).  The letter matching sheets were a great review for him.  I realised he was unsure of the lowercase "p" and "q" so we'll practice these more.  We are still working on recognising the Chinese numbers 1 to 5 -- I'm sure we'll get there...someday!

Mommy School ~ Rr is for Rocket

We did Rr is for Rocket yesterday, and there were lots of smiles and laughter.  Probably because we have the Little Einsteins theme song playing and he kept singing it!  We read the Little Einsteins book, Blast Off! and made our rocket craft.  Kai has been able to spell his name for a while now, and was happy to stick glittery letters onto his rocket.

We worked on literacy and math skills using rocket-themed printables.  He was tickled that our new gluestick turned out to be purple!  He was proud of his number order puzzle.  He enjoyed painting the rockets yesterday and kept wanting to paint more.  

Kai was out of school today because of a slightly swollen/itchy left eye.  He did more rocket-painting, and we worked on pasting paper neatly.  He watched a few Little Einsteins episodes afterwards.

Mommy School ~ Qq is for Queen

Somehow when it gets to letter Qq, I get stuck for inspiration!  We were in London March of this year for the spring break and I pulled out a photo of Kai with the Queen.  Well, this was the closest we could get to see the Queen!  Kai hasn't turned 3 in this photo!

For our Qq is for Queen theme, we used Teaching Mama's printable pack.  We are still working on patterns but he seemed to have a better understanding of the concept.  We added a robe to our queen craft and Kai thought the queen was a superhero!

Kai made a quail craft in school last September so we did not do a separate uppercase Q craft this time around.

Mommy School ~ Pp is for Pirate

We started off our week by reading the Pirate Pete book, which Kai thoroughly enjoyed.  He loved taking out the cut-outs from the book and slotting them into the page pockets to create his own pirate story.  All the pirate printables he worked on were from here.

He is getting better with number order puzzles.  He was so happy when he found "#4" (as can be seen from the photo!).

We finished off with our pirate craft and he named his pirate "Pete".

Happy Halloween 2014!

Halloween is not among the many festivals widely celebrated in Switzerland.  You don’t see children running around in costumes going door-to-door asking for treats!  This was a surprise to us when we first moved here!

 Kai is fortunate to be in a playgroup where a Halloween party is held every year – thanks to American teachers!  This was Kai's 2nd Halloween party since we moved.  His school was decorated with Halloween crafts which the children made throughout the week.  There were also some Halloween-themed treats like clementine jack-o-lanterns and ghost lollies.

Kai dressed as the Incy Wincy Spider at home but later on decided he wanted to be Batman so that’s what he wore to school. 

Kai's Halloween excitement went ‘poofed’ when he saw a boy dressed up as Spiderman in school.  He refused to participate in any activities until his wonderful teacher suggested that she paints Kai’s face as Spiderman.  This was a great suggestion and Kai was back in his usual happy self after his makeover!  Kai made a pumpkin collage (look at his sad face!), Frankenstein handprint art, did the 'walk the pirate plank', pin the nose on the pumpkin, colouring, and listened to two stories: Room on the Broom and Big Pumpkin.

Belle and Keefe didn't celebrate Halloween in school (due to some restrictions!) so they dressed up at home, and I made them a Halloween-themed snack and lunch for school.

That night, we did a Halloween scavenger hunt at home since there was no trick-or treating in the neighbourhood.  The first clue started with a letter in our mailbox, and led the kids to the following clues: broomstick, witches stew, bat, spoon to carve a pumpkin, spider, witches hat, and finally the BIG treat!