Snuggles finished up his “Alphabet Fun” the week before last, but I am just now having a chance to finish up the post. He has since finished up last week’s “Color” study, and I will try and post pictures sometime soon… We had a super fun breakfast (which he wasn’t too thrilled about at first) that I have been dying to share with you all.
Oh, and Happy Columbus Day!! Tonight we will be enjoying our annual Stargazing and Spanish Hot Cocoa, and on Wednesday (October 12th – the date Columbus actually arrived in America) we will wrap up our Unit 1 History Study with an “Exploration Celebration!”
Dr. Seuss’s ABC
The Letters Are Lost!
Chicka Chicka Boom Boom
An Alphabet of Saints
An Alphabet of Catholic Saints
God’s Alphabet ABC
Letters from Heaven: An Illuminated Alphabet
A Is for Altar, B Is for Bible
The Bird Alphabet Book
Albert B. Cub and Zebra: An Alphabet Storybook
Curious George Learns the Alphabet
An Alphabet Of Animals
My First Book Of Sign Language
Roger Tory Peterson’s ABC of Birds: A Book for Little Birdwatchers
and one last book that isn’t pictured above:
Catholic Nursery Rhymes : A Life of Our Blessed Lord in Verse for Young Children
I was so excited when this book, which I had ordered from Sacred Heart Books and Gifts for only a few dollars, arrived at the end of our Alphabet Study. Especially when I saw that the Nursery Rhymes were based on the Alphabet!
It starts at the Annunciation, and continues through the alphabet with a short, 8-line rhyme for every letter with a picture on every page.
I planned on making our own Alphabet Soup, with some Alphabet Pasta that I purchased, but I never did get round to it. As an alternative, I picked up this can of “BernieO’s,”not sure if Snuggles would eat it, and not noticing that it only had the letter “O,” but it was actually a hit and he ate a whole bowl. I am hoping to make our own Alphabet Soup soon…
Jessica, I don't know how you do it! You have twice the kids I have and are only a week behind me in your pregnancy, but you do 3 times as much as I do/can do. Where do you get the energy??? All of this looks marvelous and the snack tray is an awesome idea!
You are amazing! You make me feel soooooo lazy.
Where did you find the alphabet crackers? And are those letter candies that you used on the coconut tree? The alphabet snack tray is a great idea – I want to do that with my preschooler next year!! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks for the comments!
Kelly ~ My older kids have been lots of help with these pre-school activities. In fact, it has been my three oldest that have taken turns reading most of the picture books to the two youngest. It is good read aloud practice for them and helps me at the same time!
Amy ~ Um, with all you have had going on lately, I don't know how you could possibly feel lazy!!
Erin ~ Cheez-It has a new box of "Scrabble Junior" Snack Crackers out, that I happened to see at the grocery store!
I also served the Newmann's Own Organic Alphabet Cookies one afternoon as a snack, but it doesn't look like I took a picture of those.
And, yes, those are letter candies, made by Wilton. You can find them in the cake decorating section. I liked that I had all the letters in one place, without having to search through a box for one of each letter. After Snuggles was done with them, each of the kids just got 3-4 each.
Cute, Cute, Cute…so adorable. I love reading your ideas.
The Little Saints Preschool Program looks adorable. I'll have to look into that for my daughter (she'll be four in March).
Do you own all these great books you mention in your posts and highlight on your sidebar, or do you frequent the library?
Katie
Katie ~ We are enjoying the Little Saints Pre-School so much this time around. It comes with (I think) 40 weeks of plans, but I am not worrying about completing a theme per week and going at our own pace, which is all I can manage with so many older ones that still require so much of my time. I also have been picking and choosing from the Craft and Lesson suggestions, adding fun foods and other resources that I now have.
As for the books. Only a couple of the books I listed in this post were actually from the book list for the week (The Letters are Lost and Chicka Chicka Boom Boom). The rest are other great books from our bookshelves that tied in with this weeks theme, and yes we do own them all.
Remember that I have been collecting children's books for nearly 12 years now. For a few years, when my oldest two boys were doing Little Saints, our libraries were closed due to funding and I actually carried around a book list with all the books on my "wishlist" for Little Saints, frequently searching the shelves of thrift shops and used book stores for those titles.
Our library also does not carry very many saint themed books, so nearly all the books I list in my sidebar are from our own shelves as well. We have quite the collection! 🙂
When my girls were completing the Alphabet Path, we did use the library frequently, and I am trying to use it a little bit more than I use to – especially for previewing books – at least when possible.
You are positively a wonderful role model. My little one is a year younger than Snuggles and it is just wonderful to have an idea of things that we can look forward to. It just melts my heart to see mamas that care so much and invest so much love day in and day out. I'm so happy I found this blog and cherish your generosity. God keep blessing that beautiful family of yours!!!!!
Jessica, you have a very impressive collection of books! I can see why, after twelve years of collecting. How do you keep them organized? I would imagine that, with so many, it would be easy to overlook some from time to time.
Do you own all the state by state books too? That seems like a big investment for one school year in addition to everything else (since there's fifty of them and all…;) Maybe it's not…I have no experience with homeschooling (yet), as you can probably tell!
Let's see… How do I organize our books?! Well, I don't know that they are that organized, but I do have certain types of books in the same place. All the baby/board books are on a shelf in the nursery, all the Little Saints and other various picture books are on a couple shelves in the girls room, all of our history books are in a bookshelf in my boys room, and all of the saint books are on a few shelves in my school room (one has all the picture books, another chapter books, and the last has all the Lovasik size/style books). I also have shelves in the school room that are dedicated to Christmas, Easter, Art/Music, Science, Coloring, and Teachers Manuals, etc. The last two book shelves in the house (one in my room, plus some shelves in my closet, and one in the entry/entertainment center) have all of mine and Hubby's books. I would like to organize them better, but for now this seems to be working. I also have highlighted all the books we own from various booklists – RC History, Little Saints, Catholic Mosaic, etc – so that I am reminded that we already own the book when I am preparing for the lesson.
As for the State Books, we own all but three! I have been working on collecting them for a few years now, and almost have them all! I haven't been able to find very good/like new used books for those three States, and the are currently $14, so I've kept looking. I've tried not to spend more than $10 on each book, and closer to $5 when possible. Even still it HAS been a big investment, but I am so glad to have them now! At least I will be reusing them in the future with my younger children.
Also, even though I hope that my girls will complete them within a year, realistically it would take 2, and for my boys (with all the other school work they have) are taking three years to complete the study using these books – which has helped with purchasing them over a longer period of time.
It sounds like you have everything organized pretty well. Good luck finding those last three state books. Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions! Your wonderful blog is a wealth of information and a blessing to your readers.
Katie