Fine Motor Skills Day 18 -Broken Crayon and Tiny Marker Testing

A good way to work the pencil grip and find out which markers and crayons should be tossed out.

Fine Motor Skills Day 17 -Legos

We love Legos. In the last two weeks we have built cities, hybrid cars that run on brussel sprouts and the space ship from Disney's Space Buddies.

FIAR: Make Way For Ducklings Lapbook & Fine Motor Skills Day 15-16

We completed "Make Way for Ducklings" earlier this month. Late one rainy night we had the following visitors in our front yard. The pond is three street over from our house so it was an adventure for them just like the book. TS was thrilled and began to write his own story of why the ducks traveled that misty evening.

During this unit study TS did most of the cutting and writing to beef up the fine motor skills.

We used word searches to help work on focus and concentration.



Another fine motor tool was cutting images out of magazines. TS loved this but he was given guidelines of which magazines were for cutting.

TS cut and assembled this duck puzzle himself. Always the beautiful individualist he varied the design by having his duck wave and giving it curly black hair. ;-)
Resources:
Homeschool Share

Heyyyy You Guyyyssssssssssssssssssss!

TS and I have been enjoying the revamped version of a classic PBS show. He is so excited to earn points to watch his new favorite show.

The Old

The New

Guess what we are studying this week?

Spring Cleaning 2009

There is a lot going on here in the Sandbox this Spring. Life is changing at a rapid pace so much so that I haven't had time to document it all. When the sand settles I am know it will all be for the best of our whole family.

Please keep us in prayer and stop by to check in now and again.

Blessings,

Personal Care Skill for the Month- March Shoe Tying

Step 1: We go to our old friend Joe at Blue's Clues for the Shoe Tying Square Dance.


Step 2: Purchase shoe lace shoes for church. It takes the pressure off of having to do it everyday and allows us a special time together to work quietly on the skill.

Step 3: Dust off the Melissa and Doug Basic Skills puzzle. They do not sale this version anymore. I bought it when TS was a year old, which seems just like yesterday to me. He loved just putting the puzzle pieces in place.

Step 4: Start with a big shoe, his dad's. Color each side of the shoelace a different color to cut down the confusion as he masters the steps.

Step 5: Practice .....Practice

Happy Birthday Dr. Seuss

March 2, 2009 is the birthday of Theodore Seuss Geisel aka Dr. Seuss. We didn't learn to read with the good doctor and he was not a favorite of TS's until recently. (The graphics were scary to him as a younger child.) However millions of children have learned to read with Dr. Seuss and his messages are timeless, so I chose to celebrate the day of his birth.

Thank you Dr. Seuss for you creativity and bold story telling.

My all time favorite is The Places You Will Go which has traveled with me for years.

TS's list of "ThankYou to Dr. Seuss":

• Thank you showing me you can always learn to like a new food even if it looks gross (Green Eggs and Ham)
• Thank you for showing me the world is big and fun. (The Places You Will Go)
  
• It's just silly. ( A Wocket In My Pocket)
  

What's your favorite Seuss book?

Oh don't forget all the free Seuss Celebrations.

Cool Homeschool Tool-Galileo Thermometer

The Galileo thermometer consists of a sealed glass tube that is filled with water and several floating bubbles.  The bubbles are glass spheres
filled with a colored liquid mixture.  This liquid mixture may contain alcohol, or it might simply be water with food coloring.  Attached to each
bubble is a little metal tag that indicates a temperature.  A number and degree symbol are engraved in the tag.  These metal tags are actually
calibrated counterweights.  The weight of each tag is slightly different from the others.  Since the bubbles are all hand-blown glass, they are not
exactly the same size and shape.  The bubbles are calibrated by adding a certain amount of fluid to them so that they have exact same density.  So,
after the weighted tags are attached to the bubbles, each differs very slightly in density from the other bubbles, and the density of all of them
is very close to the density of the surrounding water.

The basic idea is that as the temperature of the air outside the thermometer changes, so does the temperature of the water surrounding the
bubbles.  As the temperature of the water changes, it either expands or contracts, thereby changing its density.  At this changed density, some of
the bubbles will float and others will sink. HowStuffWorks or Wikipedia.

Wordless Wednesday-Guess the name of this cool homeschool tool?

Free Grammer Program

We received this information from a fellow co-op member.

"The Online Grammar and Writing Handbooks are in Adobe® Acrobat® format, for which you will need to use Adobe's Reader® software."

Scott and Foresman Reading

Enjoy!

Wordless Wednesday - Today's Classroom

Fine Motor Focus Day 14 -Spinning Top Race

Fine Motor Focus Day 13 -Thera Putty Hand Exercise

Stretch the Theraputty out and any tiny objects in it. Then mush it up into a ball.

It is now the child's job to pull the putty apart and find all the objects you put in there (oh, make sure you count how many you put in there, because the child WILL keep asking if they found them all).

Just a hint... children can even do this whole "game" themselves; hiding the objects AND finding them.

It comes in many resistance levels.

Tan - X-Soft Resistance
Yellow - Soft Resistance
Red - Medium-Soft Resistance
Coral - Medium Resistance
Green - Medium-Firm Resistance
Blue - Firm Resistance

Fine Motor Focus Day 12 - Break, Recycle and Use Crayon

Got old crayon? Need a Valentine's Day Craft? Have we got a an eco and budget friendly fine motor option for you.

First step peel the paper from used crayon. This paper will be used later as part of a rip paper art collage.

TS broke the crayons into small pieces using his thumb only.

These are going to be melted down via this to make this neat V-Day Craft.

voilà

Ta-Da!

HP Printer Give-A-Way at Jen's

I have been following Jen's blog for over a year. She is a mom of quadruplet boys. I just love her energy and spirit. She has a new review blog where she is sponsoring a giveaway of an Wireless HP Photosmart C6380 All-in-One Printer. Check her out!

Fine Motor Focus Day 11 - Colored Glue Art

Tools for the job:

• Half empty glue bottles
• Food coloring
• Construction paper

Add two drops of your favorite food coloring to each glue container and shake well. Let the lil artist use his imagination to make wonderful designs while working those squeezing hand muscles. For a little extra fine motor work hole punch colorful paper to add to the finished design.

Fine Motor Focus Day 10 -Cottonball Soccer

First you get an new squeeze bulb they use for suctioning lil noses and a new bag of cotton balls.

You can make them look like little soccer balls and make goals.

We used stacking cups and played cotton ball soccer by squeezing the bulb part in attempt to move the cotton ball into the goal.

This is working those thumb muscles. It was a hit but it was work for TS.