chatfield corn maze

posted by daddy

for one of the boys' homeschool field trips, we went to the chatfield corn maze and had a blast! a giant jump pillow, yummy corn dogs, a corn maze and lots of other activities helped to make it a fun family outing.

the boys' orange shirts weren't even planned, yet fit right in!

all the kids were able to use antique tools used to
shuck corn and grind it into bird feed

we all enjoyed barrel train rides!

cozying up together to get out of the sun and rest their legs

the corn dogs were awesome

fun in the corn maze included picking up cobs and
attempting to shuck them by hand while getting lost!

sweet treats included kona ice, caramel apple with m&m's,
and laffy taffy

back to school

posted by mommy

{home}school has officially begun! actually, we started two weeks ago. but due to all of us passing around colds and such, it's been a rough start. the boys are loving our kindergarten curriculum from my father's world. our first two weeks were more of a review from our preschool stuff last year, but we focused on learning about each day of Creation and they made a new Creation book (pics to come later).

can't believe he's officially in kindergarten!

he is also doing bits and pieces of the kindergarten curriculum this year
since he likes to do everything just like his brother!

having fun decorating our back door with back-to-school clings

beginning each day with calendar time...everett is the official weather man!

and owen likes figuring out "yesterday", "today", and "tomorrow"

{home}preschool : week five

posted by mommy

this past week, our theme in our god's little explorers preschool unit was "t" is for tent and our journey through the bible continued with the story of abraham. we also reviewed various shapes we've been learning the last four weeks.

here are highlights of some of our activities:

A camping theme wouldn't be complete without a tent and flashlights.
We poked holes all over our cups using corn holders,
then used flashlights to shine stars all over.

our "campfire" snacks - fire made from cheese, pretzel logs,
raisin coals, and roasting marshmallows!

painting stars with mini marshmallows to remember God's promise
to abraham to have more descendants than stars in the sky

day 2 began with packing our bags with clothes, blankets,
and food to recreate the journey of abraham and his group

we packed up our tents and belongings and "moved" three times
as we reread the story of abraham and his journey from haran to canaan

cutting up and gluing foam to fill in our letter t's
(the suggested gluing of pipe cleaners just didn't work for us!)

god's little explorers not only works on teaching bible stories,
letters, shapes, and motor skills, but also works on life skills.
this week, we stayed with our camping theme and created
smore's kits to give to many of our wonderful volunteers at church.
the boys loved filling the bags and giving these out in the coming days,
especially since they knew they were getting a special snack afterwards!

their special snack - campfire cones
(warm from the oven!)

pasting the letter t made earlier in the week
into his alphabet notebook

colored and added his "t" treasure map piece

working hard on counting dots to make
number match cards, which I cut later
to use like puzzle pieces

{home}preschool : week four

posted by mommy

the beginning of october continued our god's little explorers preschool unit at home. in week four, our theme was "z" is for zoo and our journey through the bible continued with the story of noah's ark. we also did a little bit with triangles as our shape of the week.

here are highlights of some of our activities:

we colored and made our own clothespin zoo animals

owen working hard at trying to cut out his own animals...
he loves practicing cutting but still wants lots of help

owen really got into building his own zoo for our new animals

our noah's ark snack using bananas, peanut butter, & animal crackers

open wide! 

the boys watching one the videos about noah's ark
from leadershipforkids.tv

roaring like a lion as they show off their lion faces

having fun with salt trays and drawing various things
to reveal the rainbow colors underneath

a polar bear snack to go along with our zoo theme and
reading "polar bear, polar bear" during storytime

making our dot rainbows as we talked about God's promises
and noah's obedience

owen using our letter construction set to make the letter "z"

making the letter "z" from electrical tape in his alphabet notebook

writing practice with the week's letter

{home}preschool : week three

posted by mommy

the last week of september continued our god's little explorers preschool unit at home. this week our theme was "a" is for apple and our journey through the bible continued with the story of adam & eve and the tree of knowledge of good and evil. we also did a little bit with circles as our shape of the week.

here are highlights of some of our activities:

owen painting his own foot to be the trunk of his tree

making different colors of apple prints

one of our fun apple snacks - apple slices with either
peanut butter & granola or with cream cheese & raisins.
the boys devoured them all!

ev stamping all the a's in the letter identification sheet. he
actually picked out most of them himself. i was really surprised!

on day 2, the boys added the their handprints as the
leaves of their trees

we counted seeds in apple wedges, then had an apple taste test
with the different varieties we got at the apple farm

making play-doh apples for our apple trees

on day 3, they added their fingerprints as the apples in the tree

they also fingerpainted a large apple...

...and added real seeds from our apple taste test to the middle

we made homemade cinnamon vanilla applesauce in the
crockpot and used it for a snack with granola - easy apple pie!

one of our stories for the week was
ten apples up on top, so we took a few apples
and other items outside to see what we
could balance!

o actually balancing one apple!

two apples was much harder!

coloring their apple map pieces to add to their treasure maps

owen did a great job making small apples in the letter "a".
he used do-a-dot markers and regular markers.

their completed apples

their completed trees...such precious treasures!