March 31, 2008

Rainbows ~ Little Laplinks

For April, Little Laplinks is doing a lapbook all about rainbows and we are excited to get started!

First, I created a printable myself, to teach roygbiv. I just couldn’t find exactly what I wanted, so I made it myself. You can find it in PDF form here. I also have books we will be using and just might make some more items if I can’t find other things I am looking for (I already have one in mind!).
I really wanted an accurate rainbow for P to be able to color that actually had all 7 spaces of the rainbow! I found that here.
We also plan to uses these printables for our lapbook…
We plan to use a few items that others have already linked up…
I’m hoping to make a printable with these songs for learning to spell color words, you’ll have to check back if you’re interested! **edited** I made the mini book for the songs! It is here.
I will add photos of our completed lapbook when we’re done! Jump on over to Lapbook Lesson’s Little Laplinks to see other ideas form other blogs!
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March 31, 2008

Tot School ~ cooking, cutting & chalk

We had a fun tot school week, with our tot school activities falling at strange times of the day. We try to “do” official tot school every morning but last week the schedule was all thrown off by various things so we intermingled tot school throughout the week, here are a few highlights from our week…

The teen we have living with us loves to cook and cooks often with P. K is just old enough now to join in and they made a cake together, here he is stirring his green frosting. He had so much fun!

We also played with our great Melissa and Doug Cutting Food Box, where K is learning the names of different foods and how to “cut-it” as he calls it. He loves practicing his cutting skills!
Then, it was finally not bitter cold and we escaped outside for some chalk time. I had no idea how much he would LOVE chalk, he played for a long time with it, it was awesome! He was in all sorts of weird positions as he drew with his “colors.” Here he is on the top step, he is quite the daring little guy…
I have also created a *Tot School* portion to my website (Lapbooks from 1+1+1=1), to highlight different things about tot school that aren’t as easy to put on the blog. I am keeping a record of all who participate in Tot School over there too, so if you’ve participated, jump over and see yourself linked up! If you’d like to participate, I welcome you to join us anytime and share what you’re doing with your tot! Please don’t feel like it has to be an entire week’s worth, even if you just have one simple entry about something you did with your tot, that’s great!

If you’re new to Tot School, here’s a few tips to get you started…What are you doing for Tot School lately? Let’s define a “tot” as an 1-3 year old. I would say anything before a formal Pre-K curriculum. You know, the stuff we do with our little ones to provide opportunities to develop their love of learning and maybe teach them a few things. If you have any ideas you’d like to share, link up your exact post to Mr Linky (if you have questions about how to do that, let me know in a comment or email). Provide a link back somewhere in your post to this post so your readers can see other ideas too!

Click here to see past Tot School Posts and ideas from others!

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March 29, 2008

Give a Little Bit

We’re starting something new here at 1+1+1=1, I am really excited to give a little bit and hope you will be excited too! You may or may not know about my mom, Sandi, if you don’t I want to tell you about her and if you do maybe you will learn something new about her from this.

This is my mom…
She is a very talented woman with a HUGE heart and she uses much of that huge heart to help our own family. We are full time missionaries and my mom spends much of her time supporting our mission work.

About 2 years ago my mom gave my new baby (K) an adorable taggie blankee she made herself. At that time I hadn’t seen these for sale anywhere (although we now know others sell them too) and I instantly fell in love. I asked her if she’d ever want to go into business and she said yes, but only if she could give all of the money to our missionary work. We argued about this for awhile and she finally won and Little Bits was created, entirely non-profit.

I worked to get a website up for her and it has evolved into what it is today (it certainly didn’t start like it is now!). She began sewing and sewing, in addition to her FULL time job. Yes my friends, my mom works full time and does everything for Little Bits in her spare time.
Not only does my mom work full time and give so much of her heart during her free time, she also has lots of physical problems. She struggles with a body that tends to always have “something” wrong, most recently it has been her hand, which greatly impacts her sewing. She has had surgery on her hand, knees, shoulders, stomach, and lives her life in much pain. BUT, she is not one to let pain get in the way, she rises above and is a great example of serving the Lord with ALL that you have. She is a constant inspiration to me and many others.

I tell you all of this about my mom and the work she does through Little Bits so you will understand a little bit more about why I am starting “give a little bit.” I want to give a little bit not only so the winner can have a new Bit, but also to remind us all to give a little bit. Not necessarily an item, but to give of yourself. Let my mom be a source of inspiration to you, let the Bits we give away be a reminder to give to others in some way every day. Even though I live a life as a missionary I often need to be reminded of this myself, don’t we all? So, yes it will be exciting to receive a new Bit if you’re the winner, but don’t let it end there, give of yourself in some way to others!

Here at 1+1+1=1, I will begin to offer FREE giveaways of beautiful Little Bits.
I want to give away different Bits each time, and hope to host a giveaway often, although I will not set a certain day so you’ll have to check in often to see if there’s one up! If you’ve never been over to the Little Bits site, give a visit and see what you like because with each giveaway you will also have the option to vote on the next Bit we giveaway!

Why am I doing this on my homeschooling blog? Because I believe that we all desire to teach our children to give back in some way and to be more selfLESS in all they do. At least that’s what I desire for my boys. Hopefully this regular giveaway will remind us all to not only be strive for this in ourselves but also remind us to teach our children each and every day to give back.

Check back soon for our very first give a little bit giveaway! We’re excited to get going!
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March 25, 2008

In the Works ~ Bible Lapbook

We have been working on our Bible lapbook for awhile now and will continue to do so as it is becoming a simple but great resource that we keep coming back to and building upon. I imagine it won’t be officially “finished” for weeks as I have developed new goals for P recently.

The original inspiration to do this lapbook came from Valerie and her Bible lapbook from Lapbook Lessons (thanks Valerie!). I then decided to add to it and searched and searched for what I was looking for exactly and couldn’t find it, so I made it myself. I am still in the process of making the entire thing but we have already started using them.I created cards for each book of the Bible, one card has the name of the book and the other card lists the author, key characters, and some key stories from that book. After his successful memorization of the Old Testament Books (saying them out loud), I was inspired to teach him to put them in order with these cards and also to learn more facts about each book.

You can find pdf files of these cards here.

Eventually I hope to cut these cards apart and play a memory game with him, matching the name of the book with the facts of the book, but we aren’t there yet! I printed each sheet of 5 books on different colors to help him with the sorting and memory game down the road.

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March 22, 2008

Tot School ~ Sick Style

Tot school was done sick-style for us this week. Poor K was puking and running a fever shortly after this first shot was taken…P had selected their miniblocks and K enjoyed it and then “it” hit him and he slowly became miserable. Soon both boys were cuddled up in my bed watching Baby Einstein in my bed for Tot School! He is really loving Baby Einstein – Baby Van Gogh – World of Colors right now, which is mainly about colors!K finally perked up when we dyed Easter eggs and he really loved us naming the colors for him! That counts as our main Tot School for the week! And, my dad got to participate in some Tot School as he taught K the animal names while playing with our Noah’s Ark Shape Sorter. This is a favorite toy around here! There was also lots of reading as the sick boy cuddled…K seems to be feeling better now, I look forward to the upcoming week of Tot School, maybe we can even get outside this week!

Official Info on Tot-School, in case you’re just joining us…
What are you doing for Tot School lately? Let’s define a “tot” as an 1-3 year old. I would say anything before a formal Pre-K curriculum. You know, the stuff we do with our little ones to provide opportunities to develop their love of learning and maybe teach them a few things. If you have any ideas you’d like to share, link up your exact post to Mr Linky (if you have questions about how to do that, let me know in a comment or email). Provide a link back somewhere in your post to this post so your readers can see other ideas too!


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