Our (Practically Free) Kindergarten & Preschool Learning Plans 2012-2013

This year, we're not planning on purchasing any official curriculum. Below is our pieced together, mostly from materials we already have on hand, curriculum. In a small way I feel like this helps to balance the fact that we're still paying off my Elementary Ed degree :)

Bible
Our children will be learning about God, his love for them, and what they can do to love him back. For our "official" Bible studies we'll be continuing with breakfast readings from 365 Read-Aloud Bedtime Bible Stories. We'll also be walking through the Bible with the What's in the Bible? DVDs and the My Bible Coloring Book.

We'll also be reading from The Jesus Storybook Bible as well as other Bible storybooks.

We'll continue to focus on prayer with our Prayer Pail and we'll keep memorizing scripture with this simple Scripture Memory Box system (which, by the way, we love). For more ideas check out our Raising Children for God Pinterest board.

Language Arts
Our family will be focusing on reading lots of great books together. We'll also be listening to some wonderful audio books (partly so I can get some work done and partly because we all enjoy them so much).

All of the kids will continue to utilize our growing collection of Alphabet books and Alphabet activity books. We will also interact through many Alphabet activities and games and continue to talk about letters, letter sounds and words in real life situations.

We will also be learning and reviewing with several Alphabet videos including Letter Factory, WordWorld (Rocket to the Moon, Lucky Duck, Flying Ant), and free online videos as well. We'll also be attending story time at our local library once a week.

Jonathan and Eliya will also be doing a very simply Letter of the Week focus with a two or three activities each week on a specific letter.

Emahry will continue with simple phonics work and will continue to learn sight words from the Dolch sight word list to help make reading easier. She'll keep reading with Set 1 of Bob Books, which my mom gave us, and will complete many of the activities we've pinned in our Teach Me to Read board. Emahry will also continue to write in real world situations, making to-do lists, writing letters to family and friends and writing labels and descriptions of drawings. She'll also work on writing her full name, address and phone number. We like this website for making handwriting printables.

History
For a general overview we'll be reading through the History for Little Pilgrims that I picked up at Goodwill for less than a dollar. This book has 15 short chapters, each with a simply activity and a handful of questions. We'll go through one chapter each week.

After that we plan on starting a history overview using children's books. We have not decided yet if we'll begin in the beginning with books on the Ancient World or if we'll start closer to present day with an overview of American History. Here's a list of children's books about the Ancient World divided by time period and civilization. My friend, Kristin, has a great list of American History books organized into time periods as well.

Math
We'll be spending the first 11 weeks teaching and reviewing numbers 0-10 with a number of the week for our three oldest children. We'll also be using numbers in real world counting and completing lots of the counting activities found here. We may also go back to the Funnix Beginning Math Program once Emahry becomes more consistent with recognizing written numbers.

Emahry will also be keeping a math journal for recording facts about numbers (or like this), counting, graphing, and pattern work. We'll also add some number activities like this to her journal. We have this Primary Journal with space for drawing at the top and lines for writing on the bottom half.

Emahry will also work on counting to 100 and will begin to work with money, skip counting, and simple addition and subtraction using a variety of books, workbooks and activities. She'll be using some of these free 20 question math practices at least once a week as well.

Science
This fall, we'll be focusing on a nature study of trees. We'll be reading lots of books about trees, starting with this list, and enjoying the autumn weather observing local trees and collecting lots of leaves. We'll also be completing some tree and leaf projects we've pinned here. In the spring we'll pick back up with our study of plants and gardening.

We'll also be studying the seasons through books and activities.

Art
We'll be starting the year with a simple study of shapes and how to draw them. We'll then begin combining different shapes to make pictures. We'll be following many of the How to Draw... activities pinned to our Art Activities board. We'll also have some fun making fingerprint art like this.

Music
We'll be using Songs for Sapling Questions with Answers CDs as part of our Music time this year. We will listen to these 4 CDs throughout the day. I'm sure the ABCs and 123s CDs will sneak into our rotation as well. We'll also focus on learning two different hymns, This is My Father's World and Take My Life, and Let it Be.

Physical Education
Our kids are all very active. We will continue to play at home and at local parks & playgrounds. We will also go on regular nature walks. During warmer weather, our children will regularly swim in their grandparent's pool.

We're counting finally nailing down this plan as our finished project for the week. Would you like to share what you've accomplished? Link up to our Finished Friday blog party.

We're sharing this post at Pin the Tail on the Bloggy Pinterest Party @ Fox Hollow Cottage.

Today's Question: We'd love to hear about your homeschool plans for this year. Feel free to leave a link if you've blogged about your plans.

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Easy Homemade: Homemade Pantry Staples for the Busy Modern Family eBook for only $0.99!

Today through August 21st you can get a copy of Easy. Homemade. for just $0.99! If you are interested in cooking from scratch then this eBook is for you. 

Easy Homemade features recipes for more than 60 homemade kitchen staples as well as kitchen tips, information about choosing various ingredients and more from Mandi, founder and editor of Life Your Way.

Check out Mandi's video introduction of Easy. Homemade. 

Our family was sent a copy of this eBook to review and I think it's a great collection of pantry staples for beginners, kitchen experts, and everyone in between.

View and download free sample pages.

In this eBook, Mandi shares quick and easy recipes you can make with basic ingredients. You'll find recipes for beverages, seasonings, condiments, pantry staples, dairy, snacks, and baking mixes. Mandi also includes several bonus pages with tips on the most useful kitchen tools, a helpful pantry list, and links to many free printables for recipes and menu planning.

This eBook also includes a set of printable recipe cards, the Nook & Kindle files to load to those devices and access to all of the recipes from the book on PlantoEat.com

Check out more about Easy. Homemade. or purchase your own copy for only $0.99! 

You can also purchase Easy. Homemade. on Amazon for only $0.99 through 8/21.

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The Back to School Boost for Moms Ebook Bundle Only $10 until Aug 8th

The Back to School Boost for Moms Ebook Bundle sale starts today. This ebook bundle contains 5 ebooks filled with quick & practical help for families for only $10 ($28.95 value). Sale runs through August 8th.

1. Create Your Perfect Cleaning Schedule: So You Can Get More Done In Less Time ($5.99) by Christine at I Dream of Clean.
2. The No Brainer Wardrobe: Get Dressed with More Confidence and Less Fuss ($7.99) by Hayley at The Tiny Twig.
3. Cupcakes: 12 Months of Happiness! ($4.99) by Liz at Hoosier Homemade.
4. Feast in 15: Speed Cooking Weeknight Dinners ($4.99) by Tiffany at Eat At Home.
5. Tell Your Time: How to Manage Your Schedule So You Can Live Free ($4.99) by Amy Lynn Andrews at Blogging with Amy.

Click here for more details and to purchase your copies of these 5 ebooks for only $10.

Today's Question: What are some things you're doing to prepare for the fall and the start of a new school year?

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Raising Caterpillars {Finished Friday} come link up your finished projects, too!

link up your finished projects at the bottom of this post

A couple of years ago my friend, Kristin, posted about her children's experience raising caterpillars. I filed the idea away for when my own children were a little older.

Well, this year the timing was finally right...and we just happened to find two large swallowtail caterpillars munching on the carrot tops in our garden.

Our carrots were very pleased to be rid of their plump and unwelcome guests and our kiddos were thrilled with their new pets.

Thankfully, both of our caterpillars were almost to the chrysalis stage as Tim really couldn't stand cutting off any more of our carrot tops to feed these little "pests."

Mrs. Little (named by Emahry because she was...little) and Mr. Big (yes, the creativity abounds) began the chrysalis stage one day apart and emerged as beautiful butterflies less than two weeks later. Of course, those two weeks were tortuously long for our kids as they checked on the caterpillars several times each day.

Throughout our waiting we enjoy reading about caterpillars and butterflies. Our favorite book was Bob and Otto that tells the story of a friendship between a caterpillar and an earthworm.

Mrs. Little was the first to complete the transformation and was so ready to fly that the only photo we have of her release is the kids waving to her as she flew over our patio fence.

Mr. Big, however, was still readying his wings when we discovered him, so we were able to enjoy him a little bit longer.

I don't think I ever raised a caterpillar as a child. If I did, I certainly don't remember it, so this was a learning experience for me as well.

I hope this caterpillar raising will become a yearly tradition in our family...it's definitely worth repeating!

Since Kristin did such a great job simplifying the process, I'm not going to try to reinvent the wheel. Just head on over to her post for directions on how to raise your own caterpillars.

Today's Questions: Have you ever raised caterpillars? Is it something you'd like to do with your children?

I'm trying to hold myself accountable to finish some of the projects on my to do list by posting each Friday about a project I've completed.

Would you like to join in? Link up to your own projects below.

1. Link to your project post, not your blog's home page, so we can find it easily.
2. Let us know what project you are sharing in your title, for example: Spring Wreath
3. We'd love it if your post links back here so that your readers can come join the fun. Feel free to copy & paste our Finished Friday Button into your post. (Just copy the text in the box below the button, click on the "Edit HTML" tab for your post and paste it there.)

<center><a href="http://a-heart4home.blogspot.com/search/label/Finished%20Friday"target="_blank" ><img border="0" src=" http://i443.photobucket.com/albums/qq160/aHeart4home/FinishedFridaybutton125px.jpg"/></a></center>

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Free Kids Look & Learn Chicken eBook

Two weeks ago we started an adventure of raising chickens. For a few years we've been trying to figure out how to squeeze the cost of organic, pasture raised chicken and eggs into our grocery budget. Finally, we realized that we can only afford those items by thinking outside of the box.

Two Fridays ago Tim went and picked up our chicks. Our first night was a little rough and we ended up with  over 40 chicks (including almost thirty 5 week olds) spending the night in our townhouse!

Thankfully, those camping out in our living room are now limited to the 10 actual babies we have in boxes behind our couch.

I'm sure we'll be sharing more as we venture along on our chicken raising journey, but I just came across this free Chicken ebook download from Amazon and wanted to share it with all of you.

I'm sure we'll all learn a thing or two from this free ebook.


The price of this ebook is currently $0.00, but that can change at any time. Make sure you double check the price before checking out.

This ebook is sold for Kindles, but you can easily download this free application that enables you to read Kindle ebooks on your PC. This is how I read all ebooks, and it works really well.

This post contains affiliate links.

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Plant & Garden Nature Study Extensions: Peter Rabbit & Beatrix Potter

Here are some Plant & Garden Nature Study extensions we've enjoyed so far:

The World of Peter Rabbit and Friends
This DVD includes three delightful tales: "The Tale of Peter Rabbit and Benjamin Bunny," "The Tale of the Flopsy Bunnies and Mrs. Tittlemouse," and "The Tale of Tom Kitten and Jemima Puddle-Duck." This high quality BBC production has charming animation. We love how calming it is, it's great for before nap or bedtime or in the middle of a muggy summer afternoon. (Each tale is about 25 minutes.)

If your family enjoys this first DVD you may also like The Beatrix Potter Collection. This is the complete 9 episode box set of Beatrix Potter tales produced by BBC. This set is a total of 225 minutes with each tale being about 25 minutes long.



After watching some of Beatrix Potter's work your family might enjoy the story of her life in Miss Potter. This 2007 movie is rated PG and stars Renee Zellweger, Ewan McGregor, and Emily Watson. Here's a movie review from Focus on the Family. It is definitely a very clean movie (much less controversial than many animated films) and is not a complete romance as the cover would have you believe. This would also be a good way to involve the whole family and would be a good addition to an author/illustrator study of Beatrix Potter.

Here are some more activities to incorporate with Peter Rabbit:
:: Answer Mr. McGregor's questions about plants and gardening (this is really cute)
:: Peter Rabbit Stand Up Dolls Printable
:: Little Peter Rabbit Singing Hands Song
:: Emergent Reader Printable Book
:: Rabbit Pre-Writing Cards
:: P is for Peter Rabbit Do-A-Dot or Magnet Sheet
:: Feed the Rabbit Printable Game




Other Plant & Garden Nature Study Posts:Creating a Nature Study Binder (and lots of ideas for what to put in it)Plant & Garden Books for Children (over 25 suggestions with summaries/reviews)

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Book Nook

Inspiration:

I love this personalized painted sign. Check out all the options here.

Source: jolinne on Etsy 
Please click through to the shop before you pin.

Our children are enjoying:

:: The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name

:: 365 Read-Aloud Bedtime Bible Stories

:: The Saggy Baggy Elephant

:: Sweet Dream Kisses: Treasury of Bedtime Stories

:: Ladybug Girl & Bumblebee Boy (great for encouraging imaginative play)

I'm enjoying:

:: Real Food on a Real Budget
:: Mindset for Moms 

:: Lies Women Believe: And the Truth that Sets Them Free

Tim's enjoying:
:: The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre!

Today's Question: What book have you or your children most enjoyed this past week?

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Heroes & Villains of the Bible Book Review

We recently read through Tommy Nelson’s children’s Bible storybook, Heroes and Villains of the Bible.

Heroes and Villains of the Bible is a collection of true-life adventures of real people form the Bible. Some of these people were warriors for God while others fought against God, his ways, and his people.

This children’s Bible storybook contains 50 stories with actual Bible text from the International Children’s Bible version.

Each story also contains an introduction that establishes important events surrounding each section of scripture. The end of each story has thoughts and suggestions to help readers relate the stories to life today and to ultimately point children to God—the greatest hero of all!

We really enjoyed the Bible overview as the storybook told of people such as Abraham, Joseph, Moses, Rahab, Ruth, Haman, Herod, Peter, Stephen and many others. I also liked that the heroes were visually represented in the table of contents and throughout their chapter with the head of a lion while the villains were represented by a snake.

I thought the introduction and summary that accompanied each chapter was well thought out and helpful in making the stories easier to apply to everyday life.

I am not a huge fan of the International Children’s Bible translation, but I can see how it would make the stories easier to understand if a child were to read them on their own. Personally, I’d rather read from the same version we use and then answer any questions that our children have.

I did not like the digital illustration, but the kids liked them and I think they definitely make the storybook more appealing to older children, which is good since the illustrations of so many Bible storybooks are considered too babyish by many older children. The illustrations are also a little sparse with only one picture for most of the stories. The stories range from 2-6 pages. Some of the shorter stories have no picture at all.

Overall, we enjoyed this book and we will be keeping it in our library to refer to as we study various people from the Bible.

I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own.

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Thanks for visiting and we hope you'll be back often!

Free eBook: Healthy Recipes for Your Nutritional Type

Download your FREE Healthy Recipes for your Nutritional Type eBook from Mercola.


This post contains affiliate links. When you download this free ebook you are helping to support our family, at no cost to you...thanks!

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Tri-Moms Share the Love: Day 6

Welcome to the final day of the Tri-Moms Share the Love Giveaway Week.

Head on over to Kristin's blog @ Bits and Pieces from My Life to enter for your chance to win this beautiful set of historic paper dolls.

There's also still time to enter all of the other great giveaways from this week:

Crochet Patterns from Knot Sew Cute Etsy Shop (3 Winners)

Mornings With Jesus 2012 Devotional

A is For Abigail by Lynne Cheney

Don't Make Me Come Up There by blogger Kristen Welch (2 Winners)

Speak by Laurie H. Anderson


Also be sure to join us on the first and third Tuesday of every month for fun discussions.  
   

Upcoming Topics:

February 21: Romancing Your Husband

March 6: Celebrating Spring

March 20:  Gardening with Kids

April 3: Celebrating the Meaning of Easter
April 17: Spring Cleaning
May 1: Reflecting on the Past School Year
May 15: Summer Learning Plans

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Thanks for visiting and we hope you'll be back often! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Free ebooks: Gluten Free Breakfasts and Lunches

Right now you can download Gluten Free Breakfasts and Gluten Free Lunches from Amazon for free!
 

Each of these ebooks contain 52 quick, simple, and delicious recipes.

The price of each of these ebooks is currently $0.00, but that can change at any time. Make sure you double check the price before checking out.

 

These ebooks are sold for Kindles, but you can easily download this free application that enables you to read Kindle ebooks on your PC. This is how I read all ebooks, and it works really well.

This post contains affiliate links.

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Tri-Moms Share the Love: Day 3

Today is Day 3 of the Tri-Moms Share the Love Giveaway Week. (Be sure to check back here each day for a new giveaway.)

Head on over to Kristin's blog @ Bits & Pieces from My Life to enter for your chance to win A is for Abigail: An Almanac of Amazing American Women.

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Welcome to A Heart for Home! We'd love for you to subscribe

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Book Nook

Inspiration:

Paint the back of a bookcase to add color to a room and make the contents of the case stand out.

source

Our children are enjoying:

:: The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name

:: 365 Read-Aloud Bedtime Bible Stories

:: Wild Animals: Magnetic Story and Play Scene

:: Sweet Dream Kisses: Treasury of Bedtime Stories
:: On Top of Spaghetti Eliya, almost 2, sounds adorable trying to sing the first few lines of the song.

I'm enjoying:
:: One Thousand Gifts I had to return the library's copy, but thankfully my mom just finished reading her copy last week.
:: Don't Make Me Come Up There
:: Lies Women Believe: And the Truth that Sets Them Free

Tim's enjoying:
:: The Backyard Homestead: Produce all the food you need on just a quarter acre!

Today's Question: What book have you or your children most enjoyed this past week?

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to receive free updates through e-mail or our RSS feed.

Thanks for visiting and we hope you'll be back often! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Book Nook

Inspiration:

Looking to add some interest to your staircase? 

source

:: The Jesus Storybook Bible: Every Story Whispers His Name

:: 365 Read-Aloud Bedtime Bible Stories

:: Fluffy and Baron

:: Luke Goes to Bat
:: Sweet Dream Kisses: Treasury of Bedtime Stories
:: Biscuit (My First I Can Read)
:: T is for Touchdown: A Football Alphabet

:: One Thousand Gifts 
:: Don't Make Me Come Up There

What are some current favorites in your home?

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Free eBook: Organized Simplicity

This is the last day to enter our giveaway of The Money Saving Mom's Budget by Crystal Paine of MoneySavingMom.com.

Right now you can download a free copy of Organized Simplicity from Amazon. This ebook is another wonderful resource from Tsh @ SimpleMom.net.

The price is currently $0.00 (reg. $16.99), but that can change at any time. Make sure you double check the price before checking out.

This ebook is sold for Kindles, but you can easily download this free application that enables you to read Kindle ebooks on your PC . This is how I read all eBooks, and it works really well.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Welcome to A Heart for Home! We'd love for you to subscribe

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Thanks for visiting and we hope you'll be back often! ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~