A is for Apple Preschool and Kindergarten Free Printable Pack!

I know there are many printable packs out there with apples, but I wanted to add my offerings into the mix.  I also have no idea when I will get a chance to photograph my own children using the pack.  So, in order to get these out to you at a time you might actually use them, I am only posting my pack-not the pack in use :).

My A is for Apple pack includes:

*Lowercase and Uppercase sorting mats*

*Apple matching cards-can be printed twice for a matching game OR 

put the apples in order from whole to eaten!*

*A word family game-put the apples in their word family bin.  Set includes word families it, in, et, en, at, and an, along with the words at, sat, hat, bat, in, sin, tin, an, tan, set, net, wet, it, hit, bit, sit, ten, hen, and ben.*

*10 Apples Up on Top cards-we have been reading this book by Theo LeSieg, so I made up cards and counters to go with the story.  I tried to model my cards after the pictures in the book.  We used red and green craft gems as our counters, or you could use red and or green pom poms.*

*Fall/Apple themed cards that could be used for spelling cards, 3 part cards, matching cards, or whatever you would like.  Set includes cards that say apple, butterfly, carmel apple, core, flower, jug, owl, pie, tree, and worm.*

The entire pack can be downloaded here free!!

I hope it can be a blessing to you in your classroom.  

Enjoy and God Bless!

*Some of the clipart used was created by Trina Clark*

What My Child is Reading: Letter A Books

This is our first time linking up with 'What my Child is Reading' at Mouse Learns, Mouse Grows. I'm not completely sure why I havent gotten on board before? It could be because our book selection is slightly limited as we dont have a local library to check books out at. But, I know we have some in our personal library that are worth sharing. Hopefully, we can make this a weekly blog post.

Our letter for the week was A. Here are some of the great books we read:



My "a" Book by Jane Belk. This was a cute, simple book that highlights words that start with A. In the book, a little boy goes about filling his box with things that start with the letter A. This is very fitting since we often do this in real life with our letter of the week. Both kids really liked this book, but especially Charger. He liked it so much that when he saw me with it to write this post he kept asking me to read it to him and wouldnt let me type anything until I had. Unfortunatly, it looks like you have to buy this book as part of a book club set {I hate book clubs}. So, maybe the library is a good place to look instead.



Berenstains' A Book by Stan & Jan Berenstain. A basic book that is likely in your home library, but is great for learning letter A.



Goodnight Arizona by Adam Gamble and Joe Veno. I LOVED this book. My father is an Arizona native and on their last trip out to visit, my parents brought this book back for the kids. It goes through all the Arizona landmarks and even the sports teams. A very fun book.



and My Big Animal Book by Roger Priddy. This fun book is a great resource for helping little ones learn the names of a variety of animals. It is packed with actual photos of animals from around the globe.

To see what others are reading this week, check out Mouse Learns Mouse Grows.

Preschool Corner: Letter A

Mustang is 4 and 1/2

Our letter of the week was A, the short A sound. I brought out our Letter A box, but Mustang wasnt too interested in it. She is really into workbooks and worksheets and everything 'schoolish.' *Sigh* Part of the reason I chose to homeschool was so that my children could learn hands on instead of a bunch of worksheets. I guess the grass is always greener on the other side, eh?

So, I have given in to her workbook love. I have found some great workbooks at Dollar Tree and she really enjoys working in them. For 1.00 I couldnt begin to print out that volume of color worksheets from my computer. They really are a great resource for this age group.

In addition to the workbooks, some of the highlights for the week:

Mustang graphed ants using a printable from Confessions of a Homeschooler.



Worked on the A pages from her ABC book {a workbook a friend made her using worksheets from Starfall.



Played an animal shadow matching game from Canon. Thank you United Teaching for the link!



Sorted apples by color, counted them, and then put the correct number in each bowl. This became extra complicated because I accidentally put 8 apples instead of 6 in the one color. Oops. Mustang then informed me that she had 2 apples too many. I ment it that way, of course :).



I found this great game at the Dollar Tree. Its called 'Pooh's Go-Together Game.' As the title indicates, there are matches of things that go together such as a brush and comb, a hammer and nail, raincoat and umbrella, etc. If the pair is matched correctly, the cards make a puzzle on the otherside. Mustang mostly wanted to put together the puzzles. We are working on following directions.



We read a number of books about animals, so I had Mustang classify our plastic animals. I had her sort them by whether she would find them in a zoo or a farm. She only needed a slight bit of help on this, but in the end she got them all right.

Like I mentioned earlier, the biggest thing that we need to work on is following directions. For so long, I have given Mustang the freedom to work with a school 'toy' or manipulative with little or no direction. I allowed her to color worksheets the way she wanted as well. So, it is going to be a bit of an adjustment period to have to follow directions.

To see what others are doing in their preschools, check out Preschool Corner at Homeschool Creations.

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Short A Sound Box

Here's what was in our short A sound bin:



Sand Paper Letters

Lower case and uppercase A sorting from Confessions of a Homeschooler
Matching cards from Our Montessori Story

Sound Mat from Beginning Reading

an A flash card

A worksheets from Starfall

and our A object box:



A is for: Alligator, Apple, Antelope, Ax, Ant, and Airplane.



I also found this book at the thrift that was a great addition to the box-wish I would have found more in this series!

I've got some new ideas for future boxes. It seems that Mustang {the intended audience} isnt very interested in them. But, Charger loves them. So, I will be changing up the contents soon. God Bless!

Tot School: A is for Animal

Charger is 29 months, Mini Cooper is 7 months

After a couple weeks off {yep that's normal around here and I am just starting to accept it}, We had great week here this week! The weather was amazing so we spent a lot of time outside, but we did do a few things inside too.

A is for Alligator, so we made the ever popular and SUPER cute alligator from No Time for Flash Cards (thanks Jolanthe for the link). This picture makes me laugh, as it is so much like the picture Jolanthe has on her site. Must be the way little boys show off their alligators :).



A is for Animals. I pulled out our Little Tikes 3-D Farm Animal Match up, a thrift store find from last fall.




The point of the game is to hide the heads and hineys of the animals under haystacks and then play a memory game to find them. We didnt play the game, I just let Charger have fun putting the animals together. First, he put them all together with their correct matches. Then, he pulled them apart and put them together with what ever animal he wanted. I would come up with names for the animals using part of each of the animal words. His favorite was our Chicken/Duck, or Chuck. We love Chuck {the show} around here!



Charger also played with our new animal play sets. A horse, lion, and pig all in the same cage-now that could get interesting! He spent a long time with these.



Using the new Viking Toys Chubbies Charger got for Easter, he sorted them by color. And, I know for sure I got this idea from another Tot School mommy, but I checked the blog where I thought I got this and didnt find it. If it was you PLEASE tell me! I want to give you credit.



A is for Ant. I printed and laminated this ant shape matching game from Confessions of a Homeschooler. He looked at it, proudly matched ONE ant, and then said 'I'm done, Mommy. No more.' *sigh*

What he wanted was to play with our T sound box. Each week, I have been putting out a box with activities based on our letter of the week. These have been for Mustang, or so I thought. I bring out the letter for the previous week, too, so while Mustang was working on A, Charger dove into the T box. I was amazed at how well he did with the activities in the box!



He matched lowercase and uppercase T's from Confessions of a Homeschooler.



And matched T puzzles from Alphabet Avenue.



He mostly wanted to play with the T box objects, particularly the toaster.



The next day he begged to play with the A box, too. {post on the A box coming later this week}



Tiny Tot Play

Mini Cooper played with {er um ate} our Melissa and Doug Farm Puzzle.



She is also starting to pull up on things, which makes life {and school} interesting!

And this week, Mini has started to really play with toys. She crawls over and takes whatever it is that she wants to play with and will start to yell and fuss if a toy she wants has been taken away. This is trying Charger's patience a lot. So, I purposely gave them a school toy to share.



It is our 'new' Ikea stacker that neither one had seen prior to this activity. I bought it at a yard sale prior to CHARGER's birth. Somehow, it got lost in a box and I found it last week. I would have saved it for a birthday, but was afraid it would get lost again.

We took lots of Nature Walks this week, which I will be writing about soon. But, I wanted to share this picture. My favorite for the week!



To see what other's did at their Tot School this week, check out 1+1+1=1. God Bless!!