The Bryan Family

Tot School - Space and Groundhogs

Mon, 13 Feb 2012 17:28:07 -0600

This week we had fun learning about Space. Our shape this week was stars. I wasn’t sure if she would really enjoy this, but she loved it! She gets so excited if she sees a picture of Earth, and will say “Look it’s Earth! That’s where we live!!”

Here are some links to some of things we used this week as well as other Space resources:

Homeschool Creations: Astronaut Preschool Pack, A is for Astronaut letter craft

Totally Tots: Space Sensory tub, A is for astronaut, Crafty Corner Space

Space Jet Packs

Making Learning Fun: Space

1+1+1=1: Solar System Pack

Dot painting all the letter A’s.

Alphabet space puzzles

Coloring a rocket from a Kumon workbook.

Cutting a rocket. (She’s getting pretty good with those scissors!)

Shadow matching

Pattern block rocket. She actually did this all by herself with no help!

Rocket shape craft

Sorting “moon rocks” by color.

Drawing a rocket

Painting a rocket. I cut out a rocket shape stencil and made a star stamp to make stars around the rocket.

Our star collage with star stickers.

She made a night sky for her star page. (See the little part of the paper where it is daytime…She said that was Thailand)

Playing with our mini foam shapes.

Ready to blast off in our little rocket. The rocket later turned into a car, boat, and then a house.

We also worked more with our words see, and, the, a:

She found our words in the song “Twinkle, Twinkle”.

Played bingo

Word puzzles

I also made a little book using our words I see a and the. (Forgot to take a picture) I used pictures from the astronaut preschool pack for the book. Here are the words:

I see the astronaut. I see the sun. I see a rocket. I see the moon and stars. I see the Earth.

She read the entire book!!

We also took a day off of Space to talk about groundhogs. We did a few activities to celebrate Groundhogs day.

We made a shadow for our groundhog.

We also made a groundhog puppet pop out of the ground.

Liam's Quilt

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 17:54:09 -0600

My mom has made a quilt for each of her 7 grandchildren. Liam’s quilt is now finished and it turned out so cute!!

(Love his little hand!)

Thanks Grandmama (and Aunt Dana)!!

Photo

Sun, 12 Feb 2012 17:53:00 -0600

Sicky Baby

Thu, 09 Feb 2012 18:56:13 -0600

We have been fighting sickness for a few weeks now. :( At first, we all had some kind of stomach virus (except for Neale..he somehow missed out) Then the kids had coughs/runny noses and fevers. Last Monday, Liam had a fever all day (reached almost 103). His fever went down on Tuesday, but had some vomiting until Thursday. I took him in to the doctor on Thursday morning and poor guy had double ear infections! Hopefully no more sickness for a while!!

January in Pictures

Wed, 01 Feb 2012 00:00:05 -0600

Just a few photos from January

He loves his food!

The kids love music time with Daddy!

Trying out his new cup.

Playing together :)

Tot School - Q, quilts, and square

Tue, 31 Jan 2012 13:06:04 -0600

This week we learned about the letter Q. We also talked about quilts and squares. Here are some links to some of the activities we did this week.

COHS: PreK letter Q

1+1+1=1: You Can Read

Totally Tots: Q is for Quail

Kumon: My First Book of Cutting , My Book of Coloring , My Book of Easy Mazes

Do-a-dots Q. I had to take out the purple do-a-dots this week. (All the other colors were feeling a little left out.) Ellie decided to make her own purple by using red and blue do-a-dots together.

On our Q collage we stamped question marks and glued on Q-tips.

We also painted with our Q-tips. Ellie drew a queen inside of her Q.

Who knew putting q-tips in a bucket and dumping them out could be so entertaining?

Q quail craft

Letter matching with the word quilt.

We also made our own “quilts” this week. They decorated different squares using stickers, pain, and markers. After I cut them all out we tied them all together to look like a quilt.

Ellis’s finished quilt.

For our square collage, we glued down square pieces of fabric to look like a quilt.

Ellie chose to turn her blue square into a shirt for a little boy. Wish I had a better picture of the finished product..it turned out pretty cute!

She’s Reading!!

We have been working on different CVC words using the letters that we have already learned. She’s been doing pretty well, but this week it really clicked. I found her sounding out the word bag all on her own one day!

We also started practicing the sight words I, a, and, see, the. She can now read sentences with these words in them. She has also started pointing out these words if she finds them in one of her books or songs. ”Look Mommy It’s one of our words!!”

Finding the words and, the, see, a.

Finding and circling the words with different fonts.

Working at her new desk. Doesn’t she look so big?!

Can you guess which one is Ellie and which one is Liam?

Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:34:27 -0600

Can you guess which one is Ellie and which one is Liam?

6 months old!

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 13:09:28 -0600

At 6 months Liam:

is 18 lbs. 6 ozs
is 27 1/2 inches long
can roll over both ways (but would rather scoot and squirm around than roll)
can sit up for a few minutes unassisted
has started eating food (He’s had sweet potatoes, avocado, banana, carrot, peas, apples, zucchini, and brown rice cereal. ) He loves to eat! He wasn’t so sure about those peas, though. Love my new baby bullet, by the way!!
loves his big sister! Anytime she is around he will look and smile at her. He even gives her hugs (and pulls her hair) when she comes to him.
really enjoys music (especially when Daddy plays his guitar)
said his 1st word (mama!!)…and Neale was there to witness! Shortly followed by dada. He says dada all day long. He will occasionally say mama..but not very often. He does say nana when he is hungry.

Tot School - S, snowmen, and circles

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 12:44:24 -0600

This week we learned about the letter S. We also talked about Winter and snowmen. (even though our weather around here feels more like Spring) Our shape this week was circles.

Here are some letter S printables:

Confessions of a Homeschooler: PreK letter S

Totally Tots: S is for Snail

Tot School Printables: Letter S

Letter S

Using our new sparkly do-a-dots. Thanks Aunt Beth!

Letter S tracing

We put stickers on our S for our S collage.

Ellis enjoying a sucker after nap. (Love the bed hair!!)

Matching the letters in the word snowman.

Snowmen

Making a snowman by spelling her name.

Painting snowmen with bottle caps.

Making snowmen with felt.

Ellie made our little family into snowmen…Mommy, Daddy, Ellie, and Liam.

Finding letters in the “snow”

Circles

We made different objects with our circle.

She decided to make a flower with her circle.

We glued buttons for our circle collage.

Scooping and playing with buttons.

Next week:

Letter Q

Quilts/Winter

Squares

The boys hard at work.

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 12:12:00 -0600

The boys hard at work.

Recycled Wool Diaper Covers

Sat, 21 Jan 2012 12:01:41 -0600

We’ve been having problems with Liam leaking through his diapers at night. We’ve used our cloth diapers and disposable ones and he still wakes up wet. I heard some great things about using wool covers over cloth diapers especially for night time. They can run about 30-45 dollars a piece. So I decided to try and make some with some old wool sweaters Neale and I had. I can’t find the tutorial I used to make these, but this one has the same idea. We’ll see how well they work. I am also going to try to make these as well as soon as I can find more wool sweaters.

New Years with the Williamses

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 15:06:02 -0600

We were able to spend New Years with Neale’s sister and her family this year. Ellie had a great time playing with her cousin Max. (She still talks about it.)

Story time with cousin Max.

Max trying to hold Liam.

It was so nice outside, so we had to try out Max’s slide.

All ready for bed!

Ellie, Max, and Liam

Happy Holidays!

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:55:22 -0600

Happy Holidays!

Liam sitting up. He’s getting so big!

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:47:52 -0600

Liam sitting up. He’s getting so big!

Christmas at the Josephs

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:46:42 -0600

All the grandkids

All my siblings (plus spouses)

My parents with the 5

Our annual sister photo

The Bryan 4

All 19

Liam's 1st Taste

Thu, 19 Jan 2012 14:35:02 -0600

We decided to wait a little while with Liam before we introduced him to solid foods. I think we started too early with Ellie. Since Ellie had such a bad experience with rice cereal, we skipped over the cereal and went right to the yummy stuff…sweet potatoes! Liam really enjoyed it!

Ice Skating in St. Louis

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 21:45:16 -0600

Each year my family all gathers at my parent’s house in St. Louis around Christmas. We have recently added on a new tradition of going ice skating while we are all there together. This year Ellie was finally able to do it…she was so excited to go ice skating!!

There she goes…with Daddy on one side and my niece Katie on the other side.

Liam enjoying the show.

My nieces and nephews (minus 2).

I guess Liam got a little bored, so he decided to take a little nap.

Tot School - I, Igloo, and ovals

Mon, 09 Jan 2012 06:51:45 -0600

Here is what we did this week

Letter I:

do -a-dot Ii

Our I craft - iguana

Our I collage with insects

Ellie used the do a dots to dot the uppercase I’s blue and the lowercase i’s purple.

Having fun with ice. We scooped and poured and played until our hands became too cold. I then sat the bucket aside so they could watch the ice melt.

Igloo:

We painted igloo shapes white, and then cut out a door for our little eskimo. We then glued the igloos down on blue paper and and painted snow all around the igloo.

Ovals:

Ellie decided she wanted to make balloons with her ovals.

Ellie painted ovals then glued them down to make an oval collage.

Here are some more ideas for the letter I:

I is for Igloo and more cold weather fun by 1+1+1=1.

I is for inchworm by Confessions of a Homeschooler.

5 months old!

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 16:24:05 -0600

Putting up the Christmas Tree

Sat, 07 Jan 2012 14:04:05 -0600

She really enjoyed decorating the tree this year. She was really excited to see all of her ornaments from her past Christmases.

Liam had fun watching as well!

~photo by Ellie