Printable | Preschool Homeschool | Mathematical Concepts

Mental Checklist for the Preschool Homeschool – Mathematical Concepts

Printable | Preschool Homeschool | Social Development Checklist

Mental Checklist for the Preschool Homeschool – Social Development

Craftivity | Making a Paper Quilt

We have taken a significant break from our God's Little Explorers activities as we have been tending to other needs in life. Learning has still been happening, simply not in the formal way it had been before we took our unplanned sabbatical.

We are slowly getting back into the swing of things, and picking up where we left off with the letter 'q'.

Printable | Preschool Homeschool | Motor Skills Checklist

Mental Checklist for the Preschool Homeschool – Motor Skills

Printable | Number Formation Practice

Having made a template for letter formation practice pages, the next logical step was to create number formation practice pages.

Cheap and Easy Storage Solutions | Permanent Marker Hideaway

I should have known it was coming. Ada was about this age when she started doing it. It's worse with Ida because she is a climber. It doesn't matter where I stash them; she always manages to find them.

Printable | Letter Formation Practice | Upper Case

Well, I posted a set of lowercase Letter Formation Practice Pages a week ago. I thought there might be a few people who found them useful, even though they were pretty simplistic. Apparently a lot of people found them useful. I guess it's not just my own kids who find it constraining to write the same letter over and over.

Printables | English Language Arts Essentials | Text Types and Student Glossary

When I began teaching Middle School ELA in the United States, I began a second career in teaching, that was totally different to my first career as a high school teacher in Australia. Education, it seems, is yet another one of the many facets of culture that differ vastly between Australia and the US (not simply our pronounciation and spelling of aluminium).

Now, I was no longer a teacher of various subjects to various grade levels, but a teacher of one subjects, to one grade level, simply performing what was essential the same lesson, six times in a row. Variety is truly the spice of life. 7th Grade ELA can become mind-numbingly boring after the third year. So mind-numbing, in fact, that one starts to ask questions one has never asked before.

Printable | Letter Formation Practice | Lowercase

Ada is getting much better at coloring between the lines...when she takes her time. I think she might be a bit of a chip off the old block here in that she likes to rush things because her active little imagination is racing ahead to the next thing she wants to do.

Cheap and Easy Storage Solutions | The Ramen Noodle Box Bookshelf



 One of the greatest gifts my parents gave me, after raising me to know Jesus as my personal saviour, was the gift of growing up without. After hearing the voice of God as clear as a bell in the pineapple field he was working in, my father went back to college with a wife, three kids, and a mortgage.

Ten Free Bible-Based Preschool Curricula

When searching for a free preschool curriculum online, I found several that I liked, but only one that really fit my kids and me. The most important factor (after the fact that it was free), was that it had to be Bible-based, and if it introduced the letters of the Alphabet as well, then that was a bonus, and less planning for me.

Craftivity: The Ten Plagues of Egypt

As a part of our exploration of the letter 'i' and the story of Moses leading the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt, we completed a craft activity based on the Ten Plagues of Egypt. This activity was very useful in helping my oldest (aged 3 1/2) in retelling the order of the plagues and what they were.

God's Little Explorers: An Infant, Insects, and Infection

The story of Moses in Egypt is not a brief tale. Nor is it an easy tale. Slavery, the slaughter of innocents, murder, insect plagues, infection, death...and yet through it all we are shown the faithfulness of God to His children, and in the redemption of Israel from slavery, given a foreshadowing of the Redeemer who came to set all of us free from the slavery of sin.

'10 Top ABC Coloring Pages' Rides Again

Life is a little busy, but the crayons are always handy, and the alphabet never gets stale.

10 Top ABC Coloring Pages

We love to colour, and when life gets busy and schoolwork gets pushed to the side for a time colouring is a great activity to keep working those fine motor skills, visual discrimination, and vocabulary. Here are 10 of our favourite alphabet coloring sets

Cheap and Easy Storage Solutions | Puzzle Box Blowout Fix

Kids love puzzles. Sometimes a little too much. They're not only good for brain development, and fine motor skills, but they make GREAT teethers, and the boxes are great fun to use for indoor hopscotch.

Printable: Letter Recognition Assessment

Formative assessment is the most important of the three types of assessment used in the classroom, whether it be a regular school classroom, or the homeschool classroom.

God's Little Explorers: A Coat of many Colours

For week six of God's Little Explorers, we moved on to the story of Joseph and his Coat of Many Colours, and the letter 'c'.

A Coat of many Colours

An Exploration of the letter 'c'

Letter: c

Theme/Focus: The Story of Joseph

Craftivity: Paper Dolls

As part of our week with Abraham (Traveling with a Tent - the letter 't'), I found it appropriate to introduce my girls to the wonderful world of cutout paper dolls. Our song for the week was 'Father Abraham' and yes, he did have a number of sons.

(For those who only read the more popular parts of the Bible, Ishmael and Isaac were not his only offspring... after Sarah died, Abraham remarried and had a number of children with his new wife Keturah; although she's sometimes referred to as his concubine. And so Abraham is not just the father of the Jews and the Arabs, but also a number of other ethnic groups, including the Midianites.  Read Genesis 25:1-6.)
This is such a simple craft, yet it can incorporate so many physical and mental skills, it's really a wonderful exercise to engage your children with.

- Paper Folding (Fine Motor)
- Fractions (Half, quarters etc)
- Scissor Skills
- Colouring, Drawing faces, clothes etc.
- Counting

God's Little Explorers: Traveling with a Tent

For week five of God's Little Explorers, we moved on to the story of God's Promise to Abraham, and the letter 't'.

Traveling with a Tent

An Exploration of the letter 't'

Letter: t

Theme/Focus: God's Promise to Abraham

God's Little Explorers: Noah's Zany Zoo

We continued our journey through the Bible with God's Little Explorers, to the letter ‘z’, and a study of Noah, and the enduring faithfulness of God.

Noah’s Zany Zoo

An Exploration of the Letter 'z'

Spring, Seed Catalogues and Rainbows Craftivity

Spring is Sprung
The grass is riz
I wonder where the birdies is!

(or in Daddy's case, I wonder where the mower is!)

God's Little Explorers: Adam and Eve and the Apple

As we continue our journey through the Bible with God's Little Explorers, we stop at what I believe is a critical moment of understanding for every little soul, and lies at the crux (literally) of our relationship with God.

The problem of sin.

This is a very deep knowledge for little ones to grasp, and needs to be approached in conjunction with the answer to sin, lest we leave them without hope.

I chose to spend more than a week with this topic, and simply followed the leading of the Spirit in determining when I felt Ada (3.5) particularly, had a good grasp of the problem and the promised solution.

Adam and Eve and the Apple

An Exploration of the Letter 'a'

Printable: The A-MAZE-ING Alphabet

In our exploration of the Alphabet, I have continually seen the need for constant exposure to letters, from pointing them out on the side of a truck, to pointing to the words as I read them in a book, even knowing that my little ones might not yet make much sense of them.

At this stage both Ada (3.5) and Ida (2) can recite the alphabet and name any letter they see, both lower and upper cases. Ada can also name the sounds letters make, and enjoys telling me what letter words begin with ("Mummy! Poo starts with p...p...P!")

I feel it's time to start giving her exposure to the SHAPE of letters as well as the SOUND of letters. She enjoys simple mazes, so I decided to use letter shapes in maze form. This is a complete alphabet set to go along with the Alphabet Roll'n'Graph set I made a few weeks ago. You van find that here.

God's Little Explorers: God Creates a Garden





God Creates a Garden

An Exploration of the Letter 'g'

Letter: g

Theme/Focus: The Creation

Memory Verse: Genesis 1:1 "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,"

Song: My God is so Great
This song was a great choice, not only because of the g's in the title, but because it clearly speaks about God as the Creator, with lines like, "there's nothing my God cannot do," and, "the mountains are His, the rivers are His, the stars are His handiwork too!"

Craftivity: The Symmetry of Creation



The Symmetry of Creation Craftivity

In searching for preschool resources and activities about the Creation, I came across the most wonderful blog run by a member of The Bible Society in Australia.

Visual Unit is a collection of biblical diagrams, illustrations and charts put together over the last few years by Mark Barry, of The Bible Society in Australia, a time during which he has been involved in a number of different ministries.

At the Visual Unit blog, you will find fascinating and thought-provoking representation of genealogies and doctrines, maps, outlines of various books of the Bible (including a wonderful breakdown of the book of Job), and even a Periodic Table of the Bible.

God's Little Explorers: X Marks the Spot

We begin our exploration of God's Word and the Alphabet with the letter 'x.' This, to me, is one of the most inspired uses of a letter in any preschool curriculum I have considered using.  X is unreliable as a beginning letter, and it's awkward using words that END with X when we don't really do that for any other letter of the alphabet.

And so...

X Marks the Spot!

Letter: x
Theme/Focus: God's Word is a Treasure
Memory Verse: Psalm 33:4 "...For the word of the Lord is right and true..."
Song: The B.I.B.L.E.

Printable: Alphabet Roll'n'Graph

As we start our journey through the alphabet using the God's Little Explorers Preschool curriculum plan, I've been collecting resources from all sorts of places, as well as working on a few things that I know will specifically help my kids in their learning process.

One thing I want to achieve is familiarity with the sounds that each letter makes, and that takes constant exposure using various senses and patterns of thinking.

I really like Roll and Graph activities for my kids.  Not only do they enjoy them, but they utilize counting, fine motor skills (I have them peeling and placing small stickers on the graph), and basic data recording concepts.  I wanted to combine that with exposure to the sounds made by each letter.

I put together an alphabet's worth of roll and graph activities. 

You can download them here.