Our Robot was Featured Overseas - Toasty is Famous!

Lilla A's Robot Exhibition Poster

I feel so honored! We were a featured robot in Lilla A's online robot exhibition. Lilla A is a blog from Sweden who somehow saw my Robot Preschool post and asked me to join her exhibition. Her exhibition had entries all over the world from Australia, South Africa, USA, Spain, France, Poland, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Germany, UK and Croatia. For some reason, I now feel like my blog has really "made it".

Here's the story. We started home preschool this fall and our first unit was "Robots". My son loved the unit and at the end of it we ended up making a robot. We used "recycled" things around the house like a plastic Folgers coffee can, kid star sunglasses, an old Jif peanut butter can, plastic lids, toilet paper rolls and paper towel rolls. My son named him Toasty and was so proud of our creation. He even wanted Toasty to sleep with him and when I told J he was too fragile, he had me put Toasty in his rocking chair and we put a little blankie over him at night. (Just recently, I actually found out why he named him Toasty. He said the slit between his head and body reminded him of a toaster slot and he named him Toasty because he could make toast).

Here is our Toasty:

My son J was just THRILLED to go on Lilla a's blog and see his robot among so many others. Now he keeps pointing to various new ones he wants to try and make next.  How cool is that? (as my son loves to say)!

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Home Preschool - Farm Unit

We had a great week in our second unit of preschool, The Farm. J is really enjoying learning so many new things and he keeps asking me everyday, "Let's do preschool mommy!" I am blessed to stay at home and it is wonderful to have so many good curriculum ideas available on the internet. We are doing unit-based learning so we are not doing the alphabet in order. Most of my printables come from Home School Creations although this week's Farm Preschool Pack came from 2 Teaching Mommies. I enjoy getting new ideas from Jolanthe's link-up too.

Click the button below to see what other moms are doing:

Barn Size Sorting

In this activity, J was sorting by size. He separated the barns into small, medium and big. He does this one pretty well, but had a little trouble with a couple of the smaller ones.

Number Matching - Tractor

In this activity, he had to recognize numbers 1 through 10 and match up the piece of the puzzle with the matching number. When he was done, he had a picture of a red tractor.

Just having a little fun putting the number strip on his head.

Number Matching - Cow

This one was learning to recognize numbers 11-20. This was MUCH harder for him. We will spend a lot of time working on his numbers. When he was done, he had a picture of a cow. Here, saying Cheese!

Animal Shadow Matching

This one was an interesting activity - matching the shadow with the animal. He really had fun with this one, but it was pretty easy for him.

Gigglebellies - Old McDonald Had a Farm

J just loves music and dancing so I pulled up this song on You-Tube. We really like the Gigglebellies and Old McDonald went with our theme. They are very colorful and engaging and we like the songs. So far, we just watch them on You-Tube but they do have a DVD available.

Do-A-Dot Letter F

We haven't gotten out his do-a-dot paints in a while so this was a nice activity.

Tracing the Letter F - Capitol and Lowercase

This is a really challenging activity for J which I like. It is so great for his fine motor learning and part of the three R's (reading, writing and arithmetic). We used the giant pencil just for fun. I'm still trying to find a good kids pencil for him. Maybe we'll use a short golf pencil next time.

Matching Capitol and Lowercase Letters

Pigs in the Mud - Matching Uppercase and Lowercase Letters

This is something J asked me to get out several times just to do on his own. It is matching the lowercase letter on the pig with the uppercase letter on the mud part of the page.

Potato Stamp Art

Our craft was using potatoes to do art work. I cut a potato in half and then put different colors of do-a-dot paint on them so he could stamp them on the page. I made one of my own after J was done since I liked how it turned out!

The Reading Nook for the Day

J found a great place to read one afternoon. It was very cute.

Books We Read:
Richard Scarry's The Animals of Farmer Jones



The Noisy Farm by Marni McGee

Picnic Farm by Christine Morton-Shaw

Let's Go to the Farm by Vermont Story Works

I am also linking up at Get Crafty - Red Ted Art's Blog

and Our Country Road - Pinterest Tuesday

And Finally, Linking up to Play Academy!

Next week's theme: Dinosaur Unit

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Our First Week of Preschool - Robots Unit (Homeschooling)

I am so excited to be starting preschool with J! He responded so well to Tot School (linking up at Carisa's blog 1+1+1=1) that I decided I will continue to teach him at home. I have read so many different curriculum ideas, and feel so blessed to have all this wonderful information and free printables at my fingertips. I can't justify spending hundreds of dollars on preschool when I have all the tools I need, and he is involved in several different social outlets throughout the week. I decided to start off doing unit work instead of doing a letter of the alphabet theme. Lately, J has been enthralled with anything related to robots, so I decided that would be our first unit. I used the Robots Preschool Pack from Homeschool Creations and am linking up to her Preschool Corner linky. I also found her planning form to be very helpful. Although we got off to a rocky start (J wanted to sort by COLOR not SIZE, which he already knows how to do) we had a great conversation about the teacher-student relationship. It seemed that something clicked, and then he listened to my instructions and we had so much fun. He kept asking to do preschool with me, so I'm glad we are off to a great start.

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Robot Size Sorting

Our first activity was sorting robots by size. After a little argument (he wanted to sort them by color) he ended up doing this activity a few times in a row. This has expanded to him finding things in our daily life that he is distinguishing by size too.

Robot Coloring and Letter Tracing

The tracing is very new for J, so it took some step by step instructions from me. I would use a pencil and show him how to trace, then he would do it. He followed along very well. Notice the example of coloring within the lines and NOT ;)

I Am a Color Robot - You Tube video

I took a break from our activities to do a Robot learning video I found on You Tube. In this video, the color robot shows pictures of different colored things. The goal is to say the name of the color before they told you what it was. Although it was easy for him, he really liked dancing to the music.

Create Your Own Robot Sticker Activity Book

I found this cute little sticker book on Amazon (Create Your Own Robot Sticker Activity Book), where you have all the robot parts and get to mix and match to make several different robots. This was one of J's favorites. He took this to bed with him too.

Tracing Different Lines

We did this project a couple times. At the top of the page was an oil can and he had to trace the line so the "oil" could get to the robot. He was really excited about the idea that he was "feeding" the robots their oil. He had trouble the more complex the lines were and was frustrated when I would stop to show him the correct way. It ended up being good in that we were able to talk about why he was getting frustrated, and he was learning to make it fun, and that he needs to be patient with himself as he learns new things.

Tracing the Letter R and Robot Coloring

J was very happy with his finished product. I could see his improvement as he moved from one set of R's to the next. He always has fun coloring, but was especially proud of this picture for some reason.

"Toasty" the Robot

As the final project for our Robots unit, J got to help make his own robot. We used an old coffee can for his head, old Jif can for his torso, milk lids for eyes, mouth, buttons, toilet paper rolls for arms and paper towel rolls for legs. J liked him so much, he wanted to sleep with him. He named him "Toasty". Since he's delicate, he sleeps on the chair and we put a little blanket over him at night.

Verse of the Week:
Matthew 22: 37-39 The Greatest Commandment

Jesus replied: Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment.

I found this Robot video on Vimeo with a creative display of the verse.
This video was a nice short version of the verse breaking it down to "I will love God, and love others."

Books We Read:
The Robot and the Bluebird by David Lukas


Me and My Robot by Tracey West


The Robot Book by Heather Brown

I am also linking up at Get Crafty - Red Ted Art's Blog

and Our Country Road - Pinterest Tuesday

and to Play Academy!

And finally, Monday Madness:

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Next week's theme: Farm Unit

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