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)!

Thanks for visiting!!

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

Thanks for visiting!