we are on a crafty roll!

I decided to stretch out our school year so there wouldn't be any gap between our years.  So, we are finishing up our school year now.  We probably have the rest of the week and one more week before we are finished. 

Pretty good timing since we are flying to the States in 2.5 weeks!  And, our new kindergarten curriculum materials are waiting at my mom's house. 

The girls have done really well this year.  I know it is all basic stuff...alphabet, numbers, shapes, etc.  But, I can see a major improvement in how they understand concepts and how their confidence has increased.  They know all their letters, and sounds for a lot of them.  They know most numbers...we are working on that.  I concentrated so heavily on the alphabet, that it is my fault that they are not fully up on their numbers.

I found a fun little way to practice number recognition via Pinterest.  After doing some of our workbook work, we got out the cupcake pans and buttons.  It was a big hit with the girls.

I wrote the numbers 1 through 12 on a cupcake liner and gave them a bowl full of buttons.  They just had to put the correct amount of buttons in each liner.  Emily had a few hiccups and Bella just had one.

They were almost as thrilled to see what sort of different buttons we had in the jar.  It doesn't take much to entertain them.

We added a fun weather chart to our classroom.  Not that the weather changes a whole lot here.  But, they can learn the words that are on the chart.  I finally bought the clothes pins at the store last night so today was our first day using it.  I think it is pretty cute.  You can get your own here.

And, since we bought clothes pins, we did another little art project that I had been wanting to do.  Ours definitely didn't turn out so beautiful like the ones pictured here.  But, ours are special in their own way.  And, right now, the girls are playing with them.  That means it was a success!  There is no fighting right now.

Emily made a million and one of them.  She was into it big time!  You can see the ones that I cut out for her verses the ones she cut out.  If they hold up for the week, that is good enough!  We can always make more.

Bella, on the other hand, was not being a good sport.  Or, more like, she was in a perfectionist mode.  And, that is never good.  It usually ends with her whining that she can't do something.  I didn't allow her to give up and made her make one.  Emily ended up sharing with Bella, so that was nice, too.

And, I had to join in on the fun.  I made a fish for each of the girls. 

The heads may detach from the bodies on these guys.  Or, their whole body comes apart.  But, we don't care.  We made it our way!  We did use card stock so they would hold up a little better.  Try them for yourself!