A couple of night owls see the moon...

and the moon sees them...is our lesson plan for today. I have just Alex and Amy today. O is for October and for the next couple days we will be working with letter O. Alex is getting good at the months, she really likes to say the word October so we rarely have to use our month book. We talk about the weather, which is cloudy and rainy yet again.

This leads us to our first book reading about the sun and moon. The moon is lonely and wants a friend, she figures out she can talk to the sun both in the morning at first light and in the evening at dusk. This is another fun story that introduces a lot of themes we will be talking about today.

For Activity 1, we jump right into a couple workbook pages about the moon followed by a moon puzzle craft. A lot of discussion takes place regarding the moon. We learn that it can be a crescent shape, or a circle shape called a full moon. We also discuss that there is only 1 moon in all the world just like there is only 1 you in all the world. I mention our homework for show and tell. Bring something to class that describes you - because just like Tigger, there is no other you - you are the only one.

We learn number 1 and the crescent-shaped moon,

followed by a tracing and coloring of the full moon (with a little review of P is for 2 Potato Heads)

Our moon craft is quite messy. I want to mention here the state of my kitchen table. I have given up on all the sticky glue spots, paint smudges, and waxy crayon crumbles. I give it one good soapy wipe down after each class, and then quickly cover it with a tablecloth. I can't say though, that it is all not getting to me. I am secretly wishing the room in the basement we are working on will also work as a new school room, complete with little desks, and a table and storage for teacher. (Who knows, I may continue this teaching thing for a few years, I will admit I am seriously thinking about the benefits and rewards of home schooling, more on that to come.) The teaching "paraphernalia" is taking over my house, everyday I have to hop over a growing clutter pile of school supplies hiding in my bedroom so that the girls will not get into.

The glittered puzzle is a lot of "fun" as both girls want to pour the glitter sprinkles themselves. I know that I will be seeing these glitter speckles for months afterwards, and to use a Halloween word, they will "haunt" me for sure as I watch them fly into the air, and all over....well, everything. Alex practices sliding the puzzle back and forth from a crescent to a full moon shape.

We go back to circle for further discussion on what it means when the moon comes out. It means bedtime for us, and we discuss our rituals at bedtime - a favorite animal, saying "goodnight", getting a drink of water, reading a story or listening to some bedtime music. For my girls, bedtime is one of their favorite activities so we can talk about this well.

I keep their bedroom just that, there are no toys, only books, a CD player, and some quiet play items like stuffed animals and dolls (and definitely nor ever will there be a TV, for my older son either who complains quite often about this but at least at nighttime, he is out with us and he must watch TV as a family, not like another place he goes).

For the girls' room, most the day, the door stays shut, so that when they do go to bed, they are excited to get into the room. I am turning into mom here, but I pride myself on how well my kids do go to bed, they may stay up in there for a couple hours, being the night owls they can sometimes be, but I don't care because they are reading their books or having great sister conversations while we can go on with our night in peace watching a little TV and spending time with big brother.

Amy runs into the bedroom during our conversation to grab her beloved bedtime bunny, and while Alex is thinking hard about her bedtime (and maybe even pondering going there since she looks a little dreamy-eyed), Amy is giving bunny love, and plants a kiss on her favorite animal's nose, made with love from her Grandma.

We follow our bedtime discussion with an all-time favorite. C.J.s' copy is so worn that I have bought the girls the hardcover / boardbook version. This is hands down, the best bedtime book you could buy for your children in my opinion.

I am impressed with all the Goodnight Moon activites at the publisher's site. I even learn a few things that I did not know about this book, such as the moon outside the window rises higher to go along with the clock time changing in ten minute increments. I mention to Alex to watch the moon rise in each picture and she really is into this, showing me where it is at on each page, and I am embarrased to say I have never even realized this! I can't believe I have read this book one thousand times and never realized this. You really do learn something new everyday doing this. We do three activites to go along with our Goodnight Moon reading. Alex picks Goodnight Moon as her favorite activity time of our day.

We start with the website, which offers a great coloring page. I step it up by directing Alex to color the picture according to the colors in the book. She loves this. We spend a lot of time doing this. At one point I even sit down with her in the chair. She repeats over and over "Teacher, this is so fun." We have not had regular computer time since last winter, so using the mouse again is at first a challenge but all it takes is one showing of the buttons and after a little practice she is clicking with no problem.

When she completes her coloring, she stares at it a long time and I do not interrupt her because the look on her face is priceless. She even raises her hands and arms into the air when she finishes but I am not fast enough to catch it on camera. I have been a little worried about our outside time being limited now with the change in weather, but after seeing her at the computer, the change to more computer time will be well worth it.

We go back to circle for our number song, followed by some counting pages that I have created by cutting and pasting pictures off the official site. She writes her name at the bottom, she can now write the A, L, and sometimes the X. I have to mention here how much time during their free time my daughters are now choosing to sit at their coloring table and write. Amy is making perfect circles, while Alex, after this class, makes a perfect letter H just from looking at one. Free drawing includes dozens of stick people and now some bugs with legs to go along with our leg and spider learning.

I have saved the best activity for last. The Goodnight Moon Game I have had tucked away since spotting it on clearance this summer, with the intention of getting it out to play later at this time of year, when the full moon is beautiful to look at. As a family, we do go outside at dusk quite frequently to watch our great view of the sky. It dawns on me as I am online looking at the official site that I do have it, so I open it up and we play for class.

Wow! No wonder it is an award winner. The girls are enthralled with it. After class we play it four more times as a family, the girls cannot get enough of it. A simple game, in addition to matching and sorting, it also teaches youngsters the concepts of game playing like how to take turns (for Amy, waiting is quite a challenge) and clean up after you are done.

This is such a hit with both of them, even Amy is fully engaged in all the play. A lot of the time during our class, Amy gets up and leaves, but not with this one. In fact, I delight in watching her the most, as you can hear her excitement in her voice and it really gets her talking, as I listen to her speak in perfect full sentences, even pointing out what the rest of us need to do on our turn. At one point, Alex even jumps up and down in her seat when she finishes matching the cards to her board. Allen sits down with us, too knowing that this is one of those moments not to be missed seeing as the girls are a scream to watch as they talk in such excitement. Sadness fills me at this thought as our family will soon be separated and I wonder how I can keep this up without him nearby. But I feel such purpose in doing it, so I know it will be the lifesaver I need to keep me going while we are apart.

We end our lesson on the moon with one final reading: Okay, this would be my second choice after Goodnight Moon for being the best children's book that discusses the moon. It gives me the coolest idea for snack time. As you can guess, this all black-and-white picture book shares the story of a kitten who is after the bowl of milk that it sees in the sky. Alex picks up on the humor, as she comments"Silly kitten, it's the moon, not milk."

Snack follows with my students pouring their own bowls of "moon milk" as Alex calls it. Of course, we can't have a bowl of milk without some cereal, so after discussing our milk bowl looking like a full moon, we add BooBerry cereal to make this one sweet and spooky treat.

Activity 2 starts with a lesson on another body part. So far, we have discussed our hands and legs. Today we move on to our eyes and start with a fun reading (yes, I am all about books, I just love them and can't help myself when it comes to using them for my lessons) that also discusses nighttime and the woods (which we will be talking more about a spooky forest for our next class as I amazingly have this week planned ahead). The best part of this book is the moving eyes of the animals, Alex and Amy love this one and know it well...I choose it quite frequently to read because it is just a lot of fun with the moving eyelids that let you create the effect of the animals waking up or falling asleep.

We do have one workbook page on eyes. Angie has come to the rescue on the printing pages this week, as I have been running out of ink once or twice a week between copies. This rest of the pages we use today are from copies she has searched and printed off for each student, that has saved me a lot of time. I add directions to color the picture of an eye the same color as your eyes. To do this, I tell them to go look at their eyes in the mirror. We discuss our eyelids, eyelashes, and the whites of our eye, followed by each one recognizing what color their eyes are. After coloring the eye, we do a couple discussion questions. How many eyes do we have? Can we see at night like other animals do? This leads us to a puppet story reading of another book from C.J.'s little boy days:

A month ago on a shopping trip to Costco I find for under 10 bucks, a forest puppet set with the most adorable owl. Alex has not seen them yet so when I get this one out she instantly reaches for it, and we fight over it, because an owl is one of teacher's favorite birds, and it is just too irresistible to play with even for teacher, but I give it up and Alex flies it in the air as I read to her the story of Blink who longs to fly on his very first flight but doesn't realize he has to wait for night to come.

After the reading, we play around with our own eyes by blinking like Blink. During the story, Alex mimics Blink's eyes. Blink is trying to sleep during the daytime like his mom, but he just can't do it as we see him here taking a peak at the butterflies flying past. Alex and Amy both try to hold one eye closed, too.I ask her if she can move her eyes left and right without moving her head. This is cute to watch as she holds her chin with one hand to help her from not moving her head along with her eyes. It is hard for her at first but she does eventually get it - even her owl is watching her perform this feat.

We end with more talk of owls and how they stay awake at night while we are sleeping. Our discussion includes a workbook page on owls in which we discuss the number one again, plus color the space around the owl black to surround him in night.

With one of the other owl printables, I cut the three copies out, including holes for the eyes to make owl masks. The students color them and then we engage in "Whoo! Whooo!...Are you?", as we circle around as if we are flying and ask eachother the question, revealing are faces to eachother. I lead them to the table where an I Spy book is opened, complete with Halloween- themed pages, I have picked this up at the library to help us play a game of "I spy". We talk about how eyes help us find things just like an owl uses his eyes to spot prey and hunt. Alex is hilarious as she is still holding her mask up over her face, saying "Whooo! Whooo!" as we search for items among the collage pages, that include numbers and letters.

I have found a great craft idea from the web. I freehand draw a scene of trees and owls under the moon by using a white crayon and drawing onto white construction paper. I do this three times (for three copies) the night before, and it really does take most of my evening to prepare all of this. I include a fourth drawing and do the craft myself first - with a lot of the crafts I have been doing this, to make sure that they in fact do work (such as with this one). I also make sure each craft is designed to be easy enough for this age group.

I often ponder what it is like to prepare a craft for 30 plus students. It is mind boggling to think of a teacher spending this much time on a craft, but the difference is that they have the resources. I end up going out on unending shopping trips with each class, as I have no "stock" to draw from. I have been spending about 5 bucks a class, not including what I purchase for snacks, and it does add up. I am constantly analyzing what is worth doing and what to pass on for that reason as well.

This one is such a winner as I watch the students, using black tempera paint mixed with water, "paint the night," ... and discover a surprising scene of everything we have been learning about.

After our craft, we end with yet another story! I just couldn't omit any of these books, they work too perfectly with our lesson. This last one is titles "The Brave Ones" about some animals who make their way through the forest safely back to their home.

Alex and Amy trek through their own "forest" everyday. Alex, in the pitch of black night, will run ahead of us sometimes when we take a moon walk home from Grandma's. Don't tell him, but Alex is even braver than her almost 16 year old brother.

We end our class with the alphabet song followed by O is for Owl handwriting, follwed by a special treat....

I give each student an Oreo, and they trace it to make an "O is for Oreo" sign.

But that isn't all, while munching on Oreos, we make the coolest craft of the day. I have thought of this on my own. Specifically, I think of it driving home the night before from grocery and preschool supply shopping. Allen is driving anyway, so all the way home and then to pick up our 1/2 off pizza night deal, I design an Oreo owl and moon scene, there are a few screwups so we all take pleasure in munching on the pieces, so many screwups do we eat that we are all sick from eating Oreos before dinner. It takes me 45 minutes at least to figure out how to make the owl.

But the next morning, Allen and I are up chiseling away at the rest of the Oreo cookies so that our students can have the "cut outs" ready and all they need to do is "glue" with the frosting, their Oreo owl pieces to the construction paper. I have opened oreos for them to "scrape" more frosting off if they need it to "stick" their owl in place. I add the body including some triangles for the feathers (I am very proud of this idea : ). And now to mention that there are about five Oreos left in the entire bag, between eating them and using them to make the craft! - I leave you with this scene below that "tells it all" for our lesson today: "owl's well that ends well."

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More from magicalchildhood.com:

..."But more important, here's what parents need to know.
That every child learns to walk, talk, read and do algebra at his own pace and that it will have no bearing on how well he walks, talks, reads or does algebra.
That the single biggest predictor of high academic achievement and high ACT scores is reading to children. Not flash cards, not workbooks, not fancy preschools, not blinking toys or computers, but mom or dad taking the time every day or night (or both!) to sit and read them wonderful books.
That being the smartest or most accomplished kid in class has never had any bearing on being the happiest. We are so caught up in trying to give our children "advantages" that we're giving them lives as multi-tasked and stressful as ours. One of the biggest advantages we can give our children is a simple, carefree childhood. "