We Love Our Four Legged Friends!

   Today we began our mini learning unit on Pets. And we know a whole lot about pets, as we should!

 We have 7 furry and four legged family members in our household:
Two dogs, Two cats and Three guinea pigs!

   Both of our dogs were purchased from reputable breeders and we have had them since they were 8 week old puppies. Both cats have been adopted from Rescue Shelters (in different years). And the piggies just came along one day...Basically I saw them, they needed a forever home and they gave me one look and I had to have them! It was originally supposed to be just one, but I went back for the other, who turned out to be pregnant. The light brown one (Cupcake) is the one baby I kept. Mommy piggie, Brownie, is camera shy and refused to look at the camera during our photo shoot!
   Okay, sorry I went off on a tangent... I can talk about my fur babies forever!
   It's quite the zoo in here some days. But we love it and each one owns a very special piece of our hearts! I love them all!
   Anyhow, so now we are going to devote some time to learning more about different kinds of pets and how to care for them.
   The Reading Corner has a special bin of Pet & Animal themed books--with Pete the Cat, Clifford and Pigeon being some of our favorites!

We read the book Pets by Hannah Wilson and John Butler to begin a discussion on pet needs. After we read and discussed the book, I had the munchkin brainstorm ideas on What a Pet Needs:

    (My favorite was when she said that pets need a leash to go outside for a walk- but NOT cats! She freaks out when she sees a cat outside b/c I always tell her the cats are not allowed outside)

    For this mini Pet Unit, I created word wall cards of common pet names and the little munchkin practiced her writing and matched each pet name to the picture.

I created some work on Beginning Sounds as well.

    I will be uploading these printables as soon as I finish tweaking a few things!

 Hmmm...I MAY even give them away as a Freebie this week...

    During this mini unit, I will also be using two learning packs created by two different homeschooling moms! Each pack has many printables to give children practice in a variety of skills. These printables will be on her clipboards for independent practice.

Dog Pack by Homeschool Creations:

Here is a Patterning sheet from this pack:

Cat Pack by 1+1+1=1:

Here is an Alphabet tracing and fill in the blank sheet from this pack:

(Click on either packet picture or the blog link to get your own free copy of these fun learning printables)

We have so many fun learning activities planned for this mini unit and we are just getting started!

(Do I sound too excited?)