- Jack: Confessions of a Homeschooler
- Alex: 1+1+1=1
Frequent Resources:
- Erica at Confessions of a Homeschooler's Letter of the Week: C
- Carissa at 1+1+1=1's Tot School Printables Letter C
LDS Scripture Verse:
"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." - Matthew 11:28
MONDAY
Jackson has really gotten into the groove of the daily notebook. He does so well tracing numbers and words and filling in the weather and our 100 Days of School chart. I don't have to help him at all during Notebook time.
After Notebook time ended, I invited the boys onto the rug with me to learn about our new letter of the week: C! We talked about the (hard) sound it makes, and went through our box of C sounds. In the box this week were: a foam letter C, a cup, The Berenstain's C Book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, a candle, the Count from Sesame Street, a clock, a coin, a birthday card, a crayon, a can, a cow, Cubby from Jake and the Pirates, a cat stamp, a crocodile, Captain Hook, a camel, a car, a Cookie Monster cd, and our sign language C card.
After reviewing all of our items, we read The Berenstain's C Book.
I pulled out our large lacing C card for Jack and our foam letter C for Alex. Jack and I worked together on patterns (yes, we corrected the missing white in the picture below), and Alex decided he just wanted to put random Lego bricks on his.
And since the boys really wanted some more Lego play time, I pulled out more from our bucket and we built for awhile.
I tried some new coloring pages today from dltk-teach.com. I turned on some music and even ripped out a C (cat/crown/collar) page from a coloring book to do to help them stay focused. As you can see, the boys started working on their pictures, and then they both migrated over to "help" me with my picture. :) At least I got them coloring for awhile! I find that music helps them focus, as well as having me in the room and focused on the same activity. If I'm hustling around trying to prep for the next activity, they can't focus on their work.
Then we pulled out Confessions of a Homeschooler's Caterpillar Dice Game. We used some small animals as our players and our large numbered di (stolen from a Harry Potter Scene-It Game) to play. It took a while for them to get how the game worked, but it was good number recognition practice. And playing together is always good.
To finish off the day, we watched our ABC Signs Signing Time! dvd. Since I have to return it to the library this week, I wanted to let them watch it again. Jack loved it, of course. I think I'll try and find more signing dvds for other school weeks.
TUESDAY
We started off today learning how to form the letter C. Alex used the foam letter C and Jack used our laminated alphabet play dough mat. We traced the letters with our fingers, then pulled out the play dough. Instead of making snakes to shape the letters, I tried an activity I saw on Pinterest using Lego pieces as stamps to create letters. Jack and I had fun making a few different letters, and then the boys continued "stamping" the play dough with various Lego pieces.
After cleaning up the play dough mess, we started our cut and paste activity. Jackson used the C cut and paste page from Homeschool Creations, and I ripped out a finished cat coloring page from our book for Alex to use.
We moved back onto the floor for our magnet pages. I decided to try some different things this week. I found a fun page from Homeschool Creations that was supposed to be for do-a-dot markers but was fun with pom-pom magnets for Jack.
For Alex, I found a very versatile activity at Homeschool Journeys. They are black and white alphabet puzzles, but for this activity I had Alex put magnets on the different C objects. Jack was excited to try it, too.
I was so excited for the next activity! I had printed off and laminated the Hungry Caterpillar lacing pieces from Confessions of a Homeschooler, but used them in a different way. We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and used the caterpillar pieces to show the transformation...
...and I created a hungry caterpillar from a box and construction paper to "feed" the food pieces to. I saw this idea on Pinterest, as well.
The boys LOVED feeding the hungry caterpillar! We read through the story a few times, and then they continued to feed him different toys and other objects throughout the day. The caterpillar has a side-opening flap so it was easy to retrieve what he "ate."
After the caterpillar was plenty full and metamorphosed into a butterfly, we worked on a crocodile craft from dltk-teach.com. I cut out the pieces beforehand and just had the boys help me with the gluing.
For our final activity of the day, I pulled out that alphabet puzzle page (printed on cardstock) and the three of us colored the different C items, including a cat, cow, carrot, cupcake, and clown.
After the coloring was complete, I cut out the pieces and the boys put the puzzle back together.
WEDNESDAY
Our first activity of the day was our q-tip alphabet page. Instead of using q-tips and paint, however, I gave them toothpicks and had them poke holes through the circles, instead. This must be done on carpet to really be effective. I liked this version of the activity, too,
I was excited to try another new counting activity today. I saw an activity on In My World using numbered muffin cups and pom-poms as counters. So I bought some cheap paper muffin cups (I only had silicone ones at home), numbered them 1-12, and put them in a spare muffin tin. The boys and I counted out pom-poms into each cup, matching the written number inside.
We completed our do-a-dot pages, found at dltk-teach.com.
Then we did another activity with The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I printed off Confessions of a Homeschooler's Hungry Caterpillar Graph, and we read the story and used Lego bricks to graph each food eaten.
We used our wooden nickel letters to complete our letter match.
And then we finished off the day with our C collage page. I was originally going to have them glue cotton balls on our letter C, but then I decided to use the cat stamp I found earlier this week. The boys had never used stamps before, so they had fun.
THURSDAY
This week I have been attempting writing practice first thing after Notebook Time every day. Today I gave Jackson Confession's of a Homeschooler's Letter C Handwriting Page while Alex drew all over Lavinia's alphabet play dough mat.
We moved onto the floor to work on ordering numbers 1-20. We used Erica's Caterpillar Number Game for this.
I have been looking for new activities to teach patterns, and I found a fantastic coin pattern printable from The Measured Mom. We pulled out our spare change jar (that has a lid with a slot cut into it) and discussed the different coins. Then we worked on our coin patterns.
The boys lost interest in patterning after a few cards, but enjoyed putting the coins back into the slot one at a time.
We moved back to the tables for our letter hunt time. Jackson did Erica's Letter Hunt page, and Alex used a page from Carissa's Tot School Printables (Letter C).
I then attempted the impossible - trying to get the boys to do a lacing card. And we had success! I had to take a picture just to prove it to myself later. They didn't stay interested for long, and they definitely did not want me to show them how to lace it "the right way," but it was a good first time (in a long time).
I have been wanting to do a hands-on activity with the boys to help distinguish beginning sounds. I have found different sources for printables, but last week as I was helping to clean up after play time I accidentally put a plastic magnetic letter on an empty can we use for bowling. Intrigued, I flipped the can over so the open side was up and then realized I had a ready-made activity! Today I lined up five cans and put lower-case magnetic letters on them to distinguish which letter sound that can represented. The plastic letters were the lightest and stayed the best, but that set is incomplete. I resorted to using the lower-case letters from my Melissa & Doug wooden magnetic letters, which were heavier (and thus slid down the cans, at times). I also had a pile of objects I gathered beforehand and went through each object with the boys, helping to find the beginning sound and directing them to place it in the correct can. It wasn't a perfect activity but it was a great first try.
FRIDAY
This morning we started out with Carissa's Name Stamping Page. The boys put stickers in the stamp boxes and traced their names on the bottom. I think next week I may take off the dotted-lined letters on the bottom for Jack, just to see how he does without that guide.
Jackson worked on his letter maze while Alex completed his cat shadow match.
Then I pulled out our uppercase/lowercase matching puzzles and the boys got to work. They actually work really well together on this activity.
After the cards were cleaned up, they did the Tot School cat size sequencing.
We did our final craft of the week: a toilet paper roll Cookie Monster and then we read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and put our letter C on the coconut tree.
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