5 Senses: Sight Day 1

I love that Brooklyn is loving "school".  She begs me for it every day.  And when she found out today was a "school" day, she kept asking me all morning, "What are we doing next?"  in hopes that I would say "school".  Love it.  :)

So today's school began with our routine, the calendar, the weather, the number of the week (2) and the letter of the week (b).  Since we lived on 5th floor of the army hotel for 3 months and the ground floor was the 2nd floor, she has been able to identify 2s and 5s for quite some time.  So we didn't need to focus on finding the 2 today, as much as counting to 2 and then drawing it.  I pulled out several objects in groups of 2 and we practiced counting them.  Then she traced her 2s.

For the letter B, we started with our "B" book, which we read together (and she colored with our "school markers"), talking about the sound the b makes and several words that start with b.  For whatever reason, she is doing a good job identifying and finding the letter, but she can't for the life of her remember what it is called.  If I show her a page with letters and ask her to find the "B", she can, but if I point to a b and ask her what it is, she can't tell me.  She keeps trying to call it a "Big A" like we did last week.  On Weds I'll do some practice showing her a's and b's in hopes to help keep them apart.  And every time we read, I'll keep pointing out "b"s and we'll practice naming them.  It's only day 1, right?  We practiced identifying big bs vs little bs (which she did great at), then we practiced tracing them.  She did excellent with the tracing.  We did not attempt straight drawing.

Then we moved into our 5 Sense activity of the day.  Since we are focusing on sight and seeing things, I decided to do a pirates theme.  We read "How I Became a Pirate" by David Shannon.  I pointed out the map and we talked about how maps help lead us to places.  So we put on her eye patch and headed out in search of our treasure!

I showed her the map and she helped identify the next location.  (I made the map myself, nothing fancy.    I found the idea here.  I just printed off the outline and the little dotted paths and then cut and glue them onto the map with hand drawn pictures of the next location.  And yes, maybe there were a few pictures she couldn't figure out on her own.  I did not claim to be a great artist).

So then we set off!  She LOVED this part.  She insisted on carrying the map until we got there and then made me hold it while she found the next "x".  (I put an "x" at each location so she knew we found it, then we consulted the map to see where to go next).  

 When we finally got to the last spot, (the fridge), we found an "x" on top of this coloring sheet.  The site has a whole bunch of color by number sheets.  I chose an easy one where we would be coloring the  letter B.  (There were only two numbers to color, 1 and 2, which was perfect for what we've learned so far!)

 As apparent in this picture, it was a little harder than I thought.  She did a great job finding all the 2s and coloring them (after an initial scribble across the top of the sheet), but she didn't quite grasp coloring the WHOLE space the 2 is in.

So she said I could help with the 1s and I quickly colored the B so we could talk about what our treasure was!  (Isn't it great how a treasure can be something as lame as a "B" to color in, and yet she was so excited!!!

So now our "B" will stay up on our school board all week (it's right in the kitchen by the table so we can see it during every meal) and we keep working on learning the name and the sound.  (The itsy bitsy letter b book does a great job at talking about the words that start with b as well as the sound, buh buh buh.  Super short, but I thought it did a great job!)