The Body: Day 1

I forgot to take any pictures today, so you just get a quick overview.

Letter G:
Book (color and read)
G Path (used a marker to dot them all)
Draw Gg's

Number 7:
Used the cards to go through all the numbers we already know
Practiced counting to 7
Wrote 7's

The Body:
We read the book Parts by Tedd Arnold.
Then we traced Brooklyn's body on a large piece of paper and let her color in her different body parts.
Then she got to watch The Magic School Bus Flexes Its Muscles (found on youtube here.)

And that's it for today!  Short and sweet and (thankfully) easy.  (I needed easy today).

Fine Motor Friday: Clothespins

Last week for Fine Motor Friday, Brooklyn got a set of clothespins that I labeled with letters on one side (in pink) and numbers on the other side (in blue).  I then labeled a piece of paper with all the letters around the outside.  She had to find the same letter and clip the clothespin on top of it.  So we practiced strengthening her fingers as she clipped and practiced naming letters she knew (and starting to learn new ones, too!)  She did a great job!

(I labeled the other side with numbers to be used in the future.  I figure I can make a paper that has dots on it and she can count them, then find the corresponding number to clip on to it.  But that'll be another day).

Face Day 1 and 2

My computer is about to die.  The charger is broken and I have 7% battery, so I have to do Mon and Weds real quick! (Ok so I uploaded all the pics on the computer, then it died. So I'm trying to edit it on the iPad but apparently that doesn't work either. So I will come in tomorrow and fix it so it Ll makes sense...)

Monday was our typical letter stuff.  She colored her book and we read it several times to practice words that start with "f" and the sound it makes.  Then we did our "f path" page, where she had to identify which letters were F or f.  We used stickers this week to cover them.  (Probably not my most genius idea because we then couldn't see the fs for the rest of the week).  We then worked on drawing big and little Fs.

Then on to our number, 6.  We practiced counting to 6, making six with our fingers, then writing/drawing some.

Then on to the face stuff.  We read a book called Bug Faces we got from the library.  She enjoyed pointing out the face parts and asking questions about all the gross bugs.  :)  Then we used paper plates to make some faces.  I would ask her what a face had, she would tell me, and we would find something to use to make it.  For the eyes, we used googly eyes.  We used pom-poms for noses.  She wanted to color the mouths, then we used yarn for hair and eyebrows.  All in all, they were pretty awesome.  :)  (The idea came from here.)

Finally, on Sunday, I used some felt and cut out a bunch of face pieces so she could assemble different faces.  (Idea found here.)  So Brooklyn got to use all the pieces and build different faces.  We just made sure that every face included all the right parts.  She loved it!  (And now, I have a quiet church toy!  I am thinking I'll make a whole bunch of these little felt sets, maybe like a food set, a doll with clothes...  put them all in a binder and she can use it at church!)

Today we did a couple of new things.

For our letter, we started by using Q-tips to paint the letter F.  I drew Ff and filled them with little circles.  She used a q-tip, dipped it in paint and put a dot in each of the circles.  The original idea uses actual pictures to paint, so we might try that on a another day.  Then we reread our book and practice drawing some Fs.

We then played memory again, including the letter F.  I think it is still her favorite game.

We then took some spoons.  I used white spoons and drew capital letters on them.  Then we used clear spoons that had lower case letters.  She had to match the upper case to the lower case letter.  She did awesome!  And although she's not 100%, she's probably at like 90% (we only did up to F).  It was fun! I put the spoons in a cup and in her little school station so she can practice whenever she wants.  (She already pulled them out again tonight to show daddy how she can do it!)  Idea found here.

Then we worked on counting.  I decided to include a little bit of adding this time.  So we used the cards, some legos and modeled some addition problems, counting the whole time.  We only did this like 3 times and she was ready to move on, but we'll probably try to do a problem or two each time.

Then on to the face.  Today we read the book by Jamie Lee Curtis about emotions.  I can't remember the title (and I'm down to 3% battery so I can't go look), but it goes through all the different emotions she might be feeling.  (Today I Feel Silly and Other Moods That Make My Day).  So we read that, then made our own feelings book!  I wrote out 6 feelings and had Brooklyn trace them, then we took a picture of her showing me each of those emotions with her face.  We printed them out, then cut out some pretty paper (of her choice), matted it all, assembled it, and bound it.  Now she has the coolest little book!  She carried it around pretty much the rest of the day.  And I gotta say, I'm pretty proud of it.  :)  This is where I found the idea.

Mad:

Excited:

Scared: (this one was hard)

Happy:

Sad:

Silly:

Our finished book (Minus the scared page):

(And yes, Brooklyn wrote half her name.  I did the k yn, but she did the rest!)

Hands and Feet Day 2

I was trying to decide if I should do school or not today (it's Valentine's after all, and my husband's day off, so I was reluctant.  Plus, I am exhausted.  I feel like I haven't had a second to breathe in the past two weeks.  But my sweet baby loves it so much, so we did it.  (I was originally supposed to do this stuff last week, so I didn't plan a super fun Valentine's day thing like I normally would have.  I feel kinda bad that I didn't.  Maybe I'll do something fun on Saturday (tomorrow I work and then we have a play date with Brooklyn's "boyfriends" from Logan).  Brooklyn won't know the difference.

So, today for school we did our spiral review with the letters we've done so far.  So we used A-E today.  We started with reviewing the letter E and the page she colored on Tues.  Then we played memory with the cards I made a few weeks ago.  She seriously LOVES this game.  And she is getting better at not cheating as much.  I'm trying to be lenient since she's only 3, but I want her to learn that we play by the rules and it's okay to lose at the same time.  She is getting awesome at identifying A-C and sometimes D and E.  So I feel like the further we get into this, the more she'll remember.  I'm less worried than I was at the beginning.  (And I realize I didn't address the d vs. b thing yet, I'm not forgetting...)

After we played memory 3-4 times, I took one set of A-E and taped them up on the wall.  We got her pink bouncy ball and I would call out a letter and she would throw the ball at the letter.  She seriously thought this was hilarious.  (You can see the letters on the wall in this picture.  I found the idea here.)

We played that for 5 mins or so and then she was ready to move on.  So my original plan had been to do the Alphabet Olympics we did a couple of weeks ago.  But in our new preschool, they use zoophonics.  Same general idea.  You say a little chant with the name, sound, and an animal, and do an action.  "A /a/ alligator A /a/ alligator" while making alligator mouth motions with your arms.  I'm not sure if I can share all the chants since you normally have to pay for zoophonics, so I'll just remind you of the Alphabet Olympics link, since it's the same thing and free!

After that we read LMNOPeas by Keith Baker.  It's really cute and goes through all the letters and different things you can do that start with each of those letters.  And these little peas are doing them.  It's pretty cute.

Then on to our "Hands and feet" stuff.  Today we started by taking pictures of ourselves, mostly just our faces.  Fortunately daddy was home today so we even got a picture of him (all sweaty on the treadmill).  Then we printed them out real quick and cut out just the face.  We then glued them to the top of some butcher paper and traced that person's hands and feet on the paper.  I did Brooklyn and Syd's, she did mine and daddy's.  Then she drew our bodies, arms, and legs, and we have some family portraits!  They are not hanging in the kitchen under the window.  :)  (Original idea found here.)

 (Don't worry that I have a bandaid on my cheek in my picture.  I just got a biopsy done yesterday to check for more skin cancer).

Daddy ended up with only 3 fingers on one hand and 4 on the other and his feet, well, Brooklyn tried really hard.  And if nothing else, she loved making them!

The rest of the schedule was supposed to include making shadow puppets using these helps and these shadow box theaters, but it was already late and I needed to finish our totally romantic Valentine's day dinner, so we might just skip that or I'll find another day to fit it in.

So now that dinner is put away and dishes are done (and tummies are a bit too full), I guess we'll finish hands and feet week by painting our nails.  What girl doesn't love that?!?

Fine Motor Friday

I just realized that I never posted our last Fine Motor Friday activity. This was from a week and a half ago.  She had her first experience with scissors!  I bought some "Brooklyn scissors" and drew some dotted lines on a paper.  Some straight, some curvy, some angled...  I tried to keep them large easy lines she could follow.  And who knew scissors could be so hard!  She had a hard time holding the scissors and although her fingers were in correctly, she kept trying to do it upside down.  So it took a little assistance, but she loved it.

Then I pulled out all my scrapbooking scissors (the kind that have different edges) and let her go to town, basically just cutting up paper anyway she wanted.  After she did that for a few minutes, she asked me to draw her some more lines, so I happily obliged.

(Notice in this first picture, her hand is upside down).

(Funny story...  so I accidentally left the permanent marker on the table.  She picked it up at one point and starting drawing her own "lines".  I quickly took them away and explained that if she got it on her shirt, it wouldn't come out.  So I got her the "school markers" (crayola markers) that she is allowed to use during school time and let her draw her own lines to cut out.  I left the room for a bit and came back and found that her shirt was entirely colored on!  So I asked her if she colored on her shirt.  She said, "But it will come out!"  Apparently I should have explained better that these markers will come out of shirts if we ACCIDENTALLY get some on them.  That doesn't mean we just color in our shirt with those markers.  Hahaha, I couldn't even be mad about her coloring on her shirt, since it was kind of my fault...  Love this girl.)

(In case you're wondering why it looks like she has "Marker tears" on her cheeks, that's because she tried to lie about using the markers to color her shirt and although I wasn't mad about her coloring, I was pretty upset about the lie, so she got a time out for lying.  And of course, time out includes lots of tears.  And since her hands are covered in marker, so is her face.)

Our Body: Hands and Feet Day 1

You were worried, weren't you.  You thought I had quit and stopped doing school after 4 weeks.  (I did consider it).  Here's the situation.  I applied for a position at a preschool  and started yesterday.  I shadowed the owner teaching and I will prepare lessons and teach for her on Friday.  It's kind of my "trial" to see if I'm any good.  And let's be honest, preschool is NOT 4th grade.  Sometimes it felt a little like controlling the chaos.  But what else do you expect with 3 year olds?  It was a LOT of fun and the kids are extremely cute.  Spunky, but cute.  Brooklyn got to come with me and she LOVED it.  It's basically coming down to whether I can commit to next fall.  Which depends on if Callen gets this job he is interviewing for.  He passed the first interview and goes in on Thursday for the second.  We are both hopeful.  It would mean so many good things for us in terms of finally having some stability in our lives, something we are both craving.

ANYWAYS, this isn't why you are here.  You are here to see some excellent ideas on how to teach your child.  And hopefully today will not disappoint.  I am having to change our schedule a little to accommodate our new schedule, so Brooklyn will do real preschool on Mon/Weds, and Mommy preschool on Tues/Thurs, with fine motor Fridays staying the same, and the workbook/computer time will be combined to Saturdays.  We'll see if I don't burn myself out.  Needless to say, Mommy Preschool will be a little less... involved in the future.  I am taking out the warm up stuff (days of the week, calendar, weather, etc) since she does that at real preschool.

So today we went straight into the letter and number of the week.  (I considered skipping this as well since she does a letter of the week at real school.  But since they are on "o", she might need the letters between d and o at some point, so I'll just keep going.  Plus, I try to do more of spiral reviews of all the letters we've learned on the second day, which they didn't do at the other school, and I want to continue doing that.  Plus it can't possibly hurt to have more one-on-one time with each letter.)

So the letter E.  We started with our book.  The website I've been getting the books from doesn't have books for the vowels for some reason, just the consonants, so we just did a color page that has several words that start with short e.  We talked about the sound and the words and she colored them.  Then of course we did our letter path page, followed by tracing and drawing her own Ee's.  I didn't get a picture, but she did a KILLER good job today.

Then we practiced counting to 5 and drawing/tracing her 5's.  (Remember, I can't find the actual sheet I am using, but these tracing pages look cool and would also work excellently.)

So then we moved on to our theme of the month.  We are doing the body this month.  I don't want to get too in depth with this, so I figured I would just focus on doing things that utilize different parts of the body.  So this week we are using our hands and feet.  We did two fun things today with our hands and feet.  Well, first we read a book, My Two Hands My Two Feet by Rick Walton.  It's a cute little book that you read the first half, My Two Hands, then when you get to the middle, you close it, flip it over, and read My Two Feet.

Then we made some hand/feet molds!  You would think it would be super involved, but seriously, it look like 5 minutes, including prep time.  So I made the dough, rolled it out into somewhat circles.  While Brooklyn was practicing writing her E's, I did Sydney's hand and foot (I just did one hand, one foot on the circle).  Then I used a knife and smoothed out the edges of the dough.  Then I brought Brooklyn over after we read the book and she did her own hand and foot in her dough.  Then we threw it on a pan and into the oven for 3 hours.  We'll see how it turns out!  I have some different paints, we'll see what we decide to use to cover it when it is dry.  I might just leave it white and hang it in her room, or maybe pink.  :)  We'll see.

Then we decided to make some animals out of paint with our hands and feet.  I just googled handprint crafts and looked at all the images.  I let her look through them and pick a few she wanted to make and we just looked at the image and made our own!  It was super fun!  (I'll be honest, I assisted a little more than normal since I have to come up with lesson plans for Friday at real school and I think this would be really fun!  And since it is helpful to kids to see a model, I wanted Brooklyn's to turn out somewhat decent so they would know what they are supposed to do).  If you look at the frog, that one I did not assist with, except making sure she pressed her hands down all the way.  (After I pressed her fingers down, the next time she pressed each of her own fingers down with her other hand, it was really cute).  She had a great time and giggled everytime I poured paint on her hands and smeared it around.  And in the end, we have 4 super cute ocean animals (Get it, O for Ocean?  O is our letter of the week at school).  And I love that we incorporated an octopus, which was the animal we focused on yesterday and we put little "o" bubbles for the fish.  That's what those are, in case you couldn't tell.  :) )

All in all, a fun afternoon, and although we used probably 3,000 wet wipes, there is minimal paint around my kitchen.  Yeah for using hands and feet!