BIG Tot School: Fourth of July (Letter "j")

Sophie is 3 years old. (38 months)

NOTE:  To keep things organized, I will start calling Sophie's posts BIG Tot School.  Honestly, she is probably doing more preschool-style activities, but she's my baby and I can't bring myself to call it preschool yet...)

I'm still trying to figure out exactly how to organize and plan Tot School/Preschool for Sophie at this point.  I can't really leave activities on a shelf because most of her activities involve items that Miles can't play with yet.  She's also wanting to do LOTS of activities.  She wants to do Tot School every morning during Miles' nap and we typically spend an hour to an hour and a half playing together.  So, I'm experimenting with workbox-style storage and planning.  We'll see how it works as we keep progressing.

For our Bible time this week, we were reading about the parable of the hidden treasure from Matthew 13.  We read from the Jesus Storybook Bible and acted out the story as well.  At the end of the week, I had Sophie tell me about the story while I wrote down her words.  Then we made a picture together to go along with it.  I'm working to gradually introduce the idea of narration to her.  

Our Memory Verse was the Fruit of the Spirit and Romans 3:23.

Our letter of the week was the letter "j" so she glued jewels (sequins) onto her "j" outline.

Most of the Fourth of July ideas came from Gift of Curiosity's Fourth of July Montessori Activities and printable pack.

Water Bead Transfer. Sophie used her spoon to transfer blue water beads back and forth.  These little guys are slippery and bouncy, so it was a little challenging at first, but she really enjoyed it.

Patriotic Shadow Matching. This matching game was from Gift of Curiosity's printable pack.  We hadn't ever done shadow matching before, but she got the hang of it right away and wanted to play it multiple times during the week.

Pre-writing Printables. Sophie loves writing and tracing in her "special book" and this week's patriotic themed pages (from Gift of Curiosity as well) were no exception. 

Wooden Bead Patterning.

Star Color Gradation. This was Sophie's first exposure to color grading.  I think the vocabulary of lighter and darker in this context was new for her.  This activity was a bit challenging for her and she wasn't super interested in repeated attempts.  It's something we will try again in the future.

Find the Flag. Similar to the Find the Birthday Cake activity she loved so much during our Birthday themed week, the idea of this activity was to hide a small flag behind one of the letters and call out the letter to search behind it.  I used some of the letters that are most difficult for Sophie to identify consistently.  

Toothpick flags into floral foam.

Painting Fireworks.  Since we saw fireworks from the condo when we were staying with my family, we had a quiet night in for the 4th of July. We got out the paint and painted fireworks to celebrate!  Miles used a dish brush, and Sophie used pipe cleaners twisted into a starburst pattern.  Sophie loved it, but Miles was less than impressed.  This was his second attempt at painting and he really wasn't anymore excited about it than the first time.

Super Simple Patriotic Treat. In a shameless last minute attempt to have a "cute" patriotic snack to celebrate (when we had gotten home from vacation the same day!) I rolled an ice cream sandwich in patriotic sprinkles.  My three year old pretty much thinks sprinkles are the greatest thing in the world, so I was a hero.  I'm sure the founding fathers would be proud. :)

Linking up at 1+1+1=1 Tot School Gathering Place and Teaching Mama's Everything Early Childhood.