Teacher Turned Momma: Alphabet

Showing posts with label Alphabet. Show all posts

Saturday, July 11, 2015

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.

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Tot School: Apples (Adam and Eve)

We are continuing to follow the basic structure of Intentional by Grace's Fruit of the Spirit Curriculum, so this week was all about Apples and Adam and Eve.

During our Bible and Tot School Board time, we read the story of Adam and Eve and the Fall of Man from a couple of our toddler Bibles, including the Jesus Storybook Bible. We also worked on our memory verse for the week Psalm 34:8a, and continued to recite the Fruit of the Spirit.

Literacy Activities

Apple "a". We used a Do-a-Dot marker to make "apples" on our lowercase a. Sophie made the apples and then added stems with a marker. This was great prewriting practice! (Don't worry, we adjusted pencil grip!) Oh, and for the record, we most certainly have a left-handed little lady.

Apple Tree Uppercase/Lowercase Matching. I drew a tree and wrote the uppercase letters all over it. Then on red dot stickers, I wrote the lowercase letters. Sophie matched up the lowercase "apples" to the correct spot on the tree. She is getting really good at this! (She had a few issues because the stickers were circles and would get turned around...note to anyone who might try this activity!)

Uppercase/Lowercase Letter Matching Puzzles. Sophie matched the letters we have done so far using these cards from Homeschool Creations. They match our letter cards from our Tot School Board. I keep thinking I need to put magnets on the back of these or something because Sophie gets really bothered when they don't line up just right. We have a serious perfectionist on our hands...

Apple Picking Game. We did a simpler version of this game back when we did the Letter A when she was two, and I shared about it over at the Activity Mom. This time, I wrote lowercase letters on the apples and placed them around the room. She would find all the apples and put them in her basket after telling me the letter and the letter sound. We played this game almost every day, multiple times. Definitely her favorite activity.

Sophie loves writing in her book with dry-erase markers. I used the Prewriting Practice pages and just for kicks threw in the Aa and Ee writing pages as well, both from the 3 Dinosaurs Romping and Roaring A Pack. She was SO proud of writing her letters!

Math Activities

Apple Patterns. We did simple AB patterns with our apples. This was our first real try at patterning, and she eventually got the hang of it. We definitely will need to continue to work on this skill.

Apple Number Sequencing Puzzle from Amy Lattin on Teachers Pay Teachers (free!). This was also played with almost every day.

Other Activities

Coffee Filter Apples. We did this fun craft from Gift of Curiosity. In this picture, she has "written" the names of everyone in our family around the outside of her coffee filter. :) Her favorite part, though, was definitely spraying it with the water bottle! This activity will be a repeat for sure.

Miles (14 Months)

Starting next week, I think Mr. Miles is going to get his own Tot School post because he will be getting his very own Tot Trays! He is getting so curious about everything and I am really seeing he get interested in figuring things out and repeating what he sees his sister do.

This week, he tried coloring for the first time! He was so happy of himself. (Don't know that reference? Do yourself a favor and check out this video - the adorableness will make your day!)

He also really enjoyed playing with Sophie's apples. He would put them in the basket and dump them out over and over again. Forgive the diaper picture - it's already full-blown hot here!

Up next: Our Fourth of July Tot School Activities!

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

Saturday, June 20, 2015

Tot School: Days of Creation

Sophie and I have been working through Intentional by Grace's Fruit of the Spirit Curriculum. We have really enjoyed doing this together and it has led to many opportunities to discuss and practice behaviors common to toddlers (patience, anyone?).

We don't do all the activities, and I modify or add others to supplement, but it has served as a great backbone for our Tot School time. It focuses on uppercase letters, which Sophie already knows well, so we focus on the lowercase letters instead.

This week (and last) has been all about Creation. I decided to stretch this unit and focus on one day of creation each day.

We did several activities each day of this unit.

- Tot School Board. We start our Tot School time with our board, which displays our Bible verses, letter of the week, and letter gross motor activity, as well as anything else we are focusing on. Sophie says her memory verse (or if she is feeling a bit stubborn, she listens to momma say it) and then identifies the other items on the board. Our memory verse was Genesis 1:1. The letter of the week for the first week was the letter "Z". (This picture is from the following week!)

- Days of Creation Sequencing. After reading the creation story (from our various children's Bibles or storybooks), we talk through each day and do little motions to help us remember what happened on each day using these Days of Creation cards from PreKinders. (In the pocket chart shown above). If Sophie is interested, she puts them in order, but usually we just talk about them.

- Days of Creation Song from DLTK-Bible. My girl is all about music, so this is by far the best way for her to remember the Days of Creation!

- GOD Gave Us the Earth Interactive Sight Word Reader. Sophie knows all her letter sounds and is showing lots of interest in letters, words and reading. I'm not doing anything formal with her yet, but since this reader fit so well, I decided to introduce her to the idea of sight words. She really enjoyed doing this book. She is obsessed with Little Einsteins, so as we were reading the sight word book each day and would get to the page of the day with the word God missing, I would dramatically exclaim "Oh no! Big Jet took the word and scrambled it all up!" She loved pretending she was solving a Little Einstein problem while cutting the letters apart and gluing them in the correct order. So fun!

- Days of Creation Book. I saw this adorable idea at The Art of Being Mama and we did the page that corresponded to the day we were learning.

Day One Activities
- Light and Dark. We sat in my closet with the lights off and talked about what we saw and heard outside at nighttime. Then we turned the lights back on and talked about how the day was different from the night and what we saw and heard then.
- For snack we had chocolate pudding with whipped cream to represent day and night.

Day Two Activities
- Beach Day! This happened to work out perfectly with a mommy and Sophie day, so we headed to the beach to look at the clouds and the seas up close! This was the first time Sophie was brave enough to head into the water and she had a great time!

- Clouds in a Jar. Sophie LOVED this activity! She wanted to do it three times and just had to show Daddy when he got home. It was so simple, but she felt so grown up.

- Snack time: Blue jello with marshmallows to represent sky and clouds.

Day Three Activities
- Observed and watered the plants in our little vegetable garden

- Apple Tree Counting Playdoh Mats from Life Over C's

Day Four Activities
- Starry Night with a flashlight and a colander
- Counting star buttons in a muffin tin

- Snack time: Star cheese (umm...cheese cut with a star cookie cutter...creativity at its finest!). She wanted to pretend it was a cookie and put sprinkles on it. Sure, why not. Gross.

Day Five Activities
- Bird Feeder out of toilet paper roll, peanut butter, and bird seed.
- Categorizing whether something goes in the sky or underwater. We used this pictures on our Day Five Creation Book instead of on the worksheet.
- Snack time: Goldfish Crackers

Day Six Activities
- Sorting various Toob Animals by their habitats (forest, house pets, farm, water, etc.)

- Move like animals gross motor play. This is totally simple - I just call out an animal and have Sophie pretend to move like that animal. Simple, yet hilarious.
- Snack time: Animal Crackers

Day Seven
- I tried to get away with just taking naps during our Tot School time, but Sophie totally wasn't game for it. So in honor of resting, I stayed in my pajamas (because obviously, I would never do this any other day!...)
- We just reviewed the other days and did our favorite activities over again!

For a Creation activity geared towards the younger toddler crowd, be sure to check out my God Made Everything color book.

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

Saturday, July 19, 2014

Tot School: B is for Ball (Outside Play)

Sophie is 26 months old.

Letter of the Week: Bb

Object and Theme: Ball/Outside Play

- Memory Verse: Ephesians 4:32. "Be kind to one another." We used the printable ABC Bible Verses from Homeschool Creations. I put the card in my Bible as a bookmark in Ephesians and let Sophie open to that page when we were going to say our memory verse. I want her to see that the words she is learning are coming from the Bible!

- Books: The main book we read with this theme was Stop that Ball by Mike McClintock. This was one of Clay's favorite books as a child, so he enjoyed getting to read it with her as well! I was impressed with her attention span, as this book is a bit longer than our usual choices. Other books included:

Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Bill Martin
Pete the Cat and the Four Groovy Buttons by Eric Litwin
Corduroy by Don Freeman
Balls by Melanie Davis
Biscuit Plays Ball by Alyssa Satin Capucilli
Duck and Goose by Tad Hills

Sensory Fun

This week's sensory play was a bit messier than what I usually try, but Sophie had an absolute blast! I got some water beads from the Dollar Tree and put them in a container with some foam letters and other small balls of different materials. Using our handy dandy kiddie pool in the living room, Sophie played for almost an hour, pouring and smooshing the balls. She was soaked and a mess when it was all over, but it was definitely worth it. I'm working on not being so afraid of messy play...

I also had a bucket of assorted balls for Sophie to play with and explore.

What's on the Shelf?

1. Color Matching with Counting Bears. I printed off a "B" do-a-dot and colored in the dots myself in colors that matched our counting bears. Then I put it in a page protector and let Sophie line the bears up on the correct dots. She could do this really well, but she wasn't very impressed.

2. Colors Printable. I used the colors printable from the Tot School Printables a little differently this week and it went over much better than last time! I cut the pieces apart and laid out just three at a time with the appropriate color crayons. She could color each individual ball, and when they were all finished we glued them to construction paper while we talked about the colors again. This went over much better than coloring the sheet whole, and you know how my girl loves gluing.

3. Big and Little Block Sort. We used this for Squares week a while ago and Sophie was even better at identifying big and little this time.

4. Ping Pong Ball Transfer. I found these great little tongs at Walmart and they were the perfect size for Sophie's little hands. I was very impressed at how quickly she got the hang of transferring using the tongs instead of her hands.

5. Beach Ball Sewing Card. (not pictured) This was our first attempt at a sewing card and it wasn't very well received. She did it a few times and then just wanted Momma to do it.