The Days of the Week, v.6

Letter Tt Week

~Lena is 38 months and Lucianna is 20 months~

We had another good week of school time, we have transitioned to completing most of Lena's seated activities in our playroom at her table.  Since I do not want to leave all of the girls' school materials and supplies within reach in the playroom,  I am constantly shuffling supplies from room to room to room and trying to figure out the best place for her to do her work.  I am not sure if the flexibility of allowing her to choose where to work outweighs the lack of a routine place to settle in and complete her activities, but allowing Lena to choose where to do school time can be a handy carrot when I am ready to do an activity with her and she is not in the mood.  Giving her this simple bit of control over her learning environment usually readies her for an activity with mom!  This fall, I am planning on setting up a school area in our basement (which we are DIYing this summer).  So, another transition in our school time space awaits, but hopefully it will allow for continuity and better organization (for me:) - I will still seek out an avenue for Lena to have a choice in her school time...the table, the floor, etc.

Tt is for TENT and TUNNEL!  No explanation needed and I think it would be stating the obvious to delve into how much fun the girls had with this school time activity!

 Another fun school time Tt idea - Host a Tea Party.  I gave the girls a bit of juice and let them enjoy a real drink in the playroom (which we never do:).

Down to business, we did lots of worksheets this week.  Another way to give Lena control over her learning is give her a choice of two or three sheets to complete - she enjoys having a say!  And it really doesn't matter what we do when.   This one is from 1+1+1=1, RRSP printables.

We did a fair amount of math sheets this week, she really liked using the dot markers to do these.  Number recognition is a definite weakness for her right now.  This summer, we may work on a number of the week in place of our letter of the week...or we, may just wait until the fall to hone this skill. 

Another choice...I let Lena choose the letter of the week this time.  She chose a letter that is not complete on 1+1+1=1, Tot School Printables, so I had to improvise and make some of my own worksheets in the same format that Carissa uses in her program.  I used a Tinkerbelle theme just for fun, the link to these is found here.

The set I created includes a letter worksheet, left to right sheet, a lacing card and puzzle, coloring sheet and sequencing cards.

 Having fun reading to both girls!

Lena working on her play dough letters and decorating them with "jewels."  This twist was a big hit!

Making her own cup of tea - we did a caffeine free herbal tea (I think it was orange....)  She was excited to have a cup of big girl tea, so I cooled it off with a few ice cubes; after the novelty of the first sip passed...she admitted she didn't really like it.

Working on a set of puzzles, this is a cute set she received for her birthday - each puzzle has a corresponding book that goes with it - The Old Woman Who Swallowed a Fly,  Humpty Dumpty and Hickory Dickory Dock.

Vocabulary Development Sheet

Lena's first color by number, I wasn't sure if she would enjoy the lack of freedom in coloring this picture.  But, this was fun - I really enjoyed helping her with this and she was challenged and therefore motivated to color this page according to the instructions.

Lucianna enjoying a Tt book from the RRSP printables...all about Turtles and Feelings!

The Days of the Week, v.5

Letter Cc Week - back on track!

~Lena is 38 months andLucy is 20 months~

After a week of the stomach bug and not much school time, we really got back on track this week and had a blast.  We had so much fun with many of the Tot School printables from 1+1+1=1 and did our old favorites, too.  

Breakfast Tray - I try my best to leave an activity on the counter for when Lena comes downstairs in the morning, the lacing cards and puzzle cards are nice, easy & fun morning tray starters.  Lena can do them independently and my hubby can make his coffee and eat without too much oversight.

I will try to identify as many of the new tot school printables (TSP) activities that I added to our routine this week.  Some of them are a bit simple for Lena, despite this, she they do engage her.  I really like that some of these activities tie in a math component, like sequencing, matching, one to one correspondence, etc.  My original plan was to wait and use this program with Lucy when she turns two in the fall.  But, I am adding them to Lena's program now because she likes them and as a bonus I am familiarizing myself with them and will have a majority of materials ready to go for the fall with Lucy!

So, with that said, this is a TSP, shadow matching.
 

TSP - Vocabulary development cards were a hit with both girls!

 Letter of the Week Vocabulary Page from home school creations - Lena can now cut out all of the pictures independently and glue them on without covering the letter:)

Lucy loves our Leapfrog letters!

 

Bean Tray Fun - this is the first time I let my girls do the beans on the floor (a big step for Mom!).  I just put a blanket down and explained that the beans had to stay on the blanket...it worked and the girls were able to play together for about 45 minutes...WOW!   Well worth the stray bean or two that found its way off the blanket.

Lena and I did some pattern and one to one correspondence games during bean time.

Our new Cinderella Tot Book from here.  Lucy loves "Rella" and this book is the perfect level for her - focusing on colors & shapes.  But, of course, Lena is into it too!

Lena working with the number cards from the Cinderella tot book.

Carissa from 1+1+1=1 mentioned a great variation to add on to the play dough mats in her last blog post about Ladybug's activities - THUMBPRINTS....Lena loved this so much more than just doing the play dough snakes...and we will add the jewels in to this week!

Lucy...loves play dough but her time gets limited quickly because she is constantly trying to eat it...she must think it's cake because she always say, "YUMMY!"

Case Matching - Lena really enjoys this, but still needs help with the clips.

One of Mom's favorite activities - this is from Home School Creations - consonant cards...I always limit it to three letters and Lena likes seeing what objects there are and figuring out the letter sounds.

TSP - Sequencing/smallest to largest cards

TSP - left to right

TSP - find the C...Amazed by Lena's idea for this...she decided it would be a good idea to dot marker all of the capital C's in blue and the lowercase c's in red....her idea - I was wowed...we will definitely include that in the future.  I love her smile in these - you can see how much she is really enjoying the new TSP stuff.

 Do-A-Dot's from Home School Creations

TSP - stamping the letters - good fun!

Science / Social Studies - I saw a cute recipe for stoplight cookies in Parents magazine and we actually made them:)   Lena loves to bake (me - not so much:) and then we tied in some talk about traffic lights, etc.  She is already a backseat driver so maybe I shouldn't be encouraging her!

TSP - In the Basket - another great mathematics tie with spatial relationships.  I finally ordered ring clips this week and they are working out great with all of our card sets.

Both girls hanging out at the counter after snack time looking through our weekly card sets; Lena had the number cards and I think Lucy was looking at the vocabulary cards - the theme with Cc on TSP was pets.

TSP - So nice to see Lucy getting in on school time...she is getting so big!

Without a shadow of a doubt, this was Lena's favorite activity of the week and she colored it almost EVERY day.  This is also from TSP - think:  a simple take on color by number.

Lucy - coloring with her big sister.

One of my favorite times of the week.  We read Eric Carle's, The Very Hungry Caterpillar and worked on sequencing.  We used the cards we have from a game for the Hungry Caterpillar for Lena to find each card and line them up as we read the story.  She also used a caterpillar card to pretend to munch the food cards as we went along.

We also did the Hungry Caterpillar puzzle together but we made sure to complete the edges in the same sequence found in the book.  We had fun doing these two activities together and it took us a quite a while but really held Lena's attention.

Posing for Mommy...reluctantly!

Okay...whew...so, my apologies for over sharing...but we just had a terrific week!  And we needed it after the week we had prior...