The Days of the Week, Letter L

Back to School!  As a former teacher, this time of year always brings anticipation, so it is without surprise that with the start of September and eagerness to begin a new routine with Lena and Lucianna arose.  I planned way way too much for this week - but I always like to be over prepared as opposed to under prepared.  The voluminous supply of activities I planned allowed me much flexibility in figuring out what might work well for each girl and what might not work so well - which Lucy let me know often (smile). 

Lucy received these tanagram pattern blocks for her birthday - both girls love them but Lena has been able to independently build some really cool things with them.

Letter L for Lucianna & Lena! 

Lucy loves putting her shapes card in the slot of the box.

Working on our L vocab worksheets and gluing all by herself which made her very proud..."I did it!"

Lena cuts her vocab worksheet.

Numbers, numbers and more numbers - I love this learning circle posted on 1+1+1=1 here.

Practicing letter L on the new easel.

Do-A-Dot time...Lucy likes to cover the whole page instead of stamping the dots...which is okay by me...for now:)

Pre-writing worksheet for letter L from 1+1+1=1, Raising Rock Stars Program (RRSP).

Lena is cutting her vocab cards for the RRSP lessons - I cut them into nice strips first and then she just cuts them apart.  The cards require her to be more precise because she has to cut on the lines as opposed to her vocab worksheet which she can cut as she pleases.

I love our new pocket charts - I picked this one at a Target for a $1 - after I bought a huge one on Amazon for way more...and I like this one better (oh well:).

Lena loves filling in the chart and then going over them with her new pointer!

Lucy is all over the pocket chart too:)

Letter stamping - a skill that both girls can do independently!

Lucy is working with these little foam blocks that I also picked up in the Target $1 section - we have done several activities with these but in this picture she is just naming the shapes and colors.

Coloring an L page

I love to see them sit and enjoy an activity together; they are coloring different pages but both related to letter L.  

FINALLY!!!  I have seen so many magnetic pom pom activities on various blogs and they have been on my to do list for months.  I grabbed these cute sparkly pom poms (again at the Back to School $1 section in Target) and I was motivated to get my magnets stuck on them!  The girls love these and we have done all sorts of activities with them.  Here they are making the letter L.

Lena is counting with them in this snap.

Lucy is using some to place on each shape as she verbally id's it.

Sorting Trays - just breaking out an old favorite for some impromptu afternoon school time fun.

Lucy & I working to sort the color cubes into cups.

WHEW - it was a great week and I was able to really see what might work for the girls for the next few lessons!!!  I was super organized for this week, which I can say the same for my normal routine but getting back into the swing of a formal school time with the girls was a complete joy!

Summer Seconds

School time popped up on a daily agenda here and there during the summer months.  Below are just a few more snaps from our educational summer fun.


A great activity using Melissa & Doug Beads and some dot markers.  As usual, this one came from another blogging mama - found here!
This proved challenging Lena and we will definitely try it again this fall.

Working on some Q's...

The girls love when I break out the "bug tray."  It has all sort of things I add to it, but mostly different erasers, colored cups, some tongs and paint trays.  I usually try to encourage sorting by color, making patterns or colors and then the girls always come up with a few ways of their own to play with these items.

I love this one...and Lena really got into it using the tongs!

Ponds Lap Book

Dot Markers - who doesn't love these?

 Case matching...I really need to pull these out more often

We go through phases with all of the girls' toys, but this summer we did lots of cooking, shopping & checking out.  Nine times out of ten we just do it for fun and I try to resist turning everything into a what color? how many? what letter? kind of interaction...  But, when we played this time Lena initiated the counting and I had her find the correct number on her cash register to ring up each item.  She still struggles with number recognition so this was a good mesh of fun and instruction.

 Play date bubble fun!
 

 Coloring matching...Lucy was determined to crack open every egg...they were ALL empty:)

Sidewalk chalk fun...still working on those numbers:)

A New School Year!

My class has officially doubled as Lucianna now joins Lena & I for school time.  Working with both girls has its rewards and challenges.  It is great to sit them both down, read a book and work on the same letter of the week but there are few activities that match their skill level.  And so begins the school time juggle!

I quickly found out that Lucy really needs lots of hands on activities and manipulatives as opposed to lots of printables.  While she loves dot marker activities, she is more interested in completing the pages HER WAY.  Recognizing that she is a brand new two year old, Mommy had to hand over control and remember to keep it fun and light for Lucy.  On the other hand, there are more stringent rules and expectations for Lena.  While I make every effort to make school time fun and allow for choices and personal preferences in Lena's daily school activities, she has certain tasks she is instructed to completed before she can have freedom of play again.  Although it's not always easy, Lena has adjusted to fact that fair is not always equal and she sometimes need to complete more items than Lucy.  Watching Lucy run around as she wishes while Lena is still doing school time creates a minor distraction but once Lena is immersed in a given task, she typically enjoys it and focuses!  The bonus is more often than not, Lucy will make her way back to the school time table and rejoin us in Lena's activities.  I am thankful that Lena is such a role model for Lucianna.

MY CLASS!