Cc is for Crazy Busy!

We're back!

We went so many places (and had so many learning experiences) over the three days we were in Chicago. I think Millie was a bit overwhelmed. But now that we're home, and have a mini photo album to flip through, it seems we all had a fantastic time!

Shedd Aquarium

Ferris Wheel at Navy Pier

In a vortex at the Museum of Science & Industry

With Sue at the Field Museum

But Cc is also for Cottage, and that's where we're headed next! Here's hoping next week Dd is for Deer and not Deadly Bears!

Week 3: Cc is for Chicago!

This week we are heading to Chicago! What a perfect week to learn about the letter C!

In preparation for our trip, we checked out some books from the library:

W is for Windy City: A Chicago City Alphabet

Larry Gets Lost in Chicago 


And printed out some coloring pages:


Greetings from Illinois
50 states

Week 2 recap

We have been busy this week, so I haven't had a chance to sit down and blog until today. Here's what we've been up to:

 

Bb for Bananas and Boat and Bats

 We attempted Bubble Painting with little success, as I couldn't get the bubbles to take on the color from the paint or food coloring (I'm not sure what I did wrong, so any suggestions would be appreciated!). However, there were BUBBLES! everywhere, so we had fun.

Great tip: use a pin to poke a hole at the top of the straw. Then child can still blow but won't accidentally drink it!

While attempting to pour out bubbles, I also poured out colored water. Spills are fun!

 We also played with our new color wheel. Millie had a bit of trouble with the clothespins, but I think that's part of the activity. She didn't get frustrated, so we stuck with it 1-10!

Today we made lava lamps! So easy! I think Millie enjoyed putting the Alka-Seltzer tablets in more than anything else, so we used a lot of them. But there was lot of fun science going on: Look! The water is at the bottom And at the end we put in two full tablets and watched it all spill down the drain.

And then we messed with PlayDoh. "Happy birthday to mama!" Hooray a yummy cake!

Week 2: Bb, green/jungle, 2

(basic curriculum from Letter of the Week.)


Letter A, number 2, and color Green and jungle vocab.

Monday

Normally I don't focus on a vocab word or color, but we're going to see "The Lion King" tonight at the movie theater, so "jungle" and "vines" just seemed too perfect to skip!

Color jungle animals, cut out, and hide in (construction paper) vines

Elephant Rhyme:

Elephant
(to the tune of "Here we go 'round the Mulberry Bush")

This is the elephant's tail so thin,
Tail so thin, tail so thin,
This is the elephant's tail so thin,
Swish, swish, swish.

These are the elephant's feet so huge,
Feet so huge, feet so huge,
These are the elephant's feet so huge,
Stomp, stomp, stomp.

This is the elephant's nose so long,
Nose so long, nose so long,
This is the elephant's nose so long,
Blow, blow, blow.

These are the animals all around,
All around, all around,
These are the animals all around,
Run, run, run!

by Iram Khan

Tuesday

Color in letter B for banana
Bb (boat) color by number

Alphabet book B for blue and bubble painting

Bat Rhyme (w/ printable bats):

Five Little Bats

Five little bats came flying in the door,
One flew away and that left only four.
Four little bats hiding in a tree,
One flew away and that left three.
Three little bats looking down at you,
One flew away and that left two.
Two little bats hiding from the sun,
One flew away and that left just one.
One little bat hanging all alone,
He flew away and then there were none.

Wednesday

Add 2 stickers to index card

Color 2 cats
Number wheel
Tag 1, 2, 3 Dora book
Read Richard Scarry's Best Counting Book Ever / El mejor libro para contar de Richard Scarry

Thursday

Color sorting wheel
Bake banana bread
Build with various building blocks

Friday


Scavenger hunt outside for "B", 2. and green items



{reminder: I want to try the color matching wheel and jumbo number clips} 

Weekend Play

Saturday we went to the Big Rig Gig. So many trucks and cars and horns! Lots of fun!

Our Sunday rainy day activity was paint bag writing:

I also wanted to share a fun activity we did a few weeks ago. I'm trying to find the link from which I printed the pieces ...

1 and scavenger hunt Friday

Thursday we did a little bit (a very little bit) on the number 1. Basically we put one sticker on our 1 index card and then did some fine-motor skill work by placing stickers on another 1. We spent the rest of the morning at the library and spent the afternoon meeting a new baby friend of ours!

Friday was our recap/scavenger hunt day. My plan was to have us hunt the neighborhood for A, square and 1 things, but of course Millie had other plans (we are currently all about looking for signs of fall). Here's what we found:

A Square Day

Today was square. I admit I didn't do much planning last night, so I really wasn't prepared with many fun activities today.

We colored by number:

And practiced our fine-motor skills:

Here's a glimpse at our week so far:

Then Millie tired of squares (and scoffed at my suggestion of searching the house for square items) and went off to feed her dinosaurs some lunch. 

While the dinosaurs ate, we visited our local library and took advantage of their book sale! 20 books for $20! 

Aa {apple}

Today was much more successful (meaning: FUN)! Millie LOVED reading "The Apple Tree" and acting out the rhyme using the tree and apples we colored and cut out (I put double-sided tape on the back of the apples to keep them on the tree .. and on Millie's belly once she "ate" them). We read this poem at least 10 times! I will definitely be doing something like this every week.

"I shook the tree as hard as I could"

 

Millie's turn to "read" while I held the tree!

The apple stamping craft went just as well! The apple got a bit slippery once it was coated with paint, and Millie ended up painting with it rather than stamping, but still fun!

Making our "worm" out of stale Cheerios (M ate the rest)

We even had a chance to do some science today! Can you tell which apple slices had been sitting out while we did our apple stamping?

Aa snack: apples and animal crackers!

Millie doing her impression of the Fonz: "Ayyy!" 

Thanks to Pinterest (are you on Pinterest yet? I LOVE it! I am finding some amazing Millie ideas on there! You can follow me here.) I have discovered this inspiring homeschooling blog: Confessions of a Homeschooler. She shares tons of great ideas for kiddos - young and old. Definitely check it out!

After Millie's nap, we'll be doing the "Letter A Do-a-Dot Page" found about halfway down this page. But we'll be using stickers instead of Do-a-Dot Art Markers (though I'm thinking we may need to buy some of those ...).

Learning Poster

Millie's "Learning Poster" is very different from the one Letter of the Week suggests you create. Theirs changes week-to-week as the general theme changes.

I wanted a poster she could look at any time to see her progress. I printed off uppercase and lowercase letters, numbers 1-20, and numerous shapes. Millie colors in whichever letter/number/shape we cover that day (today she colored in her "Aa"s (it was tough keeping her from coloring everything in!).

Day 1: Lesson Learned

One day into it, and I may throw everything out the window. To no one's surprise, my two year old has little interest in sitting to color and trace the letter "A". This is less because of a short attention span (she actually has always had a surprisingly long attention span!) and more because she already knows all of her letters (uppercase and lowercase) and the sounds they make. So, basically today's lesson was "BORING!" I'm just thankful she doesn't know that word yet. 

I was excited to play the ABC Floor Circle, and Millie was really excited to do whatever the boy in the picture was doing. First of all, taping all of those letters is not as quick and easy as is implied by the blog. I couldn't even make a lowercase "a" resemble itself, so we stuck with bath letters instead. 

When I suggested we use Millie's Leap Frog fridge magnets to play a matching game, she looked at me like I was crazy. We did hold hands and walk around the circle saying our "ABC"s. I also put on some music so Millie could dance, and then when the music stopped she would run to a letter and shout it out. Then she started suggesting games that sounded like a whole lot of fun, but I couldn't understand her enough to actually be able to play them. Poor girl!

So we ended up completely changing course and decided to play with colors instead. We went into the kitchen, where I taped a rainbow onto the floor. Then we searched around the house for items with which to fill in our rainbow. It was fun! It held Millie's attention! And she was proud enough of it that she asked to keep it there until her daddy came home. 

And I think this is what my goal really is for each day. To do something fun that's also educational. Something that doesn't feel like learning.

Something like sitting on the porch for over an hour "fishing" (with a jump rope) with "Grandpa" (aka Mama),  spending the next hour pretending to be different animals living in the jungle, and then playing "I Spy" until Daddy comes home.

An Interested Parent

"There is nothing more positive for a child's imagination and self-esteem than an interested parent, who shows curiosity about the child's creations. When children sense their parents' enthusiasm they are way more likely to invite them into the fun, which is fantastic for the parent-child relationship." - M.E. Piche

Week 1: Aa, square, 1

As I mentioned in my last post, our main curriculum is from Letter of the Week, so letters are this "school year's" theme, though I'm taking a cue from the preparatory curriculum and also including a shape and a number each week. 


We'll start with letter A, number 1, and squares.

Monday

ABC Floor Circle

Color in a letter A (for asparagus)

Trace letter A with our finger in beans
Teach the ASL sign for the letter A

Tuesday

Apple Poem: "The Apple Tree"

Apple Stamping Craft

Read "Ten Apples up on Top" by Dr. Seuss

Wednesday

Find 3-5 objects in the house in the shape of a square

Build a cow out of black and white squares
Color by number squares

Apples and animal crackers snack

Place a square on the learning poster

Thursday

Trip to the zoo to visit the Animals
Walk around our house counting 1 of many different objects
Add 1 sticker to our counting book (index cards)
Put the number 1 on the learning poster

Friday
Scavenger hunt outside for "A", 1. and square items
Color in the letter A on the learning poster

Our [homeschool] Preschool of Choice

Have I mentioned how overwhelmed I feel when it comes to choosing our preschool curriculum? It really is a good thing (there are so many fantastic choices!) but it's so difficult to choose just one or two. Thankfully, I can always pick and choose activities from other sites as we go along, and I can always change my mind all together! 

So here's what I'm currently thinking: 

Main Curriculum: Letter of the Week (a mixture of LotW and the preparatory curriculum)

Supplementary Materials: No Time for Flash Cards, Teach Preschool, plus whatever I find on my various other favorite links and on Pinterest.


I am also really excited about You Can Read! Sight Words, but since Millie is a bit too young for tracing and circling, etc, I think we'll wait a few more months at least before we jump into that program.

Teach Me To Do It Myself

I received this book as a gift from my husband earlier this year (or late last year? ugh! I have really been so lazy about this whole learning thing!). The book is full of Montessori activities to do with your children. 

"This fun and practical activity book will guide you as you work and play with your child. Montessori principles focus on teaching children essential life skills and giving them a greater understanding of the world around them." - from the back cover

It also reminds this mama that my child should probably know how to put a button through a button hole by now. Or should have at least attempted it. But she can use a zipper! She really has no interest in dressing herself at all. Hmm.

My goal this week is to choose at least one activity to do with Millie, and to read the entire book myself!