Letter Gg and Grey

R is 35 months old.

We had a really fun week this week.

Craft
R made a giraffe from his footprint. He finger painted the dots onto the pieces when I cut them out. This idea came from Busy Bee Kids Crafts. This turned out unbelievably cute! R also snipped at the green paper on the bottom.

R did an easel painting with grey paint. To make grey paint we mixed a drop of black paint into the white paint.

R also did some drawing with all our grey pencils, markers and crayons.

R collaged a goldfish with gold circles. I used a circle punch to make the circles and R simply stick them on the fish along with a googly eye. Sorry, but the picture is not very clear.

R worked on a water colour picture of a goat from a purchased book. He really enjoyed this!


Letters and Language
I cut out a letter G and R added some glue and glitter. Another bad picture, sorry.

R sorted out the capital G’s and the lowercase g’s on the sorting mat from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

He also loves the Gg tracing. Anything that involves markers is much loved!

At his request, R also traced on the main letter page from Tot School Printables. He did really well at this activity.

R stamped with Gg stamps on a goat, from Tot School Printables.


Colours and Shapes
I sent R on a grey colour hut. This is what he found:

R sorted out pom poms, placing all the grey pom poms into a bowl.

I cut some shapes from alfoil for R to explore. He was not really interested in this activity.

Fine Motor and Sensory Skills
R explored some golf balls, rolling then and feeling the dimples in them.

R did a few of the Tot School Printables. He did the lacing card.

R played for quite a while, making sausages to cover the letter Gg and using the G cookie cutter.

R easily did the 3 piece puzzle.

R put some M&M’s on the Gg magnet page from Confessions of a Homeschooler. The M&M’s were a real motivator for this activity.

I made a simple sensory tub with green split peas, some measuring cups, spoons and a plastic muffin tray. R played with this for a long time.


Maths
More Tot School Printables. R did the goat ordering.

R sorted some cutlery that I set out for him. He also explored some coins, before posting them into a money box.

Science
I put some shaving cream and a blob of black paint into a zip-loc bag. R manipulated the bag until the shaving cream hat turned grey.

He then did finger painting with the grey shaving cream. We have done this many times and R never gets tired of it!!


Gross Motor Skills
We did the Gorilla Dance from an old CD from when I was working.

R got out his mini golf set and we hit the ball around the backyard.

I showed R how to gallop and we pretended to be galloping horses.

Cooking
We made our own garlic bread with home made garlic butter and a French Stick. It was yummy!

Next Program: Hh and Heart.
Thanks for reading!

Alphabet Match and Stick

I was sorting through some old scrapbooking materials to see what R could use for his activities when I came across a sheet of die cut letters. I came up with a matching activity where R has to find the letter and stick it onto a sheet with the letters of the alphabet written on it.

I encouraged him to lay out a few letters and match them to the sheet. 

He completed this with little assistance (I had to help with the a and the g, because the die cuts were quite different to the letters that I wrote). He amazed me again with his letter recognition skills. 

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

We have recently discovered this book, and we love it!! I was looking for a few activities when I came across these from Totally Tots. We have read the book several times a day for over a week now, and I wanted to find some ways to extend R's interest in the book.

Firstly, I gave R a laminated tree on a cookie tray with our magnetic letters. He added the letters. He explored the letters, placing random letters on the tree. Then I held the book open on different pages for R to find the letters that are on the page. We only have uppercase magnetic letters (the lower case letters are on the birthday wish list!).

The next day, I got out the play dough and cookie cutters to go with this activity. R made the letters, after rolling out the play dough and added the letters to his tree. R really enjoyed this activity and even M joined in, poking holes in the play dough letters (at least he wasn't eating it this time!!). R is a bit over play dough, so when I put it out; I have to include some props that will entice him.

R is beginning to recognise letters. He can now identify A, B, C, D, M, Q, R (of course), S and T.  He sings the alphabet song that goes with the Leapfrog Fridge Phonics set. He amazes me each and every day!!

Transport

R is 27 months old.

I compiled this program because R loves anything with wheels...cars, trains, trucks, bobcats, bikes... He will spend hours pushing his little cars around, pushing them along train tracks, and filling the trucks with pom poms, pebbles or anything else that fits.

Crafts

R made a cardboard roll airplane. I saw this idea on No Time For Flashcards. First, R painted a paper towel roll, wings and tail with brown paint. When they were dry, I glued the wings on the top and stuck the tail piece into a slit cut in the end of the roll. R zoomed it around for a while before pulling the wings off the top. :)

R made a train from different shapes. I cut all the pieces out, then R glued them together, following my instructions. This idea came from No Time For Flashcards.

Another similar craft which I saw on No Time For Flashcards was a shape boat. R finger painted on a sheet of paper with blue paint. When this dried, R stuck the shapes on to form a boat. I offered some verbal instruction.

R did a painting with a little trailer (his choice) from our farm set. He enjoyed it so much that he made 3 paintings!

Maths

When I was still working I made a transport sorting game from Kizclub. R had to put the mode of transport in the correct area. He needed some verbal help with this the first time he did it, but after that he did it on his own.

I made a simple sorting game from vehicle pictures. This was too simple for R. He completed it and packed it away quickly.

We looked at the wheels on R's vehicles. We counted the wheels and discussed the circle shape of them.

Colours and Shapes

I got out our pattern blocks to make a sail boat. This was really hard for R, the pattern blocks kept moving all over the laminated sheet, so he lost interest quite quickly, preferring to explore the pattern blocks instead.

I printed off some shape vehicles from 2 Teaching Mommies. I laminated all the pieces and we sat together to make some vehicles.

Fine Motor and Sensory

This sensory tub was unplanned and came together by accident. I was cutting out some items to laminate. I used the sensory tub to put the off cuts into. R started playing with the strips of paper. I cut some up into small squares and put some plastic transport toys in there. R had a great time with it. I ended up cutting all the paper that I was going to throw out into squares for this tub.

R loves water play, so we got the boats out of the bath and played with them in the sensory tub. I also put in a little bit of soap.

I put some little plastic transport manipulatives out to use with the playdough. Now this was pure gold, combining 2 things R loves. He spent ages with this, pressing the manipulatives into the dough, making tracks, and stacking the cars up. He returned to this activity so many times this week that I lost count!

For a bit of variety in the sandpit, I added in some vehicles. This was also very popular, although it was quite cold, so we didn't get outside as much as we both would have liked.

I set out some blocks and cars to see how R would use the two together.

I made some tiny transport cards with pictures from Google. I laminated them and hid them in a bowl of dried beans for R to find. When he finds the cards, he puts them in the little box. I made an activity sheet to go with this, listing the name of the vehicle and a picture for R to match the cards to when he found them, but he wasn't interested in that at all, so out came the box! The cards are approx. 2-3cm, but each is slightly different, due to the orientation of the vehicle pictures. We have done this a few times before, and I keep coming back to it, because R enjoys it and will repeat it many times.

Music and Movement/Gross Motor

We sung loads of songs this week, including "Up in the Air I Fly," "The Wheels on the Bus," and "Row Row Your Boat."

We pretended to be lots of different types of vehicles, making their noises and moving around our car mat.

R and I played a little game where he would push a truck around the room and I would say "stop." He would stop and wait for me to say "go again."

Snack

I made a couple of little sailboats for R for a snack. He loved this and kept saying "I eat boat, Mummy." This idea was inspired by Mama Jenn. I used pears for the base of the boats, cheese for the masts and fruit toast for the sails.

Language and Letters

You can see the books we read here.

Our alphabet craft this week was "C is for Car". I cut a 'C' from black paper and drew in road markings with a white crayon. R then stuck on some car stickers. For each car he stuck down, he kept saying "that daddy's car."

I made a set of Transport Spelling Cards from Dinosaurs and Trains. R used these on a cookie sheet with magnetic letters. He did so well at it, matching all the letters, only getting 1 'u' upside down. I was so proud of him, especially as this was the first time we have done letter matching in this form.

I printed out an Itsy Bitsy Book called Zoom from Kidzone. We have not done anything like this before, but R drew on it, then I cut it out and folded it up. R read it, and was so excited to show Daddy when he came home from work.

Science
We rolled vehicles off a ramp. This was the activity of the week. R kept saying "Fun, Mummy!" :)

Next Program: Polar Animals

Letter Ee and Oval

R is 27 Months Old

This week saw a little less happening during school time after last week's amazing Outer Space week. Lately, R hasn't been so into crafts, but more into fine motor and sensory activities. Last week we did heaps of fine motor and sensory stuff and R showed a real preference for it, whereas only a few weeks ago, he would ask to do painting all day long, and would always choose it first.

Fine Motor and Sensory

I put out a shape puzzle for R and asked him to find the oval. He really amazed me with how many shapes he can recognise and name, especially because we haven't spent a lot of time working on shapes. :)

I put some lentils, peppercorns, rice and sand into our plastic eggs. R had a fantastic time with these. He shook them to hear the sounds, then when he was done, I opened them up to show him what was inside.

R spread butter on bread this week, and then I used an oval cutter to make an oval from it. He had trouble laying the knife flat to spread the butter. I have made a mental note to give him more tasks like this. I am making Pizza this week, so I will get him to spread the pizza sauce onto the pizza's to practice these skills.

I took out the tongs, plastic eggs and the plastic egg carton for some transferring work. He did this many times.

Playdough: We had our homemade blue playdough with the main letter page from Tot School Printables. We also had elephants, an oval/egg and a letter E. R is making snakes to make the letter Ee's in the picture.

Together, R and I did the egg lacing card from Tot School Printables. He never spends a lot of time on this, usually only laces it 2-3 times before he's finished. We also used the Ee egg puzzle.

I put out some small glass pebbles with the E is for Elephant magnet page from Confessions Of A Homeschooler and the oval magnet page from Home Grown Hearts. The pebbles renewed interest in the magnet pages. They were also used as cargo in R's trucks! R used the spoon I had put out for the egg and spoon race to put the pebbles on the oval magnet page.

R played with some smooth oval rocks that we have in our garden.

Craft

I cut a potato in half and gave it to R to paint with. He though it was great, and ended up doing 3 paintings. This was the fist thing he told Daddy about when Daddy got home from work. I cut some little notches in the top of the potato to give R something to hold onto.

When R did so many potato prints, I wasn't sure what to do with them. I don't like to throw R's paintings away, but I only needed one to add to his scrapbook, so I went in search of something to use them for. I was inspired by a very cute shape elephant on First School. I used my scrapbook tools to cut out the pieces, and R pieced them together using my verbal cues.

R painted some eggs with glitter paint. When they were dry, I was cutting them out when R asked to cut one too. I was amazed at how well he did. I have included a close-up picture of his cutting skills.  He drew with brown pencils, oil pastels and crayons on the nest, then glued the eggs on.

Language/Letters

You can see the books we read here.

We traced the letter E from Confessions Of A Homeschooler. R quite enjoys this, but he is right into drawing at the moment, especially if I give him markers.

I put out a multi-coloured stamp pad for R to do his letter stamping this week, and he showed a lot more interest than he usually does. He has got the hang of the stamping now. The sheet came from Tot School Printables.

R made an E for Elephant, seen on No Time For Flashcards. This was a low-key activity because R didn't want to draw or paint, so I cut the parts out of grey paper and he simply glued them together. He loves the little wiggly eyes.

We talked about Capital E's and lowercase e's, then did the Ee sorting from Confessions Of A Homeschooler. R completed this three times, usually he does it once, then packs away. He made me laugh the third time he completed it, he would put the card on the wrong side, laugh then say NOOOO! and put it on the correct side.

Shapes/Colours

We did the oval tracing card from Home Grown Hearts. We also used these tracing cards to compare ovals and circles.

Another favourite activity of the week was the shape eggs. We last used these during our Easter program. I had them out for 3 days this week as R spent so much time playing with them.

R did a Do-A-Dot painting on an oval. The printable came from Childcareland.



Music and Movement/Gross Motor

This week our song was 5 Grey Elephants. We used felt pieces that I made years ago to compliment this song.

We used our skittles with a hard boiled egg to knock them down. This was really hard, because you just could not predict the way the egg would roll. We both had fun playing this game!

We had another egg and spoon race using the plastic eggs. When we did this during our Easter program, I gave R a big spoon from the kitchen, but this time I gave him a smaller spoon from his toy kitchen set. He still loved this, and laughed his way through it. :)

 

Maths

Together, we did the Egg sequencing cards from Tot School Printables. R and I generally talk our way through this, discussing the numbers, and what is happening in the pictures. This week, he recognised the number 1 when I asked him where it was!

Science

We cracked an egg and looked at it, naming the parts. I then cooked the egg in a fry pan, and we watched the change.

Next Program: Transport.