5 A Day Books - Dd Books

I love this idea. Basically, you pick 5 books and read them all everyday for a week.

When I was working, I used to read 3 books a day to the kids (I was working with 1-2 year olds). We would read 1 book everyday for the week and 2 books each day would be different. It worked so well, and we got to the point where some of the kids approaching 2 would be able to "read" the book from memory. It developed language skills as well as attention span.

I started reading to R when he was about 2 weeks old, and started with M when he was about 6 weeks old (have been a bit slacker with M, but there is just not enough hours in the day sometimes!). I was really keen to make sure my children loved books. My mum is a librarian, and passed on her love of books to me, and I want to pass it on to my boys. Plus I also read somewhere that children who love books and enjoy reading are better students.

So, this week we are going to have a go. We are doing Dd and Yellow this week in our program, so I chose "D" books. The full Dd and Yellow post is here. They are:

1. Who's Behind The Door? At The Farm by Michael Salmon

2. Mighty Machines Diggers by Amanda Askew

3. One Duck Stuck by Phyllis Root (This is one of my favourite books)

4. Five Little Ducks Went Out One Day! by Margaret Bateson-Hill.

5. Donald Loves Drumming by Nick Bland.

Linking up to The Imagination Tree.

Letter Cc and Circles

R is 26 months old.

This week we have been learning about the letter C and circles. 

Craft

R made a circle chick, inspired by Katies Nesting Spot. R freely painted on a sheet of paper with yellow paint and a nail brush. When the paint was dry, I used my scrapbooking cutters to cut out 2 circles. I also cut out some legs and R painted on them with brown paint. After looking at some pictures of birds and discussing the body form of a bird, R glued the bird together with some verbal assistance.

Using an empty toilet roll, R made a circle painting. R chose green and yellow paint, and I squeezed them onto the paint tray together, but didn't mix them. It made a cool colour combination. He dipped the end of the toilet roll into the paint and then pressed it onto the paper.

R made a cupcake from painting and collage. This idea was inspired by Totally Tots. I drew a cupcake base and top. R painted with a small brush on the base. On the top, he collaged some sprinkles. I made the sprinkles by cutting up some mosaic squares into thin strips.



Fine Motor and Sensory:

R and I played Connect-4. R enjoyed filling the grid and then making the counters all fall out the bottom. He also stacked the counters.

I made a mini sensory box from rice. I hid coins in the rice and R had to find them and put them into the rubber muffin cup. He loved this and spent so long playing with it. I was glad I put the activity into the black tub, because it did not take long for the rice to be poured into the tub. R then filled the muffin cup with rice, poured it into the plastic container and then dumped it out again. I can't remember where I saw an idea similar to this, so let me know if it's yours, so I can add in a link!

We did some cutting with scissors. R has now progressed to opening and closing the scissors on his own. When we first began cutting, R needed help to open the scissors, but now he can do it on his own! Next step is to get him holding the paper as well as operating the scissors.

R loves playdough and this week was no exception. He can roll snakes on his own now. We used the snakes to make a letter C using the Main Letter Page from Tot School Printables. From there, we made circles with the playdough snakes.

We also did the Cat Lacing Card and Cat Cc Puzzle from Tot School Printables. 

I put some shaving cream on the table for some fingerpainting. I showed R how to draw C's on the shaving cream and here is his attempt.

We used our circle magnets to make the C is for Caterpillar page from Confessions Of A Homeschooler and the Circle Page from Home Grown Hearts.

Shapes and Colours:

We sorted all the circles from the Shape Sorting Station from Home Grown Hearts. I also made the Shape Tracing Cards and R traced the circle with his fingers. He is not quite able to trace with a pen yet, but we are practicing.

R used his Do-A-Dot Markers to stamp on a circle shape, found at Childcareland. I could not find the exact link, but it is somewhere on this wonderful website.

I got out the buttons and got R to sort out the circle buttons from the rest. R needed lots of support with the activity.

Cooking

We made choc-chip cookies. R really enjoys cooking.

Music and Movement/Gross Motor

We did some dancing with a hula-hoop. We also got out our musical instruments box and played the drum and tambourine.

I gathered all the balls in the house and we explored them. We discussed the textures of them and sorted them by colour. Both of us tried juggling balls like a clown, but it was an epic fail. We settled for rolling and throwing the balls to each other!

Maths

We did some simple size sequencing with the cat cards from Tot School Printables.

Langauge/Letters

R did some "Cc" stamping on the cat from Tot School Printables.

We did some Cc tracing with the tracing page from Confessions Of A Homeschooler. R traced the letters with his finger. I think I will give him a pen to use next time.

R made a "Cc" Caterpillar. He did Do-A-Dot Painting on a sheet of paper, and then I cut it into circles using my scrapbooking tools. I then drew a large 'C' on the paper and R stuck the circles onto the 'C'. He used a glue stick, and is still learning how much glue to put on and which side to put the glue onto. Lastly he glued on the eye. This was inspired by First School.

Science

I had some celery which had past it use-by date, so I mixed up some food colouring in a paint cup and sat the celery in it. We checked on it over the week, and watched as the celery turned red. I forgot to get a photo of the celery at the end of the week.

Next Program: Letter Dd and Yellow.

Autumn

R is 26 months old.

This program was done a few weeks ago. I had compiled it and then forgot about it. As Autumn came to a close, I thought we had better get this done, before winter starts.

Craft

R has really enjoyed chalk drawing on our easel and it reminded me to do an easel painting. R used to do many easel paintings when he was younger, and we haven't done any for ages. I gave him autumn colours - I put red and yellow in the same paint pot and gave it to him, as well as brown. We discussed colour mixing when he was using the red/yellow paint.

R has been right into drawing lately, and I put out autumn colours when he requested drawing.

He also made an autumn tree with torn paper. He ripped the paper, and them stuck the torn pieces onto paper with a tree trunk drawn on it. He spent ages at this crafty activity.

We made a handprint tree, inspired by a couple of different activities seen on Totally Tots. I painted R's hand and arm and he pressed it to the paper. He then glued on leaves from our garden. He really liked doing this activity.

R has been struggling with size sorting, so we made a shape tree to talk about big, medium and small. I cut out three triangles of varying sizes. R drew on one, used Do-A-Dot markers on one and finger painted the biggest one. I then got him to layer them on top of each other, with the biggest one on the bottom, sticking each layer down as we went. This area still needs some work.

Shapes and Colours

Many years ago, I made a Shape Leaf Match game from Preschool Printables. He matched the shapes on the leaves quite well, but quickly wanted to pack away.

I made up a little leaf colour book in Microsoft Publisher and R painted on it with Do-A-Dot Markers and Ta-Doodles Markers. I read the words on the page, and R had to find the correct colour to stamp with. I stapled it into a little book and R loved it. We read it every day for over a week. It was quite easy to make this little book on the computer. I made a text box and typed in the words, then copied the leaf picture into it. I then "copy and pasted" it several times to make each page, changing the colour word on it. I made 2 pages per sheet of A4 paper. Then simply cut out each page and begin decorating it.

We did a leaf size and colour sorting activity from Childcareland. R sorted them into colour piles. This was quite difficult because it is quite hard to tell the difference between the red and the orange leaves. We also discussed big, medium and small again.

 

Maths

I printed off the Roll A Fall Tree from Play To Learn Printables. I laminated the tree and then gave R some punchies from a leaf punch. I let him put the leaves on the trees at first. Then I gave him a dice and let him roll it, aiming to put the number of leaves on the tree that showed in the dice, but he did not enjoy this, so we went back to putting the leaves on the tree.

The success of the Leaf Colour Book inspired me to prepare a little leaf counting book for R. I have wanted to do more counting with him, and this was a fun way to introduce the numbers 1-3 to him. This was simpler to make. I cut a sheet of A4 paper into quarters. I wrote on each page. On the 'one leaf' page a drew one dot, two dots on the 'two leaves' and three dots on the 'three leaves page'. After making 6 leaf punchies, R stuck the leaves to the dots. I instructed R to put one leaf on each dot. He did this, and I counted each leaf with him. He then drew on the cover page and I stapled to together and we have been reading it ever since.

I made a simple leaf sorting game from Prekinders. I coloured in the baskets and then laminated the sheet. Using leaf punchies, R sorted them and placed them on the correctly coloured basket.

Science

On a beautiful Autumn day here, we collected some leaves outside and smelt, touched and explored them with a magnifying glass. We compared the leaves that had fallen to the ground with the green leaves that were still on the trees. R also raked up some leaves that were on our lawn. I didn't get a picture of this, because he packed his rake away whilst I was inside getting the camera.

Cooking
We baked pumpkin muffins with no sugar in them. They were really easy, tasted wonderful and freeze well.

Fine Motor and Sensory
I put some warm water in the water play trolley, but I think it was a little too cold for water play because (for the first time ever) R did not want to play with it.

We had orange and brown playdough this week, with leaf cookie cutters. We also pressed leaves from the garden into the play dough to make leaf prints.

I cut out a leaf shape from paper and R snipped at it. He can now open and close the scissors on his own as well as hold the paper. It was the first time he held the paper. The last few times we have practiced cutting, I have had to hold the paper for him whilst he operates the scissors!

I had planned on doing a scooping/pouring/funneling activity with orange lentils, but when I went to set it up, I discovered that I had no lentils, so I will post about this when I get some.

Language and Letters

R made an L is for Leaf, inspired by 2 Teaching Mommies. R asked to do drawing as I was cutting out the leaves and "L", so he decorated them with pencil drawings.

Music and Movement

R and I pretended to be leaves floating to the ground. I didn't think R would be interested in this, but he was, and it lead to us running around our lawn 'zooming' like aeroplanes. Such fun! :)

Next Program: Cc and Circle.

Recycled Sensory Tub

I have been collecting milk bottle tops for a while now. We have quite a few and wanted to use them, so I turned them into our latest sensory tub.

The contents of the box are:

• Milk bottle tops in various colours
• Parts of a broken skipping rope (the short and long fluro tubes)
• Toilet rolls and paper towel rolls
• Empty plastic bottles
• A red sheet of plastic
• A small box
• A small plastic container
• A few plastic lids that have no containers

R put the milk bottle tops down the paper towel roll. He also filled the plastic bottle with the small plastic tubes and dumped them out again. He also spent a lot of time screwing the lid onto the bottle and taking it off again.

I was quite surprised how much R enjoyed this tub and how long he spent playing with it.

Colour Matching

After we had finished with our do-a-dot markers one day, R started putting the lids on them, matching the colours correctly. Each time we get them out now, he puts the lids back on them. It is also a great way to practice his fine motor skills, too, when he screws on the lids.

Letter Bb and Blue

R is 26 months.



This week we learned about the letter B and the colour blue.

Craft
We made handprint bees, as seen on childcareland.com.

I collected all the blue items I could find in our collage box, and R made a blue collage.

With some leftover blue paint from another project, R did a blue painting and sprinkled it with blue glitter.

I put out all our blue crayons, pencils, markers and oil pastels and R created a blue drawing. R is really into drawing at the moment, so much so that he did 2 pictures.

Maths

We played with our small bears and sorted them by colour, focusing on blue.  R began putting all the bears into the carriages of his train set and driving them around the living room floor. They added a new dimension to his play, which was just a joy to watch. I also hid the blue bears around the room for R to find. He is getting so much better at this activity.

I printed and laminated the Butterfly Size Sorting Activity from Confessions Of A Homeschooler. R completed this quickly.

We completed the ball sequencing cards from Tot School Printables. We discussed how we can blow air into a flat beach ball to blow it up to help R understand the sequence.

Fine Motor and Sensory

I made a "B" sensory box with beans, blue gardening tools, butterfly punchies, a blue container and a small box. After I took this photo, I put some bugs in there too. R loves the different sensory boxes that I have put together for him, and spends hours per week playing with them.

This week, we had blue playdough, which R used a lot, requesting it many times. I put out a bowl of cookie cutters, including the letter B, butterflies, birds, a boat, bears etc from our cookie cutter collection. I also used the Main Letter Sheet from the Tot School Printables at 1+1+1=1 as a playdough mat. Together we roll 'snakes' and lay them on the laminated sheet to form the letters. I also use this printable for tracing.

We also used the ball puzzle and lacing card from Tot School Printables. R needs some help with the lacing, but generally it is only verbal help.

R stuck butterfly stickers onto a printout of a butterfly from Childcareland. The printout can also be used with Do-A-Dot Markers or Magnetic Pom Poms.

Whilst enjoying the beautiful sunny weather outside, we put blue water in the water play trolley. I added in some boats and bubbles. I also blew bubbles and R tried to catch them.

I saved some blue cellophane from a present given to us after the birth of M. R looked through it and we discussed how everything looked blue. I had intended to make some cardboard glasses and stick the cellophane to them, but we never got to it.

Cooking

For a snack, I made R a Fruit Butterfly, inspired by Mama Jenn. I used fruit bread for the body and antennae. The wings are pear, and the decorations are sultanas.

Music and Movement/Gross Motor

I collected up all the balls in our house and put them in a basket. Together, we sorted all the blue balls as well as rolling, kicking and throwing them.

R practiced walking backwards and walking with a blue beanbag on his head. He pretended to be a bear, bee, butterfly and a bird.

Language and Letters

We made a bumblebee from a letter B, as seen at No Time For Flashcards.

We did some stamping with some "B" alphabet stamps and blue ink (my scrapbooking supplies are coming in very handy, even though I have not had time to scrapbook for over a year now!) on a ball from the Tot School Printables.

We used the Capital B and Lowercase b sorting game from Confessions Of A Homeschooler.

Colours and Shapes

We made a bluebird from shapes, inspired by Tired Need Sleep. Again, I used some scrapbooking tools to cut the shapes out. This was more about following directions than creativity. R also used a glue stick for the first time to stick the shapes down.

We sorted all the lego out, and put all the blue blocks into a bowl, which we played with a lot.

Next Program: Autumn...got to squeeze this one in before it is officially winter here!