Easter

R is 25 months old

This is our Easter program, which we did the week leading up to Easter. I'm posting it a bit late, but we did have some fun!

Craft
R decorated an Easter egg using wrappers from Easter eggs and glitter. I cut an oval from paper and R spread glue over the egg. He then collaged on the Easter egg wrappers and sprinkled glitter over it. R spent a long time at this activity.

I purchased a bunny mask kit made from foam and we put it together. R enjoyed greeting daddy with the mask on as he came home from work! :)

Using a paper plate and some cotton ball we made a paper plate bunny, seen at Tired Need Sleep.

Fine Motor and Sensory

R transferred the pom-poms to the egg carton using tweezers.

I created a sensory box filled with Easter items. R really enjoyed this and it was used so much over the week of this program. We used the items in the box to discuss hard and soft. I also hid items from the sensory box inside the hollow eggs for R to find. Our sensory box contained green and white cellophane 'grass', hollow eggs, solid chocolate Easter eggs (it took R a few days to realise that they were chocolates), some chicks - both soft and hard, cotton balls and 2 small rabbits.

With our homemade playdough, R used an oval cutter to make eggs and decorated them with purchased playdough. I wish I had gotten a photo of this because the looked really good.

I made a simpler bunny puzzle inspired by the Build A Bunny Game from Homeschool Creations. I printed 2 copies of a bunny picture I had on my computer, cut one up and kept the other whole. R matched the pieces to make a bunny.

I also purchased some Easter themed stamps and R used these to create cards, with the addition of some Easter stickers.

I can not remember where I saw this, but we put together our marble run and used solid chocolate eggs in the marble run. If you have this idea on your blog, please let me know and I will add in a link. R really enjoyed this. He loves the marble run and especially enjoyed eating a "treatie" when we were done.

Maths

I made some Easter Egg Size Sorting Eggs. R needs a lot of help with this, and it created an opportunity to discuss big and small. We also used these in a mock Easter Egg Hunt. I hid them in our garden and R had to find them and place them in his hunting basket. I did this in preparation for our first annual Easter Egg Hunt on Easter Sunday Morning.

Music and Movement/Gross Motor
I changed the words of "Little Peter Rabbit" to "Little Easter Rabbit" and we sung this with the aid of a home made rabbit finger puppet. R also hopped like a bunny.

Using the hollow eggs, we had an egg and spoon race. I used a large kitchen spoon for R, so it was a bit easier for him to balance the egg.

Cooking
Together we made a batch of Hot Cross Buns in the breadmaker. It took up a whole morning by the time we mixed the dough, waited for them to rise, piped on the crosses and then baked them.

We also made a batch of chocolate playdough. I used my regular playdough recipe and added in cocoa powder with the flour. It smelt delicious and I had to really watch R in the first few days because he wanted to eat it!

Science
We melting chocolate and spooned it into Easter Egg moulds. It got quite messy, but was a good opportunity to learn about solid to liquid to solid again.

Language
We read the story of Easter and also some books about the Easter Bunny.

Colours and Shapes

I made some Coloured Eggs in Microsoft Publisher and turned them into a matching game. To make it a bit harder for R is used 2 different shades of the same colour (light green and dark green).

I made some cracked eggs for R to match up. I made the in Publisher using the oval tool and then made the 'crack' using the line tool. I cut them up and laminated them to make mini-puzzles.

We used our hollow eggs and pom poms as a colour matching game. R had to match the coloured pom pom to the egg. As the eggs were new, they were quite hard for R to open so it also became a good activity for developing his fine motor strength.

Next Program: Letter B and Blue.

Letter Aa and Red

R is 25 months old

This was the first program the I compiled for R. I wanted to test it out before I created the whole alphabet and he really enjoyed it. So far, it has worked out well, especially after our new arrival, giving us some special 1:1 time together.

Craft
I squirted red paint onto a small paper plate and R spread it around the platewith his fingers. When he was finished, I stapled the leaf and stick on the top to make an apple. This idea came from Making Learning Fun.

I went through our collage box and gathered all the red items in there and R made a collage of red items.

I put out all our red crayons, markers, pencils and oil pastels for R to create a red drawing.

This is a bad photo, but I cut a cloud shape out of green card, and R stamped on it with circles (they were actually the paint stoppers for our paint pots) in red paint to make apples in the tree. Once dry, I stuck it onto a large piece of paper and drew on the trunk with brown crayon.

I also had apple printing planned, but we never got to it.



Fine Motor and Sensory

R loves pom poms and any related activities. R sorted all the red pom poms from our container of large pom poms. I printed and laminated the apples printable from Engaging Toddler Activities. R used tweezers to pick up small pom poms and put them onto the circles on the printout. He needed a bit of practice, but he got the hang of the tweezers.

I made some red ice blocks and put them in the water play trolley. This was a big hit and R was sad when the ice blocks melted. As it is still quite hot here, it was a great way to cool down.

We had red playdough this week. This was played with so much this week. I showed R how to roll balls to make apples. R still needs some practice with this. We pushed in some stems from real apples into the top. There was also some apple cookie cutters and an "A" cookie cutter. After laminating some stuff from Tot School Printables, we rolled 'snakes' and lay them on the Aa's on the"Main Letter Sheet". I encouraged R to trace the playdough with his finger to get the shape of the Aa.

We also used the lacing card and Aa apple puzzle.

I collected some of our red blocks from our wooden block set and put them in a bowl on the shelf for the week.

I set out some red apples on the mat for R to explore. I used 5 apples, all different varieties. We talked about the different reds in all the apples and counted them. We tried to stack them, but were not very successful.

Maths

We used the apple sequencing cards from Tot School Printables.

Shapes and Colours
A while ago, I made the Colour Sorting Station from Home Grown Hearts but R can sort the colours easily now, so I have been coming up with new ideas to use them. I hid all the red items around the house and gave R a red plate to go and find them all. As this was the first time we have done this, I 'hid' them quite obviously, and R got the hang of the game quickly. Next time I will be a bit more creative with my hiding places.

Cooking
We cooked apple muffins and ate lots of apples.

Music and Movement/Gross Motor
I blew up some red balloons and we played a variety of games with them. By the end of the day, all the balloons had been popped as R tried to sit on them!

I taped a piece of red card to the wall and had R throw the red beanbag and ball at the red card. I thought he would really enjoy this, but he wasn't fussed.

Science
Together we made some red jelly, discussing the concept of liquid to solid as the jelly set...we had to check on it several times! Once the jelly was set, I put it on the table for sensory exploration. R ate most of it and asked for more.

Language and Letters
Another craft we completed was A is for Apple Tree, seen at Katie's Nesting Spot. I cut an A out of a cereal box and R painted it with brown paint and a small paint brush. R then used a green Do-A-Dot marker to paint the top of the tree. I used a circle punch to cut out 5 red circles from card. R did not have the muscle strength to use the punch himself. He glued the circles on the apple tree.

R used alphabet stamps on the apple printout from Tot School Printables.

R did the Upper and lower case Aa Alphabet Matching from Confessions Of A Homeschooler. This is such a wonderful blog, full of great printables and ideas. If you haven't already, you should check it out!

Next Program: Easter

It's Been A While

It's been a while since my last post, but we have welcomed a new baby boy into our home. He arrived 4 days late, but very quickly. We also celebrated R's 2nd birthday!

I have been planning a new program for R now that he has turned 2. I had been searching for something which introduced the basics of the alphabet as well as themes which he is interested in. I have written a few programs, but found some of the activities I had planned a bit too old/advanced for R. Then I found some wonderful printables over at 1+1+1=1. These were perfect for what I was after. Thank you Carisa for sharing! I have used these and some other wonderful ideas out there to create (or am in the process of compiling) a weekly program for each letter. I have planned the whole year, and will do a program centering around a letter of the alphabet and a shape or colour. Every second week I will be doing a theme program. We have already done the Aa/Red program and then an Easter program. This week we are working on Bb/Blue. I will be posting about the 2 completed programs soon. So far it is going well, and in between breastfeeding, visitors and all the other things happening, we have managed to get some 'school stuff' done.

Button Sorting

I put out an ice cube tray and a bowl of buttons. At first R just put them into the ice cube tray, but once I started to discuss the colours of the buttons, he began to sort them into different colours groups.

This activity required a lot of supervision due to the small size of the buttons. My son is not prone to putting things into his mouth, but you never know...

Gingerbread Man Collage

Together, we made a gingerbread man from various craft materials. 

You will need:

• Gingerbread cutout. I folded a piece of paper in half and drew the picture that I wanted, then cut it out and traced it onto a cereal box.
• Brown pencils, crayons, pastels.
• Powdered Ginger - I used cinnamon because I ran out of ginger making the cookies.
• Glue
• Buttons - can use real buttons. I used some card cut with a circle punch, then punched 2 tiny holes in it to make the holes in the buttons. R chose the colour of the button.
• A piece of red paper (I used quilling paper) for the mouth.
• Wiggly eyes.

First, I gave R the pencils and crayons on brown and he drew on the cutout. This didn't last long, because he really wanted to get to the glue.

Then he used the glue to cover the gingerbread man cutout.

Followed by shaking the cinnamon (or ginger if you have it) onto the "man" as he was called by R. The holes in my cinnamon shaker were a bit too big and the cinnamon came out really fast. Shake the man to spread the cinnamon over the glue.

Lastly, R glued again. I gave the directions to put the eyes and mouth on his head, and the buttons on his body. R chose where to place them.

R loved the 'man' and talked about him for many days.

The Gingerbread Man

Over the past week we have been reading the Gingerbread Man (I got a lift-the-flaps version from the library and it has been a big hit). We have done a few activities related to the book, which have been enjoyed.

Firstly, we cooked gingerbread men. These took us ages, but they have been eaten and asked for, for over a week. They have kept really well. Unfortunately, I didn't get any photos of this as we were cooking.

We made playdough and added ginger into it to create a sensory experience. I also gave R the gingerbread cookie cutters to use with the dough.

I made a gingerbread shape matching game from Preschool Printables which R did easily and lost interest in very quickly.

We made a gingerbread man with collage materials. I had intended this to be a follow-the-directions activity rather than a creative craft.

We did finger painting and I added some cinnamon to it for a bit of variety. R loves anything to do with getting messy and painting, so this was a very popular activity.

 

 We made cookies from collage materials.

Here we put buttons on the gingerbread man cutout. I said a colour and R had to find buttons of that colour, placing them on the gingerbread man.

We made the gingerbread man puzzle from The Gingerbread Baby Lapbook over at Homeschool Creations. Thank you for this great resource. R really surprised me with his ability to put this puzzle together, not having seen it completed before putting it together.

It was a fun week!