Letter N

Everybody in our house is finally healthy so we were able to put a little more time into school this week. I'm trying to incorporate Rayna into what we're doing more because she so badly wants to do what her brother is doing, but it's so hard because she makes everything 10X more work and usually colors all over whatever Rowin is working on. Our first day of school this week, she actually just got to watch a Praise Baby by herself, but after that, we tried to include her. :)

Day 1:

• Bible Story/Memory Verse
• Reviewed A-M and introduced N
• Letter Hunt-I used a bunch of felt and foam letters and Rowin had to find the capital and lowercase Nn's.

• Letter Maze-He had to find his way from the net to the butterfly, by going on the N squares. 

Free printable here

• Beginning Sounds Game-We each picked a letter-Rowin was b and I was n, so we put candy hearts on the Start frogs on each side. We took turns rolling a die. When it was your turn, if it landed on a picture that started with your letter, you got to move your candy heart one space. The first person to reach the pond won. I found this at www.thisreadingmama.com. She has these games for all different letters too, and they're free!

• Cutting Practice: "Is Anybody Home?"-He had to cut from each door mat to it's house. 

Free printable here

Day 2:

• Bible Story/Memory Verse
• Reviewed A-N flashcards
• Block Letter
• First, he filled it with noodles.
• Then, we made noodle necklaces. 

Free printable block letters here

We had these fun planes, trains, and cars noodles-thank you Aldi. They were a lot easier to string onto the necklace than the macaroni!

Rayna helped make a necklace too!

• Writing-We worked downstairs today so we got to use our big chalkboards for writing. I modeled a big N, using the verbal prompt, "Big line down, frog jump. Diagonal down and up." Rowin erased it wet, erased it dry, and wrote one himself. For lowercase n, we said, "Down, up and around."

Rayna girl was pretty happy to be part of the action.

• Workbook writing practice-We haven't pulled this out in months! In the fall, he was just getting frustrated when we tried to do it, but he's been enjoying writing, so I thought we'd pull it out again and give it a try. He did great ("now that he's four") ;) and actually wanted to go back and do some of the pages we had skipped!

Day 3:

• Bible Story/Memory Verse
• Reviewed A-N flashcards
• Cutting Practice-Shapes (He was kind of overwhelmed when he saw this page so I had him pick out two shapes to cut out.)

Free printable: follow same link as "Is Anybody Here?" cutting practice above

• Dot Sticker Page-Rowin filled in all of the circles with sparkly glitter stickers.

Free printable here

While Rowin was working, I drew a bunch of circles and told Rayna to put the stickers inside the circles. I was actually surprised that she did it! Maybe I've been underestimating her??

• Name Practice-First he practiced tracing his name. Then he practiced writing it by himself. 

• N is for Numbers Craft-Rowin glued on the N and then added a bunch of numbers to it.
  

• N-N-Nut Game-I gave Rowin a bowl of nuts and a die. Every time he rolled the die, he had to eat that many nuts until they were all gone. He loved it! :)
  
  
  
  
  
  
  We had a fun week learning letter N! See you next week!

Letter M

This was still a recovery week for us, so we didn't do a whole lot. We got a little bit in for letter M though. Here's what we did...

Day 1:

• Bible Story/Memory Verse
• Reviewed A-L and introduced M
• Block Letter
• Rowin traced it with his finger, saying, "Up the ladder, down the slide. Up the ladder, down the slide."
• Then he filled it in with some leftover Valentine's Day M&M's. 

(See previous post for free printable link)

• Writing
• On our chalkboard, I modeled a capital M, saying the verbal prompt from above. 
• He erased over the lines with a wet paper towel. 
• He erased over the lines with a dry paper towel.
• He wrote one himself.
• Then we repeated for lowercase, using the verbal prompt, "Down, up and over, up and over. "
• Rhyming Puzzle-We have a puzzle with pictures of objects that rhyme (cat, bat; mouse, house, etc.) Rowin worked on that for a while. I forgot to take a pic and I actually don't know where that came from-maybe my teaching days? You could probably find one at a teacher store or Learning Express.

Day 2:

• Bible Story/Memory Verse
• Reviewed A-M flashcards
• Dot Marker Page

(See previous post for free printable link)

• Cutting Practice-I forgot to print the page I had wanted to use, so I just drew a bunch of dotted lines on a piece of paper and had Rowin cut them out. 

• Mouse Craft-I cut the pieces out and Rowin glued them all on.

Letter L

Oh man! Our house got hit by illness these past couple weeks. As soon as one person was better, someone else caught it. I was out of commission for a while, so this is coming to you a little late. I'm sure you don't mind. Hopefully your house has been healthier than ours! :/

If you're new to my blog, I'm working with my four year old son, going through the alphabet one letter at a time. This week we learned letter L.

Day 1:

• Bible Story/Memory Verse
• Reviewed Letters A-K and Introduced L
• Color by Letter Page

Free printable here

• "Making Pairs" pages in Dollar Store workbook
• Cutting Practice-First I had Rowin practice tracing the dotted lines. Then he cut them out. 

Free printable here

• Letter Basket-We found lions, lettuce, a lollipop, lemons, a lightbulb, a lucky penny, and a Llama Llama book.
  
  
  
  *Toddler Activity-Money + Piggy Bank
  
  
  
  
  

Day 2:

• Bible Story/Memory Verse
• Salt Writing-Rowin practiced writing letters A-L in the salt with his finger. 
• Dr. Jean Songs
• We sang and danced to Macarena Months, Days of the Week, and Lettercize.
• Block Letter-First Rowin traced it with his finger, then he filled it with kinetic sand. 

Free printable here

• "What's Missing?" pages in Dollar Store workbook.

*Toddler Activity: Kinetic Sand + sand toys

Day 3:

• Bible Story/Memory Verse
• Reviewed letters A-L
• Dot Marker Page

Free printable here

• Cutting Practice-Rowin practiced tracing and cutting again along the dotted lines

Free printable here

• Lamp Craft

• Snowman Letter Match-I used snowman cutouts from the Dollar Store and a lowercase letter puzzle (also from the Dollar Store). I wrote capital letters, A-Z, on the cutouts. 

We only used letters A-L for the game. Rowin had to match each capital letter snowman with the right lowercase letter.

*No toddler activity today. We let Daddy take care of the sick baby while we did school. :)

Valentine's Day Crafts and Activities

It's the month of love! And hearts and chocolate and lots of themed crafts....at least in our house. We took a week off of our usual routine last week and did all things Valentine's Day. I tried to do all things that both my four year old and 20 month old could do, so all of these ideas are good for a variety of ages. Here's how I kept my crew busy this past week...

Valentine Shakers
Here's what you'll need: paper plates, clear tape, and rice or dry beans

I had the kids decorate their plates with stickers and markers. Then we put a little bit of rice on each plate, folded it in half, and taped it shut. They've been making "music" with them all week. ;)

Valentine Snow Globes

We used a couple of Ball jars we had in the house. The kids filled them with foam shapes, hearts made out of pipe cleaners, heart beads, sequins, and glitter. I filled them up with water, sealed them nice and tight, and let them shake away. 

Patterns with Candy Hearts

First, I started a pattern with candy hearts and Rowin (4) had to finish my pattern. Then he wanted to come up with his own patterns. For younger kiddos, stick with AB patterns. For older kids, you can try more challenging patterns like ABB or ABC, etc. 

Digging for Candy Hearts

I buried several candy hearts in a bin filled with rice and gave the kids several digging tools. Rowin, Rayna, and one of their buddies had to dig and find all of the hearts. Then they got to eat them of course!

Make Homemade Valentines

The kids made these for all of the grandparents. Paint + construction paper + stickers = masterpieces. 

Decorate Valentine's Day Cookies

We went super simple this time and used a mix and I'm not gonna lie, they tasted amazing. We didn't even bother pulling out our cute heart cookie cutters. The kids just had fun eating the dough and putting sprinkles on everything. :)

So many fun things to do for Valentine's Day! If you're looking for more ideas, you can check in January 2015 or February 2014 of my Blog Archives. Happy Valentine's Day! :)