Letter T

Well, we're wrapping it up for the summer! We made it all the way to letter T-not too bad! I was looking back over some of the things Rowin did this past fall and he's come such a long way! He could barely trace his name in August and now he knows (almost) all of the letter names and sounds, he's adding, making patterns, and writing-so cool to see! Sorry-not trying to be braggy mom-it's the teacher in me. :)
Anyway, I'm so glad I did this with him this year. I'm a dork and loved planning our lessons every week and it was just a special time together. Next year he's off to real preschool and we won't have that time together (insert weepy pregnant lady tears). I'm so thankful for the memories we made doing "school" this year.
Here's a look at our last week...

Day 1:

• Bible Story/Memory Verse
• I told him the story of the sheep and the goats from Matthew 25 and we talked about how serving other people is like serving Jesus. Later that day, we packed lunches for a homeless shelter near where we live. While I had hoped he'd be excited to help, being a four year-old boy, he thought playing sounded like more fun...so it was a good opportunity to talk about how this was a way we could serve Jesus by serving others (which isn't always as fun as playing)...so much to teach this sweet boy of mine...

• Introduced letter T
• Color by Letter (Sorry, forgot to snap a picture of this before I threw it away. You can check previous posts for the link though.)
• Letter Jump
• I wrote lots of letters on our driveway and Rowin had to get from one side to the other by only jumping on Tt's.
  
• Sorting (Classification) with Animals
• Rowin practiced sorting animals several different ways. A few were:
• Land Animals/Water Animals
• Farm Animals/Wild Animals
• Animals with 2 Legs/Animals with 4 Legs/Animals with No Legs

Toddler Activities: Rayna jumped around on our chalk letters and then she had fun with puff balls and a bunch of bowls. :)

Day 2:

• Bible Story/Memory Verse
• Block Letter-traced with his finger and then filled with trucks

Free printable block letters here

• Dot Marker Page

Free printable Dot Marker pages here

• Shaving Cream Writing
• I sprayed shaving cream onto a cookie sheet and Rowin practiced writing T's in it. Then, of course, he just played in it. 
  
• I made one for Rayna but she didn't like getting her hands messy, so she used a scoop, a spoon and a fork to play with it.
  
  
  
• Nature Scavenger Hunt (from EastCoastMommy.com)-We did this with some buddies. We all went for a walk and the kids put stickers next to each item as they found it. 
  

I saved all of the Dot Marker Pages Rowin did from this year, hole punched them, and put them in a binder. I also saved all of the Letter Crafts he did and put those in another binder. So we'll have a little something to remember the year we did school together. ;) 

We're signing off for a while. Thanks for following along with us this year! I hope you have a wonderful summer!

~Julie

Letter S

Happy Tuesday! We're really slowing down over here! Lately we're only averaging 1-2 days of school a week so it's taking us quite a while to get through each letter. Oh well. It is what it is. I'm thinking we'll go until around Memorial Day and then I'm not going to worry about doing any kind of schedule over the summer. Ro will be in legit preschool this fall and we have Baby Girl coming in September.....at which point I'm thinking I'll peace out for a while. So perhaps I'll try to squeeze in just a few more posts before then! Here's what we did over the past couple weeks for letter S:

Day 1:

• Bible Story/Memory Verse
• Introduced Letter S flashcard
• Hole Punch Number Game
• I cut out ten circles and wrote #'s 1-10 on them. Then I gave Rowin a hole punch and told him to punch the same amount of holes that it said on each circle. (He LOVES using a hole punch, so this was a hit!)

• Rhyming Activity
• We have these rhyming stamps, so I just made this little activity for him. I gave him several different stamps and he had to find the ones that rhymed and stamp them on the paper (goat + boat, nose + rose, etc.)

Not a great picture-sorry!

Day 2:

• Bible Story/Memory Verse
• Reviewed A-S
• Letter Maze

Free printable here!

• Block Letter-Rowin traced it with his finger and then filled it with snakes.

Free printable block letters here

• Cutting Practice-I just used a couple of the shapes from a cutting worksheet and had him practice cutting them out.

Free scissor skills packet here!

• Fun with Foam Beads
• These are from the Dollar Tree (I forget what they're actually called) but I've seen them at JoAnn's too. It's kind of like play dough, but it's a bunch of teeny tiny sticky foam balls-super fun. Rowin used it to practice making an S and then they both just had fun creating things. 

Day 3:

• Bible Story/Memory Verse
• Reviewed A-S
• Dot Marker Page
  
  
  Free printable here!
  
  
  
  
• Name Rocks-Rowin found five rocks and painted the letters in his name on them. Meanwhile, Rayna painted her own rocks. Pink and purple are her jam-it starts young.

• Snake Craft

That's all for now. Have a great week!! :)

Letter R

I have to be honest, this was a rough week in our house. Cold and rainy all week so we were stuck inside. Everyone was driving everyone crazy. Rowin had no interest in anything I had prepared. All that to say, we only did two days of school this week, and we did the minimum at that. Ahhh!! Just one of those weeks. :/

Day 1:

• Bible Story: We finished our Jesus Calling Children's Bible, so we just started the Jesus Storybook Bible-love it!!
• Introduced letter R
• Color by Letter

Free printable HERE!

• Block Letter-traced with finger and filled with rocks (These were a souvenir from a little trip we just took. He and Rayna are obsessed with them-so funny!)

Free printables HERE!

• Paint Bags
• I made one for each of them. I just squirted a little bit of different color paints in a quart sized bag and then taped them to the table. 
• Rowin practiced writing capital and lowercase R's. Since the table is blue, it was hard for them to see, so we slipped a piece of white paper behind the bags so that they could see the letters better. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
• After he had practiced writing a few R's, we pulled out some cookie cutters and they had fun making different shapes in the paint. When they were all done, I taped them to our glass, back door so they could play with them for a few more days. 

Day 2:

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

Free printable HERE!

• Pattern Puzzles
• I started a few patterns and had Rowin finish them. Then he created several of his own. 

Not sure what this smile/grimace is?

• R Craft-We made a ROWIN for the letter R! He thought this was pretty hilarious. :)

Overall, not the best week in our family's history, but tomorrow's a new day. We're all learning how to extend and receive grace over here. This past week felt like a big failure, but I'm thankful that the Lord doesn't expect me to be a perfect mom. He expects me to fail, but to recognize my weakness so that His strength can be perfected in me. I am certainly a work in progress-my kids will be the first to tell you that, but his grace is sufficient for me. 

Letter Q

Spring has FINALLY sprung here in the midwest!! After a few weeks of rain/snow, we've spent the past few days outside enjoying the sun. Praise the Lord!! As far as school goes, we checked letter Q off the list-can't believe how close we're getting to the end of the alphabet and to summer-we'll see which one comes first!

Day 1:

• Bible Story/Memory Verse
• Introduced letter Q and reviewed all previous letters
• Beginning Sound Match Game with magnets-I found this super cute free printable HERE. We stuck it in a metal baking sheet and Rowin stuck magnetic letters on the picture with the matching beginning sound. 

• Cutting Practice-Lot's of free printable HERE.

• Shape Pizza-I got this idea HERE but couldn't seem to find her printable so I just typed up my own. I cut out several shapes, had Ro glue them all over his pizza, and then we counted how many he had of each shape. He hasn't learned how to write numbers yet, so I wrote them and he traced over them. 

Toddler Activities: Rayna (22 months) played with all of our extra magnetic letters and colored her own "pizza" today.

**I was trying to figure out why all of my pictures from today were kind of foggy-looking. Then I realized someone's smudgy fingers had smeared goop on the camera lens on my phone. #momlife

Day 2:

• Bible Story/Memory Verse
• Reviewed A-Q
• Block Letter-Rowin traced it with his finger and then filled it with play coins. Free printable block letters HERE

• Writing-We practiced writing capital and lowercase Q's on the chalkboard. Here are the verbal prompts we used:
• Q: "Big circle, little diagonal"
• q: "Up and around, down and curve"

• Eggs in a Nest Counting Mats
• I found these free printable counting mats HERE. Rowin used little blue glass stones as eggs and put them matching number of eggs in each nest.

Toddler Activities: Rayna did most of the same things Rowin did today. She had a turn with the play money and glass stones. She also wrote on our second chalkboard while Ro practiced writing letters.

Day 3:

• Rowin put all of his flashcards (A-Q) in ABC order

• Dot Marker Page-free printable HERE

• Name Sensory Bin-I hid all of the letters in Rowin's name in a bin of rice. He had to find all of the letters and put them in order to spell his name. 

• Quilt Craft-I drew a big Q on a piece of paper and cut out a bunch of random pieces of fabric that we had. Rowin glued them on the Q to make it look like a quilt. 

Toddler Activities: While Rowin put all of the flashcards in order, I gave Rayna her own set of flashcards (because she kept trying to take his). After that, she was pretty happy with stickers the whole time.

Now that the weather is getting warmer, we'll see how diligent we are at school-maybe we'll just take it outside! :)