Letter A

We finished our first week of "school"!! Haha, I really shouldn't even call it that. What do you call a 20 minute, 3 days a week, little learning time? I don't know. So we're calling it school.

It was fun! I could see pretty quickly which skills are going to come easy for him and which areas are going to need a lot of work. I do have to say, I LOVED being a teacher again. :) Here's what our week looked like....

Day 1:
*Bible Story (from the Jesus Storybook Bible) and Memory Verse (Matthew 22:37)
*Calendar/Weather (He just switches the day of the week and the weather on a little chart)
*Introduced letter A with flashcard (name/sound/word)
*Letter Hunt: He had to find all the A's

*Letter A Basket: We went around the house and found as many items as we could that started with the A sound (apples, alligators, airplanes, asparagus).

Day 2:
*Bible Story and Memory Verse (Matthew 22:37)
*Calendar/Weather
*Reviewed letter A flashcard
*Box Letter A: Rowin traced the A with his finger and then filled it with blue marbles. You can print these free block letters here: http://www.themeasuredmom.com/printable-block-letters-150-ways-fill/#_a5y_p=2006533

*Writing: I showed Rowin how to write the letter A and he practiced tracing/writing in a workbook. This was very hard for him! I totally forgot that I had to teach him how to hold his pencil the right way, how to use his "helping hand" to hold the paper in place, how to tilt his paper a little bit....my kindergarten teacher days feel like a long time ago! I forgot to get a picture of it but you can pick those workbooks up at the Dollar Store.
*After his workbook, he practiced writing a little bit more on a dry erase letter card (forgot a picture of that too but I think they were from the $1 bin at Target)
***Next week I will spend a LOT more time modeling the right and wrong way to write the letter. I jumped in too quickly today.

Day 3:
*Bible Story and Memory Verse (Matthew 22:37)
*Calendar/Weather
*Reviewed letter A flashcard
*Practiced tracing his name (we've got our work cut out for us!)

*Dot marker page: He filled in all the circles with a red dot marker. I think I'll make these into a book once he's done A-Z. You can print these from this link: http://www.themeasuredmom.com/dot-sticker-pages/ 

*A is for Alligator Craft: I had cut the pieces out ahead of time. He put it together and glued everything on. This site had tons of cute Letter of the Week crafts: http://crystalandcomp.com/letter-of-the-week-crafts-for-preschoolers/ 

Overall, the week went really well! I need to tweak a few things for next week, but I think he had fun. One thing I do need to figure out is what to do with my Into-Everything-14month old while we're working! I'm open to any/all suggestions!! :)