Numbers, Shapes, and Colors

The first week (3 days) of preschool I decided to go over numbers (1-10), shapes, and colors.  I knew she already knows her colors and most of her shapes, so those were more of a review while I focused more on the numbers.  She can easily count to 10 and understands one-to-one correspondence (where she'll touch one object and say "1" and touch another and say "2", etc), but we've never worked on tracing/writing the numbers and she's not able to recognize them yet.  Obviously three days wasn't enough time to become proficient with numbers 1-10, but it was a good introduction and we'll continue to work on them intermittently throughout the year (and will hopefully get up to 20).

So here are some of the activities we did last week:


After our morning calendar time, we reviewed our colors- for Jenna it was a review; for Grant it was new to him. Then each day we worked on a Color Book.  I wish I could take credit for the activities we're doing this year, but I've gotten most (if not all) from a great home school blogger, Confessions of a Homeschooler.  Let me just say, SHE'S AMAZING!  And even better, she gives her printables away for free.  :)  This Color Book is another one of her printables.  There are blank pages with the color words on them that you staple together to make a book and then pages with pictures of those colors for the kids to cut out and glue in their book.  Jenna has been dying to use scissors, so she was very excited to get to cut all by herself.  Notice which hand she's using to cut - I guess I'd better look for left-handed scissors.  I helped her cut a few of her pictures (there were quite a bit to cut, especially for someone just learning) and I cut all of Grant's and then helped him glue them in his book.

Such concentration

He was so excited to be using glue.

Jenna putting together the color puzzles.

I laminated these shape tracer pages so they can be reused.  Jenna, once again, was in HEAVEN getting to use dry erase markers.  It's the little things.  ;)  This was her first time tracing the pages and she was going through them quickly which probably explains a little of the messiness.  I wasn't being a stickler about it since it was her first exposure to tracing and using the markers to "write".

Adding the correct number of the decorative stones to each row.

Tracing her numbers for the first time.   Not too bad.

Working on another color puzzle.

The second day of tracing shapes went much better.  I had her slow down and really emphasized trying to stay on the dashed lines.  She'd also tell me which shape she was tracing and got them all right except for hexagon (that's a tough one!) and rectangle (not in the picture).  So those two we still need to work on.

Matching shapes to their silhouettes

She really enjoyed these cards.  She'd count the pictures and then have to put the clothespin on the correct number.  Of course, the challenge here was identifying which was the correct number.  She's still learning which number is which, but I've definitely seen improvement.

Once again another fun activity for Jenna, getting to use stickers!  With my help she identified which number was on the paper and then put the correct number of stickers on them.  They were farm animal stickers and it was funny to watch her try to stick with the same animal theme on each letter and also her placement of the stickers.  She was very methodical as to where they were put.

She put together this number puzzle that I had picked up from the dollar bins at Target (gotta love Target)!

We did more activities together, but I didn't get pictures of everything.  It was a great start to our "school year".  I'm looking forward to the rest of the year and hoping it continues to go well!