Sunday, October 28, 2012

Week 10 - Letter C

This past week was Letter C.  Our memory verse was Colossians 3:20 - "Children, obey your parents in everything, for this pleases the Lord."

Introduction to letter C - sang our C song and then Jenna played the Starfall computer game for letter C.

Letter C puzzle - she got this one all on her own.

Magnet page

Letter C Pattern Blocks - she really enjoys these pages!  I remember always enjoying pattern blocks when I was younger. 

Caterpillar number game - I would call out a number and she had to jump on it.  Then we switched and she called out numbers while I jumped to them, although I believe she called hers out in numerical order, which thankfully made it easy on me.  :)

Grant played with the Wikki Stix while we worked on other school activities.  Funny how he always wants his picture taken when he's done.  :)

She used her alphabet lacing pieces to spell the word "cake."

Caterpillar capital/lower case C (and color) puzzles

Do-a-dot markers - don't you love Grant's face?  He's been acting goofy lately for pictures and will "scowl" in the picture and then give a big smile.

Clip Cards - I pulled out my colorful clips from my teaching days.

Letter Hunt worksheet

Body Movement - She made the letter C with her body.

We played this dice game together.  Each person would roll the dice and then move their piece to that number on the caterpillar.  The one to reach the head first, won. 

Caterpillar lacing card

I've noticed her coloring is improving quite a bit.  She's not staying in the lines, but at least it's not a bunch of scribbles all over the paper. 

Caterpillar size sort

How many caterpillars?  I put the number card on the paper and she filled it with the correct number of caterpillars.  She did really well with this activity!

Cutting practice - I have to say, I was very impressed with her cutting skills this week!  I was out of the room when she did this page and came back to find she had already completed it...and done it really well!

With it being C week, we had to bake Daddy's favorite Cake - yellow cake with chocolate icing!  The kids enjoyed helping put the different ingredients in the bowl and then hold the mixer.  I absolutely LOVE this picture of them!

The best part of baking a cake...licking the spoons afterward!!

I just had to include this picture - this was about picture #6 of me trying to get them to hold their "spoons" while looking at the camera.  Hmm...do you think those smiles are somewhat forced?  :) 

Jenna put the caterpillar in numerical order 1-10 by herself, then I helped her with 11-20.  She's pretty good with recognizing numbers 1-10, so it might be time to start branching out to 20.  We'll see.  My goal by the end of the year was that she would be able to recognize numbers 0-20, so no rush to start the 2nd half quite yet unless I find she's starting to get bored with 0-10.

Grant pulled down our color sorting bears while Jenna was working on something else.  He was doing a really good job sorting them into the correct colored bowls.

Letter C poke page

After Jenna poked all the holes in her page, she held it up to the light to see the light shining through the holes.

Letter C writing page - I tried to get her to write a "c" on her own to the right of the page at the bottom.  Not bad.

Cutting her caterpillar circles out.
Finished product after she cut out the caterpillar circles and glued them on her paper.

Of course with it being letter C week, we had to read Eric Carle's The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  I found this adorable lacing activity that goes along with the book.  As I read the story, Jenna found the pieces and laced them onto a string attached to the caterpillar.  Then at the end when the caterpillar makes a cocoon around himself, I had her put all the pieces into a bag, I put the bag behind my back, took out the pieces, put in the butterfly, and then had her pull out what was left in the bag.  She thought that was cute.

Jenna lacing the pieces on the string.


I actually read the story to her twice.  The first time I read it, I had her color in the food graph. 

Wikki Stix letter C


This week with the graphing pages, I had her color in the boxes with her dry-erase marker.

Whenever Jenna gets to use a marker, Grant must use one too!  So he drew on his whiteboard...and then wanted me to take his picture.  (Apparently it's hard to look at the camera, when there are other things in the room he needs to focus on.  Haha!)

For Jenna's ABC book, she glued cotton balls onto the letter C.

I was SOO proud of Jenna with her patterns this week!  She did them COMPLETELY on her own and got them right!  I thought for sure the ABB pattern in the middle would mess her up, but she got it.  So proud!  :)

Caterpillar Letter Search

We used stickers for the letter maze this week.

As usual, we finished out the week reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and putting the letter C on our coconut tree.




We also Skyped with Aunt Cathy this week (which we ALL enjoyed!!) and watched some Care Bear shows that we rented from the library (Jenna kept calling it "Bear Care") - boy, that takes me back to my childhood!  Lots of fun!

Wednesday, October 24, 2012

Week 9 - Letter N

Last week was the letter N.  Our memory verse was Matthew 6:24 - "No one can serve two masters."


Wikki Stix for the letter n

Grant had fun playing with the Wikki Stix too.  He always says, "Cheese" and wants me to take a picture of him too.  :)

Nest lacing card

Size Sort

Grant wanted to do one of the letter searches.  It was interesting, although he didn't pick any of the correct letters, he picked ones that were close.  The word they had to spell was "nest" and for the "e", he picked a "c" and for the "t" he picked an "l." 

Jenna wanted to take a picture of us -  not too bad.  :)

Now Jenna working on the letter search.

Pre-writing page

Letter N pattern blocks

Poke Page

Do-a-Dot

I threw in a new activity for her - she had to spell the word on the card using her alphabet lacing blocks.

Letter N Geoboard - she needed a little help with the capital N.  The slanted part was throwing her off.

Color puzzles

Letter Hunt - don't you like the little person she drew on the side?  :)

For her letter N alphabet page, we used straw from our straw bale out front to mimic pieces of a bird's nest.

Cutting page

Instead of using clothespins or paper clips, I decided to just have her put them in numerical order.  It was actually tougher for her than I thought it would be.

Letter N maze - I thought she would have more trouble with this paper, jumping around to the different N's instead of going in order, but she did really well.

The cut-and-paste activity for the week.  Not too bad!

She did really well with her patterns this week.

Another new activity - we sang our letter n song (N says nnnn, n says nnnn.  Every letter makes a sound. N says nnnnn) to refresh our  memory on the sound it makes.  Then I named all the pictures on the paper and we worked on circling the pictures that start with the letter n.

Letter N puzzle


Letter N tracing page


Letter N writing page

I had to include these three pictures of Grant.  He wanted me to take his picture, but he was being goofy and kept alternating between smiles and frowns, then he'd throw his head back and giggle.  It was cracking me up!  Such personality!


I just love his laugh!

Jenna's coloring page.  I've noticed her coloring's been improving a lot lately.  In fact, she's started coloring just for the fun of it, which is something new for her.  Coloring has always been more torturous than fun for her, but now she seems to really enjoy it.  :)

Letter N graphing

Capital and lowercase N sorting - easy peasy

To go along with the letter N, we did a Numbers file folder game.  She had to count the dots on the jar and put the pickle with the correct number in the jar.  She still tends to get 6 and 9 mixed up at times.

As always we finished out the week by reading, Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and putting the letter N on our coconut tree.

Jenna also did a Number puzzle to go along with the letter N.

And we got her piggy bank out and she sorted out the coins - pennies, Nickels, dimes, and quarters.

We also dyed a few different kinds of pasta some bright colors and then made our own Necklaces.

Hard at work!  She really enjoyed this activity.  Unfortunately I didn't realize if the pasta gets wet, the color will bleed onto the clothes.  Grant figured that one out - he can be a bit messy!  Plus, if the necklaces were swung around rather vigorously, they can break into a lot of little pieces.  And, on top of all that, Bailey seems to think they are for him to nibble.  Hmm....

Grant picked out the pasta piece by piece and I helped him thread it on his necklace.

His final product!

Jenna's final product!