The first week of school went well, even though I didn’t get to everything I wanted to do. I’ve been wanting to do an ocean theme for some time, so I did that, along with doing letter A activities and a few Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear? activities.
Ocean Theme:
1. Goldfish Grid Game—I made my own grid, using a fishbowl clipart I found on Clker.com. Using goldfish crackers and our jumbo dice, Gabriela rolled the numbers, counted the spots, and counted out enough fish to place in bowls. She did this until it was full, and then she ate them of course! When she rolls a larger number, we place the number of goldfish on the dice dots to help her count out the correct number.
2. Examining Sea Shells—She’s not really into this like I thought she would be…but then, they don’t really smell very nice. She does enjoy finding them on the beach when we go!
3. Tracing Pages—I got these from 2 Teaching Mommies. You can download their entire pack of ocean printables for free! I really can’t laminate everything I print, so I put these pages in a plastic page extender. That way Gabriela can use them over and over again.
4. Measuring with Goldfish Crackers—This is another printable from 2 Teaching Mommies. The idea is to measure sea animals using goldfish crackers.
5. Ocean Cutting Practice—This came from 1+1+1=1. Gabriela cut and colored the pictures.
6. Ocean Sensory Tub—Click HERE to see my separate post on this tub.
7. Ocean felt sets—I got these Betty Lukens felt sets several years ago. For our ocean unit, I used the Jonah & the Whale set to tell Gabriela that Bible story. I also used pieces from the Creation set and the Ocean & Accessories set and let her play with all of them for some ocean felt fun!
8. Magnetic fishing set—Always a favorite!
9. Go Fish game—Gabriela doesn’t yet understand the concept of the game, so I simply laid out one of each set and then let her draw from my hand and match them. The next day, we did the same thing, only she laid out the sets in rows.
That’s it for this week’s ocean unit. I am continuing the unit next week, so stay tuned for more ocean fun!
Letter A Activities
1. Letter A Stamping
2. Letter A Basket—I enjoy collecting various letters. I have puzzle pieces, magnets, letter beads, Scrabble tiles, cutters, cloth letters, and bulletin board letters. The big A on black paper was made from very old (vintage) wallpaper samples—I made a whole set years ago when I co-taught kindergarten. Gabriela enjoys running her finger over it. It’s almost like having the sandpaper letters (which I wish I had), because they all have a bit of texture.
3. Letter A Matching game—I made these a few years ago, using a variety of A’s from Google Images. 
4. Salt Tray—I’ve always wanted to try this, and I finally found a good tray to use. Gabriela LOVES using this tray. She was so proud of herself for making the letter A in the salt, and she repeated it several times. Later she amused herself by making faces in the salt.
5. Playdough—Gabriela used Letter A cutters to stamp this playdough with.
Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear?
Felt Weather Bear--Other than reading the book daily, we didn’t really do many activities with it. I really struggle finding time to do activities with Gabriela while I’m trying to homeschool my older two. I’ll probably continue this unit next week. The only activity we got to (and one she could do on her own) was our Felt Weather Bear set.
Holland Puzzle—This didn’t fit in with any theme, but I pulled it out for Gabriela to use because it’s new! We visited Holland a week before school started, and I found this lovely wooden peg puzzle at the market in Gouda.
Field Trip to Attingham Park:
I’m linking this post to “Tot School” at 1+1+1=1.
I was fascinated by the upper case "A". Do you do upper and lower case at the same time? I'm just wondering becuase I've taught lower case and am realising that I will have to go back and do upper case. Shouldn't be too difficult though.
ReplyDeleteThat's because it's the American way, lol. I begin with upper case names at lower ages; however, my reading program (which I use at 4 and 5) is more similar to the way letters are taught in England. Not all homeschoolers in the US teach upper case first, but that's what most people there are used to. Most of the early learning programs you get from the US also teach upper case first. I began teaching my oldest this way, and he learned them easily. After he already knew them (by age 3), I taught him how to read using "Teaching Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons." This program recommends teaching children lower case sounds before anything else (like England). So at age 4, I started all over again using lower case sounds (not names). He did fine with this, and when upper case and letter names were introduced later in the program, he transitioned easily. I tried the same thing with my 2nd child, and she just couldn't learn the upper case letter names, so I skipped on to the program that begins with lower case sounds. She did fine with that and eventually learned the upper case names. Gabriela is 3, almost 4, and she seems to be picking up the upper case names just fine. Again, I teach it that way because my preschool programs are American, and that's what they do. In the US, they begin with upper case letter names, followed by lower case names and then matching them to each other, and finally sounds--at least they still did that when I was teaching in public schools in the US. I personally think the British way (and my reading program) makes more sense, so I probably wouldn't recommend others to do what I'm doing, lol. To answer your question, right now I'm just teaching Gabriela upper case letter names only. At any rate, it should be just as easy to go back and do the upper case as it is the lower case.
ReplyDeleteSorry, the title of that book should read "Teach Your Child to Read in 100 Easy Lessons" (not Teaching).
ReplyDeleteWhat a fun week. I love the activities using the goldfish :) I also use the page protectors for most everything I can to avoid laminating. Although for my 25 month old I end up needing to double laminate everything :(
ReplyDelete