Our Cup of Tea: Preschool Corner: Weeks 14-17

Alphabet Time: Along with our Easy Peasy—All in One Homeschool lessons for letters N-Q, Gabriela made these letter creations (from Totally Tots):

Other Letter Activities: We went kind of overboard on P week!

P is for Parrot (idea from DLTK):

P is for Penguins: We read penguin books, and Moriah was kind enough to let Gabriela play with her stuffed penguin. We also watched a few clips from March of the Penguins. She also played with the penguins from our Antarctica box (the same ones in the snow sensory tub).

P is for Pigs & Pancakes: We read If You Give a Pig a Pancake (Laura Numeroff), colored a picture of the pig (HarperCollins Children), read Pancakes, Pancakes! (Eric Carle), ate pancakes, read other pig books (including If You Give a Pig a Party), and watched Charlotte’s Web.

P is for Pigeons: We read 3 of Mo Willem’s pigeon books that I had, and we looked at his website (Pigeon Presents!). I found the finger puppets on the website. Later in the week, I ordered two more of his pigeon books and read them when they came in (The Duckling Gets a Cookie!? and The Pigeon Wants a Puppy!). I found the stuffed pigeon at a yard sale last summer (I was so excited)!

P is for Polar Bear: We read books about polar bears including three of the Little Polar Bear books by Hans de Beer, watched The Little Polar Bear on DVD, and colored some pictures of Little Polar Bear (Coloring Book). I found this tracing page of polar bears for Gabriela to do (Making Learning Fun):

P is for Panda: We read these panda books, but we didn’t do any activities (we were a bit overloaded with the other P animal activities):

After P week, I was a bit relieved to reach Q! We did read a few books (The Missing Tarts, which is related to the “Queen of Hearts” rhyme, and The Keeping Quilt), and Gabriela made a quilt Q (Our Crafts ~N~ Things) and a queen toilet paper tube craft (DLTK).

Story Time: To see what books we read during these 4 weeks, click HERE and scroll down to numbers 230-300. Some of these went with other themes, but I also have several books related to letters N-Q.

Books on Tape: Gabriela has learned to listen for the tone and to turn the pages herself. I’m working on getting her to turn the pages at the corners instead of in the middle. We listened to There Was a Cold Lady Who Swallowed Some Snow, Owl Moon, If You Give a Pig a Pancake, and The Mitten.

Math:

Using square tiles to make different patterns:

Ordering objects from smallest to largest (using our nesting dolls from Ukraine):

Comparing sizes of containers in relation to amount of water (things like the amount of water staying the same even when poured into a different-sized container, how many cups of water are in the pitcher, etc.):

Themes:

The Mitten (Jan Brett)--I’ve seen a lot of theme units online for this book, but I finally decided on several pages from the book unit at Homeschool Creations. Here’s a matching game we used:

I also found some animals to color on Jan Brett’s site. I cut out two mitten shapes, hole-punched and stitched them together with yarn, and then Gabriela colored designs on them. She put the animals into the mitten as I helped her retell the story.

Winter—We did a lot of winter activities, made even more wonderful by the fact that we had SNOW! Gabriela played in the snow, helped make a snowman, drew a picture of a snowman, ate snow with syrup, played with a snow sensory tub (with scoops, penguins, and colored water), put together a foam snowman, watched snow melt, watched Frosty the Snowman, watched The Snowman, talked about animals in the winter, and read lots of winter books!

5 Senses: Sight—We played “I Spy,” looked at hidden picture books, looked at Braille and talked about vision impairments, made hand shadows, colored a picture of an eye, and looked at our eyes in a mirror.

5 Senses: Hearing—Read books about noises and sounds, identified sounds she heard (with her eyes covered), discussed hearing impairments, and watched the Animated Hero Classics DVD on Helen Keller. We’ll probably do a few more activities on hearing next week, as I didn’t get to do all the activities I had planned.

Opposites—We’ve been practicing opposites and reading books about opposites. We also played “Mary Contrary,” which is like “Simon Says,” except you do the opposite of what you’re told.

Before Five in a Row:

Angus Lost—We looked at the illustrations and noted how one page portrays Angus silhouetted against the night sky. So, we talked about silhouettes and made the one below. I traced and cut it out, but Gabriela glued it to the paper.

Also for Angus Lost, we talked about getting lost, and we looked at different dog breeds. Isaac has some dog breed posters in his room. I explained to Gabriela how some dogs have jobs they’re good at. We picked out our favorites from each poster, and we also found the Scottish Terrier, which is what Angus is of course.

Caps for Sale—We put all kinds of hats on each other’s heads and counted them. I first saw this activity in the book Math Play! I thought it would go well with Caps for Sale.

The Snowy Day and The Carrot Seed—Mostly, we discussed the stories and looked at the art styles used. We’ll do more activities with these books our 2nd time around (I’m doing each of my BFIAR books twice this year, since I only have half of the books required).

Trays: I finally cleared off the bottom shelf of our workbox station to put trays on for Gabriela. Although we’re not in Tot School anymore, there are times when I’m busy with Isaac and Moriah. I set up trays for Gabriela to choose for those times.

Here are the two trays she played with the most:

Play dough--This is kind of late, but I made her a Christmas tree to decorate with beads. She also enjoys using cut-up straws with play dough. We currently have red, yellow, green and orange homemade play dough.

Imaginative play—Instead of making her a set this week, I got out my tins of “stuff” and let her choose what she wanted to put on her tray to play with.