I Week

          The first song Brooklyn learned when she was a baby was “The Itsy Bitsy Spider.”  We use to sing it all of the time as we did the motions together, but as she’s learned new songs, it has been forgotten.  This week it was our theme song.  We enjoyed singing it and doing the motions together again.  We talked about how I is for insect and a spider is an insect.  I printed out the Insect Action Game cards (for Thursday’s activity) and laid out the grasshopper, ant, butterfly, and bee that are described in the “Who’s Who Insect Poem.”  Each day as I read the poem, I told Brooklyn to choose the correct insect as I read each verse.  Brooklyn was able to choose the correct insect every time!  We also ended up playing the Insect Action Game every day before our craft.  You can follow this link to print out the cards for this game.   To play the game, I turned all of the action cards upside down, let Brooklyn draw one out of the pile, and then we followed the instructions on the card.  Brooklyn loved pretending to be all of the different insects.  This also helped get some of her energy out before we sat down for learning and craft time. 

Choosing her insect action card

Buzzing around like a bumblebee 

          As I mentioned in an earlier post, I’ve added a new activity to our Monday school time.  I printed out the entire alphabet from this website.  I purchased dot markers which Brooklyn uses to stamp in the circles to form the letter of the week.  This is one of Brooklyn’s favorite things that we do each week.  It also helps her see how to form the letters.  Since starting this activity, Brooklyn has started trying to write her letters all by herself.  Last week, she was able to write H’s, and this week she was able to write I’s.  I am so proud of her!  In addition to her dot letter I worksheet, Brooklyn also made her Iguana I on Monday. 

          On Tuesday, we talked about insects.  We, of course, did our Insect poem and action game, and then took some time to talk about different insects and what they do.  We then played our math game.  This website (the same one that I got the insect action cards from) has a whole curriculum based on insects filled with many great learning activities.  Included in this curriculum is a math game where the child matches numbers to the ladybug with that same number of dots on his back.  I thought this was a cute idea but didn’t want to use up that much printer ink to print all of the cute, colorful ladybugs so I made my own.  I used red construction paper and a black marker – not too hard at all!  We have number cards already that we used for our game.  I laid out all of the numbers, let Brooklyn pick a ladybug, count the number of dots on its back, and select the correct number to match it up with.  For our craft, we made insect fingerprints.  I found some colorful ink (you could also use paint if you don’t have ink) and stamped Brooklyn’s fingers onto a piece of paper.  Later, once they dried, I added legs, antennas, stripes, dots, and bodies to make them look more like bugs. 

Counting the dots on the ladybug 

Insect fingerprints

          I had planned to talk about Indians on Wednesday since it was getting close to Thanksgiving.  Instead, we went to MOPS and had a busy afternoon so we never got around to doing school.  (If you read last week’s Thanksgiving post, you can see that we did our Indian lesson and tepees that were planned for this Wednesday.)

          Thursday was all about ice.  I read the “Ice Cream Poem” a few times to start our day.  For our math game, I cut out 10 brown triangles and wrote numbers 1-10 on them.  I then cut out 10 circles in various colors.  I had Brooklyn choose an ice cream cone, read the number on that cone, then stack that many scoops of ice cream on top.  Brooklyn only wanted to do this two times, and then she was done.  Oh well, we’ll try this game again another time.  We made an ice cycle collage for our craft.  I collected blue (you could also use white or silver) construction paper, tissue paper, and wrapping paper along with aluminum foil.  We cut and tore the paper into strips.  Brooklyn painted Elmer’s glue all over a piece of blue paper and then laid down the strips vertically all over the paper.  (We also talked about what the word “vertical” means).   The aluminum foil really makes this craft pretty.  We made ice cream for our snack.  I included the recipe in the lesson plans.  This is a quick and easy way for kids to get involved, and it’s fun to see how the milk, sugar, and vanilla you put in the bag turns into ice cream as you squeeze the big bag of ice.  You can also use this activity to teach a little science lesson about ice and salt or liquid and solids.  The ice cream was very yummy too! 

Ready for the ice cream cone math game

Six scoops of ice cream 

Painting her paper blue for her ice cycle craft

The final ice cycle craft

She's saying "cooold" while squeezing the ice cream bag. 

Enjoying her yummy ice cream

                      On Friday, I read the story of how Abraham and Sarah wanted a  baby but thought they were too old.  We talked about how with God anything is possible.  Brooklyn was so happy when I told her that God gave them a little baby boy named Isaac.  We then colored a picture of Abraham, Sarah, and Isaac. 

          For details and instructions of these crafts and activities, please click to see my lesson plans.  If you have more ideas for the letter I, please comment and share - I would love to hear them!!