M Week

I had planned to start back school time on January 6 and kick off the new year with the letter M.  I’m not sure what I was thinking with all of the stuff that we had going on throughout the month of January.  We finally started M week two weeks later but ended up spreading it over the last two weeks of January.  I do have to say, it was so nice getting back into this routine (even if it was a slow start).  During these two weeks, we were blessed with snow twice and Madelyn’s 1st birthday!  We spent Madelyn’s birthday talking about how M is for Madelyn and enjoying a special family day together.  I also added in some extra M activities on the days we didn’t have an official school time.  Brooklyn loves Mickey and Minnie Mouse so we played with her new Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and she played with her Mickey sticker book.  She spent lots of hours taking stickers out of her sticker book and putting them on pictures for mommy, daddy, and Madelyn.  How thoughtful of her to share her favorite stickers!  We also enjoyed some of her Mickey Mouse chocolates that she got for Christmas.  Then there was the snow.  We discovered that Brooklyn absolutely loves snow.  Although it has snowed many times since she was born, this is the first time she was old enough to actually enjoy it.  We made snow angels, did lots of sledding, built a snowman, ate snow cream, and best of all had tons of fun building and sliding down a big snow slide.  I would say we took full advantage of the snow!  Now back to the letter M….

On the first day of M week, Brooklyn glued together her M mountains and did her M dot picture.  It worked out nicely that we glued snow caps on the tops of the mountains since it snowed this day!  I also taught her our letter M poem, song, and Bible verse.  She loves “Where is Thumbkin” so when I taught her “Where is Mousekin” she really enjoyed saying it while pretending to be a mouse.  “The Itsy Bitsy Monkey” was also really fun!

The second day, we talked about monkeys.  In addition to “The Itsy Bitsy Monkey” song, we also sang “Five Little Monkeys Jumping on the Bed.”  While we sang, we made music with our instruments.  For our craft, I had cut out some shapes: a few circles in various sizes, a big oval, and a big heart.  Brooklyn enjoyed gluing them together to made a monkey.  When it was all glued together, she drew on eyes, a nose, and a big smile for the mouth.  

Making music

Day three was all about mouths.  I drew and cut out lips on a piece of red paper and also a red oval and lots of white rectangles.  I gave Brooklyn a piece of pink paper and let her glue on the lips, then the tongue, then the teeth.  As she glued on each piece, we talked about the purpose of that part of the mouth.  Brooklyn said she uses her mouth “to bite, to eat...to eat M’s, for talking, to drink milk.”  She said she uses her lips “for chapstick and to kiss.”  After her craft, it was time for snack.  I gave Brooklyn a graph and a fun sized pack of M&M’s.  She dumped out the M&M’s, and then she had a lesson in graphing.  I had printed off a graph that had the colors listed across the bottom and numbers down the side.  (I changed the numbers on the side to numbers 1-5).  I then used markers to color each word at the bottom of the graph in the coordinating color to help Brooklyn.  I instructed Brooklyn to place one M&M in each square above the correct color.  When all of the M&M’s were on the graph, we discovered that there were the most orange and blue M&M's (4 each) and the least amount of red (1).  Finally, Brooklyn colored in the squares that had M&M's in them as she removed them from the graph. Then we used our mouths to eat the M&Ms.  What a fun way to learn about graphs!  

Gluing the teeth in the mouth

Graphing her M&M's

Her final M&M Graph

On day four, we talked about money.  I let Brooklyn play with some pretend money, and we talked a little bit about the value of money.  We then decided to enjoy some time out in the snow.  I plan to teach her more about money while we are playing in the future.  

Sledding fun in the snow

Madelyn loved sledding too!

The last day I told Brooklyn the story of baby Moses.  She loves any story that has a baby in it.  She loved hearing about how Moses’ mother placed him in a basket in the river to protect him and was excited to do the same thing for our craft.  I printed out the picture of the baby Moses and the basket, let Brooklyn color them, then I cut them out.  I found some scraps of green paper that I let her cut strips into (for some cutting practice) to make grass.  She then glued the green grass onto a blue piece of paper followed by the basket.  As soon as I finished cutting out baby Moses, Brooklyn gently grabbed him from me, rocked him to sleep, kissed him, and then placed him in the basket.  She is such a nurturing little girl!  

Rocking the baby Moses to sleep before placing him in the basket

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