We started something new this week. Madelyn (who just turned 1) is starting to go down a little later for her morning nap some days. A couple of mornings this week, I let Madelyn participate in the beginning of our school time. She got a drum filled with instruments for Christmas which she loves banging on, exploring, and using to make music. While we did our circle time routine (songs, poems, Bible verse, counting, weather, spelling our names, etc.), Madelyn listened and played instruments with us. A lot of the time, she just seemed to be doing her own thing (which was sometimes distracting for Brooklyn), but I’m sure she’s hearing us and learning. Over time, I’m sure I’ll notice that just by being in the room for this circle time will help jump start her learning. This is also good practice for when Madelyn drops her morning nap and joins us every day for school time. I still enjoy my one-on-one time with Brooklyn to focus on playing, teaching, crafting, baking, and just spending time together, but Madelyn can’t take a morning nap forever. Besides that, I love spending time with my littlest girl too!
Monday we kicked off the letter N. We talked about it’s sound which Brooklyn confused with the M sound at first. Brooklyn glued her letter N then added tiny strips of paper onto it to form a nest. She then added a few eggs. She also did her dot N picture and spent some time practicing writing N’s on the chalkboard.
Tuesday was number day. We started by singing the “Number’s Man” song. Next, we played our number mix-up game. I scattered our number flashcards on the floor (I only used numbers 1-8). I set up a play mailbox on Brooklyn’s table and told her to find a number, place it in the mailbox, put the flag up, and then I would check to see if she collected the correct number. I sang a little song each time which went: "the next number is the number 'five,' can you find the number five?" She would search for the number, run to put it into the mailbox, and each time after she placed the flag up on the mailbox, she would say “you’ve got mail mommy.” This helped Brooklyn practice her number recognition in a fun way. After our game, Brooklyn worked on her worksheet. I had written numbers 0-5 all over a piece of paper (several of each number) and labeled them at the bottom of the page, each with a corresponding color star sticker. I gave Brooklyn a sheet of star stickers and explained that she needed to look at the key at the bottom of the page to see what color sticker to put on each number. She had so much fun doing this activity and was very good at it!
Wednesday we read The Nose Book by Dr. Suess and then talked about the purpose of noses. When I asked Brooklyn “what do noses do?” she responded “they are for blowing.” :) We talked about how noses can smell, and then we put our noses to work. I gathered lots of random things from the kitchen for us to smell - vanilla extract, vinegar, garlic, lemon juice, peanut butter, honey, and coffee. Brooklyn was able to identify the honey and peanut butter without looking. We had fun talking about the different smells and how our nose can even help us recognize what something is sometimes. Brooklyn made a noodle necklace for craft by stringing pasta onto a piece of yarn using a big craft needle. She loves her new necklace!
We had skipped over nest day at the beginning of the week because I had forgotten to pick up the mini Cadbury eggs for our snack. We started off by painting the back of a paper plate brown so that it could have time to dry. We said our “Nice Nest Poem” a few times and talked about how mommy birds build nests so they have a safe home to lay their eggs and for their babies to live in once they hatch. We talked about how they are usually up in trees so animals can’t get the eggs. Unfortunately it was a cold, rainy day so we couldn’t go outside to look for nests or build them like I had planned. Instead, we looked out the window at our trees to look for good spots for mommy birds to build their nests. Next, we made our snack. I melted ½ cup peanut butter, ⅓ cup chocolate chips, and ⅓ cup butterscotch chips and mixed them together (I didn’t go by the exact recipe because I only wanted to make a few). I then poured in chow mein noodles, a little at a time (I probably added about 1 ½ cups - you want to make sure all of the noodles can get coated with the chocolate mixture). I cut squares out of wax paper to line six slots in a muffin pan. We poured our mixture into each muffin slot, patted down the middle to form a nest, then put them in the refrigerator to harden. By this time our plates had dried, so we finished up our craft. I cut the paper plate in half and stapled the edge together to form a nest. Brooklyn glued pom poms to the end of popsicle sticks, added googly eyes, and glued on beaks. Once the glue was dry, we placed them into the nest. By this time we were finally able to enjoy our yummy nest snack. I gave Brooklyn some mini Cadbury eggs to place in each nest to finish them up before we indulged.
For our Friday Bible lesson we learned about Noah. After reading the story, Brooklyn was excited to make her own ark for her craft. I printed out a picture of an ark which she colored, and then I cut out. Next, she glued it onto a piece of blue paper and then added lots of animals, in sets of two, with her animal stamps. Once she had filled her ark with animals, she insisted that we add Noah and his “mommy and daddy” into the boat. I found a smiley face stamp that she used to add them into the ark. Finally, she added a rainbow to the sky with markers. Later in the day we reviewed the story by playing with the Little People Noah’s ark set that Madelyn got for Christmas. I let Brooklyn tell me the story this time, and she did a very good job!
For details and instructions of these crafts and activities, please click to see my lesson plans. If you have more ideas for the letter N, please comment and share - I would love to hear them!!
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