E Week

          What a fun E week we had!  We had a lot going on this week and were a little rushed some of the days, but we did end up accomplishing all of our planned activities.  The highlight of the week was Thursday when we learned that E is for eyes.  We took our first “field trip” to Daddy’s work to get a quick little eye exam and learn more about our eyes.  Brooklyn was able to look at books about eyes, get a picture taken of her eye, and even look through the slit lamp at my eyes.  She had such a good time!

 

          Monday we talked about the letter E and the sound that it makes, then we made our Elephant E.  Later, we played our math game and worked on color patterns with eggs.  I realized that my Easter eggs are still packed up somewhere (I really need to finish unpacking one of these days!) so I cut out lots of Easter eggs in different colors.  I then made a pattern that Brooklyn had to finish.  We started with “green, pink, green, pink, green…” and I let Brooklyn tell me what should come next.  This was a little difficult for her at first, but after a few tries she caught on and was able to do a few on her own.  After that, I laid down 3 eggs and had her try to put down the same 3 color eggs in the same order as me.  She was able to do this much more easily. 

        

   
       Tuesday was our elephant day.  Brooklyn loved singing “The Elephant Song” each day and pretending to be an elephant with a swinging trunk, flapping ears, stomping feet, and a swinging tail.  All of our moving worked up an appetite, so next Brooklyn enjoyed peanuts for snack.  After snack we made our craft – elephant hand prints.

          We had MOPS on Wednesday, but we were able to squeeze in a quick discussion about the earth and where we live on the earth.  We also made our earth craft which was so cool!  Brooklyn loves coloring with markers and thought it was so cool to spray water onto her drawing and watch the green and blue blend together to make something that looked a lot like the earth all by herself.

          Thursday was our fun eye day!  We started out the day by coloring our eyes with markers (these were circles that I cut out of paper towels).  We talked about the different colors that eyes can be and what color eyes we have.  Brooklyn colored one set of eyeballs blue, one set green, and the third set brown.  We then took one of Daddy’s empty eye drop bottles, filled it with water, and put “eye drops” into our eyes.  (This was similar to the earth craft.  When the water dropped on the marker scribbles, it spread the marker to make a uniform color across the eye/circle.)  We then set our eyeballs aside to dry.  While they were drying, we had our eyeball snack.  I sliced bananas, put on a little peanut butter in the center to act as the glue, and let Brooklyn add raisins on the peanut butter to make her eyeballs.  Later, after our field trip, we finished our eye craft.  I had cut 6 eye shapes out of white paper and 6 little black circles.  Brooklyn glued them all together, matching up each color eye with its pair.

          On Friday, we read the story of Elijah and how God took care of him when he had no food.  Brooklyn colored a coloring page of the raven bringing food to Elijah that I printed off.  We then made a raven that had a piece of bread in its mouth to bring to Elijah.  We talked about how God always takes care of His children. 

          Our verse for the week was James 1:17 "Every good gift comes from God."  We once again sang our verse to a little tune that we made up.  We sang "every good gift is from our God" and spent a lot of time talking about all of the things that we have and how God is the One who gave them all to us.  We even tied it back in to the story of Elijah and how the gift of food that he received was sent to him by God.  

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

D Week

          This was a very busy week for us.  Since we had so much going on (especially towards the end of the week), I just tried to squeeze as much school time in as possible and not worry about doing every single activity I had planned for the week.  For some extra fun, Brooklyn and I worked on a dollhouse (for her little people) which we made out of cardboard boxes.  Each morning during our play time together, Brooklyn would think of something new that she wanted to add to her house.  I enjoyed thinking of new ways to create the things she wanted.  By the end of the week, she had a 3 story, 6 room house complete with a closet, stairs, kitchen table, chairs, couches, bathtub, and even a sidewalk!  This was a fun (and free) project that I’m sure will provide many hours of entertainment in the future! 

 

          We had a late start to our Monday school time (since we were busy building the dollhouse).  I introduced D and our songs, poem, and verse and then we read The Mine-O-Saur – a book about a dinosaur that doesn’t like to share.  Brooklyn glued on her D and the rectangles, oval, and triangles to make her Dinosaur D, then we went back to building the dollhouse!    

          Tuesday was all about ducks.  We had fun singing “Six Little Ducks” over and over then reading The Fuzzy Little Duckling.  We used our drums (empty oatmeal containers which I ripped the label off of and then we decorated) to make different rhythms while singing and even played a little “repeat the beat” game.  We made duck footprints for our craft.  I let Brooklyn paint green grass at the bottom of a piece of paper and a blue sky at the top.  I then painted one of her feet yellow, and we stamped it twice to make 2 ducks (I later added on beaks, eyes, and feet). 

          Wednesday one of my brothers was visiting from college, and he joined us for school time.  Brooklyn loved having someone to show off for – it may her sit still, pay attention, and participate so much better than usual.  Our theme for the day was dots.  We played a math game that involved dice, a game board, and candy.  I made my own game board up by drawing 6 boxes and numbered them 1-6.  I placed an M&M in each box then told Brooklyn to roll the die.  Once she rolled it, she had to count the dots then she could eat the M&M from that number box.  If she had already eaten that M&M, she would have to roll again and try to get one of the numbers she hadn’t gotten yet.  I found a link to a cute fall themed game board here that you could print if you don’t want to make your own.  It includes numbers 1-12 (so you would have to roll 2 dice).  Brooklyn really enjoyed this game, and I was impressed that she followed directions, waited to eat the candy until she got the right number, and was able to count the tiny dots accurately.  This game not only helped her counting skills, it also worked on number recognition. 

          For our craft, we painted a picture using dots.  I printed out this picture, gave Brooklyn several q tips and some paint, and let her choose her colors for each part of the picture.  She did so good choosing the correct colors for each thing (except she kept saying the sun is white, but finally decided to use yellow since we didn’t have any white paint). 

          On Thursday we went out with my brother and his girlfriend so we skipped school time.  Later in the day, we did spend some time dancing together and playing Follow the Leader with dance moves.  We had such a good time spinning, jumping, twirling, and giggling together!!

          On Friday, Brooklyn’s friend Ally came over to play and joined us for school time.  We read about David as a shepherd boy and talked about how he took care of the sheep and played songs to God with his harp.  I printed a couple of pictures of David that Brooklyn and Ally colored, and then they glued cotton onto the sheep.  I cut a harp shape out of cardboard and added rubber bands to make a harp that Brooklyn enjoyed playing to make beautiful music for God too! 

          At the beginning of the week, we made up a little song to go with our verse.  The lyrics are: “Do not be afraid, do not be afraid.  Do not be afraid, do not be afraid.  For God is with you wherever you may go.  Do not be afraid, do not be afraid.”  Brooklyn absolutely loved this song and made me sing it many many times throughout the week.  She quickly learned it herself, and I loved hearing her sing it.  We talked about how God is with us even when we might feel alone and scared sometimes.  I’m glad that even during the busy weeks, we are still able to make at least a little time for learning.  It was fun having people join us for school a couple of days this week, and it’s nice having a day off sometimes too.      

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

C Week

          Week 3…letter C.  Brooklyn is still enjoying school but getting through our entire circle time before moving on to our craft has gotten a little challenging.  Brooklyn seems to get more excited about the song of the week (because of the motions) and craft and less excited about sitting down and going through our list of circle time activities.  Because of that, I have chosen the most important things from circle time and gotten a little creative on how we do them.  We march around and sing our Good Morning songs (being active is more fun than sitting), count our snacks (raisins, goldfish, and grapes are always fun to count J), and talk about the important things while eating - the meaning of our Bible verse and the sound our letter makes.  Whenever I see her disengaging, I tell her it’s time to sing our Caterpillar Song (or whatever her favorite thing is that week).  This week, the Caterpillar Song has been such a big hit!  (The words are written out in the lesson plans.)  I gave Brooklyn one of my old scarves to help her act out the song.  We start with the scarf folded up to look like a caterpillar who is “wiggling around.”  Later in the song, the caterpillar builds a cocoon; Brooklyn loves lying on the floor pretending to be asleep while I wrap the scarf around her.  While she’s lying there, I explain how the caterpillar takes a long nap and when he wakes up, he is a butterfly.  Then we sing the last verse while Brooklyn flaps the scarf around and pretends to be a butterfly.  I love watching her excitement as she jumps out of the cocoon each time and giggles as she runs around flapping her wings.

          The C sound is difficult to learn because unlike a lot of letters, the C sounds like is should make more of a “sss” sound (which it does sometimes).  I have also noticed that Brooklyn pronounces her C’s as T’s, so we had a hard time this week with the C sound!  I am happy to say that by the end of the week, she was remembering the correct C sound and identifying some words that start with a C.  Brooklyn also learned her verse very quickly this week and was able to quote it all by herself!

          On Monday I introduced C, and we talked about the different sounds that the C can make.  We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and discussed the life of a caterpillar (with a little help from our Caterpillar Song).   I cut out 8 green circles to use for our Caterpillar C craft which we first of all counted.  To help Brooklyn have more independence in making her craft, I drew 8 dots in the shape of a C on a piece of paper.  I then told her to glue the circles on the dots.  She followed my instructions perfectly and was so proud of herself for making her Caterpillar C of Circles all by herself!  She then put on the eye stickers, and I drew on the mouth and antennas.  (She also insisted on adding a little nose!)  We enjoyed carrots for our snack. 

          We were thankful for the cool fall weather on Tuesday morning and took a walk around our neighborhood in search of a big leaf.  As we walked, we talked about how the leaves are starting to change their colors since the season changed from summer to fall.  We brought our leaf home, and Brooklyn could hardly wait to see what we were going to make with it.  First, we put a piece of paper over the back of our leaf and used a crayon to color over it to make a leaf print on our paper.  (I did most of the coloring to make sure we got a good leaf print.)  It was a little difficult to notice our leaf, so I decided to cut it out and let Brooklyn glue it onto another piece of paper to show off its shape.  Next, I painted Brooklyn’s toes green and we stamped them onto the leaf to make a cute little caterpillar.  Once it dried, I added eyes, a mouth, antennas, and feet.  For snack I gave Brooklyn some green grapes which she lined up to make a caterpillar.  

          

          Wednesday we went to MOPS so we took the day off from school.  

          Thursday we focused on clouds.  We spent some time outside looking at the clouds and talking about what they are made of.  We then made our cloud print craft by dripping white paint onto a piece of blue paper, folding the paper in half to spread the paint, then unfolding the paper to reveal our clouds.  As soon as we opened ours, Brooklyn said “I see an airplane!”  She was right – one of our clouds did look like an airplane!  We also talked about chocolate chip cookies – now that’s one topic that is sure to keep a kids attention! We played our math chocolate chip cookie counting game, using mini M&M’s for our chocolate chips, and Brooklyn successfully finished the entire game before eating them.  After a busy morning, we didn’t have time to bake chocolate chip cookies together like I had wanted, so we had cheese and crackers to go along with our M&M’s for snack. 

     

          Friday’s C words were Caleb and Canaan.  We read the Bible story about Moses sending the 12 spies, including Joshua and Caleb, into Canaan.  For our craft we made a spyglass using a toilet paper roll and a paper cup.  I let Brooklyn pick a piece of paper in the color of her choice which she decorated with markers.  I then assembled her spyglass and taped on her decorated piece of paper.  She enjoyed “spying” out the window and even let your dolls take turns with her new spyglass.  We had fruit for snack just like the spies brought back from Canaan.

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

B Week

         There are so many words that begin with the letter B.  We had fun talking about bumble bees, balls, butterflies, balloons, babies, bananas, bubbles, buttons, bears, blocks, and the Tower of Babel.  Brooklyn’s favorite part of the week was the Busy Bear poem that we sang every day.  She loves to get up and moving and especially loves it when I do it with her. On the days that she was more interested in playing than doing school time, the Busy Bear poem would always get her attention.  Our verse for B week was “Be thankful in all things” 1 Thessalonians 5:18.  She once again was able to say it by the end of the week, and we talked a lot about the things we are thankful for.  One morning, after talking about how we can pray and tell God what we are thankful for, I saw her close her eyes and say “Dear Jesus, thank you for tea, thank you for moo moo (which is the nickname she sometimes calls Madelyn), thank you for toys…Amen.” 

          We kicked off the week on Monday with a book about bumble bees and our Bumble Bee B craft.  We played with balls and bounced them back and forth.  Then we ended with a yummy banana for snack.  

          Tuesday was one of those days…you know the kind where no matter what you do, your sweet little child doesn't act so sweet.  After several attempts to start our school time, and Brooklyn continuing to cry or get upset about every little thing, I gave up and spent some time just snuggling her and giving her the attention she was craving.  (It is always a challenge for me to not carry out what I had planned, but I’m working on being more flexible and understanding.)

          Wednesday was a much better day!  Brooklyn spent the morning playing with her little people (one of her favorite things to do), and even set them all up in our school room to join us for our school time. Brooklyn loved teaching the little people all of our songs!

Since we had missed Tuesday’s activities, we decided to do them on Wednesday and use Wednesday’s activities as an option to maybe do another day if we had extra time.  We read a book about butterflies, made an orange slice butterfly for snack,  painted Brooklyn’s feet to make a butterfly, and then played “don’t let the balloon touch the floor."

          Thursday was bear and button day so of course we had to read Corduroy.  I was so excited about our button sorting game, but when I went to get my buttons ready, I realized they must be somewhere in one of the small pile of boxes in the garage that are still waiting to be unpacked.  Bummer!  So we made the best of it and used colorful pom poms (which we called “balls” – hey, it’s still a B word!)  Brooklyn was easily able to sort the “balls” into different piles based on their colors.  Finally, we glued together our bear craft (using pom pom “balls” instead of cute buttons for the eyes L)

                                 

          For our Bible lesson on Friday, we read the story about the Tower of Babel.  We talked about how God made the people speak different languages because they did not listen to Him.  We talked to each other using silly gibberish then built our own tower using blocks – counting the blocks as we built.  Brooklyn was able to stack her tower 8 blocks tall and was very proud of herself!  For our craft, I cut 6 strips of brown paper each a different length.  I then asked Brooklyn to pick out which one was the shortest over and over until we were left with the longest piece.  Then I gave her a glue stick and a piece of paper, mixed up all of the strips again, and this time asked her which one was the longest.  Each time when she picked up the longest piece, she glued it to her paper, from the bottom up, to build her Tower of Babel.  Our snack for the day was graham crackers which I broke into squares so that Brooklyn could build a tower before eating. 

          Although our week didn't go quite as planned, and we didn't get around to doing all of the things I had wanted to do, we still had lots of fun. I recently found an amazing blog with lots of new ideas for teaching all ages.  On this site, there are printables for each letter of the alphabet in dots to allow children to use dot markers to make the letters.  I have printed the entire alphabet and plan to add this activity to our weekly activities.  Check it out for some new ideas for teaching your child.   

          The worksheet for the Baby and Mommy Animal Activity on Wednesday can be found and printed here.

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

A Week

          We had a great start to our alphabet school time adventure!  Brooklyn has really enjoyed having this learning time each morning.  Several days, I found her waiting for me in her circle time spot on the floor when I came downstairs from laying Madelyn down for her nap.  This time has quickly become a highlight of my day also.  I love seeing her excited about learning!

                           

          This week we focused on the letter A.  We learned about alligators, ants, airplanes, apples, and animals and had so much fun in the process!  On Monday, we started out with our circle time songs, then I introduced the letter A.  We talked about the sounds that A can make and different words that start with the A sound.  I also introduced our Bible verse, finger play, and song for the week.  Our theme song was “The Ants Go Marching” which I found on one of our fun Wee Sing CD’s.  This quickly became Brooklyn’s favorite part of school time each morning.  We would march around together and act out what each ant did in the song.  (I got a good workout too after marching around to all 10 verses over and over each day!)  After getting some of our energy out, we worked on our craft - a big letter A that looked like an alligator. Brooklyn enjoyed gluing the teeth and eyes on! We ended our school day with a yummy snack of more A things – applesauce and animal crackers. 

                            

          On Tuesday, we learned about ants.  Brooklyn really enjoyed our ant craft.  She loved painting green grass and later stamping her fingerprints to make little marching ants in the grass. We attempted a math counting/beginner addition game (which is explained in the lesson plans) but after two times, Brooklyn started eating all of the ants (raisins) (I even thought of that possibility beforehand and planned snack time right before this math game thinking she’d be full and not eat them, but Brooklyn always seems to have room in her tummy for a few more raisins!).  For snack, we made ants on a log (I forgot to buy celery at the store so we used carrots.  They look more like logs anyway, and they must have been good because she ate them all up!)  We got around to our science lesson for the day but may try it later. 

                            

          We had MOPS on Wednesday so we skipped school time.

          

          Thursday was apple day.  We talked about the parts of an apple and where apples come from.  I showed her a picture of an apple tree.  We cut an apple in half to look at the seeds inside.  We used this apple for our apple stamping craft which was lots of fun.  We then enjoyed apple slices for snack.  If you have more time, you can try making these baked apple chips together. 

          We ended our week on Friday with Bible day.  We read the creation story and focused on how God made the animals.  This website has lots of hand print animal ideas.  We chose three animals (giraffe, monkey, and lion) to make for our craft.  We then ate animal crackers for our snack. 

                         

                           

          I think we had a successful week of learning.  Although Brooklyn has been able to recognize all of her letters for almost a year now and even knows most of the letter sounds, I can already see how she is starting to be able to hear and understand how words start with those letter sounds.  Each morning in circle time when I asked her what words start with an A, she was able to name several words on her own.  We constantly talked about A words throughout the week, and we had fun discovering new ones each day.  I was also so proud and surprised that by the end of the week, she was able to say her verse (with a little help to get her started).  We reviewed it randomly throughout our day, and I was sure to say it (and sing the little song I made to go with it) before nap time and bed time each day.  She loves showing off all of her crafts, which are proudly displayed on our craft board, to everyone who comes over. I’m looking forward to B week and all of the fun it will bring J

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

Preparing to learn

Last week I officially started “school time” with Brooklyn.  We had been doing a practice run for a few weeks before that to help get both of us use to this more structured time each morning.  During those weeks, we established that school time started after Madelyn went down for her morning nap.  We also started our circle time routine to kick off each school day which is followed by a story or quick lesson, and then a craft or activity.  Brooklyn has thoroughly enjoyed the structure of this routine!  I have taught other kids in the past that would not sit still during the stories, pay attention to the songs, or participate in the crafts.  I am blessed to have a very calm daughter who loves it!!  My advice to moms of more energetic/easily distracted kids is to try to get on their level and be creative at coming up with ideas to teach them while they play.  Every child learns differently; it is important to figure out your child’s learning style and tweak your teaching based on that.  Discover your child's learning style here.

As I mentioned before, we start off our school time with circle time.  Brooklyn and I sit on the floor together with our musical instrument box, shake our egg shakers, and I guide her through the following list:

We sing:

• The Good Morning Song
• This is the Day That the Lord Has Made
• ABC’s (while doing the sign language)
• The Days of the Week (and we talk about what day it is)
• (I will add in the Months of the Year song when she is a little older)
• The song of the week (that goes with our letter – with motions)

We say:

• Spell her name
• Count to 20 – we count our fingers and toes (start with counting to 10 then increase as they learn)
• The letter of the week and words that start with that letter (we look at our craft board of the things we have made that week to help her remember)
• The verse of the week

We read:

• Our poem/fingerplay/nursery rhyme of the week (with motions)
• Our book of the day and/or week (that goes with our letter)
• A book that she chooses

I am constantly changing this list around and adding/taking away things from it.  I know that repetition will ultimately help children learn and remember so I try to make sure that I use this time wisely (a 2 year olds attention span is only so long so don’t make this list too long).  In the future, I plan to incorporate our address, phone number, more Scripture memory, The Pledge of Allegiance, and other important things like that J Some days, when I can tell she’s not very focused, I’ll pick a couple of things from this list to do and not worry about the rest.  Her favorite things tend to be the songs or poems that have active motions.  These almost always get her excited about school time!

Before we start circle time, I make sure she has had some play time and isn’t hungry.  I have found that if she hasn’t had time to play yet that morning, she is probably not going to stay focused.  She needs to have time to get her energy out first, or I can’t expect her to sit still.  Also, if she is hungry, she tends to get a little grumpy.  Some days, we start our school day by playing a game together or having our snack.  Other days, we jump right into circle time and our school time ends with our snack.  Figure out what works best for your child and base your schedule around that.   Just remember that if their needs are met first, their learning time will go much smoother.

During the songs, we play instruments, do motions, dance, and sing.  It is important that I also participate and do everything right along with her.  If she gets distracted during this time, I try to redirect her back to whatever we are doing.  If she continually stops paying attention or playing with other things, I take a break and just let her play for a few minutes.  I know she needs to learn to follow directions and stay focused, but I also know that she is only 2 years old!  I try to be flexible and remember that this time is for her.  (She is teaching me flexibility while I teach her structure J - everybody needs a little of both in their life.)  Also remember that children are usually still listening and learning from what you are saying while they are playing even though it may seem that they are ignoring you.  Sometimes I’ll just keep right along talking or singing while she makes me some “pizza” at her play kitchen. 

As I introduce the letter each day, we talk about the sound that letter makes and the different words that start with that letter.  As we go through our daily activities that week, we will continue talking about words starting with that letter.  During A week, every time we saw an airplane, we would talk about how airplane starts with the “a” sound.  When we are reading books, I will point out the A’s and ask her to try pointing them out as well.  This constantly reinforces what we are learning.  Learning the letter sounds early will lay the groundwork for reading in the future. 

I have also used the alphabet to help guide Brooklyn (and myself) in some Scripture memory.  Each week we have a new verse that I write on a card and hang on our board.  We review it during circle time and throughout our day.  I explain to her what it means and try to apply what it says to our lives.  We also spend time on Fridays reviewing the verses we have learned in previous weeks as we flip through our old cards.  I try to make up songs for the verses – music usually helps kids learn and remember better.

I will be sharing my weekly lesson plans on this blog.  Each week, I come up with a variety of songs, rhymes, crafts, snacks, and activities to do which are based on the letter of that week.  I try to incorporate math, science, movement, music, reading, and art in some way each week.  I plan to post my lesson plans and also share what worked for us and what did not.   Many of the ideas I post are not my own.  I will share many links to great websites that have helped give me tons of inspiration and ideas.  Use your imagination to come up with your own ideas or change mine up to better fit your child.  Have fun – I know we will!!