WEEK OF MAY 10 - KITES

~Punkin is 21 months old.~

We had a fun week, though I have quite a few activities that we never got to (shapes, numbers/math). I just keep carrying things over to the next week. This week, we ended up repeating some activities a few times instead of introducing something new each day. I am finding that this works well, so I may start planning about half of what I was and doing each activity twice during the week...Hmm... We'll see. Oh, and now after this week, she recognizes a kite....instead of calling all kites diamonds.

TOT TRAYS

Just like with the playdough last week, she went to this first each day, and I ended up having to put it away for the rest of the day after she played with it for a bit or else she wouldn't have wanted to play with any other trays. It was as simple as putting sandpaper textured numbers (from when I taught first grade) under a piece of paper and rub with a crayon. I knew she wouldn't be able to really rub it enough to make out the number, but she did enjoy the texture of it. I did a few rubbings for her and she asked me then every day to "hep" her do more.

I put the pre-pattern / color matching kite activity that we did together last week in her tot trays for this week. She only got it out twice, and she didn't do it for very long, but she had no trouble doing the activity.

Punkin found her new Melissa and Doug stacking blocks in her Tot Trays this week. I showed her this week how to stack them. When I did it for the first time, she was all excited and clapped and said, "Dat's tower!" Then she proceeded to run and knock it over. And that was what we did every day. :)

And she continued to do a good job of nesting them inside each other. I would set them up in size order and then she'd put them inside each other. Today when we did it, I was shocked when she pointed to the last one (the biggest) and said, "Dat big." Then she pointed to one of the blocks towards the end of the line and said, "Dat small."

Punkin sort of made this a Tot Tray this week, and I just went with it. As I've said before, she really has fun playing with her magnetic letters on her little magnetic Melissa & Doug board. This week, she'd put some in her bowl and then take them out one by one and put them through the slits in her "bucket." (This had been part of a Tot School activity around Easter and I just never put the little bucket away.)

I took some ponytail holders that I had used when I taught first grade for patterning activities and had Punkin put them onto straws that I stuck in styrofoam. She really enjoyed this tray!

And of course she loved dumping them all out as well.

I really had to "encourage" Punkin to get this tray out. She wouldn't even play with it long enough for me to get a picture. She has never liked anything like tweezers, clothespins, tongs, etc. But I have been setting them out for her to just "investigate" and play with without expecting her to try to use them correctly. She was intrigued by the mini clothespins, especially when I opened and closed them like a little mouth. She played with them briefly....trying to fit the ends together. Oh well. We'll keep trying.

I threw in her shape sorter / stacker again this week. Once again, she loved it and had fun lining up all the shapes.

LETTERS / ABC'S

Using her Do-a-Dot markers on her Kk page from Confessions of a Homeschooler. She wasn't as careful this week to stay on the dots... But that's okay.

I am beginning to introduce Punkin to beginning sounds of words. I knew she wouldn't get it on her own, but we had fun doing it together. I printed out these two pages from Making Learning Fun. (I added the lowercase letter to them). I chose h and b because she knows these lowercse letters and because they had pictures of things she knows / loves (heart, house, horse, ball, bear, butterfly). She colored the pictures / kites first as we talked about the pictures. Then I cut them out and helped her glue them to the right kite.

I show her the page about once a day and we go over the pictures again.

I made this kite matching activity for Punkin as we continue to work on identifying lowercase letters. I only set out three matches at a time for her.

She usually loves matching acitivites or puzzles, but she wasn't too into this one for some reason.

This was the biggest hit of the week....probably because it centered on her and her name. I printed out the template from Making Learning Fun and used a pipe cleaner for the tail. (I covered up all but one letter so as not to "give away" what Punkin's "real" name is....)

I had her simply match the letters in her name by finding the orange bow with the matching letter and velcro it to the one on the kite.

She did SOOOO well! She didn't match them in order, but she did it without my help. We sang our little song we made up to spell her name as we pointed to each letter when she was done. One night I even found that she had gotten ahold of her kite, taken off the orange bows and was doing it again all by herself.

THEME ACTIVITIES

The girl loves her playdough. She has had fun using playdough mats that I print out for her lately.

For lunch one day we had kite shaped sandwiches!

MISC.

We got out our foam letters that I made and she played with them a couple days. Every once in awhile I'd ask her to find a letter for me. Other times I would point to a letter and ask her what it was. I had to help her with some of them, but it was good exposure for her.

We also spent one evening putting her Melissa and Doug capital/lowercase abc puzzle together. She did it almost all .... 30 minutes or more.... before losing interest. I helped her on some, but I was impressed with how well she did on her own.

And of course, we had to break out the rainbow rice again.....much to Punkin's delight.

This has become Punkin's new favorite activity...lining up anything and everything she can find.

And last but not least, Punkin would rather "read" books than do almost anything else.

Well, that was our week. Check out 1+1+1=1 for more Tot School fun from other moms and tots!