WEEK OF JUNE 28 - ICE CREAM

~Punkin is 23 months old.~

We tried to focus on i is for ice cream this week. We didn't get everything done that I had planned (surprise, surprise), so we'll continue a few things next week. Daddy is on summer break (he's a high school administrator), so we have been doing lots of things with Daddy, and running lots of errands. (We .... or should I say Daddy.... is in the process of finishing our basement, so we spend a lot of time right now at Lowe's and Menards.)

TOT TRAYS

I decided to try the little shot glass cups (from Dollar Tree) and clips again. She still loved it, but once again, didn't do it the way I had intended. (Match the numbers on the cups to the number in the egg carton, then count that many clips into each little cup.) However, I loved to see her creative ways of using the materials. She would stack and unstack the cups, line up the paper clips, or pass out the cups to Mommy, herself, and Puppy. She'd say, "Here Mommy's. Here Puppy's. Here (Punkin's)."

Actually, one time she did humor me and did a pretty good job of at least matching up the numbers on the cups with the numbers in the bottom of the carton. But only once.

I had a tray of some of her new file folder games that I got at a garage sale. She enjoyed putting the letters on "tummies" for this game.

This file folder game was the only one she actually completed the whole thing before moving on to another one. I didn't have to help her at all.

I wanted her to do a sort and count activity this week. She did well with the sorting part, and adored the cute button shapes I scored at a garage sale as well.

However, she did NOT want to count them when she was done. I helped her do the five with much complaining in the process, and then decided not to push the others.


Punkin got more practice with her lacing beads. She is getting really good at it now, and really enjoys making necklaces. Maybe soon we'll start working on patterns....

ABC'S / LETTERS

I broke out the shaving cream for the first time. We used it all the time when I taught first grade, but I have always been a bit hesitant to let Punkin use it yet. However, I figured it was time. She LOVED it! I showed her how to make capital I and lowercase i. Then, she practiced making straight lines and dots (to make i). She still tends to start making her lines at the bottom, so we are working on learning to start at the top and draw the line DOWN. This will help with writing letters later on. (So many of my first graders still would make all their letters starting from the bottom, and we spent a LOT of time in first grade working on just starting letters at the top. So I am hoping to start teaching Punkin this concept early on.)

She showed me how she could make lots of circles and ovals.

She played with it until it was almost all gone....over a half hour!

I printed these captial / lowercase matching cones from Home Grown Hearts, then made them into a game for Punkin. Punkin was eager to do this activity when she noticed the velcro dots. She loves sticking things on with velcro. She told me the letters a few times when I'd ask, and she matched them up like a pro. On her own, she took the scoops off and did it over again 3 or 4 times. The last time she did it, she was being silly on purpose and putting the scoops on the wrong color, saying, "Silly (Punkin)," and then she'd move them to the right spot. I decided to keep a basket out on her little table each week to put activities like this that we do together for her to do on her own if she wants. She got this out almost every day to do by herself.

We watched Starfall.com again. She loves these little "movies."

She has been so interested in what I am doing on the computer lately, and she has been wanting to press the keys on the keyboard so badly. So instead of having her try to do it when I am working and messing up what I am working on, I let her one day sit in my chair and I brought up word, made the font big so she could see it, and let her type whatever she wanted. At first she'd tell me the letter she was making, and then I started telling her to find me a certain letter on the keyboard to type. She would say, "OOOOOHHH!" when the letters would show up on the screen. She had a great time on Mommy's "puter."

SHAPES

I cut out some colored shapes and had Punkin help me glue them on white paper to make two cones....one with a rectangle shape for the cone, and one with a triangle shape.

Then I had her draw lines on the cones with my pen.....she LOVES using "Mommy's pen." Again, we worked on making lines from top to bottom.

Displaying her "i keem cones."

I printed these shape matching cones from Home Grown Hearts as well. Punkin wasn't too interested at all in doing this activity until I told her she would get to use the glue stick.

She did them very easily without any help. I'd ask her to tell me each shape as she matched them, and the only one she didn't know herself was the hexagon....obviously.

On her own, she then began to put all the cones into a pile and take them back off the pile into a line, then back into a pile....

One time when she was lining them up, I helped her put them in rainbow order.

MATH ACTIVITIES

We did our intro patterning activity again that we've done with a lot of our units. I used our new buttons this time. She can do this very easily, so now we are starting to talk about the pattern.

Strangely enough, I started off with the yellow and purple pattern. She would NOT do those colors at all! She kept insisting "want pink one!" She did the rest without issues, but would never come back to do the yellow and purple for some reason.

I saw this idea for making letter rocks at Totally Tots, and thought it was a great idea since Punkin is so enamored with rocks lately. I made number ones as well as lowercase letters, and I was so excited with how they turned out! I had planned for her match these ice cream number cards with the rocks.....

.... and to match the rocks with the spot on her placemat. BUT, she wanted nothing to do with it. I mean, NOTHING, NADA, NO WAY. I was bummed. I spent all that time and was so excited, and I was sure she'd love it since they were ROCKS! :( Oh well. We'll bring them back out another time.

THEME ACTIVITIES

This flip book idea came from Making Learning Fun. She was to match the two sides of the ice cream cone so that theY matched. I had never done a flip book with her before, but she caught on quick.

We got out her playdough again, and she did used this sheet from Making Learning Fun. She can now play with playdough pretty independently, so it's nice to make lunch or clean up the kitchen while she works.

I printed this sheet from Lisa Baldwin on her site. Punkin still loves to color.

For one of her structured activities this week, I gave her two cones, a scoop, an "ice cream bowl" and some Kix. I loved seeing what she did with it all. She poured....

She scooped...

She dumped...

She stacked...

And she tried to eat two cones at a time. At one point, she was trying to eat one of the cones from the bottom instead, and she looked at me and said, "I eat uhside dow."

For another structured play activity, I added some ice cubes to her usual soapy water in the sink activity. She loved watching them melt and trying to pick them all out.

MISC. STUFF

Punkin gets all excited when she makes towers. She creates a lot of towers during her free play time.

She chose to play with this book again a lot this week. This time, she'd take the magnet off their spots and match them to that object on the story page.

I was beyond thrilled to find this big ABC floor puzzles (which I have been wanting to get for Punkin for a long time) at a friend's garage sale for a quarter! So far, we have hopped and jumped all the letters in order a thousand times, Punkin has used her hammer to "hammer" the letters in their spots, and she has also just enjoyed jumping all over the puzzle. She also has fun taking out the letters....but not as much fun putting them back.

Punkin continues to refine her drinking from a big girl cup skills. The other day the WHOLE cup of water ended up in her lap...but that's why we use water, and practice makes perfect, right?

Punkin has become infatuated with "airpanes in da sky" lately. She has been running to look out our second floor window every time she hears an "airpane."

She has also become much more purposeful in her drawing lately. She brought me this paper and said, "Wook, Mommy! M!" (And she has continue to make "M's" throughout the week.)

This one is hard to see, but she has also been drawing arcs on her paper and telling me she made a rainbow. I love to see her making these new connections.

In honor of July 4th, Punkin and I made this American Flag.

I had white strips cut that I had Punkin glue onto the red paper. Then, she glued on the blue square. Next, I have her a Q-tip and a small container of white paint, and she had a blast painting on the white "stars."

On Saturday, we went to a 4th of July parade. Punkin is still talking about it and how she saw her friend, Lydia, and her Uncle Brad (who was in the parade), and horsies, and doggies, and big trucks. Her favorite part, though, was getting her yellow "boon."

Then, on the 4th, we had a cookout with family, and Punkin had fun blowing bubbles with her cousins and Aunt Jamie.

We had a fun week! To see what other tots did this past week, go visit 1+1+1=1.