WEEK OF SEPT. 27 - B IS FOR BUS

~Punkin is 26 months old.~

Theme: Bus
Letter: B
Number: 2
Shape: Rectangle
Color: Yellow
Verse: "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shall be saved."
Videos: The Wheels on the Bus song / a slideshow of busses / The Letter B song / Starfall
Books:

Here is our calendar board for this week (when it was still September):

Punkin still loves doing her calendar and chart work every morning.

TOT TRAYS

I had this activity in my files from when I taught first grade. I had my first graders look at the picture on the bus and find the matching beginning sound capital and lowercase letter wheels to put on the bus. For Punkin, however, I kept the capital letter wheels on and wanted her to find the matching lowercase wheels. She really had more fun, though, just taking off the wheels and throwing them around!

She did the golf tees in styrofaom with balancing marbles again. She is definitely much better at this than when I introduced it the first time.

I put out yellow tiles for her to put in her "piggy bank." (I was going to recover the can with yellow paper since our color this week is yellow, but I just didn't have time.) She really had fun with this and enjoyed also shaking the can once she put them all in.

She enjoyed our noodle pounding so much when we did our apple theme, so I had her do it again with our number of the week (2).

I found this ice cube tray with tiny hearts, stars, and circles. I gave her a cup of yellow beads to put in each spot. I also set out the tweezers again. She gave it one good attempt (saying, "squeeeeeeze!" as she tried), but then gave up and used her fingers.

This picture is dark for some reason, but she is gluing pattern block shapes onto pattern templates I had printed from Confessions of a Homeschooler. She loves these! Next time, I'm going to try printing them in black and white to see if she can do it strictly by shape and not color.

TOT LEARNING ACTIVITIES

She is doing so well at making lines in her Kumon tracing book. She still needs practice on the "maze" part of the book as she still just wants to just make a straight line, but I am so glad we got these books. They are wonderful!

Coloring in the middle of the lemon with her yellow crayon in her Kumon color book.

We have also begun to review all her letter vocabulary cards from our chart time every day. Lately, she has liked it when I turn them all over and tell her to see if she can find a certain one. She loves turning them all over and seeing what is on the other side and telling me the name of it.

We got out all of her Melissa and Doug See and Spell puzzles that start with "b." Punkin loves these and does very well at them. She always tells me the letters as she is putting them in and then, she'll go back (like in the right hand picture) and point to the letters as she spells the word.

Using her yellow Do-a-Dot markers to make the letter B and b.

Punkin LOVED this activity this week. I gave her yellow push pins to make her letters. This time, however, I made dots on the page to give her something to aim for when putting the pins in. This helped a LOT! She worked so hard at getting every one of those dots filled. She would have done this for a lot longer, but we ran out of time.

Practicing writing her letter B and b with a dry erase marker. She loves her markers and will do anything as long as she can use them!

Making our B sound picture collage page for our ABC binder.

I made this capital and lowercase Bb sort activity for Punkin. I put velcro in the windows and on the letters and had her stick them on the correct bus. She pretty much did these all by herself which shocked me, because last week she needed help with the ant one we did. I made an A bus, too, as a review, and she did great!

To work on number 2 recognition, I made busses with different numbers on them. She had to find the ones with the number 2 on them and make two "people" in the window with her yellow Do-a-Dot. Then, I gave her a number 2 foam sticker to put on the bus over the number 2 I had written there. She loved this activity, and even took it further on her own. Punkin and I say our number chant every morning during our circle time, and I try to get her to let me help her trace the number with her finger as we say it, but she usually doesn't want to. So, I was surprised as we were working on this activity, when on her own, Punkin started tracing the number and saying the chant over and over and over again! ("Around and back on the railroad track...two, two, two!") I quick grabbed my camera to video it since it was just too cute to pass up. (Oh, and I don't know why it is sideways. Can't figure out how to fix it, and am too tired right now to try. Sorry!)

We put number busses on our stairs again and did many activities like we did with our apple numbers.

I made rectangles on our floor with painters tape since our shape this week was rectangles. I wanted her to take her toy bus and "drive" it around the edges of the rectangles, but she wasn't into that. Instead, she liked running around the edges herself and "hopping" in the shapes.

For our color of the week (yellow), we went around the house and filled our bus box with as many yellow things as we could find. This was the first time we have done this activity, and she really enjoyed it.

STRUCTURED TIME WITH MOMMY

I got this great idea from Fryman Four. Hers turned out a lot cuter than mine did, but Punkin still enjoyed it! I just draped a plastic yellow tablecloth over the table and cut out windows and added black cardboard wheels. Punkin and I had fun "driving" our bus and taking her baby and animals for "rides."

We did a couple cute craft projects this week. I got this idea from Fryman Four as well. I was surprised at how well Punkin could paint the egg carton. She pretty much did the whole thing herself as I held it for her. (Although, I did do the "crevices.")

Then, after the bus dried, she taped pictures of her and her cousins inside black windows that I had cut out and then she glued the windows onto the bus. We added black juice lids as wheels as well.

Punkin was sure proud to show her bus off to Daddy and tell him who was on the bus with her.

For this project, I made an outline of a bus on paper and taped cardboard onto the windows and wheels. We then used a bath loofah sponge to sponge paint the bus yellow. Later, once it dried, we took of the cardboard pieces, so that the windows and wheels were still white. Then, we glued on pictures of our family in the windows this time and glued on the black wheels.

She told me each letter as I wrote it on the bus, and then, helped me write the 2 on the bus for our number of the week.

Our cooking this week didn't have anything to do with our theme at all, but I had to make pumpkin cupcakes for a birthday party, so Punkin gladly helped me out. She put in the cupcake liners for me and stirred the batter (it ended up all over my backsplash!).

And I even let her use the spoon to put the batter into the liners.....with assistance. But she surprisingly did a pretty good job at it.

She had fun helping me wash the dishes, too, when we were done. Give the girl water and soap, and she's a happy camper.

She had to sample the "muffins" (as she calls them) to make sure they were okay for our party. :) She said they were!

STRUCTURED PLAY ACTIVITIES

I put yellow paint in a big ziploc baggie and taped it to the table. She "painted" like this for awhile, and even attempted to make letters with her fingers. This idea came from HERE.

For her playdough time this week, she used yellow playdough on her school bus mat, and I showed her how to make "snakes" to form the letter B and b. She needed help with this part, but thought it was fun.

We tried pouring again this week with yellow water. She did better, though we still had lots of yellow water in the tray. She loves it, though, and says, "Oops. I spill" when she misses.

I got out a water dropper, too, but of course, she couldn't get the hang of it. She liked squeezing out the water, though, after I filled it up for her.

MISC. STUFF

Even though she has played with this toy lots in the past, she hadn't played with it in awhile. She "rediscovered" it this week, and played with it a LOT!

We went to an apple/pumpkin farm with Daddy on Saturday. She enjoyed the pumpkins, the animals, and the playground.

She also got to go on a little "train ride" around the farm, which was a huge hit, of course!

Well, that was our week with the letter b for bus. To see what other tots were up to, check out 1+1+1=1 for more ideas.