H IS FOR HEART - WEEK ONE

~Punkin is 30 months old.~

Theme: Hearts
Letter: Hh
Number: 10
Shape: Heart
Color: Pink
Books:

We had a very busy week around here. I subbed two days at the school I used to teach at, so Punkin was with Grandma Joy those 2 days. Then, Tuesday turned into a rather spur of the moment shopping trip / "Girls Day Out" with a couple close friends that I hadn't spent time with in a while. Then, we had our normal Mom 2 Mom group Thursday morning, and a quick meeting Friday morning with a friend at McDonald's. BUT in spite of all that, we actually were able to accomplish quite a bit due to the fact that Punkin was very motivated by our theme of hearts and so we found ways to sneak in activities at random times. We had so much fun, and I have so many fun Heart ideas left, so we will continue next week with our H is for Heart theme.

TOT TRAYS

We only got to do one day of Tot Tray time, and Punkin wanted to play with her new Valentine Sensory Bin the whole time, so that is the only one I got pictures of her doing. I did take pictures of all the others, though, and since we are doing H is for Hearts again next week, I'll leave them out for her, and hopefully we'll have more time to do them.

She really loves sensory bins. I threw in a little clasp purse, and she spent a great deal of time filling that with "treasures" from her bin and opening and closing it to put stuff in and dump stuff out.

Heart foam stickers on red paper.

Pipe cleaner beading / patterning (If I tell her we'll be making a bracelet, she'll be very into it).

One to one matching using candy hearts and this cute "Fill My Heart" page that I got from the WONDERFUL Valentine Unit download at Musings of Me. (You've GOT to check out her great downloads!)

Tweezing magnetic pom poms to fill heart cookie cutters.

Magnetic foam hearts

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

I printed off these heart matching cards from HERE and we did a simple visual discrimination matching activity. Some look pretty similar, so she had to really notice the differences other than color. She loves to use to her pocket chart lately, so we've been doing a lot of matching activities.

We've been working on cutting a lot lately, but we've basically been doing "snipping" pieces of paper to get the idea of opening and closing the scissors. This week, I printed out this cute cutting page from another great Valentine Unit at Lawteedah. I didn't know how she would do cutting on the lines, but she did great! She kept asking for more cutting. Later that evening when Grandma Faith was babysitting, Punkin took Grandma to the closet where she knew the scissors were and asked Grandma to get them for her so she could cut. When I got home, they were sitting on the couch cutting away at scrap paper. Grandma said they'd been doing that for quite some time!

We made an h with foam hearts stuck to contact paper. I then covered it with another piece of contact paper and cut out the h. It turned out so cute! I know I just saw this idea on another tot school blog just a short time ago using the letter P, but I can't remember which one that was....so if that was you, please let me know!

I cut out heart shapes and numbered them. I had Punkin put them in number order (which has become a pretty easy task for her....up to 10), and then, we turned them over in order to find a special word (her name). This idea came from The Activity Mom.

Punkin enjoyed it so much that we did it also with her 3 sight words we've been working on - dog, sun, cat. (Again, I randomly picked those to start with because she was interested in them one day while reading in a book. I'll start using the list from 1+1+1=1 or a dolch list as soon as I feel she is ready to move on.)

We worked on color words and upper to lower case letter matching using these heart color word pages from Making Learning Fun. She still LOVES this kind of activity.

She used her brown do a dot marker (to pretend they were chocolates) to mark the letter of the sound that I gave her onto these heart candy box pages from Making Learning Fun.

She worked really hard to color the hearts the right color on this page from yet ANOTHER great Valentine Unit download I found at Moo Moo's Tutus. (Scroll to the bottom of the post to see the download.) The words were written in color, so that helped her "read" the words, but she'd "read" it, pick out the color from her crayon box, and color that heart all by herself. We had to hang it on the refrigerator for Daddy to see. :)

And we did this color page from the unit over at Musings of Me. It took her awhile to grasp coloring JUST the one in that row. She wanted to color ALL the envelopes gray,and ALL the puffy hearts purple.....which wouldn't have been bad, but I was trying to teach her this new skill of looking at just one row at a time. Sometimes I had to cover up the other rows while she worked.

We attempted to do a heart sorting and graphing activity. (The sorting page came from PreKinders and the graphing page came from 2TeachingMommies.) She did the sorting part great, but wasn't as keen on the graphing. I had to help her a LOT. I think she was getting tired, though, that day, because we had been doing a lot of heart activities, so we stopped for the day, and I think I'll bring it out to try again next week. (By the way, this is the first time we've used candy hearts, so she doesn't KNOW they are edible and yummy....yet! She thinks they are just cute little hearts. If she knew, we'd never have enough left to do any of our activities, and we still have a lot to do next week. I think I'll tell her on the last day and let her taste a FEW. LOL!)

I quick made this heart number search page one day to help her identify numbers 10-12. (We've been working a lot on double digit numbers 10-12, namely 10 this week, and she is getting pretty good at identifying them now.) We used a different color for each number.

Punkin LOVED this activity....I think because she loves to line things up in rows. I gave her the 6-10 number boxes page from Confessions of a Homeschooler and had her use candy hearts to count out into the boxes.

This was the hit of the week. I found these heart shaped "boxes" at the Dollart Tree. They had little sayings on them, but I covered them up with stickers which I wrote numbers 1-9 on (it only came with 9...I should have gotten two packages). First I had her simply pick one from the bowl, open it, and count that many hearts into the container. (And without me telling her to, she was very particular about making sure she used all of the same color for each box. It had to be all pinks in one or all yellows in another, etc....No mixing of colors!)

Then, she used her fine motor skills to position the lids just right to make them go back on.....which was a bit difficult, but she was determined!

Then, I had her line them up in number order. I then wanted her to open them and dump out the candy hearts, but she insisted they stay in the heart boxes. So, next week, I'll take the stickers off the top and have her open each one and count how many in each and match it to the correct number.

Punkin counted the hearts on each card and matched it to the correct number on the page.....BUT before she did that, she insisted on lining the cards all up in a line (upside down). Then, she put them all in a pile, still upside down, and she "drew" one from the pile so it was a surprise which one she picked. Yes, she is getting very particular these days as to how SHE wants to do things..... :) This came from the Valentine Unit at Lawteedah.

Size ordering hearts from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I used to have to give her just 3 or 4 at a time, but she can do them all very easily now on her own .... big to small AND small to big.

ARTS, CRAFTS, AND OTHER FUN

We attempted to sponge paint with heart "doilies" but Punkin wanted to paint the WHOLE paper. I was trying to keep the paint under control, so I didn't get a picture of her actually doing it. Surprisingly to me, the part taped down by the heart doily didn't bleed underneath and it actually turned out well, so I just cut that part out (the rest of the page was solid pink), and we made a "card" for Daddy.

We marbled painted some hearts using red, white, and pink, then made a heart garland for our fireplace. Punkin LOVES marble painting!

Making Heart Jello Jigglers. Yum!

I had some leftover sugar cookie dough that you are supposed to just pull apart and put on a tray to bake. But I smooshed each little part onto a cookie sheet and let Punkin cut a heart out of each one. They did kinda stick to the pan when they were baked and some broke apart trying to get them off to eat, but she didn't seem to care......she just wanted to eat cookies no matter what the shape!

MISC.

And here was our lunch one day. (Sorry it is sideways. I can't get it to rotate for some reason.)

We got a heart balloon for Daddy one day on one of our outings, but it didn't take Punkin long to claim it as her very own. She had to stand on tippy toes to reach the string, but she had a ball "chasing" the balloon around the house all day......and she got mad at anyone who tried to touch HER balloon. Sorry Daddy! Guess we'll have to get you another one! :)

And this is still how she chooses to spend almost every free second she has .... building "houses" with her big blocks. She could do this for hours on end!

Join us next week for another week of H is for Heart activities! In the meantime, check out 1+1+1=1 for more fun ideas!

I IS FOR IGLOO

~Punkin is 30 months old.~

Theme: Igloos
Letter: Ii
Number: 9
Shape: Review
Color: White

Videos/Books: I slacked off this week and didn't go searching for books or videos that matched our theme. We just watched and read some of our favorites.

TOT TRAYS

I put some letter writing pages in sheet protectors and let her use her dry erase crayons to make the letters. (Of course, she also had a ton of fun just coloring all over the page with the crayons each time after I made her do the letters!)

The point here was to use her tweezers (or hands) to put one "snowball" (white magnetic pom pom) on each dot to make an igloo. She had more fun pretending her doggie was eating the "snowballs."

Using Cheerios to "read" her Cheerio book. She wanted to do this every day of course because she got to each the cheerios off each page when she was done!

I have picked three words for Punkin to work on learning to "read" the last few weeks. (dog, cat, sun) We have been working on them during our morning calendar time. (Don't ask me why I chose those three.....I just did. LOL!) Anyway, I got those three boards out from her Melissa and Doug See and Spell toy and she worked on spelling those each day.

We also had out the little 4 piece puzzles again and the bead sorting from last week, but she wasn't as into them this week since she'd already done them, and didn't really choose to do those this week much.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Working on more curves with our Kumon workbook.

Building our letter Ii.

Working hard on writing the letter Ii. She did so well! Her favorite part was making the dot on the little i.

She poked Q-tips into her letter box this week. Then, she used another Q-tip when she was done to "boink" them down into the box. (And yes, she said, "boink" each time she pushed one in.)

Capital and lowercase Ii sort using eskimos and igloos. You can download this activity HERE.

I printed off this little letter I book (from HERE) and she glued in all the pictures of things that start with i on the correct page and then used her marker to again practice writing her letters.

I made THESE igloo memory matching cards and had her use a pocket chart to simply match the cards. We were going to play memory and then never got around to it. There are four sets: lowercase and uppercase Ii, shapes, numbers (9-12), and her sight words (dog, cat, sun, and her name).

Hunting for our number 9. She used to have 9 and 6 down pat, but I have noticed that if the font is a "curved" 9 (rather than a circle on top with a straight line down), she has a bit more trouble determining if it is 6 or 9. So, we worked on recognizing that nine has the circle on top and six has the circle on the bottom.

She continues to really do quite well with clothespins finally, though she still really works hard at it, and it is funny to see the serious expression on her face as she works at it. But she is finally getting it and doesn't hate it anymore. In fact, she loves it when she gets it open and can clip it on herself! This week, I was able to teach her how to hold the card in her other hand herself without me holding it for her. I made THESE counting clip cards where she had to clip the clothespin on the number that matched the one on the igloo. We are still focusing our work these days on recognizing double digit numbers 10 -12, so these cards only have 9-12 on them.

I adapted an idea that I read about on Two Feet High and Rising. I had Punkin roll the dice (it only had 1, 2, and 3 on it). She then used her tongs (another HUGE accomplishment that she finally figured out this week) to put that many ice cubes in the first glass. Then, she rolled again and put that many in the second glass. Then, she again used her tongs to take all the ice cubes out from both glasses and count how many in all.

I made a squish bag with white paint for Punkin and had her use a Q-tip to "write" on the bag. (I finally got smart and hot glued the bag shut so I didn't have to worry about it coming open.) I tried to get her to write her letter Ii in it, but she wanted to just "draw." She carried that thing around with her the rest of the evening and could be found randomly stopping what she was doing to "draw" on her bag. By the end, she lost the Q-tip and truly was using it as a squish bag with her hands while she watched Elmo. But that hot glue held fast, and no paint got splattered all over my living room, thank goodness!

One day we used the memory cards from above and played "musical igloos." I set cards from all the sets around her room in a circle and then turned on her Bob and Larry's Sunday School Song CD (her current favorite) and let her "run" around the outside of the circle. When I stopped the music, she had to stomp on the card in front of her and tell me what it was. (She even did pretty good with the sight word ones which made me happy.) She of course LOVED this game.

ART / CRAFTS

Once again, Punkin wanted to paint, so I quickly mixed up some glue, water, and glitter, and let her "paint" an igloo that I cut out and glued onto blue paper. Nothing too exciting, but she loved it.

Then, we had so much "glue paint" left over that I just kept getting more plain blue paper for her to "paint." After awhile, I got out THIS igloo page and had her "paint" some glue all on the igloo. Then, she added packing peanuts to each rectangle. (I really loved the concept of "painting" on the glue instead of dumping it on from the bottle. We'll have to use this technique more often!) Then, once it was a bit dry I cut it out and just set it on one of the "gluey" blue painted papers......the paper was still "sticky" enough from all that "paint!"

MY favorite activity this week was helping Punkin make this marshmallow igloo. I found the idea HERE.

I had to help a bit on this one, but we both had tons of fun....especially since we got to eat marshmallows after each row! :)

OTHER RANDOM ACTIVITIES

Punkin literally played with this acitivity for 40 minutes straight until the ice cubes had pretty much melted. I filled up a plastic pitcher with ice cubes and showed her how to practice pouring. Then, I gave her some tongs to see how she'd do (it's always been a struggle in the past), and she just suddenly picked them up and started "tonging" the ice cubes back and forth like she had been using tongs for weeks! Woo Hoo! She sat there and scooped, poured, "tonged" and melted the ice in her hands for a long time. She loved it!

Along with a lot of the country, we got dumped on here with about 15 inches of snow this week. We went out to play in it one day, but it then got way too cold to go out after that. So, I brought the snow in to her. We also had fun coloring the snow with colored water. (I saw the idea HERE.) Then, when she was done, she was fascinated with how the water made the snow melt.

MISC.

Punkin got a trike for Christmas, but obviously, it's too cold and snowy to go outside to ride it. So, her favorite thing to do is go downstairs and ride it on our hardwood floor. (We are almost done finishing our basement, so right now there is nothing down there except wide open space for her to ride.) We haven't finished the kitchenette area yet, and she likes to "park" her trike in the little "garage" where the mini fridge will eventually go. It took her only about a week of being down there attempting to ride her bike while we worked to really catch on to how to do it. Now, she can turn, go backwards, and even stop before she hits Daddy's newly painted walls! :)

She also has been having a ball "helping" me do chores lately. Grandma found this real-looking (AND sounding) Dirt Devil vacuum at a consignment store, and Punkin has been vacuuming our floors every day. (Too bad it doesn't really work!)

Well. that was our igloo week. I was going to do another Ii week with inchworms next week, but I am finding SO much fun stuff to do for H is for Heart, so we'll probably sneak in two weeks of heart activities here around Valentine's Day and get back to Ii after that.

To see what other tots were up to this week, visit 1+1+1=1!