A Crazy "C" letter week

 

 I had a lot of fun planning "C" week and was looking forward to our fun activities, plus, Stella's birthday was this week.  To my disappointment, I found myself sooooo tired and I simply ran out of steam before I ran out of week.  Not everything was done to my liking, but the girls still enjoyed our days.

Inside our alphabet box this week was : cat, Caterpillar, cookie and car.  Here are some pictures to share with you.

A great book for toddlers:  Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons.  This is a fun, simple story about a cat who loses the buttons (one-at-a-time) off his favorite shirt. The book incorporates simple subtraction (take away) and it has a cute, silly song that Pete sings every time a button "pops" off.  We did a craft to go along with the book, but I just didn't get a picture of it.  Sorry!

 

Our caterpillar day was probably the best day.  We had several activities to go along with the theme.  Our book for the day was The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  We did size difference, arranging in numeric order, and playdoh caterpillars.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

But my favorite activity for this theme was stringing together all the things the Very Hungry Caterpillar ate.  This was a great fine motor skill activity.  Stella had a little difficulty with it, so we sort-of did it together.  All of the caterpillar downloads are from confessions of a homeschooler.com.

 

 

 

 

Our last day was "C" is for car day.  Papa and I (mostly papa) worked on these cardboard box cars for the girls.  They are a work in process and we'll keep giving them a "tune-up" until we're happy with them. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well - that's all for this week.  Thanks, again, for letting me share our days with you.

Chasing Butterflies

Butterflies are beautiful and captivating creatures and what child doesn't like to flit around like a butterfly or chase after one.  We had a fabulous "butterfly" day this week.  Here are some of our activities.

We started our day by working on a butterfly size difference activitiy.  Stella already knew "large" and "small", so now we're working on the "medium" size and placing them in size order smallest to largest.

 

Next we did our butterfly craft.  I downloaded a template of a butterfly and cut it out.  We spread some shaving cream onto a cookie sheet.

 

 

 

Next, we put drops of acrylic paint onto the shaving cream and gently stirred the colors around.

 

 

 

We then gently pressed our butterfly cutout into the colored shaving cream and let it set in the mixture for about five minutes.

 

 

We lifted the butterfly out of the shaving cream and let it set on the counter for about 10-15 minutes.

 

 

 

Our last step was to carefully scrap off the shaving cream with a dull knife.  This was our finished butterfly craft project.

 

 

 

After all our fun "work", we were hungry for a snack.  Butterfly bags filled with crackers hit the spot.

 

 

 

Finally, we finished up our butterfly activities with a game of Elefun the Butterfly Catching game.

 

 

 

This was a BIG hit.  The girls loved running around trying to catch the butterflies.  The down side to this game is that it only last about 10 seconds and then you have to reload the butterflies again.  But not a big deal considering all the giggles and fun the girls had playing this game.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well - that's it for now.  Thanks for sharing some of our butterfly fun with you.

 

 

A "Bear" of a day.

 

 

Don't you just love a "Teddy Bear Picnic".  Today started our letter "B" week.  We began with a small teddy in the alphabet box.  Next we read Corduroy.  Stella loved the book so much that she asked me to read it several times. 

 

 

 



 

After the multiple readings of Corduroy, we worked on a bear craft.  I took a template of a small teddy bear and cut card stock and a piece of corduroy fabric to match the shape.  Stella glued the fabric, the eyes and one button on the bear to match the teddy in the story.

 

 

 

Here he is all finished up.

 

 

 

After our craft, it was on to the picnic.  We gathered as many "teddies" as we could find.  We spread out our picnic blanket, passed out our plates and cups and then we ALL enjoyed some Teddy Grahams cookies.  Even our little play picnic basket played the "Teddy Bear Picnic" song.  Such a fun morning.  I tried to upload a few more pictures of the picnic, but blogspot is not cooperating.  I'll try for another day.  Thanks for letting us share our day with you.

 

 

After a LONG Christmas break, we started back this week with our preschool activities. Finishing our entire alphabet at the end of November, I decided to focus on Christmas and winter crafts during December.  I'm now very ready to have some structure and routine back.  Since the girls are so young (ages 3 and 18 mos.), I keep our schedule and curriculum pretty light and flexible.  We work on our lessons and crafts Monday through Thursday and keep Fridays open for a free play day.  This week worked out well.  Here's a small peek into our "A" week.

What's in the alphabet box?  Things that begin with letter "A": apples, ant, airplane and alligator.

 

Stella practicing letter A with her Do-A-Dot paints.  (worksheet from Confessions of a Homeschooler)

 

Although we're focusing on capitol "A", this ant activity had Stella dividing her ants into a big "A" or little "a" stack

 

 

 

Both girls love puzzles.  Stella had an airplane puzzle and Lyla worked on a farm and ocean puzzle.

 

 

 

 

 

We started on pre-writing and math lessons.

 

 

 

 

 

Finally, we ended our week with "A" is for Alligator.

 

 

 

Our first week back was fun!  Can't wait to start letter "B". 

 

Just want to give credit to Confessions of a Homeschooler website for the free download printables. Please make sure to check out this wonderful website which is full of great resources.