Stone soup

This week we read the story Stone Soup and each of the girls made their own pot of soup by cutting vegetables out and gluing them in the pot.

 

We sorted fruits and vegetable cards and made a salad with play dough. The girls used plastic knives and plates to create their salads, however, when I asked them what they were making they all responded with cake or cupcakes. 

They also did a picture search where they each had their own cards and used whiteboard crayons to mark the pictures they found. They spent 20 minutes doing this activity and probably would have gone longer but it was time for playtime. 

Apples

Addie's apple prints; she used an apple to make these, but the star in the middle of the apple didn't show up. Still she had fun. 

Addie also put the apple stickers on the apple tree. 

It was a great fine motor activity and kept her busy. 

We read The Riddle of the Star and for a snack made apple muffins, which dissapeared as quickly as they were made. 

Favorite Friends

This week, school was at another person's house but Addie and I still had fun working on favorites, friends and the letter F. 

Addie and I looked for things that started with the /f/ sound. We found fish, frog, fan and flashlight. 

This is Addie's book of favorites. It is personalized with Addie's favorite color, food, toys and other things like that. 

For this activity I had printed pictures from the computer then I cut them into strips made guidelines and it was her job to cut and then glue. 

We also worked on our numbers. If you type in childcareland.com  there are many great resources on that site. This is one of the books we made:

One other activity was an I Spy worksheet. Addie used small little picture cards and then located each picture on the worksheet. When she found it she colored in with a white board crayon. 

 You can print this for free at JustSomethingIMade.com. 

First week of preschool

Last we Addie and I has our first week of preschool. We are doing a joy school of sorts with three other little girls. The main focus was to get the girls used to a schedule and structures activities instead of just playtime. For our structures activities we read If You Give a Mouse a Cookie and then made cookies:

Our song we learned was who stole the cookie from the cookie jar. The focus was on name recognition. 

For our second day at preschool we read the same story and they each had a turn to put our vocabulary words on the word wall. 

We did however learn a new song, Dr Jeans katalina Madalina. The girls each made a heart of gold for our craft. 

 We used the song pieces to help us sing the song and make Katalina over and over again. 

We also developed two rituals for our preschool. One is a song and the other is a way of greeting or goodbye. The song we sing for our signal that the preschool day has begun, but I started using it for every transition. The greeting is simple and mainly for Addie's benefit but she was to greet each of her friends as the arrived with a handshake, highfive, hug or a smile. 

Sorting with beads

Last Sunday I was trying to keep Addie occupied while we enjoyed the game and this is what I came up with. Take an egg carton and anything that your child can sort. Addie's been really sorting by color lately so I went with that. I give her the beads and let her match them to the corresponding color in the egg carton. You can let your child sort by anything and with anything, just make sure whatever you give them won't be a choking hazard; small toys for some are not the best educational materials.

Book of the week

This week I only have one favorite book out of our four. It's titled, "The Bear Came Over To My House" by Rick Walton. This book is so much fun to read, even Addie can remember most of the words and that's because it is very repetitive. However, the key word changes in every turn of the page. For example; "The bear came over to my house to see what he could see. And what do you think he saw?" The only words that change are "see" and "saw". This book works on present and past tense verbs as well as rhyming words. The book is silly but also a nice bedtime story.

Post office

This past week Addie and I have been playing post office. We set up a letter making station that can be easily put away in a box; I made a post office box out of an old box and a small letter carrier bag out of some scrap fabric. The letter making station consists of paper, stickers, pretend stamps, markers, envelopes, and letter stamps.
We talked about what kinds of things need to go on a letter; name, address, stamp and where item goes on the envelope. It is also good practice for Addie to spell her name, work on her address and hear about where others live. We also talk about community helpers , people who live and work in the community and provide services.
Next we will work on creating mailboxes for her to deliver the mail to. We can work on matching the envelopes to the mailboxes by color, letter, shape or whatever concept we want, the possibilities are endless with this and it is so much fun.

Painting crafts

Our group we meet with for crafts has done three projects this month that were very successful with our kiddos and lots of fun. They were painting activities so naturally the kids had a good time. The first was a symmetrical heart. The kids painted the heart and then folded it in half and when the opened it up, it was the same on both sides. Addie made three of them. This was so easy and with almost no prep at all. All we did was cut out the hearts as the kids asked for them.

The second one we did was painting with ice cube paints. I simply used an older ice tray and put different colored paints in the sections; I added a small craft stick to each cube for a holder and then put it all in the freezer. When we were ready to paint I took it out, popped the ice paints into a tray and let the kids go to town. We painted on tin foil, but you could probably paint on paper as well.

The third craft was painting icicles with Q-tips; these are a wonderful tool for painting when you want them to paint in a smaller area, not use too much paint, and for those who are still learning to hold with a proper grip. We will cut them out when they dry and hang them up in the window.

Art time fun at the children's museum

Addie and I were playing at the children's museum and we ended up in the art area. Addie found herself paper, glue, scissors and puzzle pieces to decorate with. I think she is a little young for cutting with scissors but she wanted to practice so who was I to stop her. I showed her the correct way to hold the scissors, walk with the scissors, and cut with the scissors. Most importantly we talked about what we cut with scissors, which is paper, only paper! She had a struggled quite a bit with keeping the scissors on her fingers but didn't give up; practice makes perfect.

Curriculum Froggy Get dressed

To start off this section we read the book froggy get dressed. We talked about all of different clothing items that Froggy got dressed with; a scarf, pants, boots, etc. Addie got to post the pictures on a felt board. We also looked through our winter clothing bin and Addie got to try on all of her winter clothing just like Froggy.

Two winter stories to read along with this book are Jan Brett's The Hat and The Mitten. We made pictures of the characters and held them up when they appeared in the book.

We talked about how white mittens are hard to find in the snow, so she chose the colors and painted her mittens so she could always find them. We also painted a tree with a marble to look like winter, basically just painted it white.

Here are the before and after pictures.

Books of the Week

For the past several month reading books has become a large part of our bedtime routine. Every Monday Addie and I go to the library and find 5 books to bring home and then for that week we (Daddy, mommy and Addie) each read one story before bedtime. This has become one of my favorite times during the day, and no it's not because I'm putting my little darling to bed, but because she loves to read her own book. I love listening to her make up a story or towards the end of the week actually remembering sequences of the story that Daddy or I have read before and retelling the story herself! It is so fun to listen to her retell the story in her own words; I get so surprised when I hear her tell so much of the story correctly.
Well, my real point in creating this post is to start a list of children's books that I really enjoy reading. So without anymore of my rambling about how much I love listening to Addie read...

Books of the Week:

I'm A Big SisterI by Joanna Cole
Easy, simple language about a new baby coming and great openers for discussion about being a big sister. The baby is also gender neutral- so it can be a baby brother or sister.


Tell Me About Your Day Today by Mem Fox
I love the illustrations in this book. It is also has a lot of repetition for remembering the lines. It can be read with the youngest of reader for just the pictures to older children for the concepts of who, what, why, way and perspective of the speaker. It is also about a little boy going to bed, so perfect for bedtime!