Preschool Letter of the Week Ii

I'm only a week behind in posting, so I'll call that success.  :)

Here is our Letter of the Week: Ii

To make things a little more adventurous (I use that term very loosely, obviously)….I started having the girls count using the 100s chart.  I only have Grace count to 20.  She can, and has been able to count to 20, and understands 1:1 correspondence….but is still not able to identify all numbers 1-10.  So we are working on that!

This week- I also wanted to place a little more attention on writing her name.  Parker went to school for K4…and her teacher did most (read: all) of the teaching to her…so this is a whole new ball game for me and it has definitely been a learning curve (but fun, too!).  Even homeschooling Parker through Kinder and now 1st…it's only part time and we have lesson plans and teaching from her teacher 2 days out of the week.  This home preK is all on me…and I have so much to learn.  And yes- I realize it's only preK…but I do think there are 'better' and the 'not-so-good' ways of doing things.

On this day…I wrote her name big on the board.  I was working with Parker on something…and told her to just trace over what I had written.  She really enjoyed this and got brave and wrote her name underneath all on her own.  To say she was proud is a complete understatement!  And I was proud, too!

She 'journals'…colors/draws a picture and then tells me what to write.  She loved this the first and second week and is already over it.  Ha!  But on this day she wrote her name.  I love how in the beginning they think they can just go down to the next line to finish the word.

The pictures below are from Confessions of a Homeschooler Letter of the Week Curriculum (until otherwise noted)

She doesn't think the Do-A-Dot markers are as fun as she once did…so I had her put stickers in the dot page.

Pattern Number Cards also from Confessions of a Homeschooler

A little more Ii fun!

I is for Igloo dot sticker page from The Measured Mom

Ii nursery rhymes from The Measured Mom.  A friend of mine just introduced us to The Measured Mom and there are a lot of great resources there.  These nursery rhyme books are one of them!  This Letter Ii one is the first one we've used and there are 4-5 songs/poems in this book…and we ended up singing/chanting 3 of them several times on several different days.  Both girls enjoyed it (even though Parker is past learning her letters it never hurts!)  This is something I plan to add in on future letters!

Roll and Cover game from The Measured Mom.  This has nothing to do with the letter Ii…but I just wanted another activity to change things up a bit.  3 week in and we're losing interest over here.  Which makes things easier in some ways, and harder in others!  These dice activities are helping her recognize the numbers and also subitizing (a fancy word for recognizing the number on the dice without having to count them)…and also just giving her something a little different to do.

Letter Ii Maze from 1+1+1.  This was her second or third time to do one of these mazes and I could tell that she was still not getting the whole concept of a maze (I hate seeing that frustration on her face in this picture).  So the next one we did…I placed in a page protector and used a dry erase marker and drew a line connecting the letters ...and her light bulbs went off.  She now understands and enjoys them!

Just for fun…

As I mentioned…this was our 3rd week of school.  And up until this point…she had requested to do 'school' if Parker was doing school.  She wasn't interested in playing on her own…and really never even asked to watch a show (which I am so happy about because we have broken that habit that I formed and allowed to happen last year!).  But it was a little daunting finding activities to keep her busy while working with Parker (who is in 1st grade and still needs a lot of assistance on most everything she does)….that she could do on her own and not have to interrupt 1,037 times.  ;)

So I brought out some other things to fill her time.

I told her she had to use the tongs.  I snapped this picture and didn't even realize until after, her look of guilt for using her hand. Ha ha ha!!  I have discovered that she does need some fine motor work.  Again…realizing how much more I did with Parker at a younger age, that Grace is just now getting.  Sigh.  But I really believe its all fine.

Ii is for Icing!

And also Ice Cream!

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