Preschool Letter of the Week: Review Aa, Ee, Ii

We made it through the first 3 weeks of school, and things went pretty well.  But I'm also learning as I go…and I feel like a lot of what happened during school time those first weeks was…. that I would basically put something in front of Grace to keep her busy while I worked with Parker.  Which is completely what I do not want to do.  Yes…in some ways, I do want this to 'keep her busy' at times…but because those first weeks she wanted to be doing something if Parker was…it was a lot for me to keep up with!  Now…I'm happy to say that things are balancing out a bit and she's a little more motivated to play while Parker does school.  I am also making more of an effort to spend more one-on-one time with her mixed in with her independent activity/play….and also not getting so caught up with mastery at this point.  She's still 4 years old and we have the rest of the year to review as we learn the new letters.  This is her last year before school….and I want both of us to enjoy it!

But I decided to take our 4th week of school to review and use some of the things I had already prepared and never got to.   We did a different letter each day. (all of the activities she did are not pictured…this is just what I have!)

Letter Aa

 Letter Aa all Sizes Handwriting sheet from The Measured Mom found here.  I love these handwriting pages!

Letter Mazes from 1+1+1. Q-tip painting from 1+1+1.

I also tried to add in a few more activities to work on the letters in her name.

Letter Ee

Ee is for Elbow macaroni

I thought to add in a little 'fun' I'd make some pom pom magnets.  I even let Grace help me, thinking this would make her even more excited.

I pretty much had to 'make' her use them.  Ha!  I'm not sure if it's a texture thing, but she wasn't a fan.  

Letter Ee number puzzle from here.

Shape puzzle from 1+1+1.

Letter Ee Color Block puzzles from 1+1+1

Ee is for Envelope!  Idea is from here.

Letter Ii

I've also noticed we need a little fine motor work.  Some of the cutting and pasting from COAH curriculum gets pretty frustrating to her….so we're easing in with this Kumon cutting activities book and she seems to like them so far.

Ice Cream Count and Match FREE File Folder game from The Measured Mom.

Ice Cream Dice Game found here at Gift of Curiosity.  We would take turns rolling a dice…and each time, she'd tell me the number.  She used the pink poms and I used the green poms….and whoever had the most poms covering numbers at the end won.

Ice Cream in a bag, idea found here from Spell Outloud.

And the most fun thing we did…Ii is for Ice!

Melting Ice Science Experiment with Salt and Color found here at The Artful Parent.  I waited to do this until Daddy and Parker were home.  I needed Geoff to help regulate and clean up…and I just thought Parker would enjoy and learn, as well.

What does salt do to Ice?  It melts!

A few days prior (just because I wasn't sure when exactly this would happen)…I took a few tupperware, filled them with water, and placed in the freezer.

I filled these small cups with a little bit of water and quite a bit of food coloring.

They sprinkled a little ice cream salt (because that's what we had on hand…any salt will do) onto the ice.  They could hear the small crackles as it started to melt.

And here's where I'll interject….my only advice is to really let it melt down a bit before doing the color.  We still eventually got to see what the salt did to the ice…but I think it would have made a better initial impact if we would have waited just a bit longer.

See….you can't really see.  :)   

And that's because what's supposed to happen….is as the ice melts…it melts and forms little tunnels and crevices throughout the ice….and adding the colored water allows you to see these tunnels! 

We interrupt this program to bring you play dough for the 17 month old!

Moving on…

Pretty!

And there you have it.  Salt melts ice.  :)

In hindsight…I should have made her do a journal of some sort…drawing a few pictures and then telling me what to write, but I didn't.  Next time!

And lastly...a little play time captured with Bubs!  As I mentioned before…over the past week, she's been getting better about playing while I do some school work with Parker.  And I love it!