March 1st - 5th

Monday
o Intro Aa name sound
o Twinkle Twinkle

• Tuesday
o Intro star
o Walk a tape line

• Wednesday
o counting 10 stars
o Letter Book A

• Thursday
o Make scented playdough
o Star cutouts with the playdough

• Friday
o Community places
o Library trip

It's March (well almost)

So I was thinking about what I wanted to do for March.
Here is a list of general topics for the month.
Language: Introduce letters
This will be a very simple introduction. There will be no expectation of knowledge or even remembering. This is merely to start familiarizing her. I am not sure if I just want to go through the alphabet (which is not the most effective method when used with young readers) but the method I use with young readers is starting with letter they know and she does not know any letters. Many programs on line use the traditional abc order for introduction. So I will have to decide soon. I know we will start with A because that is what her name starts with. We will also be making an ABC book that we can use through the years to help her learn her letters. That is all we will be doing so I am thinking a letter a week for now, we will see how it goes.
Math: Counting to 10
Angel Girl is able to count to 5 and has surprised us a few times with her ability to almost count to 10. So we will be doing activities that work on counting to 10.
Color: Green
Its March which means St. Patrick's Day so I think we will learn about the color green.
Shape: Star
Just cause....I have a lot of star shaped foamies so its next.
Music: Singing Nursery Rhymes
Learning and singing nursery rhymes. Nursery rhymes are very important part of phonemic awareness (rhyming) and also the knowledge is important for understanding some stories read (ie each peach pear plum). I think we will do Twinkle Twinkly and Mary Had a Little Lamb.
Physical: Balance
Angel Girl is attending gymnastics and loves to walk the balance beam but she does it primarily sideways so I think we will work on walking one foot in front of the other on balance beams (or tape lines in our house).
Science: Sense Smell
Its next.
Social Studies: Community
Learning about places we frequent in the community.
Social: Making friends
Angel Girl thinks that she can just walk up to kids but that can scare them (she is a giant 2 year old). So we will be working on how to be more friendly.

No Mommy School

We did not have Mommy School last week...Sweet Boy was in the hospital for a few days and was still sick through out the week. We took advantage of no planned mommy school and spent hours coloring, and sticking stickers on paper. We played and talked and just spent time together. Although it was not planned there was learning.

February 22nd - 27th

• Monday
o Block patterns
o Maraca Music

• Tuesday
o Shape sort
o Sing Along/Dance Party

• Wednesday
o 5 little monkeys
o matching game

• Thursday
o Jell-o
o Matching circles

• Friday
o Where does it go?
o Field Trip

Thursday: Circle Fun

When I was planning the week I wasn't really sure what I wanted to do for circles yet. Mostly because I didn't know where we would be in mommy school by then because of all the other things I planned for the week. Well come Thursday I needed an idea and considered going online (my favorite place to get ideas) but Angel Girl had an idea all her own (thus why I love homeschooling I can take her lead). She wanted to run in circles. So we ran in a circle, and walked, tiptoed, hopped, skipped, jumped, elephant walked all in a circle. She loved it and I loved it!

Thursday: Taste Testing

For this activity I gave Angel Girl a whole bunch of different things that can be spread on crackers. This was to help her with spreading with a knife that she is very fond of doing. So she had honey, tuna, non-dairy butter spread, jelly, and peanut butter and a stack of crackers. It was fun to watch her try the different toppings on the cracker. The first time she had tried the honey a few months ago she said yuck and today she loved it. It was also fun to tell her the different names of the toppings. She keep repeating them as she spread/or ate straight the toppings.

Wednesday: Cooking Circles

The idea of this activity is to make something that is circular. My first thought was sugar cookies but Angel Girl is dairy allergic so butter and milk are not options for us in anything. Then I realized we could make dairy free biscuits as long as I use the dairy free vegan butter we have. So I found this recipe. We made it together and used a cup to cut out the circles. Angel Girl loved rolling out the dough and then cutting out the circles. Then we ate them for lunch which made it more fun I think.

Monday: Matching

For this I just grabbed different sock since Angel Girl loves to help "fold" sock during laundry time. I put them in a pile and had her match them. She had a great time and loved to say daddy sock, mommy sock, baby sock. Easy and quick and something she can now "help" with during laundry.

February Break 15th - 20th

• Monday
o Matching (socks)
o Copying rhythms

• Tuesday
o Tracing Circles
o Ring Around the Rosy

• Wednesday
o Cooking Circles
o Matching (pairs)

• Thursday
o Taste/Textures
o Circle Fun (ie not really sure what I am going to do yet :))

• Friday
o Taking Care of our things
o Field Trip

Friday: Valentine's Art

For Valentine's Day Angel Girl did this. For us it was hard to get her little hands to make such perfect hearts so I just drew a heart around the prints. Either way it turned out super cute...and daddy loved his card.

Thursday: Taste Likes and Dislikes

So for this day I got a variety of different fruits and veggies. Some I knew Angel Girl likes and some that she had never tried before including Kolrabi (I am sure I spelled that wrong :)). I had Angel Girl try the new food and I had a piece too. Mostly she just licked it and said yuck to all the new stuff BUT I did find out she likes mangos! I think I may do this more often because eventually maybe she will take a bit and not just lick it, considering she use to not even try it and just say yuck.

Wednesday: Counting to 5 with balls

We continue to work on counting to 5. Today we did it with 5 balls. We rolled them, threw them, kicked them and bounced them. We counted as we did it. We put 5 in a large bucket all together and took them out. We put one each in 5 containers and counted. The most important thing was repeating the order 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.

Monday/Wednesday: Beading Sequence

Going along with sequencing I am doing some math patterns. Originally on Monday I was going to do an AB pattern (only 2 colors) but I realized that this was a completely new activity to Angel Girl. So for Monday I pulled out her beads and let her string any way she wanted to. This was to help her get the idea of stringing. Then I put it on her like a necklace. Then on Wednesday I started with a very simple AB patter. Pink/Purple/Pink/Purple. This is not a concept I expect her to master or even really understand fully just begin to see. So I helped her with picking out the next bead. She really likes having the necklace to where. It also helps with her fine motor skills to string beads onto a piece of string.

Feb. 8th - Feb. 12th

• Monday
o Pasta AB pattern
o Tap a rhythm

• Tuesday
o Circle Hunt
o Dance Party

• Wednesday
o Counting to 5 with balls
o Bead Pattern

• Thursday
o Muffin Tin Like Dislike
o Red

• Friday
o I Spy Household
o Valentine’s Day Art (Hearts)

Friday: House Tour

This was an idea I got from a reading conference I recently went to. The teacher (who was trained in montessori education) used a traveling set of words that they used to actively label things around their school. I thought this would be a fun idea to use around the house. I figured it would aid in vocabulary development along with the beginning of text recognition. So I typed up a list of things in our home and cut them out. Then I handed one to Angel Girl and had her put it on the item. It was super cute to watch her try to figure out how to get the word to stick to things like the playpen or fridge. We only did about 7 to 10 of the words but they are going on her "learning" shelf and I plan to pull them out when we have a few minutes.

Thursday: Taste Test

So this idea is based on the many bloggers that do Muffin Tin Monday. Basically there are a variety of food placed in a muffin tin for the child to try. It is a fun way to try different food. This is what we will be doing every Thursday for Taste. I plan to introduce some new foods along with some of Angel Girl's favorites.

Tuesday: Jumping Stones

For Tuesday I just put out some washclothes like hopscotch (if it was warmer I would have gone outside and done it with hopscotch). Then we walked on each square, jumped with 2 feet on each square, jumped on one foot on each washcloth then tried jumping on just 1 foot to each square. It was a great way to get some energy out in the middle of winter :) You could use cut out feet or anything really that would show where the child was to put their feet.

Monday/Wednesday: Sequencing

Monday and Wednesday we started learning about sequencing. I started with first and last. Then on Wednesday we did first, middle, and last. I used the cards from this activity. They seemed to be the most realistic. Angel Girl did not completely understand but I figure this is a great activity to put on her activity shelf to practice throughout the month.
Learning sequence is important both in story comprehension and also in word learning. Children need to learn how to look from the 1st letter through to the last and so the concept of first middle and last is very important.

Feb 1st - 5th

Monday
o Sequence First and Last
o Itsy Bitsy Spider

Tuesday
o Intro Orange
o Jumping Stones

Wednesday
o 5 circles
o Sequencing 3 parts

Thursday
o Taste Test Orange food
o Tracing Circles

Friday
o House Tour
o Valentine Art

February Focuses

Language Arts:
Pre-reading: we are working on first and last
Pre-writing: we will still be using the Kumon tracing book to practice

Math
Counting to 5 (we are getting good to 3)
Circles (considered hearts but need to learn the basics first)

Music
Clapping rythyms
Itsy Bitsy Spider

Art
Red (Valentine's Day!!!!)
Painting

Physical/Emotional
Jumping
Getting Dressed (something she is really starting to get interested in)

Social Studies
Around the house

Science
Taste