Monday, March 29, 2010

Easter Activities

I am focusing on Easter Activities this week so that the kids get more familiar with it.

FHE tonight will be the Easter Story from the Behold Your Little Ones Nursery Manual (Lesson 29)
Throughout the week we will be doing some of these activites:


We will also be reading books about Easter.
For our Easter Egg Hunt the kids were assigned a color. Thing 1 had green, Thing 2 had Blue, Little Princess had Yellow. The boys (thing 1 and thing 2) were given a paper egg of their assigned color. Thing 2 really enjoyed putting his paper egg next to the eggs he found to see if they matched. He was even more excited when they did match and he could put the egg in his basket. I think this really helped the kids be able to know which color was theirs and work on matching. It helped their egg searching be successful.

Got any ideas for teaching the meaning of Easter, traditions, or activities for your children?

Home Grown Hearts

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Friday, March 26, 2010

Easter Crafts

DLTK's Site is a favorite resource for fun crafty activities to do with my kids. They have a ton of great ideas. This weekend we are having an early Easter Celebration with the grandparents and some of the cousins (wish you were here....). I decided to find some fun easterish activities to do with the boys to get them introduced to the idea of Easter Bunnies and egg hunting. I found templates on the DLTK site for an Easter Egg Mosaic and a bunny hat. So, I got out the craft supplies and we made some Easter crafts!!
We first did the Easter Hats. I printed out the ears template and let the boys color them. Then they helped me cut them out and I let the one waiting continue to color their ears. They did a much better job with coloring when they were cut. Then I taped two halves of a piece of white card stock together and let them color that. Then I taped the ears onto the hat, and taped the hat around their head. They love their bunny ears.
Next we did the Easter Egg Mosaics. First I cut the egg template out. Then, I pre cut strips of colored card stock for the boys to cut from. We took turns choosing a color and then cutting 'squares' out of it (reinforcing yesterday's learning). Of course not all were squares but this is only their third time using scissors. I helped them and said open, close, open, close.
(forgive the clothes, hair and makeup less face...., oh and the mostly naked children....)
Thing 1 opened his mouth along with the scissors each time I said open :)
Thing 2 got a very concentrated look on his face.
I let him try to open and close the scissors by himself and was a little afraid of loosing some fingers....thus the look of fear on my face. No worries, no one was harmed while using the scissors ;)
After cutting their 'squares' out I covered the egg with glue stick. Then they could just stick their 'squares' on. It was nice to have one gluing while the other cut, keeping them both happy and occupied. After they were all finished I put three strips of clear packing tape over their egg to keep the pieces on.
Here are the proud boys with their completed projects!!
(Thing 1 was a little concerned that his 'squares' kept falling off, but some packing tape solved the problem and now I don't have to worry about their little sister finding a bunch of 'squares' to put in her mouth....)
I think this was a very fun, successful project. I will be reading them some stories about Easter, and Christ and talking more about the Easter Bunny this next week.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Squares

Today we learned about squares. I checked out a video from the library that taught shapes (along with colors, and some numbers but my focus was for the shapes). I also checked out a book on each of the shapes- triangle, square, circle. We have previously talked about shapes and they know a heart and star, and Thing 2 can sometimes identify triangles, squares and circles. During an hour and a half drive we watched the shapes video twice. The boys seemed to enjoy it (although for an adult it can get a little annoying ;). After we got home we read the square book -'Squares: seeing squares all around us' by Sarah L. Schuette. The boys enjoyed finding the squares in the book and I think it helped them to be able to find the squares in everyday objects. After the story we got out our special finder glasses (found in the dollar bins at Michaels) and we went on a square hunt! We went to every different room in the house to find squares.



I was really impressed by some of the things they found. Thing 1 found the squares on our tile floor, Thing 2 found the squares on the washer and dryer. It was a lot of fun. After our square hunt I printed out a square picture found on this website. I also tried to get them to trace an outline of a square but we aren't there yet. I plan to continue to help the boys identify squares all around. I am not sure if I will introduce circles tomorrow, or if we will just continue with learning about squares until we hit mastery.

Monday, March 22, 2010

The Home Teacher

Found this blog thehometeacher.blogspot.com and am in love with it!!!!

Saturday, March 20, 2010

Week of March 22nd - 26th

• Monday
Dd name sound
Mary Had a Little Lamb

• Tuesday
Glitter Stars
Obstacle course

• Wednesday
Counting Groups of 10
Letter Book

• Thursday
Scratch and Sniff Art
Star stamps

• Friday
Going on a trip game
Field Trip to local fire/police station

Friday, March 19, 2010

Thursday: Sniff Test

So I got this idea from Chasing Cheerios...basically I get really smelling things and put them on cotton balls and into jars...then we do sniff testing to decide what we like and also did a matching game where we match the smell to the original.

Thursday, March 18, 2010

Week of March 15th - 19th

• Monday
Cc name sound
Mary Had a Little Lamb

• Tuesday
Tissue Paper Star
Walk a Balance Beam (playground)

• Wednesday
Stringing 10 beads
Letter C book

• Thursday
Sniff Test
Star Hunt

• Friday
Community places
Lemon bars

Saturday, March 13, 2010

Wednesday: 10 Little Fingers

1 Little, 2 Little, 3 Little Fingers
4 Little, 5 Little, 6 Little Fingers
7 Little, 8 Little, 9 Little Fingers
10 Little Fingers on Your Hands

You can substitute with pretty much anything such as hearts for Valentine's Day or different animals.

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

March 8th - March 12th

Yes I know this is late :)
• Monday
Bb name sound
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

• Tuesday
Green hunt
Curvy tape line

• Wednesday
10 Little Fingers (thinking about switching this with last weeks lesson when I do this with Sweet Boy)
Letter B book

• Thursday
Make lemonade (sweet and sour smells)
Green Painting

• Friday
Places we go
Bake bread

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Thursday: Playdough

I made some scented playdough for Angel Girl on Thursday. Here is the recipe or you could try this recipe made with kool aid. Angel Girl enjoyed being able to smell the playdough and then we played with it cutting out different shapes with cookie cutters including the star shape. As long as it is in a air tight container it can last for a couple of weeks which Angel Girl enjoys (and at writing she has already chosen to play with it again from her choice shelf).

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Wednesday: Letter Book

The letter book is a creation of an ABC book. The important part is to use picture of things that Angel Girl knows. This includes pictures of toys she plays with and other items from around her environment. The letter will be written in big letters on the left page and 1 picture on the right. Each week we will add a letter and a picture. Again this is not mastery. This is the creation of a resource that Angel Girl can use through out our Mommy Schooling years.

Wednesday: 10 stars

Angel Girl LOVES stickers and putting them on paper. So I had her put 10 star stickers on a piece of paper and we counted them. She is able to verbally count to 10 so I am trying to introduce the concept of 1 to 1 in counting. So we practiced touching and counting to 10. She was not very strong at touching 1 at a time or even touching all of them but she was counting to 10 and she was watching me touch and say.

Thursday, March 4, 2010

Tuesday: Intro star

So it turns out star is one shape that Angel Girl knows well. So we just colored a star and glued it onto some construction paper. The original idea was to count the points and find it in our shape book (a board book I found cheap).

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Monday: Intro A letter and sound

Picking the first letter to introduce was easy. A because that is the first letter in Angel Girl's name. To introduce the letter I cute it out of sandpaper and glued it to an index card. I plan to use these index cards over the next couple of years. Remember this is an introduction there is no expectation of mastery or even really acknowledgement. This is merely to start the process of recognition. So I helped her trace the letter and said the letter name. I also linked it to her name. This is going to be the process for all of the letter introductions.
1) Letter will be cut out of sandpaper and mounted on an index card.
2) Help trace the letter and say letter name.
3) Link to a known word or object (object is always better they can see and touch it)
Remember at 2-3 years of age there is no expectation of mastery. This is merely and introduction.