Week of May 31 - June 4

Angel Girl (toddler)

Monday

Read "Spring is Here" (theme, pre-reading)

Have Angel Girl glue green leaves onto a brown tree (theme, art)

Tuesday

Read a yellow book. Sort out yellow items from a bag of toys. (color)

Sing "Spring is Here" (theme, music)

Wednesday

Kumon tracing book (pre-writing)

Talk about Spring, baby animals, flowers, bugs, trees (theme)

Thursday

Glue alumninum foil over star outline to make a shiny star (shape)

Use tissue paper to make a tulip (theme, art)

Friday

Matching game using bird outline, variation 1 with dots, variation 2 with shapes, variation 3 with colors, variation 4 with letters (theme, math, color, pre-reading, shapes)

Shaving Cream Art (J4F)

Sweet Boy (baby)

Book: Good night moon (read before naps and bed)

Game: Different Textures - touch and feel different textures of material

Nursery Rhyme: Baa, Baa, Black Sheep

May Week 3

Angel Girl (Toddler)

(So I kinda skipped week 2...daddy was away on a business trip and it was enough just to be together).

Monday

Thumprint Ants (activity from week 1 left over) (theme, art)

Letter A trace and letter book (theme, prereading)

Tuesday

Isty Bitsy Spider (music, movement)

Sort out blue items from a basket (color)

Wednesday

Sing the Ants Go Marching with different movements like jumping, skipping, hopping (theme, movement)

Talk about ants. Write down one of the sentences that Angel Girl says, add this to a nature journal. (theme, prewriting, science)

Thursday

Counting raisins for ants on a log up to 5 (theme, math)

Use body to make different types of circles (shape, movement)

Friday

Moving like and ant to music (theme, movement, music)

Make magnetic maze for "ant" to get to a cookie. (theme, just 4 fun)

Sweet Boy (Baby)

Reading I Love You Forever by Robert Musch

Playing Pop Goes the Weasel.

Hearing I Had a Little Nut.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom

I found this great lapbook based on the book Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. It helps children with shapes, letters, numbers and colors. Very fun, and perfect for my Letter of the Week program!
Totally Tots link
The Activity Mom Link

Activity Mom blog

The Activity Mom is a great blog that has a lot of great ideas for Alphabet learning.

Excersize A-Z

We did this today as a PE activity and the boys LOVED it. Found on The Home Teacher

Letter A

Letter Recognition - A

All week we will be singing the alphabet song, and reading alphabet books, watching alphabet movies and going on a continuous Letter A Hunt

Monday:
Sing Alphabet song
Alphabet Song on You Tube
Introduce Letter A using Starfall.com (we also talked about how the letter A was red, and had the boys find the other red letters).
A Letter Hunt in Baby Girls room (her name plaque has an A in it, her room has all the books etc). I used a letter A to help them make a match (they LOVE making matches!).

Tuesday:
Letter A Scrapbook Page: Ant thumbprints, both lower and upper case Aa (I am using the terma mommy and baby Aa, because it is easier. I realize I am setting myself up to having to work on fixing this, but for now I think it will be fine.)

Ants on a Log Snack (celery, with peanut butter and raisins), and making them. (I have to make 70 of them for church for that evening, so I figured why not kill two birds with one stone!)

Wednesday:
Story Time
Letter A coloring pages for scrapbook (ant, airplane, astronaut, apple etc)
Apple Shack up snack found on totally tots

Thursday:
Ant Size Sort
Ant Upper and Lower Case Sorting
Sing "The Ants Go Marching" using ant cutouts to count the ants and actting out the scenes.

Friday:
Sing 'Alice the Camel' and show on fingers how many humps
Playdoh alphabet cookie cutter play
Eat Alphabet Soup

Babies, Toddlers, Preschooler Oh My

So I am getting to the point where I am thinking about how to mommy school with more than 1 age group. Sweet Boy will be 1 in less than a month and I think I would like to start planning a special Sweet Boy mommy time. This will be specific time with my little boy that I hope to do specific mommy/toddler time. Mostly games and little guy specific things. So I have been looking at adapting some of the activities from Letter of the Week. I plan to use the book list for reading before nap and bedtime and then picking a nursery rhyme or game to play for Baby time. I was also thinking that many of the things that I would do with Sweet Boy would be good for Angel Girl to review and play to so I may do reviews of the previous days fun when both kids are around. How do you balance mommy schooling with more than 1 age group?

May Theme

Better late than never right....so for this month lets focus on

INSECTS!!!!

This was always a theme for May in my elementary teaching years so lets share ideas about teaching insects.

Check out this link to Confessions of a Homeschooler. It is an entire Ant themed lesson plan for the letter A. Lots of fun printables!

May Week 1

Monday

Read book about ants (I read The Life and Times of an Ant, but there are many many good fiction and nonfiction books). (reading, theme)

Sing song about Ant/insect parts. Here are some cute ones. (music, theme)

Tuesday

We went to a local museum that has a collection of leaf cutter ants and just observed and talked about it. If you don't have a local museum like this you can always just go outside and find an ant hill and sit and watch it for a while. (science, theme)

Read a blue book, then hand over some different types of blue paper and tissue squares and let Angel Girl cut and glue them on a paper to make a blue collage. (color of the month, art, reading)

Wednesday

Crawl like an ant around the room, so extentensions of this are to have a piece of food (real or play) that they can pick up and move like an ant. (movement, theme)

Kumon tracing book. (pre-writing)

Thursday

Thumbprint Ants. (theme, art)

Read a circle book. Tape a circle on the floor and do different movements around it like running, tip toeing, marching, jumping, hopping. (shape of the month, movement, reading)

Friday

Counting to 5 on finger. (math)

Mothers Day - we read a book about moms (What Mom's Can't Do), and then she got to color a card for me. (Just 4 Fun, holiday)

Month of May

I have decided to start doing themed units so this month we are working on:

Ants!

Many of my activities are ant based.

We are also working on:

Color: Blue

Shape: Circle

Letter: A

Nursery Rhyme/Song: Itsy Bitsy Spider

Math: Counting to 5