What We Read This Week

The Berenstain's B Book - which was used to introduce the letter b. We traced sandpaper letters, added it to our letter book, colored a b and found it with magnetic letters.

Tickle Monster by Josi Bissett - read and tickled as we went. Its a fun book with body parts...the only problem is it uses cutsie names for body parts
Look, Baby! Listen, Baby! Do, Baby! by True Kelley - great book that shows different babies their body parts, sounds and things they do with their bodies. It was perfect for our learning about body parts.

Red Truck by Kersten Hamilton - Fun book that features a red truck.
Black Dog Red House by Lizi Boyd - Fun book about colors. Used the cover to match items around the house that are red.

It's a New Year!

Ok so a new school year for many school aged children. So I took this opportunity to start a new year with my Angel Girl (also this is my first full time mama time so we are developing our rhythm). So this week we are:

Learning Humpty Dumpty
Refreshing our known letter knowledge (working on A this week).
Reading Goldilocks and the Three Bears (and many of its renditions)
Retelling the story with puppets (and just "reading" the story).

We have also pulled out some of our Kumon books to practice tracing and coloring (just for fun).
Looked for and made circles.
Counting out 1 object.

I look forward to teaching her how to make her bed every morning and add this to her chore chart.

How have you learned this week for the new year?

Circle Time Day 5

Memory Work: Had Angel Girl sing the first 2 vs of Twinkle Twinkle. We will need to continue to practice this song at other times but I am impressed with how quickly she has picked it up.
Story: Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear
Activity: From Before Five In A Row
Letter Work: Starfall!

Circle Time Day 4

Memory Work: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star vs. 1 and 2
Story: Goldilocks and the Three Bears
Activity: Make paper bag puppets and retell the story.
Letter Work: Trace the letter in a salt tray.

Circle Time Day 3

Memory Work: Continued with Twinkle Twinkle Little Star vs 1 and 2 with the pictures.
Story: Yellow (a board book I got in a set about colors)
Activity: Yellow Hunt, finding items around the house that were yellow.
Letter Work: Coloring sheet.

Circle Time Day 2

Memory Work: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star I made little puppets of parts of the song for Angel Girl to hold as she sang. I also introduced the 2nd verse using the puppets. HERE is a copy of all the verses of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
Story: Goldilocks and The Three Bears by Jan Brett
Activity: We retold the story using finger puppets. I mostly did the retell and had her hold up the different parts.
Letter Work: We did letter A in her letter book (which she was able to do immediately she loves that it is her name).

Circle Time Day 1

Yesterday was my first day of doing circle time with my Angel Girl. This is what we did.

Memory Work: Twinkle Twinkle Little Star (this is a known song but I would like to do more with this this week...did you know there was more than 1 verse.)
Story: The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall (this book is for introducing the letter A)
Letter Work: Using sandpaper letter introduced (ok so A is known but this will be how I introduce the other letters) letter A and had her attempt tracing...she does not have to be able to trace it correctly merely adding a tactile component to the learning of letters.
Religious: Sing I Am a Child of God

Week of June 21st - 25th

There are some changes in our life so for this summer I am planning on doing activities for Sweet Boy based on the week. Then for Angel Girl I plan to just focus on developing a "circle time" which I will post about daily (I hope). So for this week:

Sweet Boy
Story: The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Game: Peek-a-boo (yes the game where you cover your eyes and say peek-a-boo, I like to do it with blankets)
Nursery Rhyme: There was a Crooked Man

Angel Girl
Letter Aa
Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
Goldilocks and the 3 Bears
Color Yellow

Mommy Schooling Success!

I have been introducing the letters (check here for how I have been doing it). I have NO expectation of her "knowing" the letters but rather just introducing them for the first time. One letter we have focused on more than other is A because it is in her name, basically we just write her name and point out the A at the beginning. So today dh traced it in some dew on the car and Angel Girl said A!!!! Then he wrote it on a piece of paper for me to see and she KNEW it! This is huge. Letter knowledge is important but not really until a child is in Kindergarten does it become a necessary piece of knowledge. But I do think that introducing a child's first name and the letters in their name is important just because a name is knowledge a child own's and can be used in reading and writing as a valuable starting place, (many children start writing stories with just the letters in their name). So to have Angel Girl identify A the first letter in her name is Awesome! Now if she can learn how to write her name before Kindergarten then it will be a major mommy school success.

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.

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.