New and Different

I am now mommy schooling a child with special needs...we kind of knew that from the beginning but now it is official.  She is on meds and getting services to help her and now I am finding we are able to learn more effectively.  So we are kind of starting over...or rather reviewing what we have done to see what stuck and what did not.  We are using the help of a great website called abcmouse.com.  They are an interactive site that lets kids play while learning. 
So I use what they are doing as the jumping off point for the rest of our week...so this week we did:
Memory Work: Little Boy Blue
Letter Work: Letter A (and she totally got it which surprised me)
Religious Work: Reverence
Read Alouds: Jesse Bear, What Will You Wear using ideas from Homeschoolshares and Before Five in a Row
Jesse Bear is going to be our book for a couple of weeks while we do the homeschool share lapbook and other fun activities with it.

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

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.

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