B is for...

Late as usual...

After we finished the letter A we went to the letter B for a week.

I started with introducing the letter by saying the name and showing her the upper case and lower case letters. Sounding it out and naming a few words she knows that starts with the letter B.

( she wanted to use the chalk board instead of the white board. This Melissa & Doug easel is awesome, I'm just not a huge fan of the chalk part. I don't like how it feels. )

Haydee coincidentally found some foam building block shapes in the bottom of a box in the tv room that week. It went perfect for the letter B week because she learned about building (a letter B word).

( here she told me she built a train and a house) 

I printed out the letter B and drew circles inside the letter. She would grab the pom poms and place them inside the circles. This is good for fine motor skills. She really gets excited when we use the pom poms and she counts each one as she places it. Then I let her color the letter and she decided to color each circle a different color.

I saw a worksheet  online that looked like a word search but instead of words it was to find the letter Bb. So since I've been wasting soo much ink (and ink is supper expensive) I decided to just do something similar on the white board. I helped her by writing the letter Bb at the top so she knew what she was looking for. She did awesome.

I actually ended up printing a letter B search later on that week (lol).. she used her handy dandy dot markers and dotted away at the lower and uppper case b's..she dotted a 'd' and a 'q' and I tried to explain to her that those were different. This is were I got the worksheet from.

I told her to try lacing the letter with the pack I got her at the teacher store but shes still not really into it. She'll do one or two holes, pull the string then want to take it all out. She gets more excited on taking out the shoe lace then actually sticking it around all the holes.

Our capital B craft was a bumble bee. I cut out the letter B, stripes, and wings from construction paper. I placed it all together without gluing it and showed her what we were making. I took it all apart and let her glue and place each piece together again. As you can see the stripes aren't perfect haha. After it was done we ran around the room buzzing like bumble bees.

I got our lower case b craft from some website that I cant remember.. They incorporated some coffee filter craft that I've seen a lot online and I've been wanting to try it out. Your supposed to color the filter and then spray with water and all the colors merge to one ending with a really pretty result. It didnt work at alll how I expected it to. Not sure if it was the markers we used or if she didnt color it enough but, spraying the water hardly did anything. I helped her color most of the filter and the letter because she would only color small bits. I found an empty spray bottle but it was too hard for her to press. So, basically this craft was a total bust...but atleast the end result came out somewhat cute.

Sometimes I forget that Haydee is onlyy 2 years old. Shes soo smart that I get carried away and expect so much from her. I really just need to remember that whats important right now is to make learning fun!!..and not stressful, especially for her.

Library this week was pretty interesting. My mom played hooky at work that day and came with us. Haydee is improving, shes getting a little farther away from me and closer to the teacher and kids. There was a time me and my mom felt soo bad for her (it was actually a little funny). The teacher was reading a poem while holding a stuffed animal. All the kids were running up to touch it and she looked at me to see if I approved, which of course, I did. She slowllllyyy went up (but I mean, realllyy slow, taking teeny weeny steps). Walking towards the front of the room she came to a stop and looked at me (with a face that I cant even describe). There was a little girl laying across the floor blocking her way. She was able to overcome the obstacle and walked around the little girl again in teeny tiny steps finally reaching the teacher. The other kids were all being aggressive to be able to reach the toy...and then there was haydee, on the side, looking at me us and the teacher waiting patiently to be able to touch it. I kept telling her to go and touch it. That it was okay. to just raise her hand and get in there!...She finally did! Me and my mom got soo happy.

It might seem silly to think that I was so happy for something so little but, I feel like that was a big step for her. She is a shy girl with people she doesn't know and doing something our of your comfort zone is always a good thing!

I also want to add...nothing to do with the letter of the week but..Haydee drew her first smiley face! I made a circle with dotted lines and she traced it. Then she told me she wanted to draw a smiley face so I just told her all the parts and she did it. All by herself without me telling her where they go and how to do it. My little smarty pants!

( idk if its just me because I'm her mama but, they really do look like smiley faces to me. They have eyes, a nose, a mouth, ears, and one has "crazy hair" haha

 Until next time,

Your favorite Mommy! =]

A is for...

I decided I wanted to do some type of “home school” with Haydee. She’s a pretty smart cookie but I wanted to get into things a little more. Her letters and numbers would be the main target. I also wanted to add some fine motor skills since hers aren’t the best.

I went on to look for ideas on pinterest. I even made 2 different boards for them, “Alphabets” and “my little genius”. Anyone who has a pinterst knows that it can be suppper overwhelming. There’s so many great ideas on there but sometimes its just too much. I end up pinning everything and doing nothing. I was determined, so I got a few things I liked and went to work.

I wasn’t sure with what letter to start her with since she knows a lot of them but I decided I would just start from the beginning and go in order doing 1 letter a week and see how it goes from there.

I introduced her to the letter Aa (both upper and lower case). I wrote it down on our white board so she can see it next to our index card that I put up. I grabbed her hand and traced the letter Aa with my hand then let her do it by herself. I think she did pretty good for not tracing anything before.

I printed out the letter A and had her put little pom poms in the circles I made inside the letter (not sure if you can see my penciled in circles?). Ive seen kids use some tiny tweezers to do this for better fine motor skills but I haven’t found some yet. I then just let her color it in whatever color she wanted.

I found this worksheet - here - your supposed to find the specific letter. Its like a word search for toddlers (only its not words..) She actually did a lot better than I thought. I bought those dot markers just for this activity! I’ve seen them around for a while and have been waiting for an excuse to buy them haha..

I also bought this little container that has all the letters and numbers with holes in them so you can lace through a shoelace (I bought quite a few things for this “home school” project actually..not sure if it was a good idea but now that just means I havee to keep up with it! lol)

This website actually has a bunchhh of neat stuff for her to learn through play. One of them was matching the amount of apple seeds to the actual number. I first tried this with haydee and since she doesn’t really know her numbers she didn’t understand it. I kept trying to play with her during the week and she didn’t want anything to do with it. (she doesn’t like to be wrong). I changed it up a bit and printed an extra set of just the pictures of the apples with the seeds. I then told her to match them together and count how many seeds were in each. She did great!

 

From some teacher website - here - I found a game with the matching apple theme. You have to match the upper and lower case Aa letters to the correct buckets. This was too easy for her I think. She did it in seconds!

We also did letter crafts. A for alligator. a for apple.

For the alligator, I cut up green construction paper squares and glued the backs. I had her put them on the letter. At first she didn’t get that she was supposed to go inside the lines, but I helped. Same with the teeth, but by the time she did one row she started getting bored and I had to finish. I let her color the eyes and glue them on to the letter.

For the lower case a I wanted her to paint with a real apple (Ive seen it done a few times), but it was too big for her to grab so I gave up on it. What a waste of an apple.. We then went on to using the paintbrush, which that didn’t last too long either. She colored the letter a, stem, leaf, and seeds. I glued them together.

We also went to the library! Haydee lovess to be read too. I was actually really happy because in circle time while the lady was reading to the kids Haydee wanted to leave from sitting next to me to go sit on the floor with the other kids. If you know my daughter she isn’t one to go and do stuff by herself. She’s alwaysss with me (or someone she knows). So I think that’s a pretty major step from being a bit more independent. Haydee got her very first library card, which is totally awesome and princess themed. Who knew that having a library card can be soo cool!? We also got some books for next week…

We had soo much fun keeping busy and not being lazy this week, I hope I can stick to it!

Until next time,
Your favorite Mommy! =]

Haydee's TWO!

Happy New Years!!...you know, I’m only 13 days late. Not too bad.

Another year has passed by literally a blink of an eye. I’m either getting old or I’m having way too much fun with my munchkin to notice the time go by. Hoping it’s the later.

Haydee is soo big already. The “big” T-W-O…more commonly known as the “terrible twos”. I never notice how big she’s gotten until I look at old pictures and realize how much she’s changed. Mostly that she has hair now! She used to be sooo bald and for what seemed like forever but now I look at her and she has a full head of CURLY hair. I never would of thought my daughter would have curly hair.. I had pin straight hair when I was little and now I try to curl it and it wont even last me an hour. It could be that I just suck at doing anything girly though..

I love looking back on old pictures and reminiscing on old memories. I have a horrible memory so I count on them. I don’t even remember what I ate for lunch yesterday. No, seriously, I don’t. Sometimes pictures aren’t enough though and that’s why I like writing on this blog. Which I should be writing on it more often but, I’m lazy and rather just lay down and watch shows during nap time.

So anyways, instead of my blabbing (or typing) away ill get to the point and write Haydee’s 2^nd year update on what she knows and is into.
-She knows all her shapes
-Can count to 11
-Can draw somewhat of a circle
-Can sing her abc’s and her “elemeno” is hilarious. She can also identify most of her letters.
-She knows all her princess’s and the known Disney characters. Yeup, we are Disney fans!
-She loves to do flips on the bed and walk on the “beam”/curb when we are out.
-Loves to do puzzles which is very frustrating to watch since she grabs and puts the pieces in their spot extremely slow
-Icecream. That word is spelled out in my house because once she hears it she goes crazy. Her favorite is chocolate and coffee (don’t ask).
-Cookies, another spelled out word in the house or anywhere we go. She absolutely loves them. The true cookie monster.
-Hide n seek is a favorite game of hers. Although, she’s not the best player since she’ll end up telling you where she’s hiding at its really funny to watch.
-She lovess to sing! I think she knows more songs then I do. A song for each Disney princess, a bunch of nursery rhyme songs, etc. Santa brought her a microphone this Christmas and she loves it! Basically eating the microphone as she sings (or screams) into it so you can barely understand her but you cant help but keep listening.
-Talking up a storm. Literally, sometimes this little girl does not just shut up for a few.

Those are just a few things I quickly remembered..

Until next time,
Your favorite Mommy! =]