Tuesday, February 25, 2014

C is for...

As usuall it's always good to start the week by introducing the letter you will be teaching. This week is letter C. This letter is actually kind of confusing to teach I think. The letter has 2 different sounds. A hard and soft sound. The hard C sounds like the letter K and the soft C sounds like the letter S.

I showed her the capital and lower case which are basically the same. I just told her one was the baby and one is big like mama. She traced the letter a few times and I showed her the sound of the hard C. Gave her examples like cat, car, cookie etc.


Printed out letter C word search from here ..she really loves using those dot markers.


I printed out a letter C dot sheet from here and let her mark it with the dot markers...I stilll havnt found toddler tweezers so I gave her my tweezers and told her to grab the pom poms and place them in the circles. This is really good fine motor skills. Sometimes it was a little hard for her but she got the hang of it..or just cheated a little since the tweezers are so pinchy that you didn't even need to squeeze to pick up the poms haha.
Then I found some stickers laying around and had her put a sticker on each circle...it got so frustrating to me sometimes seeing her struggle to put a sticker on the paper with her little chunky fingers. But she did great! Didn't help her once.

For our craft (which we only did one..I got lazy) I decided to do a caterpillar. To match the lovely book, The Very Hungry Caterpillar that we rented from the library. I just got a paper and drew circles in the shape of the letter C. Cut out pieces of construction paper to match the caterpillar and even added some foods. I showed her which ones the caterpillar ate from the book and let her pick which ones she wanted me to do....she glued them with my help and placed them on the circles and put the food right next to his mouth because he was 'very hungry' =]


I picked this game, of many, from the lovely homeschooler I always use..to practice with counting. It goes up to 10 but I only used up to 5. I put down the paper in front of her and showed her the caterpillars. I counted with her out loud then told her she needed to put the right amount of poms on them. Since she's only two (and I usually forget that) she had no idea what I'm talking about and just put a pom on each circle of the caterpillar (which is still good I guess). I showed her that the first caterpillar only had 1 pom because it has the number 1 on it. She immediately got it. Soo smart my little munchkin!


This week was the last week for our great library adventure for a while. We've been going to the coral gables library and they are stopping the toddler class for a baby class until April. Pretty bummed out about it but, hopefully I can find another good one around me. She stood up with the kids and sang "where is thumbkin" (her fav library song!) and also did the "hokey pokey" dance! It was awesome. Bellow is only a picture but a little clip of the video is on my insta here



Also played another caterpillar counting game. I would put the number at the top corner and she would have to put the right amount of caterpillars on the leaf. Trying to get more into counting lately since she basically already knows the whole alphabet. After doing it a couple times I switched it up by me adding the caterpillars on the leaf and letting her choose the right number. She would slowllyy put her finger on the answer she thought it was and would look up at me to see what I would say..shes just tooo cute! Love that little monster!


Until next time,
Your favorite Mommy! =]

Monday, February 17, 2014

V Day Activites

Its Valentines day this week and I came up with a few activities to do with Ms. Haydee.

I started doing my service hours at the school my aunt teaches at and she told me to help her come up with a valentines day craft for her kindergarteners. We decided on having them glue construction paper pieces together that would end up making a heart. Then they would write what they thought a friend was on the inside of the paper. So the day before (since I’m such a procrastinator) I cut a bunch of tiny construction paper pieces in all the colors. I had haydee try it out first. She glued pieces on the heart outlined paper and placed them on the paper. I of course had to help her to stay inside the lines. On the inside I typed up a little note and had her trace it. Since it was small I helped her. 


I saw a valentine pattern using the little candy hearts but, instead I used valentine colored M&Ms since I would be using them to make our cookies (keep reading). I cut up construction paper in pink, red and white circle pieces to match the M&Ms and glued them in a pattern. I told her she needed to guess what color came next and placed a bunch of the different colored M&Ms next to the paper. At first she would put the same color that was next to it. I then started singing her the pattern like: “RED RED pink RED RED pink”…”pink red WHITE pink red”… I’m totally guessing that your able to sing it like me when I write it like that haha… Anyways, when we would say it out loud together she would tell me the right color that belonged next but not always pick the right one. Practiced a few more times then she was able to understand it… I want to do more pattern activities with her. I gatta remember that.


 On valentines morning I made some yummy pancakes. Made a regular box of pancake mix and separated the batter into two. Coloring the smaller half with pink food coloring. She loved how they came out.


Later on that day we made some yummy Vday cookies! I put all the ingredients on separate little bowls on our table and had her sit on top as well. She put in the butter pieces, poured all the dry ingredients and added the M&Ms and chocolate chips. Eating a few for herself. I made a little 15s video that I put up on Insta that I will add here also. She really enjoyed cooking and helping me and seeing how they came out at the end.


Until next time,
Your favorite Mommy! =]