Preschool Week 7, Letter D, Number 4, and baby Moses

This week we focused on the letter D. Again. I actually jumped the boat when we started preschool and wanted to include letters even though the curriculum waited a couple weeks into it...you can read that here. 
But after a week or two into preschool, I realized it was better for us (and a lot easier for me) to just follow the curriculum regardless if Oliver already knows the letters, shapes etc, of what we are covering. I can add to the curriculum each week if it's just too simple for Oliver and I love doing that.
But back to the week, we focused on D, the number 4 and the Bible story of when Moses was born.
I created a page of words with "d" in them for Oliver to find and circle. He still gets frustrated with this because it's hard for  him to make small circles around the d's. But I talked him through and helped him find words that started with the "da, da, da" sound.
Also, I love this picture of our sweet boy. I can see his boyish, childhood all wrapped up in that little face. :)

We played with some play sand this week again, which is ALWAYS a huge hit.
And I also let Oliver put a puzzle together that I printed for free online. It's a puzzle that is in strips you stack, with the number at the end of the strip. You can find the numbers and line them up (1-10) and then the pictures line up too. It's hard to get them (with three year old hands) perfectly lined up, so Oliver wasn't a huge fan. But as his fine motor skills and attention span increase I think he'll like doing this one a little more :).

We read the story of baby Moses this week too, and our craft was very simple for it. I printed the free printouts from ABCJLM and used those. Oliver painted and glued the pieces down on a sheet of paper. He did good gluing them all down in the right sequence (brush, basket, baby).

I found a super cute theme packet for brown bear that I printed for free! I used the sequence bears for Oliver. He's gotten really good at figuring out sequences. And Oliver worked on matching letters (big and little) from his name on this car that I made him.

Another counting activity we did: I used the ladybugs previously and instead of matching them to leaves, I had Oliver count the dots on the lady bugs and match them to the corresponding numbers I had made on sheets of paper. (I just made numbers 1-10 with simple matching dots under them)
He really loved doing this! He counted each dot on the ladybug and on each sheet of paper. He really likes counting and matching!

We are enjoying some lovely weather here in Georgia and it's wonderful to take lunch outside and enojoy these mild fall days together. The boys love being outdoors so any chance we get is always a hit! I am so thankful to be home with the boys to be able to do this with them. Such a huge blessing!
Also, nevermind that my foot looks completely out of proportion with my body. What the?? It's what you get from self timer. ha!

Our week ended with a little paint project. I had created these balloons for Oliver to paint for his daddy. Whose big birthday was that weekend. He did fabulous painting them with much gusto. He really likes to paint shapes. Aren't they pretty in all those colors?

Week 5, days 3 and 4

Why hello!
I have been having a crazy week with two sick kids. SOOO that means I am behind on updating LAST weeks school days. I am lumping them together for the sake of my own sanity.
Here we go.
Day 3:
After routine things, we worked on some counting. Oliver can count very well, even into the 20's but he doesn't yet recognize what the 20's look like. And he gets some of the teens mixed up. I thought it would help him see the numbers both in order and out so that he can remember what they look like. Here is my attempt at capturing me in the frame with him. It's a sad attempt. I set the timer on the camera and took a few shots but Oliver was so fascinated at the blinking light on the camera that I didn't really get him counting. But it's a very real moment! ha!

We moved onto some letter sorting. I made the whole alphabet (lower and upper case) in wheels, and made a car for him to put the wheels on. Cute concept but once it was all done, I realized it was WAY too much for him to sort through. A wee bit overwhelming. Thanks for that idea Pinterest.
Well, it's not a Pinterest fault.
I think the thing about some pins is that they don't specify age. And you have to take into account where your child is and what they know at their age. I switched it out (when I realized it was even overwhelming me) and only pulled the letters in his name. We made it into a memory game at that point and I had him flip over the letters to find their matches (lower with upper), then we put them into his name. A better plan!

Day 4:
Our final day for the week.
It was a low key day for sure. Oliver started the day with some play at the table (see the friends he brought along? I do believe these are Aleksandr's toys). We did our verse together, and read a book about words, and I had Oliver tell me what words started with the letter B. He then did some painting with the letter B. Meanwhile Aleksandr was enjoying his new found skill of balancing on the the choo choo train. Silly boy! This one is a wild one for sure!
And that ended our week!

Preschool Day 5

Can you hear it? The jubilant shouts coming from this direction?
We made it through a whole week! Perseverance!
Really, it wasn't that rough. It was fun, and I know Oliver enjoyed it as much as me!
Here is what we did to wrap up the week.
{Also, side note, the time we have together goes so fast. I was surprised at how quickly the morning time flew by, and I had intentions of doing some of the activities in the afternoon, once nap is done, both boys are up and dinner time creeps up, we just run out of time to do more. But that's okay too. I just think I'd like to make more time to review throughout the day what we are covering. At least a little. Or limit what we learn even more, keeping it even simpler. We'll see as we go along. I'm taking cues from Oliver as to how much is too much, and what we need to slow down and focus on. (like the ladybug counting thing. needed to back that train up. and we did)}

Okay, so here we go, day five. I was inspired the night before while I was thinking through day 4 of creation. The sun, moon and stars. I had a bag of glow in the dark stars and moons tucked away as a special reward from Oliver's potty training days. Well, Oliver took to potty training SO FAST, with NO PROBLEMS, I never needed them. Not true. I just forgot about them until that very night.
So I had the notion to hang them down from the ceiling over his seat, so he would see them first thing in the morning. He gets SO excited when there is something special out just for him. And when he came down for breakfast, I carried him down the hall and told him quietly that there was something special just for him. He looked up and said with big eyes "Ooo, what is it?" He was excited to see them! And I told him what day of creation they were, what God made and continued to ask him again, while pointing to them to help him remember.
So for day 4 of creation we painted on the illustrated paper I made, and Oliver chose his paints. Which turned into a big massive blackout on that paper, but that's okay too. Also, there was time to start painting himself. (I actually didn't realize he'd started this, and when I did, I thought well at least it's watercolor!)  I also took a shot of him doing our weather on the calendar. He loves this part so much!
We didn't do much more on this day aside from our routine things. We needed to run to the store and start on a major checklist for his little brother's party the next day. Baby brother turning one is a big deal. Well any birthday is a big deal! So our school week ended pretty low key. A great week though, and after celebrating baby brother on Saturday, church on Sunday and a nice needed nap, I was ready to plan for the new week!
Are we really doing schooling? In our home? Craziness!

Preschool Day 3

Okay day 3. Getting even more into routine now. Oliver knew right where to go when we started our school time and was just as excited to get started as he was the past couple days. Yah! We went right into our routine items (weather, calendar, prayer, verse, song) and then went to the first activity. Focusing on the number zero again, Oliver practiced with the dry erase marker. He is doing great making circles, I just keep asking him what number it is to help him remember it's not the letter "o" but the number zero. Kind of tough since they look the same. We also worked on day 3 of creation which is the trees and plants. While my intentions were to have him paint it, I changed my mind and chose something more textural. I tore up some different colored tissue paper (for grasses and flowers) and some brown construction paper (for trees, and sticks). He did great with the glue bottle today, and while there may have been some ginormous piles of glue on the paper, he got the motion down. Squeezing, stopping, putting paper on it, and tap, tap, tapping the paper. 

We then moved onto working on the letter D. This is something I added in. The curriculum doesn't introduce letters until week 3, and I was feeling ambitious and creative the night before while prepping and came up with this game for Oliver. Because he already knows all his letters (smart boy!) knowing what each one says is a brand new thing he has yet to get down. Next step to reading! So, I cut out some D's in some yellow construction paper (great idea-keep LOTS of construction paper on hand for teaching, crafts and learning play!), gathered up a few things that started with a D and put a yellow D next to each one. I didn't have a lot of items around but Oliver had fun searching for the yellow D's next to (or on, taped on a door). I was hoping that finding the D on the item a D started with would help him to visually lock it in his mind. "So door starts with what letter?" 

(I have to admit that I didn't keep up with follow through on this, as I decided to hold off on letters at the end of the week, I felt we were covering enough just sticking to the curriculum, and didn't need to rush as we'd be there soon enough in week 3. But it's still a fun idea I plan to use when we get in letters. Will update if it helps him remember!) 

We wrapped up our school time with a little watercolor painting. Working on colors here, again this information is not new to Oliver, he already knows his colors, but we'll keep on with basics to start and move into color theory (my hopes anyways) later. This ice cream cone project is in ABCJLM. You cut out ice cream scoops and a cone (I also did a cherry, um, over achiever here) and work your way through building the layers of colors on each scoop. I let Oliver paint the cone, and I think the cherry. He amazed me at his precision. I've never given him a shape to paint and he was very thorough in completely covering the entire shape with paint, rather than just making big strokes. Great job Oliver!