Still Learning

We are still doing LHTH, but we have slowed down quite a bit since I have started schooling the big kids also.  This week, I plan to get back into doing LHTH M,W,F with Wiggles.

  

This is some horrible picture taking on my part.  Here Wiggles is jumping to “Rachel”.  We are learning about Isaac and his sons.  What you can’t see is the strip of masking tape that he was jumping from to his stuffed animal that was Rachel.  Then we marked his jumps and compared them shorter, farther, and closest.  As I said, horrible picture taking skills. 

Here he is reading his Bible.  He always wants to read it himself after we are through.

Here he is doing tiny pom poms through the straw hole of a Cane’s cup.

Pouring kidney beans from the bucket to the measuring cup.

   

I’ll just be honest.  I don’t know what he is working on here.  He is having snack and working on one of his sheets while watching Word World.

This is one of his extras.  BTW, he shares a room with big brother (my 2 yr old does not have this many game systems).  He does have a Little Leaps Learning System which is great.  Here he is playing Thomas with some help from Big Sis.  These aren’t video games and you (or one of your bigger kids) do have to help your child with it.

http://www.leapfrog.com/en/families/little_leaps/little_leaps_learning/lilps.html

Leap Frog, unfortunately, has discontinued these.  They are much better than Vsmile baby.  You can still find them on Ebay for a good price with the dvd’s. 

Throw Away Thursday

  

Here Wiggles is tracing his Sandpaper Letters.  He is doing super well at tracing and saying the sound of the letter.  I think we are about ready to do some corn meal writing during review week with LHTH.

I had to put this one in.  We didn’t have a Children’s Bible reading in our lesson plan for LHTH today, but I had already pulled the book from the shelf when gathering what I needed.  Wiggles didn’t want me to put it up even though we didn’t “need” it today.  He wanted Abraham as he tried to get the book.  So I handed it to him.  We have been reading about Abraham in it and he sat down and started to read it to me.  I couldn’t make out much but all the men in the pictures were Abraham as he “read” to me.

Here is Wiggles using his Dr. Suess Alphabet cards.  I love these.  They are set up like the book.  Big A Little A What begins with A.  Alligator with a Dr. Suess pic of an alligator.  Also, they are tactile.  Similar to the way I teach him with the sandpaper letters. 

 

http://www.toysrus.com/product/index.jsp?productId=3239861

I love the Dr. Suess beginner cards.  They have shapes, numbers, opposites.  Lots and lots to choose from and they are fun.  They have teaching ideas included.  So far I have the alphabet and shapes but plan on getting more.

Terrific Tuesday

I don’t know how many Tuesdays at Tinytown we will be having from now on out.  It was very fun, but I think we will be taking an extended break from there. 

Now on to Tot School!

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This is a really neat puzzle game for toddlers.  I have the Classic Pooh hide & seek game.  I found it on sale at Target.  I can’t find it on their web site now, but Toys R Us has several different ones including Disney Princesses.  Wiggles really enjoys this.  You can click on the picture to follow a link to Toys R Us and the product.  It is recommended for ages 18 months-3 years.

This picture is actually from the weekend, but I thought I would throw it in.  Wiggles and Big Sisters were coloring on the driveway.

This week:

LHTH-Letter C, Number 3, God Blesses Abraham

Abeka-Letter C, Number 3, Finger play Clap with Me

Baby Signs-Mealtime Signs

I wanted to share our finger play for this week for Abeka.  It is really cute and the little ones genuinely join in pretty quickly.

Clap with Me

Clap with me. 1,2,3

Clap, clap, clap, just like me.

(Clap hands)

Shake with me. 1,2,3

Shake, shake, shake, just like me.

(Shake body)

Roll with me. 1,2,3

Roll, roll, roll, just like me.

(Roll hands one over the other.)

Snap with me. 1,2,3

Snap, snap, snap, just like me.

(Snap fingers)

Fold with me. 1,2,3

Fold, fold, fold, just like me.

(Fold hands and lay them in lap.)

 

First we did our Wiki Stiks for the letter C.  I gave no instruction since this is our 3rd letter and her did pretty good on his own.

We are cutting from our Let’s Cut Paper! Kumon First Steps Workbook.  He had to cut down the middle (still working on cutting skills…he wants to use both hands for the scissors) then match the front to the back of the car.

This was our Cc page for Abeka today.  You had to fingerprint paint the C.  He did really well and we didn’t even get messy!!

Here, he is working on his concept cards for Baby Signs.  I wanted to get a picture of him signing so badly, but every time I would get the camera and snap the picture it would always be just after he was finishing the sign.  Baby signs is really great at building vocabulary and limiting frustrations in a toddler.  I would recommend it to anyone with an infant or toddler. 

Even though he is talking more and more…there are times when his emotions and temperament get in the way of his vocalizing what he wants or needs.  Signs can be such a great benefit to the child and the parent.

Baby Signs

They also have a potty learning program to help train your child.  I can’t recommend this enough.

Baby Signs Potty Training

Wiggles watching the Potty Train video by Baby Signs.  Here he is getting on the Potty Train (choo choo).

We were supposed to color the cups, but Wiggles was having none of it so instead I numbered them and we counted a few times to end our Tot School day.

Throw away Thursdays

My house is a disaster area. Literally, it is a pig sty. I let Wiggle Worm work on several things while I did dishes. I still have to sweep and mop, but plan to wait until tonight when no little ones will dirty it right back up.

Okay, I just had to put this old pic of big brother Bubba doing this same exercise when he was 3…he is 6 now. They are 3 part cards for colors.

Here is Wiggle Worm being introduced to them for the first time! He did really well. I think I will start out with just the primary colors next time though. We got confused with orange and red and blue and purple. So we might start out with just three and work up.

This is an up close so you can see the exercise. The one card has the color and name of the color. The tot then matches the color to the color/name card.

I originally downloaded this file from childcareland.com. I can't find it in the free printables anymore. I am going to email and see if I can get a link to post here if anyone else wants to use this file too. I laminate mine. This exercise grows also b/c I have a set of cards that has a blank part at the top with the word for the color at the bottom and the child matches the color part to the word (showing they can read the color name and match it with the color without the control). I will take a picture of it soon. I will have my 6 year old do this as color words are part of his sight words.

I borrowed this idea from 1+1+1=1. I used a Cane’s kid’s drink cup and Wiggle Worm put those tiny pom poms through the straw hole. This lasted a while.

Close up of him pushing the pom pom through the hole.

This is big Bubba (at 3) doing his Melissa and Doug stacker. Alas, this stacker did not survive to be passed on to Wiggle Worm. I did buy a M&D round rainbow stacker the other day and wanted to get a pic of Wiggle Worm doing it to put with this pic in the post, but Wiggle Worm would not oblige me. Maybe I will get the pic and edit this post.

I am going to go through big Bubba’s pics from toddlerhood and glean ideas from them (insert evil laugh here). I had made so many Montessori style 3 part cards and have most of them laminated. I think it is time I pull them out and Wiggle Worm is introduced to them.

Wacky Wednesdays

We had a pretty decent Wednesday.  We did our LHTH today and it went really well after I found some masking tape.  I bought some yesterday when I bought the construction paper.  The house had eaten the first tape I used with the A.  Well, today I couldn’t find the new tape and after searching like crazy…I found the first missing tape but not the new tape…Oh well, at least I have tape.

We put blocks all around our B.

Gluing our rainbow.

Our finished rainbow.

Abeka 2 Worksheet.

Coloring.

Our new Melissa and Doug triangle crayons in their case.  I love these crayons.  They have a great case with built in flip top lid.  They are sturdier than the crayola triangle crayons too.  Our crayola ones didn’t survive the day before Wiggle Worm had broken half of them.  The M&D ones are very sturdy and hold up to a toddler’s grip and use. 

We learned about when the flood ended and Noah came off the ark with the animals.  We learned that God gave us rainbows as a sign that he would never cover the earth with water again. 

We made a rainbow with torn up colored construction paper that we glued onto a piece of black construction paper.  We are now using Elmer’s disappearing purple school glue sticks.  I love these.  It is so much easier and Wiggle Worm can actually do the glue!  Regular glue in a bottle was too hard for him right now and too much of a battle to accomplish anything.

We continued our exploration of the letter B.  I love the masking tape on the floor with the letters.  Although B was a bit tricky for me to make well.  B will stay on the floor until next week when C is introduced.

We reenacted Noah coming off the boat and it was fun.  I pretended to be animals and tried to encourage Wiggle Worm to do the same.  Alas, Wiggle Worm wanted to ride piggy back on all the animals.  It was a fun and energetic exercise.

We counted to 2 with our Abeka worksheet.  Wiggle Worm colored with his new crayons.

Tuesdays at Tinytown

I am trying something new and using Windows Live Writer to write, preview, and publish my post.  I am not sure if I will like this more or less than using bloggers dashboard.

We had a wonderful time at Tinytown and Wiggle Worm did the cutest thing.  The little girl we visit with up there (she is almost 3) and Wiggle Worm held hands while climbing the slides and slid down together.  It was adorable.  I tried to get a picture of this, but they were too busy going up and down the slides.

After Tinytown, we went to a local education store and picked up some new Melissa and Doug products.  We got the fish colors puzzle which he has already played with and loves as well as the stacker.

Things I like about Windows Live Writer

• What you see is what you get!  For real!
• Picture upload is so much faster
• Picture is put where I am typing not up at the top of the post each time
• All the neat different plug-ins that you can use (except attach files)

Things I dislike about Windows Live Writer

• I still can’t attach files (not really WLW’s fault this is a serious blogger issue)
• ….still thinking can’t find anything I hate

Fabulous Fridays (a few days late)

We did our LHTH work this morning and all was fun. It called for us to say in different voices...I'm mad, I'm sad, I'm glad...and so on with different emotions. We were learning about Cain and Abel. I brought out an emotion exercise that really helped us to visualize and understand emotional faces to go along with my different exclamations.

Wiggle Worm really liked this exercise and had fun making the scared face as well as the surprised face.Here is the exercise up close and below is an up close of the "scared" face.

If you would like to get a copy of this file. I downloaded it from childcareland.com. Here is a link to the file. http://www.earlylearningactivities.com/PDF/feelingsfacesc.pdf

We actually finished Tot School for the day after this and went to a Reruns are Fun sale at our mall. They fill the old Service Merchandise with items that are in good used condition and I made some real finds besides clothing.

$4 chalkboard and dry erase board with stand
$4 Melissa and Doug animal sounds puzzle
$4 Montessori n Such parts of the grasshopper puzzle
$3 Dress the elephant magnetic dress up
$4 Pound the ball toy
$3 Crayola paint sponges and rollers (butterfly, leaf, house...)

Later, when I was trying to do the dishes and the rugrats were all away at sleepovers, Wiggle Worm was very much under foot. He didn't know what to do without his siblings. I took down the beads and pipe cleaners and he stayed occupied for a while.
Then I took out the tongs, pom-poms, and pinch bowls for the first time. He really stayed at this for a while and got the hang of the tongs pretty good. And he practiced color matching at the same time. I showed him once and let him be. He was doing it wrong at first but corrected himself naturally. I almost corrected him but it must not have been comfortable or working well the way he was doing it wrong and he corrected himself. He once again switched back and forth between left and right several times. Left is dominant though.
While our official Tot School time ended @ 10 am Friday morning. We did several more things during the day.