Preschool Week 11 (October)

Preschool Week 11

Little Sweets- 40 months old

Little Peanut- 9 months old

Sorting and Graphing Skittles

This was one of the activities she did at her preschool science class.

Playing with Stacking Cups

Painting on the Easel
This was also an activity she did at the preschool class and I am so glad it was in the classroom and not in my house.  The teacher put koolaid in the paint so it smelled nice for the kids.  It was part of their senses unit. 

Science Experiment
Little Sweets stirred epsom salt into water and poured it onto paper.  In two weeks when she goes back to her class the water will be evaporated and only the salt which will look like crystals will be on the paper. 

Color by Sight Word
I got this activity here.

Cutting and Pasting
Little Sweets cut strips of orange paper and glued it in a pumpkin stencil.

Numbers and Pattern Blocks

Little Sweets told me the number in each shape and covered it with the correct pattern block.

Fishing For Sight Words and Numbers
I wrote sight words on metal lids and Little Sweets fished for them and read the words to me.

Writing Letters in her Kumon Workbook

Reading and Pasting a Sentence
I got this activity here.

Pumpkin Carving

Shared Reading
This stared as a guided reading lesson, but I decided to change it to a shared reading lesson.  Instead of having Little Sweets read the book to me I had her echo me as I read.

Journal Activity
I would love it if Little Sweets would draw in her journal, but she really isn't into drawing so I am trying to come up with other activities.  The story was about animals so she picked an animal she liked glued the picture, wrote, I and labeled the zebra (ZBRU) for Zebra.  We stretched out the word zebra together. 

Counting Pumpkin Seeds

Pouring and Scooping
Little Sweets did this activity for a long time and over several days. 

Outside Play
It was beautiful outside so we played outside.  It looks like summer in this picture.  I think it's because this tree's leaves turn color so late, the other trees in our yard have lost their leaves. 

Little Peanut

Little Peanut would love to be held all day long so I just bought an Ergo Carrier and absolutely love it. 

Week 10 Preschool

Preschool Week 10

I've finally figured out a routine that works for our schedule and I am so excited.  I set out 4-5 preschool activities at our kitchen table.  During learning time Little Sweets gets to choose the actvities she wants to do.  Most days she does them all.  Little Peanut sits in her high chair and has a snack or plays with toys during this time. If she's fussy I also wear her in the moby or ergo baby.  I am so excited because I have been going crazy trying to get a routine down and something that works for our family.  We did learning time 4 mornings this week  and Little Sweets had a great time.  I wasn't stressed looking for materials and she didn't get bored waiting for me to get organized, everything was out and she had the freedom to choose her activity.  : )  Of course she is always learning and I am always teaching her, it is just nice to have a formal learning time again. 

Here are some of our activitis from this week and last week since I am not great at posting weekly anymore.

Exploring Leaves and Fall Colors
Little Sweets collected leaves from the trees in our yard.

Size Sequencing Using Leaves

Painting Leaf Pictures  Using Water Colors

We used the leaves in a book we made.

Graphing Leaves
Little Sweets put the leaves on the graph.  She told me which color had the most leaves and which had the least leaves.

Leaf Patterns

Little Sweets helped extend the leaf patterns.

Building High Frequency Words Using Letter Blocks

Little Sweets mixed the letters in the bowl and picked them out with a spoon.  Then she made her high frequency words and read them to me.  If you don't have letter blocks make some out of legos.  You can write the letters on the lego or put letter stickers on the lego. I got this idea here.

Ordinal Numbers

Little Sweets was pretending her little people were jumping into a pool.  I told her who needs to jump in 1st, 2nd, 3rd etc.

Bible Activity Fruits of the Spirit 

Little Sweets drew pictures of how she can show love, and have joy. 

Sorting Leaves

Little Sweets used chopsticks to pick up foam leaves and sort them by color into ice cube trays. 

Number Identification

I called out a number and Little Sweets covered the number up with a foam leaf.

Collecting and Playing in the Leaves

We collected leaves and talked about all the different colors we saw.

Painting with Watercolors

Guided Reading Lesson and Journal Entry with Invented Spelling

Little Sweets read the book The Forest during her guided reading lesson.  During the lesson I introduced the book by talking about animals we see in the forest.  Little Sweets told me some animals she thought lived in the forest.  I showed Little Sweets pictures of animals from the book and she named them.  I reminded Little Sweets about the front cover and back cover of the book.  She showed me where the title page was.  We took a picture walk through the book.  She showed me where the page numbers were.  I introduced a new high frequency word that was in the book.  She read the book to me.  She used picture cues and begining sounds to help with new words.  She did an excellent job reading the book.  Afterwards she picked an animal from the forest pictures and glued it into her journal.  We stretched the word out together and she wrote the letters of the sounds she heard-  SQRL for squirrel.

Ballet

Little Sweets just started taking ballet and loves it.

This post is linked up to tot school.

Preschool Week 9

Preschool Week 9-

Apples and other Fun Activities

Here are some activities we've been doing for preschool.

Pretend Play

I've been looking back on my blog and noticed that I don't write much about pretend play.  Pretend play is very important during the preschool years.  Little Sweets has a large imagination.  She engages in pretend play all the time.  Here is a picture of us pretending to be princesses and dancing at the princess ball. 

Ready by 5 Program

Our school district has a great parent child preschool program.  Twice a month Little Sweets attends the preschool science program.  I really like the program because she gets the opportunity to interact with other children in a classroom setting.  She is learning to follow instructions from another authority figure (her teacher).  I get to do the class with her so I still have the opportunity to guide her learning.  I also love that she gets to use preschool classroom materials that I don't have at home.  Here are some things she's done in the class.

Sorting Bears by Color, Painting on the Easel, and Painting with Apples

Apple Orchard Trip

Little Sweets picked apples at an apple orchard.

Made Patterns with the Apples

Put the Apples in Order from Smallest to Biggest

Graphed the Apples

I put apples in a bag and Little Sweets used a graph to tell me how many yellow apples and how many red apples there were.

She also helped me cook an apple pie, but I didn't take any pictures. 

Preschool Week 8

Preschool Week 8

We have been very busy lately.  We have been doing school I just haven't had time to post.  Here are a few activities we've been doing the last few weeks. 

Math-Numerical Order

Little Sweets used magnetic numbers to fill in the blank.  I printed this off, but I can't find the website I got it from.

Sight Word Matching Game

Little Sweets loves playing games.  She really enjoyed this one.  I wrote here sight words on index cards she flipped 2 cards over and read the words if they matched she kept the word.  We took turns.  She doesn't like to just pick up 2 cards so I give her extra chances. 

Princess Reading Game

Little Sweets loves games and princesses so I made this game up while she was playing with her princesses. We each had a princess, rolled a dice, jumped that many cards, and had to read the word on the card we landed on.  The first princess to the dress got to wear the dress. 

Little Sweets is starting to read some early reader books.  She read this one to her princesses after we played the game.  

Math- Lego Patterning

I printed this from a math website, but I can't find the site.

At Family Game

Little Sweets read the words.  You can get the printable here.

Children's Museum Huntersville, NC

Daddy took the girls to the children's museum while I was at the Women of Faith Conference.  There is a ton to do there for little ones.    They had a great time.  We went out to dinner afterwards and Little Sweets had so much fun that she told a woman at the restaurant all about it.  I have to give credit to my husband.  He took an 8 month old and a 3 year old to a museum for 6 1/2 hours with no naps and they were all smiling when they came to pick me up.  He's a great man.

Ready to Read Activities

You can get these activities for free here.

Little Sweets circled the matching word.

Little Sweets read the sentence.  She helped cut the pieces apart using scrap booking scissors.  Then she glued the sentence back together and reread it. 

Picture match.  Little Sweets matched the words with the pictures.