Alphabet Eggs

Now that Nathan is older, there is no way that he wants to miss out on the fun when Naomi and I do "school". I put school in quotes because really, with as much fun as we have, it seems almost wrong to call it school! :-) I DO call it school though, especially the fun stuff, because I want the kids to have a very positive attitude towards school, and who doesn't love doing hands on things and having fun? Anyways, I digress!

Since Nathan wants to do school with us, I make a big effort to always have something ready for him to do as well. One of my very favorite sites, No Time For Flashcards, is starting a new series called "Alphabet for Starters". I am THRILLED because I know the type of activities they come up with will be tons of fun, and perfect for where Nathan is at. Here is the first post in the series, and as soon as I saw it, I knew we had to do it! Here is what we did.

First I got some of our larger Easter eggs, and filled 8 of them with the magnetic letters from our Leapfrog fridge set. Then I put them in this cute bucket, and put it on a cookie sheet so they would stick to the tray. Since letters are pretty new to Nathan I added the device the letters go into so he could hear the names of the letters from it and from me.

I added in one sweet boy, and he got right to work opening up the eggs. Opening up the eggs is a great workout for their little fingers too!

 

As soon as he opened up an egg, he put the letter in the box to  hear what it was. He could get them in but as you can see by his frown, it took a little concentration!

 

He liked hearing what letter it was, but then he quickly wanted to move to hearing the ABC song again, as you can see by him pushing that button.

 

Nathan enjoyed this so much that we're going to do it again, only I'm going to put some of our different shapes in it. I want to end this by saying in no way did I drill Nathan on his letters, or do I think that is appropriate for a 22 month old! This was a fun activity that gave he and I something special to do together, and was a great way to expose him to some letters. We talked about the letters as he opened the eggs, and moved them around on the tray, but that was it. Fun and exposure it what I think it's all about at this stage!

Karla

Christmas Activity Trays

I wanted to share with you a peek at our Christmas trays for next week! Naomi saw me putting them together today, and we are both excited to try them out. Most of  these printable (unless otherwise stated) are from Walking By the Way's Kindergarten Winter Games Packs. Even though I made these trays with Naomi (4 yrs old) in mind, I have thought of modifications for Nathan (19 months) too.

Here is a look at the trays all set up and ready to go!

We are learning about tally marks. Using the Dry Erase crayons (which I like SO much better than dry erase markers), Naomi will decorate the snowman family with eyes, hats, noses, etc. Then we will count up each item, and record our tally marks on the recording sheet you see on the left. She's been very into drawing/coloring lately, which is a first, so I think she'll love this!

Nathan Modification: draw on the snowmen, with me. We can both draw and I will have him find the body parts like eyes, nose, feet, etc.

We have been doing lots with reading three letter words. For this tray I will say a word like "pig". Naomi will have to listen, figure out what the middle letter is in the word I say, and then flip the "cookie" with the matching letter. This is great practice for those middle letter sounds, which are always trickier for them.

Nathan Modification: I'm going to try to have him practice colors by finding the red stocking, yellow bell, etc, but most likely he will flip the cookies, toss the cookies, and be done. ;)

On this (cookie) tray the kids will use our magnetic pom-poms to make the picture. For whatever reason both kids LOVE this. You can find this printable here.

Find the Cookie (think Battleship). There are two copies of the grid. I will hide the cookie cutouts on my grid and Naomi will have to call out different squares to find the cookies (ie. C4) and mark off the squares that have nothing on them. Note the gummy treats on the left. This tray may be a bit hard for her because we've never done anything like this before, so I thought I might start off by hiding gummy treats instead of the paper cookies, and let her eat each one as she finds it. Nothing like a little bribery incentive!

Nathan Modification: "Nathan, go play with your trains".

Craft tray: On this tray I've been putting our supplies for our daily Advent ornament craft so they are ready to go. Sometimes both kids make an ornament, and sometimes just Naomi.

Smash the snowman! We will do this on our little picnic table over our vinyl flooring. I'll put down globs of shaving cream, and put the snowman word cards on top. As I call out the words Naomi has to find and read the word, then smash the snowman! I laminated the snowmen and wrote on them with dry erase makers so I can easily switch up the words.

Nathan Modification: I am going to erase the words and draw on shapes or colors and have him do the same thing!

Christmas themed pattern block mats. There is several sheets to choose from and I found them here. Both kids can do this tray in their own way.

There you have it! Our Christmas trays for this coming week! I will leave these trays out as long as they are interested in them, and then slowly rotate them out with new things. If you are looking for more Christmas theme ideas, checkout all the fun stuff I've found on my Christmas Pinterest Board or see what others are doing at Preschool Corner and 1+1+1=1.

Have a great week!

Karla

Easter Fun

I had so much fun putting together our Easter Trays when my parents were here, and I couldn't wait to show them to Naomi. Her reaction was all I had hoped for!! She gasped, jumped up and down, and couldn't decide what to do first. She loves our "school" time, and it's creating some really special memories for both of us. The fact that there's a whole lot of learning going on, doesn't hurt anything either! In an effort to keep my post to a reasonable length this week, I am only sharing our Easter related things. We did our usual language, math, and Bible activities, and started something new that I will share another week! I've had lots of people ask me recently where I get my ideas. The two main places I go are 1+1+1=1 and Homeschool Creations (which hosts Preschool Corner). They both host a blog carnival each week that others link up to, and share what they've been doing with their kids. I love surfing through the various blogs and this is where I get my inspiration. The links above will take you to their main blogs, and I will link to both spots again at the bottom, which will take you to their specific posts and blog carnival for this week. On to the trays!

Here is a look at some of the Easter books we've been reading this week.

Easter puzzle from COAH. I put magnets on the back and then put it on this cookie tray to make it easier for Naomi. Plus, I may as well use the cookie sheet for school since it's not like I'm going to be using it for making cookies! You can buy cookies in the store you know. ;)

Egg matching. The eggs I cut out fit perfectly into this cute, oval, container I got at the Dollar Tree awhile back. I love making things cute! This was from COAH too.

Egg transferring tray inspired by this.

Numbered eggs! I got the basis of my idea from Playing House, and have expanded on it. I'm really excited about this tray as there are MULTIPLE ways we are going to use it.

Easter card making tray. I got the stickers and foam pieces from the Dollar Tree too. I've got to say, the dollar stores have become my best friend for tacky, seasonal stuff!

Egg numbers from COAH. We are going to use these in a variety of ways.

Sound eggs! It seems every blog I went to was doing these, so I can't cite any particular one. There are 5 pairs of eggs. I filled them with rice, beans, coins, mini marshmallows, a small rock, pasta, and then super glued them together.

Egg puzzle from the Dollar Tree.

Naomi really loved this tray and chose to do it first. She was especially excited by the fact that the she got to use these ice cream dishes. "These are breakable Mommy, but I'll be careful!" she proudly exclaimed.

Working on the egg puzzle. She liked it but it was tricky so I had to help her in the end.

A short video of Naomi using our numbered eggs in the tray. She counts really well but it threw her a bit when she got to the new row, which was egg #7.

Proud that she got all the numbered eggs in order!

Putting the egg numbers in order. I introduced 11 and 12 this week! She can count past that, but we haven't done number recognition past 10 up to this point.

Here she clipped the correct number of clothespins to each egg number.

Nathan joined in on the fun with this tray! He thought it was hilarious to rip the clothespins off the cards once Naomi was done with them. I showed him how to put the clothespins back in the container too. He did really well with it!

Nathan enjoyed exploring our sound eggs too!

Using her spin art.

Once the paint dried we cut the paper into egg shapes to make fancy Easter Eggs! And a star - why? Because she is three and wanted a star! :-) I got the idea for these here.

Sorting jellybeans by color. This girl loves sorting things!

We put our number eggs in order again, but this time counted out the correct number of items for each egg. I had some cute little erasers that were perfect for this.

Finishing the magnet puzzle.

Naomi really likes things that are magnetic! She liked using our magnetic pom-poms to make this picture. We also painted it with our Do-a-dot paints the next day.

For science we made some observations about jellybeans using our 5 senses. I got this sheet to record our observations from 2 Teaching Mommies.

The next day we graphed the sorted jellybeans. This graph was from 2 Teaching Mommies as well. This was our first time doing a graph and it went really well.

Naomi doing our egg matching tray from COAH (link above). This one was tricky!!

This was a fun, Easter themed, cutting sheet, from Musings of Me. The Easter Unit from this site has tons of great activities in it! 

Nathan and I have been playing lots with his stacking rings. He needs help with the order, but can put them on all by himself now!

I still want to do a post to show off our new basement, but here is a sneak peek at Nathan's reading corner! He has really been into books lately and I'm so thrilled!! He drags books over for me to read to him many times throughout the day. Big thanks to my friend Michelle for this adorable little chair that reads and sings. Nathan LOVES it!!

My goal this week was to use things I printed or made in more than one way. We use each tray multiple times throughout the week, but I wanted to think of different ways to use each item to keep it fresh and exciting. The more we use something that I've put time into, the better! We will be using the same trays next week, and I've got lots of fun adaptations planned for them, in addition to some other Easter/spring themed activities. Check out what others are doing at 1+1+1=1 and Preschool Corner!

Karla