Week in Review - Legos (August 6th)

This past week was a good one for us.  With the new (to us) legos that we received from my parents, I decided to see how many activities we could do with them.  Here are some of the things we were able to do so far.

Counting with Legos
We used our jumbo numbers that I printed from here, and used legos for one to one counting.  Both K and G enjoyed doing this. 

K counting

G is focused

K also enjoyed stacking all his smaller stacks together and counting all of the legos.  I liked this because it was a way for him to practice some higher number counting. 

Addition
We have a set of addition cards that are in nice bright colors, the same colors as our legos, so we used the legos to practice addition.  He only does about 4 or 5 problems per sitting.  Hopefully, that number will grow.

Love that K wants to add

Sorting
We sorted the legos by color and shape.

Design
Of course, K and G enjoyed simply playing and building with the legos. 

In addition to our lego play, we made very simple party hats (used white computer paper, markers, and stickers) after reading Blue's Big Parade, a story where Blue and her friends plan a parade and make party hats as a part of what they do .  K asked to do this. 


G designing her hat

 

K and his hat design

K's finished product

We also used our first words cards, which allowed us to work on beginning sounds of words with G.  We also used our giant letter mat, which K and G used for some beginning, middle, and ending sound work.

G enjoying placing her cards on the table and emphasizing the beginning sounds of the words.

M is still playing, investigating and discovering all over the house.  We had a good week here!

Week in Review (July 30th)

Last week was a good week.  We continued working on our scripture from the past couple of weeks about not being afraid.  We were a bit more relaxed with our learning time this week, but learning took place nonetheless.  We also enjoyed a surprise visit from Grammy, too.  How fun is that!

Thanks to my parents, we have gotten a bit of items from a former day care building they are transforming into their new church building.  The former owners left everything behind.  One of the items we used this week are these wonderful write on, wipe off letter boards.  I got these mostly for K at this point, but got two because I knew G would want to work on them as well.  K has enjoyed working on the letter board, and his writing is progressing.  We are continuing to work using the lines as our guide; that's definitely a work in progress =). 

K's letter work =)

The back of the board

We also received this wonderful letter mat.  We have used it to work on letter sounds and beginning word sounds for G, and beginning sounds, vowel sounds in cvc words, and ending sounds with K.  The kids really like this because they get to move around going from letter to letter.  M also enjoys this mat, he is learning his letter sounds (with a great deal of reinforcement from his teacheres K and G), and he will go to the letters, try to pull them out and make the appropriate sound for the letter.

We were glad to spend some time outside and had some fun with sidewalk chalk (new chalk also provided by my parents).  G worked on some of her sight words while we were out there, and K worked on his writing. M likes to draw with the chalk as well, and now, we have a lot less eating of the chalk, something for which I am grateful.

K's photography

Sight words

We enjoyed some fun at the park and reading as well.  All in all, a wonderful week!

Week in Review (July 23rd)

We spent this week out of town - a little getaway for the family. We had a fantastic time.  We had the opporunity to visit with family the weekend we left - Grandma, Aunts, Uncle and cousin - and celebrate our neice's birthday. From there, we headed to Orlando (my husband had to work there for a week, and we tagged along this time).

We took our travel boxes with us, which had activities for the K, G, and M to do while we were hanging out at the hotel. K's box had his Sesame street books, crayons (dry erase and traditional), letter magnets, a hot wheel eraser set (which is like a puzzle; you can put the 2 different cars together and take them apart); I also brought his phonics book.  G's box had a Pooh Number Match Cars, a Melissa and Doug 4 puzzle set (this was a hit with both K and G), lacing beads, and a her counting stars actvity from this post.  M's box had his shape stacker, a couple of zoomer cars and some items from our sensory tub I thought he might like.  I brought a couple of books for all of the kids, which came in handy, particularyly during the car ride. Sorry for the lack of pictures, but some of the items are the same ones from this post. 

I also printed out the rain packet from here, mostly for G. She liked it a lot asking for them almost everyday, but went through the activities pretty quickly. Here are a few pictures.

Shadow matching

Counting

K and G's aunt bought them some flashcards - alpahbet and addition/subtraction. K, once again, was eager to use the cards and was the most engaged with addition (without cars involved) as I've ever seen him. Score for Auntie Betty!

K used bottle tops as counters

G also loved the letter cards, said the sounds, and put them in alphabetical order.

M played with his leap frog letter drum and his melissa and doug shape stacker.  We spent time at the pool, a nearby playground, and got to visit with some friends we don't see often. It was a wonderful week!

G and M at the park

Weeks in Review (May 21st and May 28th)

Yes, you read correctly; this is a couple of weeks in review.  I have been away from home for a little more than two weeks, but it has been fun.  It started with a weekend away with my love and ended with five days of vacationing fun, friends and softball with my sister.  My Mom and Dad were godsends during this time as they both helped make these getaways possible.  This time makes for a refreshed Mommy and wife =). 

Due to our travels, our schedule was a little (well, a lot) dfferent.  The kids had their travel tubs while we were with my parents (refer to this post for more information on the tubs), so they did get some designated learning time in (though a great deal of fun and learning were found in lots of places during this time). 

The children got the opportunity to share their verses with the family, which both parties enjoyed.
K enjoyed working with his letter magnets.  Who knew that my parents back door was like a big refrigerator?!  We didn't until K attempted to place magnets on them.  He loved that!

K making words

G enjoyed the Pooh matching game, which was originally in K's tub.  She simply matched the picture puzzles with a little help from Mommy (I had to give her the three cards that went together, usually in order and spread apart, and she put them together and counted the items on the card).

Both K and G worked with the First Words Flash cards, but K used them more (even though these were orginally packed in G's tub; funny how these things work out).  K would put them out, and he and I would take turns telling a fact or something about the picture/word on each card.  G simply identified the pictures and sometimes the beginning sounds of the words.

K with the word cards

G with the word cards

All three children enjoyed time outside with Paw Paw and Poppy.  Poppy enjoyed taking them on wagon rides.

The kids also enjoyed the ultimate in sensory areas, the beach! This was M's first time really being big enough to enjoy and play in the sand. He was so content the entire time we were there as long as sand wasn't in his mouth =).  K and G enjoyed the sand and the water as well.

M enjoying the sand

These were fun times.  We all thoroughly enjoyed ourselves.  My vacation was fabulously wonderful(thanks E for taking me!), but I am glad to be back with the family.

At the Women's College World Series in Oklahoma City, OK