Friday, October 19, 2012

Letters of the Week: I and L


As y'all know Ann Peyton is in school now- she goes twice a week to a little homeschool supplementation program in the area. She takes dance classes, Kindermusik, and gymnastics there, but they also focus on basic pre-reading skills. One thing I have loved is that they focus on a different letter each week.  

I decided that it would be fun as part of our homeschool routine to pick out a couple of words that begin witht that letter, find books on them and then do a (very small) activity to go along with it. The do little crafts and activities at school, but I decided it would be fun to do on a couple of the days that she's at home, as well. 

A couple of things:

I should be clear- I'm SUPER laid back about this. I really try to make it a priority, but we've missed a couple of weeks already and it's not something I'm going to let stress me out. But it's also been a good way to help me think up a few focused activities to do with her- something I've been trying to do with varying degrees of success for MONTHS. For some reason, the way my mind works, I just do better if I have a "prompt".  Like it's easier for me to start with a letter, then pick a topic, get a book, and then formulate an idea for a craft or activity rather than just browsing Pinterest for "toddler/preschooler activities at home" or whatever. 

The second thing is that I didn't realize how much Annie and I would both *love* the weekly library aspect. I  should have because we both adore books, but I didn't.  I'll probably do a whole post about that one here soon, but it's just been something really fun and neat and I've enjoyed it so much. 

Anyway, here are a couple of our weeks so far (like I said, we haven't been diligent every week).

 Letter I:

We read Immi's Gift which is an adorable little story about a little girl in an Igloo and also a nonfiction book called The Green Iguana. I'm going to do a separate post about my favorite library books so far and Immi's Gift I'm sure will show up there. The Green Iguana was a little more advanced than I realized, but AP still sat through it and I think absorbed a little. We'll probably mostly stick to stories from now on unless she displays a strong interest in something specific.



For our activities that week, we made an "igloo" in Annie's room and I told her that she could stick out her tongue and lick these "ants" of the "log" like a green iguana would!

The next week we did L (notice they don't go in alphabetical order).

We read The Apple Pie Tree, The Grouchy Ladybug, Leaf Man, and Wee Little Lambs

 And Annie made a little cotton ball lamb (I drew the outline and she glue-sticked some cotton  balls on it). We also collected leaves at my parents' house!

 Like I said, this has all been really easy and really fun.  It's wonderful to watch her learn about the world in an entertaining and exciting way!








1 comment:

  1. These are such fun ideas! We might "borrow" some of them :)

    ReplyDelete