"The Mitten" work and new ideas

It seems kind of crazy that I am posting what we did with "The Mitten" when it is 80 degrees and sunny outside, but this is the first chance I have had to sit down and post anything! I now have two work from home jobs doing administrative tasks for an awesome non-profit organization I have been volunteering with from the beginning and taking care of my friend's 3 month old little boy two days a week. Needless to say, things are crazy busy around here and even though I do school with Maverick more than just once a month, posting about it is a whole other thing!

Okay, back to the mitten...we glued macaroni on the M, which of course is Maverick's favorite letter. :)

We also used M&M's to sort and count. Again, talking about more, less and the same, as well as numeral recognition.

I then used the m&m's as his potty treat (yes we are doing the dreaded potty training....remind me again why it is socially unacceptable to have a 5 year old in diapers? ugh!) which was very motivating...until they were gone.

We read "The Mitten" several times one day, then colored the characters another day. While he colored, we referenced the book to see what color the animals were and talked about their names. But, as you can see he went with his own creative interpretation on color.

He got these twistable crayons for his birthday and they are a huge hit! They snap so easily back into the tray so they are very easy for him to clean up independently. They are difficult to break, and come in lots of colors!

I was going to tape an outline of the mitten on the floor like the idea I had seen on Teach Preschool, but I realized I didn't have masking tape. So, I free-handed (obviously) a mitten on white paper, cut it out and taped the edges so just the wrist part was open for him to put the characters into the mitten.
We then read the story again, this time allowing him to pick up each character as I read about it and place it in the mitten.

Next, I let him tell me the story by looking at the pictures, and act it out with his characters and mitten.

Here's what we are working on the next few weeks, and here is why:

Maverick pointing out the crocus sprouting.

Little buds forming on our tree!

It's Spring around here!! Maverick noticed all the flowers starting to bloom and was asking me all sorts of questions. I said, I think it's time to learn about spring! That's the beauty of "homeschooling," the child can often decide what we learn and when. :)

• Letter: Rr (rainbow or raindrops on the R. note: this is a difficult sound developmentally for a lot of younger preschool students so make sure to show lots of pictures and talk about different words that start with this letter and practice!) and Cc (cookie crisp or clouds (cotton balls) on the C) Pp (Puzzle from the P - color, draw on the letter p, cut it up into different size/shape pieces and take apart and put together as a puzzle)
• Theme: Spring - Rainbows, Life cycle of butterfly (or any living thing)
• Reading: We went to the library and got several books about Spring. Here are a few of the good ones:

A Rainbow of Flowers by Lois Ehlert
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
The Tiny Seed by Eric Carle

• Science: Life Cycles (paper plate life cycle of butterfly)

Some other ideas I found:
-Use sponges to paint flowers using the different colors of the rainbow. Focus on order.
-Cloud jars to go with rainbows.
-This is a great time to do plant life cycles and plant seeds and watch them grow. You can plant grass seeds in a plastic bag to easily show how a seed germinates and grows.
-Continue with numeral recognition, counting, shapes, etc.
- Explore different kinds of seeds. Sort by size. Discuss what seeds will grow into, how a small seed can grow into a big plant, etc.
-Egg carton caterpillar craft.

Happy Spring!

Follow up...and ideas for this week

Here are some pictures from last week's Valentine themed lessons.

Maverick made cards for his grandparents and great-grandparents. Don't be fooled by how studious he looks in this picture...it was his FIRST card! :)

The completed cards, ready to mail!

We glued velvet on the V. I had a hard time finding velvet (only looked at Walmart and Target) and then while I was walking aimlessly through Target (which I do OFTEN) I saw a ribbon leftover from Christmas clearance that felt and looked like velvet. So we used that and it was an easy and cheap alternative to going to an actual fabric store.

We also sorted and counted candy hearts. I used the little 2 oz cups to help Mav make piles of like colors.

Sorting

Then he dumped each cup and touched and counted each heart (one to one correspondence) and I wrote the number on a sticky note. 

After all the hearts were counted and the numbers written, Maverick noticed that several of the numbers were the same. I was so shocked and proud that he came up with this all on his own! We then put them in piles and talked about less and more. 

Of course he got to eat a few once we were through.

Then I decided to stick the stickies with the numbers in random places around the house for Maverick to find them as he went about his day. This is a good way to practice numeral recognition. He loved finding the numbers all over the house and acted like they got there on their own.

All in all, it was a great Valentine's week.

Here's what we are working on this week:

Letter/Sound: Mm

-Glue macaroni on the M

-Starfall website work with the letter M

Reading/Comprehension/Theme: The Mitten

-Read The Mitten by Jan Brett (there are also other versions, but my library was out of them- it would also be great to read the three different versions instead of reading the other mitten books listed below)

-Read The Mystery of the Missing Red Mitten and The Missing Mitten Mystery

-Act out the sequence of The Mitten by Jan Brett (loved this idea of using masking tape outline of a mitten to act out, but using cut outs of the characters since we don't have several students to use) We plan on coloring and cutting out these printables after reading the story in preparation for retelling

Math: Counting/Sorting

-sort and count m&m's

-group by more/less/same

-"hide" numerals around the house

-counting by 2's to 10 using construction paper mittens

-Mitten patterns using construction paper mittens

-painting mittens

Valentine's Day Fun

Valentine's Day is coming up and I wanted to post what we will be doing this week and next. We just started yesterday so I don't have many pictures.
Letter/Sound Activities: Vv

• Glue velvet on the V. (I couldn't think of anything else that would work!)

(no velvet yet)

• Starfall website work. This site is great for letter practice. It's super easy for toddlers to operate and gives words and pictures using the various letters and sounds.

• Write the letter Vv and find the letter V in a pile of magnetic letters.

Valentine's Day Activities:

I had these small 2oz cups left over from the party and plan on using them for sorting candy hearts.

• Sort and count candy hearts.
• Make patterns using candy hearts. (ie: pink, white, pink, white, etc.)
• Focusing on the Kindness virtue from We Choose Virtues.
• Valentine's Day Cards for the family. (Basically have to get this done tomorrow since I have to mail them.)

Here are some good ideas we are going to try:-Lollipop cards-Heart AnimalsHappy Valentine's Day!

All About Snowmen!

We went to the library last week and got lots of books on Christmas and Winter. A lot of the Christmas ones were taken, so I adapted my plans more about snowmen. In fact, one of the days we went to the library it was actually snowing, (though it didn't stick) so that was fun!

Here is the coloring page, courtesy of making learning fun...which by the way is a great source of free printables and thematic ideas. I used it all the time when I was teaching kindergarten.

I usually just let him color however he wants, but this time, I wanted him to take his time and talk about what the real colors are for each of the items. For each one, he would either tell me the color or ask what the items was and what color it "should" be. I even saw him looking at the Christmas tree in the living room so he could color it the same color.

Here's the finished product, proudly displayed!

Speaking of displays...I referred to Mav's wall of work in a previous post and finally snapped a photo with my phone. It's not as good quality as the other photos, but gives you an idea. I used yarn and tacks, but I've seen better ones made with rope or twine and nails. It's heavier and can handle more paper.

(Notice the frame above with the factory pictures still in it...haven't gotten to that project yet)

I think it's very beneficial to keep his work displayed to serve as a constant review of what we've been learning. Also, he is so proud of all his work and loves seeing it hanging in his room. 

Back to this week... We learned the letter Ss and glued snowballs (cotton balls) on the S.

We are multi-tasking here...eating snack and doing school!

Getting better about SMALL glue dots.

I happened to find a snowman gel cling kit in the dollar bins at Target. I got it out the other day and let Mav rearrange the pieces and build his snowman. He loved it and came back to it several times.

Download these activities and more in Week 4 lesson plans here.

In case I don't get on here in the next week, I hope you all have a Merry Christmas and remember the greatest gift of all, Jesus Christ!

More Lesson Plans and Examples

To finish out our study of circles, Maverick hunted in a magazine and found pictures of circles.

I cut them out and he glued them.

After we finished the circle page, he wanted to look for triangles....all on his own! I let him, then after one picture, he started tearing out magazine pages and throwing them on the floor (see, just when you thought I had the perfect little child, hahaha) and I put an end to his "exploratory learning."

Sorting is another important foundational skill. Here, Maverick sorted buttons. These were random buttons that I probably have been collecting for YEARS from my clothes that have that extra button attached. As you can see I wear far too much black!

Originally I had wanted him to sort by color, but since there were only like 3 colors, I decided to let him figure out how he wanted to sort them. I simply told him, "Can you put the buttons that are alike or the same in piles?" He then lined them up like he does his Hot Wheels, like this.

Then we worked together sorting more of them by size, since that is the trait he chose. We talked about the biggest ones (which he calls Daddy buttons), the medium ones (mama buttons) smaller buttons and tiny buttons (baby buttons).

For each letter and sound we learn, I am having him make that letter with something on it that makes that sound. For the letter Q I chose quarters. Now, I could have found some picture on clip art or gotten those paper coins at the teacher store, BUT, after teaching in the public schools and seeing how many children in this generation don't handle cash/coins (think about how much debit, online payments, etc. we use) I thought it was important for Maverick to handle the real thing. (Yes, a very expensive letter Q, but don't worry, I will be borrowing quarters off his Q when I need them :)

I pre-drew and taped the Q so he could easily place the quarters.

I showed him what a quarter looks like (wow! another circle!) and we talked about what's on a quarter (good vocabulary exposure, I don't expect him to remember) then I had him hunt for them in our coin jar.

Looking for quarters...

The finished product!

Click here and here for a few more weeks worth of lesson plans. Just a note, these are loose sketches of what to do. There are SO many other blogs out there with cute ideas but quite frankly, with two small kids, I really need SIMPLE. So, here ya go! :)