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!

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! :)