F is for Fall!

I am ridiculously far behind in blogging about our school work and activities.  To be honest, we haven’t been the greatest about keeping on our schedule either.  My only excuse is laziness- ha ha.  I have not been feeling well for several weeks – fighting with an ear infection and daily headaches.  We have been doing a lot of activities and outings related to Fall and they have loved it!

Week 4: Letter D as in duck, dog (Finishing up September and the farm theme)

Letter Based Craft: I found some ducks online that the kids colored.  I made my own set of ducks and they helped me to attach the ducks to popsicle sticks.  They chased each other around yelling “Quack” with the ducks. :)

Reading/Phonics: We did several different letter D worksheets and worked on tracing the letter D.  We continue to trace the letters several times a week, but this is not the kids favorite part at all.  They do like the workbook where we circle pictures that begin with the letter and cross out the other pictures.  The kids love to read and we continue to read all the books in the house daily. 

Math: We inherited some “counting pigs” and I decided to use them this week.  I made some “pens” for the pigs by laying out popsicle sticks in the shape of a square.  We practiced counting the pigs in and out of the pen.  They really likes this one and have asked to play it since.  

Outing: We fed the ducks at the boardwalk this week on a day daddy came home from work early.  I don’t trust them at the boardwalk when I am by myself - there are too many opportunities for them to fall in the water.  They love feeding the ducks and we took our own bags of bread.  They call for them to get closer and laugh repeatedly as they watch the ducks eat.   

Science: We didn’t do a specific science related activity this week – honestly it is hard to find science experiments that are toddler appropriate and something I feel like they would enjoy.  We did do some sequence puzzles and talked about the importance of putting steps in order. 

Music: We used the ducks we made earlier in the week to sing “5 Little Ducks.”  They love this song and it is one that they frequently ask us to sing for them.  We numbered the ducks and practiced counting them in order as well.  

In October, we switched to a Fall/Halloween theme for the month.

Week 5: Letter E as in leaves, web, eyes

Letter Based Craft: This was one of my favorite ones to do.  I drew a web on a white sheet of paper with a white crayon.  I gave the kids some watercolor paints with a tiny amount of water for rinsing and let them paint over the web.  They loved seeing the web show up on the paper, or “transform,” in the words of Landon.  When the web had dried they added sticker spiders to the web.  

Reading/Phonics: We did several different letter E worksheets and worked on tracing the letter E.  We did some worksheets to review letters A-D as well.  We have been reading books about Fall and Halloween that we picked up at the library. 

Math: Our math activity was combined with our music activity this week. 

Outing: We attended story time at the library this week.   They really enjoy the time at story time and I love being able to watch them sing and dance.  This week’s theme at story time involved the 5 senses and they enjoyed the songs and stories. 

Science: The kids have been showing an increased interest in cutting and using scissors lately, so I found some different worksheets they could practice with this week.  They are getting better about holding the scissors properly and were able to cut the straight lines between the web and the spider on the worksheet. 

Music: I found a song on Pinterest called “5 Fall Leaves” – a counting song about leaves falling to the ground.  I colored and cut out some leaves for them to use during the song.  They would take turns holding and dropping the leaves as we sang the song and counted down.  We sang the song at least 10 times that day.  

We also did an activity with play-doh this week and made monsters.  This one was pretty simple to set up - I just had some googly eyes and pipe cleaners on hand and we used them to create the monsters.  They had fun designing their own monsters and adding arms and legs.

Week 6: letter F as in fall

Letter Based Craft: Tissue Paper Tree - I traced their hands on brown paper and then we glued the “tree” to a sheet of white paper.  I had precut a bunch of square shapes out of various colors of tissue paper – red, yellow, brown.  They then used a glue stick to glue the squares over the paper and the tree to make it look like a tree with leaves falling down – sort of. Ha ha.

Reading/Phonics: We continue to do letter worksheets each week.  Sometimes they are more interested than others in the worksheet.  They seemed to like writing the letter F as it was very similar to the letter E last week.  We are still reading books about fall and leaves that we picked up from the library.

Math: We sang “5 Little Pumpkins” with some felt pumpkins that I had made.  The kids practiced putting the pumpkins up in order and taking them down as we were singing the song. 

Outing:  We attended story time at the library again.  This week the theme was colors and shoes.  It was a great review of the colors for them and I loved that they were able to answer all of the questions correctly. The teacher even gave them all stickers to apply to their shoes and they had a parade around the room to show them off!

Science:  No specific science activity for this week.  We just practiced our cutting again and holding the scissors correctly while cutting in straight lines. 

Music:  We made corn shakers and had a parade in the basement.  To make a corn shaker, we just used an empty water bottle and some popping corn.  We used funnels to add the corn into the water bottle and they loved the sound it made when they shook the bottle.  

Week 7: letter G as in ghost

Letter Based Craft: Ghosts. I drew a ghost shape with a white crayon on a black piece of cardstock.  The kids then covered the ghost with cotton balls.  Landon is not a big fan of the feeling of cotton (apparently) and he much preferred to use the glue and have me add the cotton.  

 Reading/Phonics: We did several worksheets throughout the week relating to the letter G.  The kids struggled more with writing the letter G than they have with other letters recently.  They did do well with recognizing the difference between the capital G and the lowercase g. 

Math: I found the outline of a tree online and added numbers to the outline.  The kids then added fall colored pompoms to the tree by adding dots (or piles of glue in Riley’s case) to the numbers and sticking on the pompoms.  Landon received assistance from his toy car for this one as the car drove the pompom over to the paper. 

Outing: We didn’t have any specific outings this week, just some walks around the neighborhood. 

Science: Expanding Ghost – I found this experiment on Pinterest.  I added some vinegar to an empty water bottle and put some baking soda in a white balloon and attached the balloon to the top of the water bottle.  (I found ghost balloons at Dollar Tree!) When the balloon was turned upside down, the baking soda poured into the vinegar and the balloon expanded.  The kids loved watching this one happen and I had to do it several times. 

Music:  We sang “The Creepy Crawly Spider” which is just an adaptation of the “Itsy Bitsy Spider” that I found on YouTube.  The kids liked this version so much that I would find Riley singing it to herself.  We tried to race spiders across the table by blowing through a plastic straw and using the air to push the spider across the table.   We weren’t very successful with this type of racing and instead we just raced the spiders down a box. 

 Week 8: letter H as in Halloween

Letter Based Craft: Riley’s favorite medium is paint.  We used a bunch of different Halloween stamps dipped in paint and stuck them to the paper.  Riley seemed to enjoy this activity more than Landon – enough that she asked to do a second sheet of stamping.  We also made pumpkin crafts from a kit… I thought they would just want to make a few and we ended up making all 30.  I used it as an opportunity for them to follow directions and they did really well. 

Reading/Phonics:  We did our letter worksheets throughout the week and practiced writing the letter H.  They loved circling pictures of words that begin with the letter H and crossing off other words.  They are showing a lot of improvement in recognizing letters in general and making the sounds.  They now have a LeapFrog magnet system that tells them the sounds the letter makes when they insert it on the bus.  They will typically play with that a few times a day and repeat the sounds of the letter out loud as well. 

Math: Landon and I did a worksheet that asked him to color the leaves specific colors.  I was able to guide him regarding what colors to use and he enjoyed the worksheet and counting the leaves as well.  Riley had no interest in this worksheet, but she did do a worksheet that involved tracing the numbers from 1-12.  

Outing: There were a ton of outings this week! We attended the Haunted Greenhouse at Holy Angels and they liked seeing all the Halloween decorations and going on a golf cart ride.  On Friday night we went to a Trunk or Treat and they enjoyed playing with all the other children and being able to pass out candy.  We also watched It’s The Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown several times – they really like Charlie Brown movies and I don’t mind watching them either. :)

 Science: We went through a walk in the neighborhood collecting leaves- they completely filled their wagon with leaves.  We talked about the color of them and the sizes of the leaves.  We also carved pumpkins this week and they learned what the insides of the pumpkin felt like.  Landon was not a fan and Riley loved to play in the “gunk.”  They helped me decide on shapes and design the face of the pumpkin and where very excited to see the finished product. 

Music: We listened to Halloween music on Pandora throughout the week and we also found some cute songs on YouTube.  Riley was amusing to watch as she attempted to dance like a skeleton. 

For the month of November we are going to talk about Community Helpers and Thanksgiving.