We are starting day one of week two of Letter of the Week by Confessions of a Homeschooler and this week we will be focusing on letter 'B'. I think that I have mentioned before that I plan on going through this curriculum more than one time, probably more than two times and the next time around I will begin with the vowels first and then the consonants but this time I am going straight through the alphabet in order -being the first my first time using this curriculum, I want to get a real feel for it.
Our subject is Butterflies and our Memory verse is from Acts 16:13 Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ, and Thou shalt be saved.
After spending some time focusing just on the letter 'B' card and then the Bible verse we moved on to our reading of the week, this is from a book called Big Thoughts for Little People. This book also has a alphabetical theme which fits right into our Letter of the Week "theme"! Everyday we read the same page, this week, you guessed it, we will be reading from page 'B'
The picture page that goes along with the reading is always fun as well! It is full of things that begin with the letter of the reading, so as the week goes on (or depending on the age of the child you are reading to) I can point out to Vada more and more things that begin with the letter 'B' and have some confidence that she will understand better what it is that I am saying to her.
The picture page also has things in it, like this one for example, two girls fighting and two dogs sharing, then reading then points out these two situations and asks the reader to think about it. Who is being nice? How does God want us to behave? When I read these questions to Vada, I give her a second to process what I am asking and then I answer my own question out loud. For example, I said something along the lines of "Oh, those girls are being naughty, God doesn't want us to argue or fight with each other. It's much better to share like those nice little puppies are doing." I make a conscious effort to point to what it is that I am talking about as well.
Next, we went onto the 'B' coloring page. Before I let Vada do independent coloring, I assist her in tracing the upper and lower case letter in the corner of the pages. She isn't too thrilled about this but as time goes on I am confident that she will grow to understand that this is what comes first and what is expected.
She does love to color!
We worked on size sorting. I was really impressed. First, she wasn't into this at all. She threw the biggest five or six mini fits (That's a whole lot of yelling, tears and some smacking on the table all in a thirty second time frame.) in her attempt to resist doing this activity. At first I was like, whats wrong with my poor baby..? And all concerned. But as I continued to watch her I realized she was just being SUPER stubborn! How did I come to this conclusion?
Well, in my first attempts to calm Vada I went from having all of the butterfly shapes in front of us to only one at a time. The remaining ones were left on our left hand side and then once Vada had placed correct shape onto the correct size I would flip it over and place it above the chart.
I figured out that Miss V. was being stubborn or Miss Smarty Pants because instead of placing the correct butterflies onto the correct sizes she would take them from my hand, make them fly around, flip them over and put them in the "all done" pile above the chart! What a stinker! Finally, I got her to do it the right way and she really did a pretty great job! So, it was her cleverness that impressed me as well as her improvement compared to last week in this same area.
We began working with the milk cap alphabet sheets. Hopefully, by next weeks letter I will be using something other than milk caps! While the milk caps are a great idea and free (which is great!) they take up too much room and I have none to spare! For now, they work and that's what we are using!
In the picture below, Vada is doing her sign for butterfly.
I make a little game out of the milk cap sheets. After introducing the sheets and caps and letting Vada mess with them on her own for a few minutes, I flip them all upside down. I have her pick one up at a time, flip it over to reveal the letter and then put it into my my hand. I then say the letter out loud, I then sing the Leap Frog Letter song that goes with whatever letter I am holding.
We practiced pre-handwriting, which is Vada least favorite thing to do because she has to have me help her before she gets to independently write on her own and she is an independent kind of girl!
I try to only lightly guide her hands. I really want her to feel what it is that she should be doing. This can be frustrating for her but to me, having her tiny little hand in mine, ours making one fluid motion like this is very soothing. Someday, Vada will be writing on her own and I will be able to sit back and say, "I taught her that." What an amazing gift God and my husband has given to me!
Again, after we do all of the pre-writing together, Vada gets her independent writing time! It's only fair.
We finished up day one by reading Beautiful Butterflies.
Justin's Aunt gave this book to Vada a couple of years ago and I have read it so many times I should have it memorized by now! Good thing I like it and that I enjoy reading! I really do enjoy both, the book is good for color recognition, rhyming, textures (Some butterflies have foil wings to feel), sounds (the crunch of the foil paper wings) and colors. The book is sturdy because it is a board book, so it has held up through a lot of Vada's love!
After I read Beautiful Butterflies to Vada, she read it to me...
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