Monday, September 2, 2013

Statues, Stars and the Letter 'C'

                           Remember Saturday's post? It was all red, white and blue and themed right along with the Fourth of July. Well, today's activities as well as the remainder of this weeks lesson's will all be focused on patriotism. Well, kind of.


After our morning routine I had Vada color her Statue of Liberty color recognition book that I downloaded from 3Dinosaurs.com. Last fall it took two days for Vada to finish a recognition book, she would get bored half way through coloring and not want to continue. This year one of her goals is to finish entire activities that are given to her before moving onto a new one. She did very well at pushing through this activity. I could tell that she was a little bored towards the end but with my persistence and help in coloring she continued and completed the book.




Today, together, we wrote in red. For her free time, she wrote in blue dry erase marker.


You may only see scribbles but I am seeing circles being formed. This is good!


We did a little pom pom magnet activity and then turned it into a power magnet activity, just to switch it up on her to see if she would easily adjust to the difference. She did. She's cool like that.






We stayed with the stars and strips theme of the american flag and focused on shapes with with these single shape puzzles from Lakeshore Learning.  I made the star our first shape of focus.


At first we took all of the shapes out of their placements and we looked at them, talked about them and played with them for awhile. Vada got two of the shapes to stack onto each other, which I thought was pretty impressive considering how they are only about have of an inch wide.


We went through all of the shapes and placed them into their correct puzzle placements one at a time and then I steped it up a notch to challenge Vada a little. I gave her two empty puzzles with only one shape. After we did all of the shapes that way (and she flew through it easily) I did it again, only this time giving her two empty puzzles and two shapes that matched. 


Eventually, we were up to three puzzles with three shapes and she was figure it out all on her own!



She even began to stack them, once she had finished each individual puzzle, like I was originally.



She was very proud of herself and I cheered and cheered for her because I was extremely proud as well. To me, she is just amazing! Everyday she is learning something new and continues to show me how determined she is.


Next we worked on colors, red and blue to be exact, to go with the colors of the American flag.


We went through both crayon containers individually and then I had Vada show me her understanding of each each color by having her put them back into their correct crayon containers. She. got. them. all. correct! (and with no help from muah). Well, that isn't the full truth, she actually, truthfully got two incorrect but that was because she was being a Miss. Sassy Pants and looking at me while she attempting to put them into the right places. So I don't actually count them as being wrong. 



We then moved on the our Letter of the Week (were refreshing still so its more like Letter for three days and then move onto the next letter in the alphabet). Now 'crayon' and 'colors' also begin with the letter 'C' and I made sure to highlight on that as well. I also do this when ever our Letter of the Week comes up anytime through out the day or even night (more like whenever I think of it), not just when were doing school. I believe that it is important to point out the many different things that can be related back to our alphabet letter learning. My theory is that something I point out might help that specific letter and sound "stick" in her memory.


As you can tell, we are currently going back over letter 'C'. Were having fun with this letter but she is refusing to make the actual letter sound. She may have forgotten how..? It is an odd sound that comes from way back in your throat. So we may end up spending a who week on this letter again, which is fine. It is what it is. 


"Catch" starts with the letter 'C' so we caught bugs today with one of Vada's Melissa and Doug puzzles. She loved it!




'Caterpillar' starts with the letter 'C'.




We did the Alphabet Soup can for letter 'C'.





Like Vada's sign for "cat"? The ASL sign is to make whiskers, like a cats whiskers on your face. Vada like to grab her cheeks and pull. She hasn't always done this, it's a new thing. It's a cute thing. 


We then colored a page that I downloaded from 3Dinosaurs.com, everything on the sheet had to do with the letter 'C'. We printed the whole alphabet out and put them into our binders for Letter of the Week activities. They are great to have and a wonderful addition to helping learn and teach the letters of the alphabet.




Usually during our Letter of the Week lessons we do have more structured curriculum pages. I have kits for each letter of the alphabet that I have purchased from Confessions of a Homeschooler and I love them. However, since we are just refreshing on these letters, I am keeping it pretty easy going. Once we get to letter 'F' we will be back into lessons but I will remain keeping it fun and playful as well. 


Starting this school year (officially) we gave Vada a book bag (just like her big sisters) and I have been having Vada wear it to and from her bedroom to the classroom. I have been having her work on putting it on, removing it and hanging it up. On the six day of school she hung up the book bag for the first time. I was so ecstatic! I couldn't believe she had got it in such a short amount of time! This will help her in her goals towards independence in her self dressing skills. 


 On the seventh day, today, she wasn't satisfied with just hanging the bag up any ol' way, no, it had to be correctly done and she knew what way the correct way was, without being told. She worked hard and on her own, she hung her bag up the correct way! 


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