Day of the Dinosaurs

I decided that we would only work on letter 'D' for two days, this being our second and last day. Vada seems to be able to recognize the letter 'D' and she knows how to make it's sound. So for now, we are ready to move on.

Today we started with writing practice! I just love writing practice! Vada is not fond of the hand over hand method that we use in the beginning and sometimes puts up a stink but I thoroughly enjoy watching her concentrate afterward. I like seeing the progress that she makes each and every lesson that we do. She is so determined. It's great. These worksheets below cam from Confessions of a homeschooler, Letter of the Week curriculum.

Because Vada was so successful with the letter matching yesterday I thought that we really needed to continue to focus on this activity and more than just once a week. I think that the LOTW curriculum calls for it to be done once a week (I don't have it in front of me to check and see) but I think that I may throw it it two to three times a week, unless it seems to become boring to Vada.

Since a good dinosaur color is green, I then gave Vada two different shade of Do-A-Dot green paint dabbers and a letter 'd' coloring page and let her paint it by doing her "dot, dot, dots".

She is "kissing" a thank-you in this photo.

To stay with the green theme, I pulled out this dollar Crayola puzzle. I mostly did it myself but I did have help from Vada. Vada turned all of the pieces over so that the photo side was correctly facing up, she also handed me the pieces and then when it was time to clean up she picked up all of the pieces and put them into the box.

Before we put the puzzle away, we did talk about all of the green objects on the puzzle. We did all of the signs that we knew, sounds that we could think of to go with the objects and then I asked Vada to find certain things for me.

I choose this puzzle because it had a dinosaur on it and this is where the green theme came from! I pointed out the dinosaur specifically to Vada and said "Look Vada, a dinosaur! 'D' is for dinosaur and 'D' is our letter today!"

I then pointed out the green crayon. It was perfect for our next activity.

Learning Resources and this great color recognition game where each crayon is filled with corresponding colored items. Vada loves the Alphabet Soup Cans and the 1-10 Counting Cans, so I knew that these would be a perfect addition to our classroom and for her learning style.

This crayon had a vine and a bug, celery, grapes, a Christmas tree, frog and a grasshopper!

Next, we did Dino counting with clothes pins. I had these prepared ahead of time. I would first count the pins out loud, I did this while I was still holding the card. Then, I would point to the number on the dinosaur card before I handing the card to Vada so that she could remove the pins. While she was removing the pins I would count them each outloud.

'D' is for dog! So we played a bone matching game that had a dog that we named "Ruff" (although, I think that "Ruff" is suppose to be his name anyway, hence the name above the dogie door).

This game is intended to be a tactile and matching game. We used it as that today and only highlighted a little on the "D" aspect of it when we found Ruff in the mix of the bones in his dog house.

We also brought out our Alphabet Soup can for letter 'D' and discovered what was inside of this can.

I think I mentioned earlier that Vada thoroughly enjoys these activities..?

I had a small water sensory bin already planned for Vada. We had the tweezers from another kit and the grow pills I purchased from a local Dollar Tree, so this bin was very inexpensive and Vada really liked playing in it.

After bath time, while I got Vada ready for bed, all of us sat down and watched a couple videos from this DVD.

And then (because we always read at least one story before naps and bedtime) we read a story from this book. And that was our final day of letter 'D'.

Alphabet 'B' Soup to Cure a Cold

Yesterday morning I had my weekly woman's Bible study. It's a time for me to be with other christian women and learn more about Christ and it is also a good time for Vada to play with other children her age while I am in the group. Before going to this group I had called her doctors office, I was concerned that she may had had an ear infection due to the fact that she was poking at her ear, something that was abnormal for her to do. I figured since she was acting fine other wise, we would still go to church however. On a side note, I had also noticed that since Vada's oral surgery she had become very clingy to me. In every situation where I would walk away from her or begin to leave she would become very upset, even if I were leaving her with some of her favorite people, like her sisters. I took this behavior as having something to do with anxiety possibly left over from the surgery, teething, or a stage that she was in. Now, I see that it is possible that it has everything to do with her being sick and I feel terrible for NOT knowing my daughter as I should!

Since we didn't have school yesterday, I did decide to try and get some lessons in today but I wanted to really feel Vada out. Before we came down, she was acting like she was in a great mood but once we came down she didn't seem like she wanted to do any of it. Sometimes, she does need a little persuasion and the right activities to motivate her learning interests so I was grateful that I had planned our week ahead of time by setting all of our 'B' and 'butterfly' themed toys out before hand. I just grabbed things and went with the flow of Vada.

Our first activity was Learning Resources Snap and Learn Shape Butterflies. Its a fun alternative to a typical flat puzzle!

Next we worked on our letter of the week from the Alphabet Soup Sorter set, also from Learning Resources. I'll admit, I went out and splurged this week on this item! Vada loves her Counting Cans and I felt that I needed to add more activities to the Letter of the Week curriculum that interested Vada and that seemed more like play and less like work to her and to balance things out. That's the justification I used when explaining this purchase to my husband. I think they are fantastic!

Vada doesnt like sticker crafts. So, I have been trying to add one sticker craft once a week. I want her to get used to them. I think its a texture think because they stick to her and that kind of freaks her out. This butterfly sticker activity wasnt as bad as last weeks, so progress is being made! She and I put it on her wall.

After we put the stickers on, she colored on she paper and I wrote the letter of the week as well as numbered the butterflies. Then when we were finished the picture got hung on the "I Did That!" wall.

I did get some of the days two Letter of the Week curriculum by Confessions of a Homeschooler, into today's activities!

We did the clothespin counting on the butterflies. I put the clothespin on and had Vada remove them while I counted out loud. She then placed then in the cup and I again counted them for her.

After we did the clothespin counting I handed Vada the empty butterfly cards in order from one to ten and counted them as I handed them to her. She placed each card onto the desk top. We did this three times and then she got board but it was a good repetitive counting activity.

Then we did the six piece butterfly puzzle activity. We also did this three times. 

Vada really liked to help me mix up the piece. I would ask her each time if she thought the picture would be the same as before and she would chuckle a little. I really want to know what she thought! 

At one point I took a coffee break and used this time to get her Counting Cans that I mentioned above. They have nothing to do with the letter 'B' or even butterflies but I told Vada that after we finished the butterfly activities we could do her counting cans. She did her part and so I kept my word! Like I said, she really enjoys this counting game and I honestly mean it when I say it was one of the best purchases that we have made!