Focusing on Blue: Day Six of Blueberries For Sal

Today we spent most of our time focusing on the actual color 'blue' verses the theme of our week which is blueberries from Blueberries For Sal. Since I had a lot of blue activities left to do, I actually added an extra day to our "row".

We stated out by reading this "Big Book" that I got in a set that we ordered from Lakeshore Learning.

Then we worked on a activity that I downloaded from Kids Learning Station. I couldn't find a lapbook to download and print for Blueberries For Sal like I did for most of the other BFIAR books, so I had to find my own worksheets this week.

We then continued with more blue color recognition with another fun color game. This one came from  Learning Resources.

Next, Vada colored a worksheet that I downloaded from Twisty Noodle. I gave Vada a colored pencil to use for coloring this page. She did such a great job! I noticed specifically with the "jeans" that she colored on and in both of the "legs", which was a huge milestone!

Vada also colored a page from one of her Kumon books. This page had three coloring steps verses the one step that her carrot coloring page had during our last row. 

Vada did a very good job at coloring this page but she was very stubborn about doing the actual steps. I had to be very firm about "only color here" and "only color here".  She yelled at me a little but in the end, she followed my instructions and she did a pretty good job.

The next coloring activity that Vada did was a "B" is for Blueberry page, basically a filler for her journal but she loves to color and it was another way to use blue.

Check out the grasps this girl has on the crayon! 

We had another opportunity to practice cutting and pasting by cutting out the mason jar that Vada "filled" with Do-A-Dot "blueberries" the other day and then gluing it to a blue piece of paper to go into her journal.

This was our final craft and our final activity in our blueberry row. We had such a good learning week and did a lot of fun things together as a family. I really enjoyed reading Blueberries For Sal and watching it being read on the Scholastic's DVD that we have. I'm really looking forward to our next row!

Our companion books this week were:

'D' is for Dinosaur

Our Letter of the Week this week is letter 'D' and the theme is dinosaurs. Secretly, or maybe not so secretly, I have been eagerly awaiting this letter. I have some really fun activities planned for this week! 

Plus, and this is a huge plus, we're back in our classroom, which makes everything all that much more better!

Our day was pretty much "normal" and we stayed on track to our basic scheduled days. I Introduced our letter for letter of the week. I Read the memory verse. 

I read read from our Big Thoughts For Little People book.

And then we began to work from our Letter of the Week curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

This was our first time using our alpha letters on these particular disks. I once used them on milk caps, which I think are a wonderful idea if you have the extra storage space, which we don't so I had to make a change and this is what I went with. They. Were. Perfect!

Next, we worked on color matching with a file folder game that I made a couple of months ago.

And then we checked out what was in the Learning Resources Alphabet Soup Sorting Can.

I think that learning to pretend is a vital part of being a toddler and adolescent. So, I try to teach every last detail of everything I know of everything. One of the items in the letter 'D' can was a dragonfly. I talked about what a dragonfly was, what they looked liked and what they did. One of my descriptive words was that they flew. Below, Vada is making the dragonfly fly around and then into the can. I LOVE that she is beginning to really get into pretending! Love it!

We then worked on using scissors and cutting. With each letter in the Letter of the Week curriculum we get a cutting practice sheet which we can print out as many times as we need. I usually print out the sheet only once a week but I have recently decided to print it out more than that throughout the week. She needs the practice! Or so all of the age appropriate guide lines tell us that she does -need the practice. ("Typical" toddlers who are Vada's age, 3 years, are able to use scissors or are becoming very familiar with them. Vada is becoming familiar with me having a hand over hand grasp while using the scissors and cutting and while I am okay with where she is currently, the therapists and the guidelines are not calling scissor usage in the "typical development range" so together we will work a harder on cutting but I will make sure to it fun.)

I first gave Vada the sheet that we would cut together and the scissors and let her try it out on her own. After a couple of minutes we cut the paper together.

Because I like to try and save money wherever I can I actually copied pages from this book. I paid like six dollars for it and to use the pages only once seems like such a waste! So, yes, I copied the page and then had Vada do some practice cutting.

'D' is for dog, don't you know?

As I was cleaning up some of my mess I let Vada look through Danny and the Dinosaur book that we happen to have had and that I decided to read throughout the week at nap time for our Letter of the Week theme of dinosaurs.

We finished up our day by reading our Kids Like Me alphabet book. Then we added our letters 'C' because we were upstairs and unable to do so last week and then letter 'D' for this week.