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'.

Introducing Rainbow Rice

Colored rice is really, really easy to make and much cheaper than buying it already made --trust me, i've officially done both and making your own is the way to go! 

You'll need regular rice, not the quick cooking rice, rubbing alcohol, food coloring and ziplock baggies.

Starting out you'll use a couple to a few Tablespoons of rubbing alcohol with a few to several drops of what ever color of food coloring you choose. Its not a real science, you'll just need to eyeball it and you'll add just enough rubbing alcohol to wet all of the rice in the baggie with the colored mixture --just remember to add the alcohol and food coloring first followed by the rice. If you find that there needs to be more liquid then slowly add extra alcohol. 

If its a sunny day, close up the bags and lay them out in the sun, that'll help quicken the absorption. They can dry inside too, it may just take a little longer to dry.

When I finally opened our baggies the smell of alcohol was really strong so I poured them into cake pans and let them have another day of airing out before I let the girls stick their hands into the rice.

I used a twenty-five pound bag of rice that I bought from Sams Club. You can go further and buy a fifty pound bag or smaller, it all depends on what your going to use your rice for, we'll use our for a substitute for sand and for sensory play with Vada. 

I made the rice on Friday and tonight (Sunday) I let the girls mix it all up. They all enjoyed running their hands through the soft colored rice, well, V didn't so much enjoy it as much as her sisters did but she was interested enough to keep trying it out. 

She would stick her hands in the rice then quickly remove them, then yell at the rice, then she would repeat herself and do it all over again. 

Funny little girl.

Jasmine and Kiliegh surprised me with their own interest in the rice. Sometimes I just figure that they'll think these sorts of things are too young for them but they enjoyed this just as much as I hoped V would which makes my heart happy and just goes to show that the simplest of things can be just as entertaining (if not more) than the electronics and high priced gadgets.