If You Give A Moose A Muffin

(No pictures. I can't get my button to work!)

Monday - Read the book and did the worksheet, except that instead of finding the words, I had N circle the "m"s that she found. She had no trouble finding them, and she did a really good job with tracing the letter.

Tuesday/Wednesday - I don't remember what we did on these two days! Where is my memory going?!?!

Thursday- We talked about the "M" sound and then N had to find 10 pictures of the 15 or so that I had cut out that began with "M" and glue them onto an "M" paper. She did really well with it. A couple of the pictures that I had chosen that did begin with "M" she named as something else (mitten/glove), so it was good that I had a few extra "M" words.

Friday - I set up an Uppercase/Lowercase letter clothespin activity. I had thought that it would be a great learning experience and we'd get to talk about how some were the same and others were different. NOT AT ALL. The only letters N didn't right the first time, with no guidance from me, were "d" and "q". She had fun, though, and I learned that she's been paying attention!

Tray Time:

We began this week and N LOVES it! This week we used:

• wheat, with scoops and bowls
• base ten cubes (N called them little teddy bears.[?]). She had a hard time putting them together at first, but got the hang of it (and didn't give up!)
• toothpicks, into a container with holes in the top. Not N's favorite, which surprised me.
• foam shape puzzles. Also not her favorite, though she liked them more than the toothpicks.

Weather

I have to say in the beginning that this week wasn't very well planned. I had a lot of good ideas floating around, but not much preparation. And it was apparent to me throughout the week. So, here we go:

Day 1 - I had made a snowflake, a raindrop, a cloud and a sun out of felt. Also labels that said, "snowing" "raining" "cloudy" and "sunny". We read the book Sun and Rain, looking at the clues in each picture that showed us the weather. Then we looked at the felt weather pieces and talked about them.

Day 2 - At Mama Smiles I found the pattern for this bear, along with various outfits. I used the outfits that she had, and made one of my own that included an umbrella and galoshes. This day we read a book called Weather and looked at the clothes that the children wore for the weather. Then, using our weather pieces, we dressed our Bella Bear in clothes that were fitting for each type of weather. Afterwards, we went to the computer and played "What Should Bella Wear?" N loved it, playing it multiple times!

Day 3 - Using the Cloud Math Mat, N rolled a die, and wrote the number that she's rolled in one of the clouds. I learned from this that we haven't spent much (as in, none) time writing numbers. Good to know. We'll definitely be working on that one.

Day 4 - N did a A-S Dot-to-dot of an umbrella. She liked it!

Day 5 - Due to the lack of paint in small town Colorado, we ditched our painting a cloud idea and went instead for making a book for N to color and read. She likes being able to read books. And because "it" and "is" are repeated A LOT, I've started pointing them out in other books that we read. And she's starting to get it!

BROWN BEAR, BROWN BEAR

N really enjoyed this book. A LOT. So much so, that some plans had to change - isn't it convenient that they can with only one student? So, here's how it went...

Monday - We read the book. The first time through she started helping "read" the repetitive parts. And then we did the matching. And she had a lot of fun.

Tuesday - We read the book together then she traced the fish and two others that I found here and here. She didn't do as well as she could have on the tracing. However, I'm trying to not be a perfectionist teacher and to let her do things as she enjoys. Sometimes, though, it's not easy, especially when I know how well she can do, and just decides to rush.

Wednesday - I changed the plan. Because she was already "reading" most of the book, I decided to do an activity to help her with the part that she was struggling with - the color words. I made up some Color Word Cards - with black print (because colored print would give her too big a hint). Then we read the words, comparing them to the color words in Brown Bear, Brown Bear, and glued matching color beads onto the cards.

Thursday - We made the puppets and read the book - once with N using the puppets and once with N reading the book and me doing the puppets. Then again when A woke up. N loves acting things out, so this was great! She did get a little hung up on there being no puppet for the children.

Friday - We did 2 things for the book. Using a paper punch and white paper colored brown (no brown paper to be found. Where did it all go? And why did it leave when I needed it?) we covered the word brown with bears (idea found here). Then, when A awoke from his nap, we took a field trip to a pet store, to look at GOLDFISH. Because N didn't understand why the goldfish in the book was ORANGE and not GOLD. So we found goldfish. And they were orange and yellow and black and white. N is very excited to go back to a pet store.

Again, not many pictures. I'll work on that...

Brown Bear, Brown Bear - Planning

Monday - Introduce the book. Then have her match the animals from the book.

Tuesday - Trace the fish, then color it in.

Wednesday - Make the Coloring Animals Mini-book.

Thursday - Storytime AND do a retelling of the book using puppets.

Friday - Art: I haven't decided between painting a bear, making a bear mask, or making a necklace.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom! - Reality

Okay. Things didn't go exactly as planned. I WILL BE BETTER. And I didn't get many pictures. Alright, only one. I WILL BE BETTER. But I think that the week, overall, was a good start. Here's what happened:

Monday - We read the book and did a letter assessment. She would tell me a letter that she saw, and then trace it on the paper with marker (she loved that part!). The didn't get "W" and "E". Good to know.

Tuesday - We made a mini-book that was repetitive. We colored the trees together and then she read it to me, each of her animals (separately.), to A, to Uncle, etc. She doesn't look at the words when she "reads", nor does she point to the words, but she likes that she has a book that she can "read" all by herself.

Wednesday - We scattered the stuffed letters all over the rug and N did various things to pick them up: Crab walk, giant steps, run, walk backward, gallop, baby steps, frog jump, etc. (think 'Mother May I'). She really enjoyed it. How do I know? She asked to play it later in the week...

Thursday - This was our worst day of the week. We'd planned on going to early storytime, but the scheduling didn't work, and we ended up going to the later storytime, which meant that school time was available. So, not having anything prepared, I threw together an activity and it bombed. She was supposed to line up the letters of the scrambled sticky note alphabet. It wasn't a huge hit. But I think that another time, with more calmness in the house, it would work.

Friday - We used the pages found here to play a game. We used the tree outline and the cards, but not the pieces. We just colored the tree as we drew a shape. It worked really well for us. N also really like the game.

Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!

Monday - letter tracing (while doing letter assessment)

Tuesday - shape matching game

Wednesday - find the letter with stuffed letters scattered around the room. I'm thinking we'll include some gross motor skills by having her jump/hop/run/walk backwards etc. to find the letters.

Thursday - story time

Friday - art of some sort. I'm still working on it!