Tot School/Preschool - The Rest of Our Week

 Cricket is 41 Months

We worked primarily on establishing a rhythm for our home school days, note this was more about me figuring out Cricket's natural rhythm and how school was going to best work for her than anything else. At this point I think we are going to have "circle time" every morning after breakfast. The rest of our school time will either be completed immediately following this or in the afternoon after Cricket's nap, based on her mood during circle time.

We did all of our circle time activities each day as planned, and we worked on our workbox system. I tried to instill the need to finish all the boxes each day. I should say that at this point each box has very little in it. I want her to feel a since of accomplishment and enjoy the small tasks. As we grow in this adventure her "workload" will also grow.

We finished up two of our Hooked on Phonics Books that covered Upper Case Letters, Colors, and Shapes. Check out my post on the alphabet twister game I was inspired to make.

We also finished the I am Special Book that we started on Monday from Alphabet Soup.

 We read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, and used our lapbook to match upper and lower case letters. Cricket was able to independently match the letters that look similar. For the other letters I had her use the beginning of the book as a reference (as I flashed back to my mom telling me to look something up when I didn't know the answer). She would find the upper case and look at the lower case right next to it, then she had to find the lower case card that matched it. (I got the resources for this lapbook here and here)

Cricket worked on name recognition using the activity I saw here, we just used alphabet letters though. Tip: make sure you write the letters the same way as they appear on the sticker.

 We used the manipulatives  that I found at Target's Dollar Spot for sorting and sequencing. Cricket is doing great with the sorting. The sequencing she can and will do, but her attention span with this is SUPER short. We did another quick size sort activity, and Cricket did better with this sequencing. For some reason she responded better when I asked her to go from biggest to littlest, than she did when I asked her to go from littlest to biggest.

Cricket really enjoyed doing the A-Z Clothes Pin Match-Up I found at Confessions of a Homeschooler. I have the clothes pins labeled with upper case letters, and first we tried matching to lower case. Cricket got frustrated quickly with this, but swapping to the image card made a world of difference. It was more on her ability level and she enjoyed manipulating the clothes pins.

We also played Bingo and Uno Moo which help with color identification.

Cricket also sought out and played a lot with her Fisher Price Little People this week. Lots of imaginative play (I love listening to the "conversations") and she even had them join us for school one day. 

I also tried her on pouring for the first time. She loved it, but (note to self) I need to find a plastic pitcher or measuring cup to pour from!

We also went to the park, sensory garden, and indoor play center for exercise and fun!

Check out what other Tots and Preschoolers are doing at these amazing sites.