Letter of the Week - Letter B

B is for Butterfly.  If you ask Ladybug what letters we've covered she will say Butterfly, not B.  But that is not the point of doing this with her, it's to have fun and maybe some of it will sink in while we're playing. 

Here are photos of some of the activities Ladybug completed, again these are not everything she did, just what I managed to take photos of as it's more important that I'm with her rather than taking photos of her. 

I got the playdough out this week, pink which is Ladybugs favourite colour.  Ladybug will often get out the letter cards and playdough herself, and was delighted to see I had but this out in one of her trays.

Colour matching, also clipping spring loaded pegs onto cards are a great motor gross skill. 

Ladybug started this activity on the floor, but Jellybean kept trying to grab everything from her, now that Jellybean is crawling it's hard to keep anything away from her. 

I would have been in a lot of trouble if I didn't put some colouring activities out for Ladybug. 

This was a cutting and gluing activity.  Ladybug lost interest in this part way thru cutting so I helped her finish it off. 

And here's this weeks letter for Ladybugs alphabet book.  It's supposed to be a b with butterfly wings, and I guess it still is.  I do have to remind myself that it's not the end result, it's the process and it's how Ladybug feels that matters and she loves it. 

The Wonderful Wizard of Oz

Every night, after Ladybug and Rocket Boy have showered (or bathed) are in their pajamas and snuggled up in bed, their Daddy reads them a couple of chapters from a book. 

A week ago they finished reading The Wonderful Wizard of Oz, I asked Rocket Boy what happened in the book. 

"Dorothy gets, inside her house gets picked up by a cyclone and she gets transported to the land of Oz.  Then Dorothy meets the good witch and kills the bad witch and then she meets the munchkins who live in the munchkins land.  She travels on the yellow brick road and meets scarecrow, lion and the tin woodsman.  They go off to the emerald city where the great wizard of oz is, then they have to kill the wicked witch of the west. 

With water they melted the wicked witch of the west. 

The wizard of Oz went up in the balloon without Dorothy,  Dorothy really really really really wanted to go up in the balloon. 

The guard with the green whiskers told Dorothy and her friends to go to the country of the quadlings, that's when Dorothy used her sliver slippers to teleport back to Kansas after the good witch told her. That was the most powerful witch of all. 

That's all, that's the end of the story. "

I also asked Ladybug and she said

"I liked Dorothy and she had a dog"

We also had a couple of days of themed work which the kids really enjoyed.  We used the Wizard of Oz Preschool Pack from Homeschool Creations 

I got Rocket Boy to cut up this picture of the Tin Woodsman then glue it in order on some plain paper.

Rocket Boy wrote the names of each character, with a little help with spelling. 

Rocket Boy read a short story and then had the find and circle each word on the second sheet. 

Ladybug had to circle the odd one out, she needed help with this one, our printer is very low on ink so some of the differences were hard to spot.

Ladybug rolled dice and graphed the results.  She LOVED this activity and completed it twice, once with the Do a Dots, and again with stickers.

Ladybug is great at tracing, years ahead of her brother at the same age. 

Rocket Boy had to cut out the characters and glue them on the sheet in a pattern that he choose. 

Rocket Boy had to draw a line from the picture to the name. 

Both Ladybug and Rocket Boy had a go at this puzzle, both needed help.  Photo by Ladybug.

I'm new to using these cards, I've always skipped printing these when doing packs with Rocket Boy when he was younger.  I still don't know the 'correct' way to use these, but used them as a talking point with Ladybug and matching the pictures and words.

Ladybug LOVES colouring so I was printing more and more pages for her throughout the day. 

Rocket Boy had to put the correct fractions in Glenda the Good witches wand to complete the pictures. 

Our 2014 Learning Zone

It's a new year so I thought we would change thing up a little, or maybe a lot and rearranged our house to make it work better for us.  While there may not be a lot of lounge type space for visitors, we have heaps of space set up for the kids to do their work and play in.  But we live in our home every day and I rather have it set up for us and not for visitors who may or may not come and don't live here all the time.

 

We have a calendar which I've gotten so slack at doing every day with the kids, but will hopefully get into a better routine now that Ladybug has started back at Montessori (today was her first day back) and all our extra curriculum start back next week.
We named the room our Learning Zone as I'm trying to move away from the word 'School' as we do not do 'School' here at home, and I rather focus on the word 'Learning' 

Also on our wall is our alphabet tree, this is for Ladybug and each week when she completes a letter in the LOTW curriculum we add the letter to the tree. 

I picked up this table from the habitat for humanity for only $10, it's the perfect size for us all to sit at.  It's near our computer desks, so I can just wheel over and work one on one with the kids.  

Adding the Lego Art Carousel to the middle of the table also made the table more appealing to both Rocket Boy and Ladybug. 

I found this cupboard at the salvation army which is the hub of our room, the 6 trays on the left are Rocket Boys and the 6 on the right are Ladybugs.  The blue drawer are filled with Jellybeans toys, the area in front of the cupboards are clear so Jellybean has the floor to play on or the older two can do their work on the floor if they wish to. 

Currently our frogs which we will be releasing soon are also on this shelve, but the plans are to add some Montessori inspired trays which are also safe for Jellybean and maybe some of our bigger toys which I can change up every week. 

Letter of the Week - Letter A

I'm learning so much from Ladybug.  She's so different to her older brother and while he rather play with toys and do anything but 'work', Ladybug demands 'work' and completed most of it first thing in the morning, sometimes before I even make breakfast. 

As she has shown signs that she is ready - and pretty much demands it, I've started her on Confessions of a Homeschooler's Letter of the Week curriculum and she's loving it.

Her penmanship has improved, she's getting more confident using scissors, and she's starting to recognise numerals, even if she doesn't remember the actual letters after the week is up.

When I did LOTW with Rocket Boy, we completed it in the order set out in Handwriting Without Tear Get Set for School book, but as Ladybug is rather young and I'm not expecting her to be able to write the letters once finished so we're going in alphabetical order.

Ladybug was very excited to start with A week as her real name starts with A. She can already write uppercase A, and is very proud of that. 

Here are a few photos I managed to take during the week, we completed many more activities but I try not to have a camera in my hands all the time, and to spend as much time as I can just focusing on Ladybug and what she's doing. 

Ladybug LOVES colouring, and is getting so much better and block colouring, and staying within the lines - this isn't anything I've focused on with her, maybe something she's worked on at Montessori, or just something she's learnt herself over time. 

I cut the apples into strips, so Ladybug just had to cut between then then glue them onto the tree.

I have to watch Ladybug carefully when I get the Do a Dots out, as she has a habit of painting herself, instead of the paper. 

Using a large needle, Ladybug pokes holes thru the paper following the letter outline, this is great for find motor control and awesome pencil grip on the needle. 

When I set out this activity I had pictured Ladybug lacing each card separately, there was an upper case A, lower case a and an apple.  Instead she had lots of fun threading them together, hanging it on her bed for the rest of the day. 

Ladybug raced through all her work, so I had to find some more printables for her, especially involving colouring.  I found more at Totally Tots 

This is Ladybugs scrap book which we're going to but together each week with our letter crafts.  

The plan for the letter a craft was to look like an apple with seeds in the middle, and a stem and leaf, the idea is from Totally Tots letter a craft.  While I kinda secretly would love a perfectly completed craft, I rather let Ladybug have fun and do it how she wants.