Back to School!

We had a busy morning! Today's Lesson? Mommy wasn't prepared.

The Punk has grown up in so many ways over the Summer. He's physically stronger and able to do things he couldn't just a few weeks ago. He's going crazy with letters and phonics - just chomping at the bit to start reading. He's been working on his comedic timing, and is extremely funny. I love watching these new skills emerge, but already miss the baby he is rapidly leaving behind...

I didn't realize how FAST he would devour his school work this morning, so I was ill prepared. A few months ago this would have been a couple of hours "work" with a snack built in somewhere... now it took him just under a half hour to complete everything I had planned last night.

I have to dig a little deeper into these "lesson plans" of mine, because the Punk is leaps ahead of where we left off!

Patterns - Matching Patters from a Word document to his new foam shapes.

Big / Little Letters - New puzzle letters from Target

Reading the book Six Sticks and following along with our own 6 sticks...

Toothpicks - Mommy's chance to step away from the table and load the dishwasher!

Feeding the Fish

This morning we did an activity we called Feeding the Fish. I pulled out an ice cube tray from IKEA, some toast tongs and some pom-poms, and we had fun "Feeding the Fish".
We then did a little scissor work. The Punk cut between the stickers, and then we played with the "cards" he made for a while. Easy to make - they are free stickers I get in some Movie Club advertisements (I am cheap like that) and the Punk knows the characters, so it makes for good patterning and Memory type games. Then we moved on to the bowl of Buttons. I had these ready for him - 3 of each color, but all different shapes. He sorted them, then used his chopsticks to place them back in the bowl.

He's getting so much better with his chopsticks! We have a second pair we take with us to eat sushi, and he feels pretty confident when he picks up food from his plate and it makes the entire trip to his mouth! Practical life, indeed.

This post was linked to: Tot School

Hoppy Easter to all our Peeps!

We made a quick and easy Easter lapbook today. Some of the content was borrowed from Confessions of a Homeschooler. Some was borrowed from Squidoo. And some was just plain Googled and put together by Me!

We sorted Peeps, and then made Peep Patterns. The Punk had no idea what a Peep was, so I must make a mental note to get him a pack of Peeps for his basket.

We played the Egg Matching Game, and I was amazed at how well he did. Some of the patterns/colors are very similar, but he matched every one of them correctly.

We then helped the chocolate bunny find his way into the Easter Basket. this is a Word Template I created and I change the clip art to/from for whatever suits our lesson. He's getting much better at staying on the lines. I feel bad that he gets so frustrated with himself when he goes out of the line, but he's so darn proud when he does a good job that I keep giving him more chances to work on this.

Our first maze EVER. Look at that kid! He traced the path with his finger the first time, and then he "knew" how to get there. He is very excited to show Daddy this one.

Our cutting work today was a lesson on "fringing". It was hard for him to not cut all the way through, he loves snipping and shredding paper. He finally "got" it when I showed him we were making Easter Egg Grass.

I printed a simple egg template from Google images, and had him decorate some eggs. We picked his favorite ones, and hid them in the grass he had cut. Then we drew some happy clouds, and he asked me to make "some gwitter-y ones!", so I added a few glitter glue clouds to the back.

The lapbook came together fairly quickly this morning. We ended the lesson by reading Happy Easter Little Critter before his nap.

Snip Snip Snip

New Scissors Day! I have a passion, nay, obsession with office supplies. If the Punk was a girl I really wanted to name him Avery. It's bad. When I worked outside the home I was the person in charge of ordering office supplies. It was Heaven.

Now my fondness for office supplies is turning into a "What new thing does the Punk need for school? Yep. Totally sad. But my most recent purchase is AWESOME! Scissors. Yeah, he already had scissors. Scissors that cannot cut anything but paper. Scissors that are proven (by the advertisement and ME) to not cut hair. That is important to me (after growing up seeing kids with chunks of hair missing). But... the Punk can't use those scissors well. Not yet at least.

So I bought some new ones. And I am thrilled. They have a springy mechanism that helps them bounce back to the open-position. And that is exactly what he needed help with. Our cutting work went by so smoothly today - no frustrations, no "I can't do this.". I love these new scissors.

Today we practiced cutting construction paper between the happy face stickers.

And then patterning those stickers! A two-for-one activity.

The Punk wanted to cut some more (he's loving these new scissors too!) so we practiced with more strips of construction paper.

And then a page from one of his Kumon books.

I Greater than Three this Craft!

The Punk and I made hearts for Valentine's Day today. This craft took me to a happy place. Melty plastic, bright colors, hearts... love! They are called Perler Beads at most craft sores, but I (of course) bought ours from IKEA. We also bought the shapes set that goes with the beads. I sat up late last night and picked out only red, white and pink beads and sorted them on one of the Punk's crafting trays. We got started right away, and we both had a lot of fun picking out each bead to go in each spot. This is a GREAT way to work on fine motor skills, and it's fairly difficult (even for me) I was proud of him for having the patience to stick with it.

After we set our beads in place I melted them. The Punk was safely in the living room playing Hotwheels, and I went at it. Parchment paper, iron and a washcloth was all I needed (The IKEA directions just show a stick figure and an iron, so I Googled some better instructions).

Paper under, paper over, press with a hot iron.

Voila!

We ended up making 3 hearts today. I am thinking about gluing some magnets to the back so they can have a bit more purpose.

We talked about patterns, colors, heat, all kinds of interesting stuff. And while he's not able to do the magical-amazing-melting part of the activity, I can still see it being something we work with again and again.