Letter B Activities
One of the reasons I chose to start Roo with home school preschool is because I wanted her to have the freedom to have "just not feeling it" days. Not to force her to go to school while she cries for me not to leave only to pick her up later to listen about how she was uncooperative and needs to behave. (Not that this has ever happened to me, but I've heard stories from girlfriends and family members.)
My goal is to have 1.5-2 hours of school activities for three days a week (usually Tuesday, Thursday, and Friday). Monday and Tuesday, she literally asked me if we could "play school" but the rest of the week was a wash. Luckily I took advantage of her readiness to participate on the first two days and got a lot of the planned activities done. Thursday, however, could best be described as a Two-Year Old Day. She wanted things her way and wanted it NOW. If I suggested something, she would do the opposite just to assert her independence. Friday has been a similar day, except if she views the activity as a "Big Girl Job" she is fully cooperative. So here is a short breakdown of what we got done this week.
Roo has been learning the letters sounds as well as recognizing them by sight. For her it's been similar to learning what a cow says or how a train sounds. So Monday we worked on "A says /a/a/a/. B says /b/b/b/. Then we played in our sensory bin from last week, but the As were replaced with Bs.
Tuesday we did a bunch of B crafts. I cut two blue Bs, a yellow oval with stripes and a face drawn on it, and two blue strips. Roo practiced gluing these together to create a "B Bee"
We also made a butterfly by tracing her hands and gluing a butterfly body in the middle. Roo LOVES to trace her hands and has named the activity "Tiny Hands" so she really enjoyed this.
Finally we made another butterfly using the B shape. This was a mock stained glass, mosaic type activity using press and seal paper, tissue paper triangles, glue, and construction paper.
While we did these projects, I would continually ask what letter we were using and what sound it made as well as refreshers on our shape (triangle) and color (red) for the week. Thursday I tried a few new activities that didn't go over so well. It wasn't that they were too difficult or that she had no interest, but mostly because she was just not in the mood to sit still or do what I said. We will try them again next week and include them in that post. Friday I gave up on traditional school activities and focused on life skills instead. I had her walk with me at the grocery store and help put items in the cart, (rather than our usual trips that have her riding in the cart and complaining about it the whole time). She also helped place the items on the belt at checkout and carried some very light bags into the house with me. Then I set her up with a pouring station on the patio while I put things away and made lunch.
(Bonus background dog)
Pouring is not only a life skill, but a great way for her to experiment with size and volume and even basic physics that will set foundation work for math skills later on. It also tested her muscles as the full pitcher and jug were a little heavy for her to lift.
We are still adjusting to our new fall routine and schedule, but I think we have been doing okay with this preschool thing! I'm excited to hear any thoughts you have about our lesson this week and any ideas you have for the letter C next week!
See you next time.
