Week 1

In the last post I shared our school routine. And now here's what we really did, well not exactly because we didn't finish the first week so we carried into another week. Seems like a lot of planning and then it only takes anywhere from 10-30 minutes to do all of it, but we sure have fun! And we'll figure it out the more we go through this!

THEME: Apples!

MONDAY
* THEME: A is for Apple. Post letter A and an apple picture on learning poster.
* Vocabulary word: apple core--the center part of an apple. Post word, definition, and small picture on poster.
* Book: Strawberry Shortcake's Field Trip
* Poem (found here):

If I were an apple
And grew on a tree
I think I'd drop down
On a nice boy like me.
I wouldn't stay there
Giving nobody joy
I'd fall down at once
And say, "Eat me, boy."

* Action Rhyme (found here):

Way up high in the apple tree (stretch arms up, hands open)
Two little apples smiled at me (keeps arms above head, close hands into fists)
I shook that tree as hard as I could (arms still up, "shake" tree)
Down came the apples (bring fists down toward stomach)
Mmmm, they were good! (rub stomach)

* Activity: Apple of God's Eye. Draw a glittery apple and paste Eli's picture inside. Once dry add to poster.

TUESDAY
* Shape: square--find 3-5 objects to show, walk around house chanting "Squares, squares, they're everywhere!" Actually we continued that through the whole week, and wherever we went we'd look for squares, especially in public restrooms.
* Super squares worksheet from this workbook (My Little Heavenly Helper, Preschool. From Dollar Store for $1) Squares coloring page for Hannah.* Song: Do you know the apple man?

Do you know the apple man, the apple man, the apple man?
Do you know the apple man who likes to sing with me?

Oh he loves the letter A, the letter A, the letter A.
Oh he loves the letter A and likes to sing with me.

*Review vocabulary word.

WEDNESDAY
* Learn Letter A and sound--say several words out loud and ask if it starts with the letter A, point out letter around house, practice tracing letter, worksheet (Eli practices handwriting and Hannah colors an apple coloring page)
* Review poster.
* Read about Johnny Appleseed.
* Poem #1:

Eat an apple
Save the core
Plant the seeds
And grow some more!

* Poem #2 (found here):

Thank you Johnny Appleseed.
We owe you quite a lot.
For the apples that you planted
With a Bible and a cooking pot.

Your seeds were planted far and wide.
You gave a helping hand.
A friendly word you had for all,
Across our frontier land.

Thank you Johnny Appleseed.
We owe you quite a lot.
The lovely trees and apples,
And the lessons that you taught!

* Song: Johnny Appleseed Song.

THURSDAY
* Introduce number 1. Add to learning chart along with a picture of 1 square (shape of the week) next to it. Put ONE sticker in counting book. Using our Mancala beads, two colors for each child, we started by just putting one bead in each hole of an ice cube tray. Then Eli worked on doing patterns, alternating the colors as he put them in the spots. And with Hannah we got out two bowls and practiced color sorting. Then Eli did this worksheet that I made for him, while I Hannah did a coloring page.* Introduce First Commandment to commandment train.* Review learning poster.
* Read: Pooh encyclopedia about apples
* Finger play:

Five red apples hanging on a tree (five fingers held up)
The juiciest apples you ever did see!
The wind came past and gave an angry frown (shake head and look angry)
And one little apple came tumbling down (put one finger down)
Four red apples, etc.

* Handwriting worksheet for Eli. Coloring page for Hannah.
* Activity: finger print apple trees with poem

These are special apples,
Hanging on this tree.
I made them with my finger prints.
They are a part of me!

FRIDAY
* Read about Bible hero: Abraham/Isaac story and add to learning poster along with the key values obedience, trust, love.
* Review learning poster.
* Activity: Make a collage of letter A's and pictures starting with the letter A. This was good repetition as we cut out a million letter A's from magazines (I had pre-found the words/sentences) because even after doing "A" all week, he was still calling it a "B"! So this repetition helped him get "A" stuck in his head. While Eli did this project Hannah just practiced gluing scrap pieces of paper onto a big letter A.* Activity: Color a "surprise picture". Using masking tape make a letter A on a piece of paper (press it down as lightly as possible). Then have the child use the side of a crayon to color all over the paper. Then carefully peel off the tape and see the surprise Letter A!* Activity: Number hunt. Make an assortment of fun-colored numbers, with a majority being the number of the week. Hide them all over the house. Then have child go around with a bucket finding the numbers. Only number 1's go in the bucket, and the other numbers are for Mommy. We play this again and again.
* Activity: make a spreadsheet with 2 green, 2 red, and 2 yellow apples (6 separate squares). Print and cut them apart into 6 cards. With Eli we laid them out and played a memory game again and again. And with Hannah we just worked on matching.* Share our learnings: make homemade applesauce to share with daddy

Hmm, we didn't quite do all of those activities on Friday. We spread them out across 3 days or so since we didn't finish the lesson all in one week because of a weekend trip. But Friday is kind of a review day, so we did one activity for each element on our poster.