Week 1 Review!

Our schedule was put off a few hours today due to Brighams speech therapy session, then lunch, then nap. So we actually didnt do the activity until he woke up after 4pm! night school, if you will!

We went over and talked about each activity that he did this week. That took a little bit of time, as we discussed what was going on in the picture, what he liked most about it, etc.
We of course had to sing the Ants go marching song a few times!
We also re-read the Caterpillar book. Briggy and Ollie really enjoy story time, and Briggy loves the interactive nature of sticker books.
Then our craft project was using each element we learned this week.

Apples for A, the number 1, the color red and circles.

With my cricut (I love this machine with all my heart, and it has made my crafting and now preschool-craft making life soooo much easier!) but of course these items can be made by good ol fashion cutting out, or using some punches.

I cut out different sized RED CIRCLES and green leaves and number ONES. I also cut out the word APPLES.




We were able to make apples using all the concepts we learned this week! I dont know if I'll luck out every week with such an easy activity, but this week was pretty great!

We played just for fun "hot apple" {same as hot potato but with an apple} with the apple that would be his early evening snack. We sang the song "Red Apple, Red Apple, as red as can be--for mommy loves briggy {throw it to briggy fast} and briggy loves me {briggy throws it back to mommy fast} I remember singing that in kindergarten myself :)



I don't have any pretty colored file folders to start my file folder projects with, nor is my EXPENSIVE Xyron 900 working {I have read a million reviews...all positive, I dont know what it is with mine {or if its me being dumb as a brick} but I have not had any success with it! The adhesive and double sided laminate cartridges have messed up on me every time I've tried. Now they are stuck together and I cant even get it to load. No one I am friends with locally has one, so Im out of luck and ideas on how to fix it and figure out whats going on. (online tutorials dont really seem to address the issues im having either!)
I do have some regular manila folders that I think I might just whip one up for practice tonight and I will post the result when the boys are down for the night. I made some pdf files of the apples, instructions and folder cover that you can use.
I have lots of very cute cricut images I could cut to make some folders, and I probably will as soon as I get the colorful file folders--but I realize alot of you don't have the machine, and printing and cutting out the images works for most people. It's also easier, which I am all about these days! Maybe once a month I'll make one super cutesy one, and the rest of the folders will be nice, but not as crafty and labor intensive....
Here's the link!
APPLE FILE FOLDER TEMPLATE

I'll post the finished product late tonight or tomorrow morning, so you can get an idea of what it'll look like put together. Hopefully the instructions make sense to you all!

{I've linked up to one of my favorite pre-school resource blogs!}

The Letter A

Today is our first preschool lesson for the new school year! Every monday we will have a new letter of focus, today we are of course starting with A!

Here are the A worksheets we will be coloring and reviewing:
{by clicking on the activity, it will bring you to the direct download page or webpage}

A is for apple

(courtesy of confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com)



Letter A tracing page

(courtesy of confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com)


Transportation that starts with an A! {tracing activity}

Dot Letter and Apple Activity

A is for Ant!


(courtesty of confessionsofahomeschooler)


Our A "song" is "The Ants go Marching!" and the little project to go along with the song is this cut-out of a brown A {representing an ant hill} on green cardstock {representing grass} with brown finger prints {representing the ants} this is also a great counting activity--counting the ants marching, and their little legs. Briggy loved this so much {and Ollie--who was clapping along!} we sang it over and over again!






Here are his completed worksheets! We did some practice A's on the back, but all of these with the ants marching song, only took about 50 minutes. I planned on our "preschool" taking 2 hours, but then I remembered I the rest of the week I have a secondary activity planned, and mondays are just free coloring or whatever afterwards, because of FHE in the evening.



As we were tracing the letters for "Big A" as we traced We said "Up Up Up--Down Down Down and ACROSS!" He seemed to really understand that concept and followed the directions really well. For "little a" as we traced we said "aaaarouuuunnnndddd and down!" and he did really well with that too. on the back of the pages are a lot of his free style of the letters, and I was really impressed. After all the activities were completed I gave him one of his little notebooks and the first thing he drew was this:


okay, so at first it looked like an "H" because he didnt connect the tippy-top of the A. So I told him that the Up and Down line have to "kiss" otherwise, it was an H. So he made a line connecting them and made his "smooch" noise--cutest thing ever!

Family Home Evening:
Seeing that its Labor Day and we will be visiting friends, and then the boys will be meeting uncle Eric {who've they'll be meeting for the first time} we are going to have a quick lesson on family, and draw pictures for Uncle Eric's arrival. Our hymn will be "Families Can Be Together Forever" Not as structured as a regular FHE, but next week we'll be back on track!