Number Two and Sensory Acitivity

Today we did a lot of practice worksheets on how to write the number 2, as well as picking out sets of 2 worksheets. Ever since I introduced paints to Briggy last week....hes been asking to "haint" {again with the H sound! ergh!} constantly!
The dot-to-dot activities I originally used a circle paintbrush {until he broke it...} and today we just used our fingers and a regular small paintbrush. I am going to purchase some of those specialty markers soon {and possibly a giveaway....} because they seem fun and a staple with a lot of the moms of blogs I check out.

Number 2 coloring page. I liked this one because the star is a good size to cut out after colored and make a badge with it or attach it to a popsicle stick for a magic wand!

Practice writing 2!

Tracing and finding sets of 2
Link 1
Link 2
Link 3
Link 4 {scroll to 2nd page!}

#2 Dot activity



I have to brag for a second--look at these 2's Briggy made on his own! he made a lot of scribbles too, but this page was AMAZING!!!!


Last night when I was picking and choosing the worksheets to print out, I came across this name tracing page:
http://www.printactivities.com/Tracing.html

I thought to myself "No way in heck they'll have Brigham, but maybe Oliver..." I checked for the heck of it, and HOLY MOLY! they had Brigham! How crazy!?! I wouldnt have expected that since its such an unusual name {unless you are in Utah, and even then its not that common!} My friend's son has an unusual name too, Cade, and she just told me that they have Cade too! So whether or not your child has a popular name, or an uncommon name--you just may be in LUCK!

Sensory Activity

I came across a recipe for GAK! awhile back that I wanted to try but it used Borax and some other ingredients that I didnt have lying around...but knew Briggy would love that, and it would be a great sensory activity for him. I found a website that had a recipe that only used cornstarch and water {and food coloring if you wanted} to make this bizarre gooey concoction! Ewgh! It is so weird. Chalky and dry, but gooey and runny all at once. It still amazes me at 26! I used to love playing with the "real" stuff back in the 90s, but I think this homemade recipe is pretty darn fun!





Gak/Goop Recipe

Materials Needed

4 parts cornstarch
1 part water
(Can add coloring)


What To Do

Add water gradually to cornstarch. Stir with fingers.

Gak Play:

This mixture is great fun for those children who love to play in the mud -- but it avoids the filth factor! The "Gak" will provide a variety of interesting textures and consistencies. It will be solid and chalky in some places, runny and oozy in others.

The Gak is great fun on its own. But to extend play (or enliven it on another day), you might add big mixing spoons, a sieve or sifter, little cups or dishes, measuring utensils, or washable plastic toys.

Adding a little food coloring or Liquid Watercolor to the Gak and allowing children to mix it in is another great way to extend play. Do two colors and turn it into a "science" experiment about color mixing.

A great feature of this material is that, when the little spills on floor and table top dry, you just sweep them up. Teacher Annie tells me that you can save your tub of Gak, and that when it dries out, you can simply add more water! Very economical this way.

(courtesty of www.earthkids.com)

The Letter B!

The letter B is a big deal in our home. Briggy says "D" as b almost in every word except: bubble, ball and boo! it has been a talked about issue with the speech therapist every since we started. We have tried lots of things, and for some reason we can't break the "habit" he's formed with the d-sound. Its really frustrating! We will be playing a game that the therapist recommended by tossing things back and forth and making a song using B with the variety of following vowels, "bahh, beyyy, buuu, biiiih" and we repeat the sounds back and forth to eachother. when we do games like that and are looking him face to face, he seems to have the most success.

Briggy really loves Butterflies and Bumble Bees, so those are our main B activities, but also balls and bubbles during playtime. I tried to find something on transportation to sort of stick with the theme from last week and found a couple boat activities.

Here are the activity sheets that I printed off for Briggy to work on. I dont know WHAT I did to our camera, but I can't get the batteries to work in it! I charged them over night and it still says low battery when I load them in the camera, and it just shuts right off. I've tried different outlets---its a pretty new camera! hopefully I'll get to the bottom of it. I have such bad luck with cameras!




Heres a link to ALL of Erica's {confessionsofahomeschooler} B activities. She has a TON! I only did a couple because I really want to laminate a lot of her printables so I can reuse them, and well....still havent figured out how to fix my xyron. GRR! I think I might take a lot of to-be-laminated papers to a local Christian store that laminates for super super super cheap.


Tracing Upper and Lowercase Bb

Tracing Bb and letter-sound-object recognition worksheet

Little Letter B book!
(instructions on little book assembly)

Practice B writing, and choosing B sounds worksheet

B is for Boat!

The Smallest Object-B words

Hug-a-bug Song!
Hug a Bug
Hug a bug,
Hug a bug,
But don't EVER
hug a bee!
It might sting
your nose,
your hand,
or your knee.

Bumble Bee coloring page

Bb dot-a-dot activity {confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com}

Family Home Evening Activity!

Pres. Hinckley's 9 B's coloring sheet, creating a bumble bee out of a toliet paper roll...and a honey-licious treat. I hope when Tom gets home he can get the camera working so I can show pictures!
More activities based on the "B's"

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!}

Circle Time!

Circle Street Printable
Here is another transportation-themed activity. Just like the number one that you were able to laminate, this street is in the shape of a circle. The cars can go ROUND AND ROUND like a circle!


Pick the circle activity!

Tracing Circle Worksheet

I made my own circle snack activity! Its my first attempt at a PDF file, so hopefully this works!

The Circle Song!
A circle, a circle, (draw in the air)
Draw it round and fat. (use index finger to draw circle in the air)
A circle, a circle, (repeat action)
Draw it for a hat. (draw a circle in the air overhead)
A circle, a circle, (repeat action)
Draw it just for me. (draw in the air)
A circle, a circle, (repeat action)
Now jump and count to three: One! Two! Three!

Circle Caterpillar Craft (to segue into the hungry caterpillar book we'll be reading)





I chose the caterpillar book for a couple reasons--I had recently bought it online when it was clearanced really low and had free shipping along with a whole bunch of halloween books---so it was "new" to briggy and not a holiday theme---most all of the fruit the caterpillar eats are "circle fruits" and the ending of the books shows how the caterpillar turns into a beautiful butterfly....guess what one of the B week activity is? BUTTERFLIES! so that will start on monday, but for friday's recap lesson, we will most likely be re-reading the hungry caterpillar book!

The Color Red and Exercise {til you're red in the face!}

Red things I see!
I had several different cutouts of items half with red, half with other colors, Briggy had to paste all the Red things he could find.




red dot activity

Color sorting activity:

I had 8 pompoms {four red, four other colors} and since briggy is big into scooping with shovels or spoons, he had to scoop all the red pom poms and put them on the red spot, and the colors that were not red, on the brown spot. He like that game--played it a few times. He really liked putting the wrong color on the red spot and shaking his head saying "no no no! nah {not} hed {red} for some reason, hes replacing the "h" sound for a lot of the beginning consonants in words....especially his colors. working the beginning sounds A LOT with him lately....hes been focusing so much on the ending sounds, that he seems to have forgotten, or not really cared about the beginning. Oh, Brigs!





We will be reading "The Little Red Hen" online {from a great resource, starfall.com that website was recommended by one of Briggy's developmental therapists, and he LOVES all of the content on the site, and thinks he is a total big shot sitting at the computer in the "spinny" chair!




After the story we will be creating our own 'little red hen'
materials used:
small red party plate
red cardstock that we traced briggy's hand prints on
scissors to cut out shapes
glue or staples to adhere hand feathers, face, etc.
triangle and heart for face "pieces" and buttons for eyes!





We read from Exodus about how Moses parted the Red Sea and how they were able to walk through. {Exodus 14:21-22}

Red Sea Acitivity 1

Red Sea Activity 2

Our fun exercise activity got us jumping all around! I used different colored felt pieces and Briggy had to try and jump and land on only the RED ones. When Briggy wakes up from his nap this afternoon he will get to eat yummy red jello for a snack!

Number #1 and Sensory play

Today we are reviewing the number ONE and having a sensory-play activity. I am trying to incorporate the same themes through the week {apples, ants, transportation}
I didn't want to do just one item {like apples} this year, I thought I'd spice things up a bit with a few different options. The first go-around with Briggy we just did the one {apples} and it got a little boring!


Number One Street Printable

This is a fun activity that you'll need to pull out a toy car or two. Its a large printable of a number ONE that looks like street. They can race their car up and down and trace the number one!
I would recommend laminating this page, so you can use it over and over without any rips!
(here is the LINK if you'd like the printable to save in, and just print on a black piece of cardstock)

Spelling ONE practice

Dot ONE activity

One matching worksheet


One tracing activity


More number practice! {courtesty of http://confessionsofahomeschooler.blogspot.com}
(this includes up to 20, so if you are wanting to print only the one, make sure you select only the first page to print!)



For our sensory activity, I pulled out my big ol' bucket of beans. Normally Im the type to make things cute, but I havent decorated this popcorn bucket yet--its functional, just not pretty!
We have a puzzle with each number, so I hid a few and made sure to include the ONE..he had to dig through and find it. Then I just hid some other objects because he likes to dig around.
We also placed one bean on each circle in the dot activity printable!

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!