Gearing up for ABC Jesus Loves Me

Here H is making Ziploc ice cream on a hot summer day. Ziploc ice cream is fun and easy.

H (32 months) and I will be starting the 3-year old curriculum through ABC Jesus Loves Me on August 26. In the meantime we have been freshening up on skills such as undressing self, tracing circles, pointing and counting, and reviewing capital letters. He is ready to start now, but I want to follow the curriculum exactly so that holidays match up. 

And some sensory play with friends. We love shaving cream. 

And despite what this entry portrays, my kid does wear shirts.

Pete the Cat I Love My White Shoes by Eric Litwin

What a great book about not letting little things bring you down. At 24 months, I am not sure that H understood that great lesson, but he loved the rhythm and activities that went along with it. We had fun with this already fun story.

Pete the Cat is a fun story. To kick off the week's theme, I painted a large "Pete" and put him up on the wall in our playroom. H liked seeing "Pete Cack" (Pete Cat) up on the wall. 

 This is our Pete the Cat sensory walk. I unrolled a long panel of white paper with four stations (red paint, blue paint, brown paint, and water). As we walked down the path, we recalled the story and repeated: "Did he cry?", "Goodness, No!", and then sang the song as we walked along. He walked to do it over and over again, which is great. Note: it was slippery with paint on his feet, so make sure you are holding his hand. Luckily, I had his hand the first time and learned that lesson for all the future walks.

H did not like being blindfolded (he only played along once before he realized he hated it), so we played a modified version of pin the shoe on Pete, which was available for free on Harper Collins' website. Also on their website is the song, video, coloring sheets, and links to information and activities for all the Pete the Cat books in the series.

 We came up with all sorts of silly different ideas of what Pete could step in and what color that would turn his shoes. I printed Pete the Cat outlines from http://www.scribd.com/doc/63779920/Small-Pete and we created six different Pete the cats based on different things he might have stepped in (including carrots and pickles, pictured)

We also enjoyed Pete the Cat and Rocking in My School Shoes, which we were saw at our library, and it was equally adorable and fun to read and sing along with.

We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen

This was a fun week exploring We're Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen. We had our homeschool co-op group over midweek to experience the sensory walk and other fun bear hunt activities. Check out what we did alone and with our friends this week.

I told the story (multiple times with and without the accompanying CD track) with a Velcro story board I made. I got the idea from http://www.makinglearningfun.com/themepages/BearHuntCircleTimePoster.htm, but didn't use their printable version, aside from the wording and people, because I didn't want to use that much ink. So I made my own version with construction paper. I moved the people, which I did print from Making Learning Fun, but are not pictured, through each stage of the story using Velcro.

We went on a sensory experience bear hunt. I made toilet paper binoculars for each of H's friends. I used my own grass, a bin of water, a bin of mud, big cardboard tubes (as tree trunks) that we wove in and out of, a bin of ice, and a little box cave with a teddy bear inside. The bear hunt was a lot of fun because we did it with Toddler School, one of our homeschool co-ops. They had fun going through it slowly the first time and then zooming through it in reverse all the way back in for snack time.

H used my cookie sheet activities to put the bears in order from largest to smallest and put the bear on different numbered caves (1-9). The numbered caves are taped on the cookie sheet and everything else is laminated with magnets on the back. I printed the images for these activities from http://www.homeschoolcreations.net/2011/08/were-going-on-bear-hunt-printables/

I printed these cards from
http://www.sparklebox.co.uk/literacy/stories/bear-hunt.html#.UPh8v0KrkUU
I laminated them and added a magnet to practice story sequence on the dishwasher (since our refrigerator is not magnetic). It was easier to remind him of the order because we had already done the sensory bear hunt, so we thought back to where everything was in the yard. I could tell he understood the order. Very cool. Because of the size and amount of ink, I had these printed at a print shop and felt like it was worth the $1.50.

One of my favorite things about this story is that we get a great way to practice repetitively the concepts of over, under, and through. We did a lot of "through" activities such as crawling through a tunnel and threading ribbon through cut toilet paper tubes. Lacing card practice was good too, because that uses all three concepts, because when you "sew" you go over, through, under, through, over, etc.

 Using the bear theme, but more going along with the hungry bear from our previous unit than a bear hunt, we fed a bear strawberries. This was a lesson in following directions and taking turns that we used with our co-op friends. I made the bear from a cardboard box. I painted the face and then carved a hole for his mouth. I made the strawberries out of construction paper and then laminated them for durability.

Also using a cardboard box, I made this bear cave. Big enough to hide small things inside. H liked to hide small animals, toy cars, and blocks inside the cave. He would then call out for them and pretend to be on a "hunt" for them. Great imaginative play.

The Little Mouse, The Red Ripe Strawberry, and The Hungry Bear by (my favorite authors) Don and Audrey Wood

What a cute book. My favorite skill that emerged from this week's theme is H's new word: "disguise", which he uses in context. H is 24 months and really loves strawberries, so I knew he'd love the activities I planned with this book.

I printed story pictures for the book from http://humanservices.arkansas.gov/dccece/classroom_docs/littlemouse.pdf
and colored them with crayons (so relaxing and fun) before laminating them and attaching magnets to the back. He enjoyed watching the story being retold on his cookie sheet, and then retelling it. He used the little key to pretend to open the lock and pretended to eat the strawberry. He was hesitant to touch the knife (I taught him well) but used it to pretend cutting the strawberry in half. It was adorable the way he interacted with the pictures.

We picked strawberries at our local "U-Pick" field. H ate them as we went along. After we brought them home and washed them, we pretended to hide them from "hungry daddy" and practiced cutting them in half. I intended to let him cut them with a little guidance, but he insisted that he shouldn't touch a knife - why does that lesson stick but I can't get him to stop throwing toys?

I made 5 large construction paper strawberries to cut in half with child scissors. We have not done a lot of scissor practice, so this was difficult. H is 24 months so I helped a lot, but he felt like he was really accomplishing something. He frayed the edges quite well with short cuts. He ended up tearing it in half, which was great because that ended up being another good lesson in halves. We continued to cut a strawberry each day, until using up all 5 that I had made.

We took a field trip to the pet store to watch real mice, which ended up being rats. H is big on differentiating between something being "real" and something being a "toy" or "pretend". This is fun, and no book or flashcard can replace the real thing. Any time we can go see something real, we try to make that happen.
Side note: That is blue marker on his forehead. If there isn't marker or paint on that boy's body at some point, it hasn't been a fun enough day.

We made strawberries with our handprints and then turned them into thank you notes. Thank you "berry" much. We gave all the thank you notes to people, so I didn't get a picture of them. But the idea came from Pinterest by searching: handprint strawberry.

Of course since strawberries are in season, and we picked so many, we ate a lot of strawberries and I made jam. The unit was fun. The book is adorable. We have to return it to the library, but will probably add this title to H's growing home book collection.

The story is about a hungry bear, but the bear is never pictured. H was interested in the bear, even though he wasn't really part of the story. Next week's theme will satisfy that desire: "We're Going On a Bear Hunt" by Michael Rosen.

Our Pace; Our Place

That's what we do - toddler school at our pace wherever we choose to go. No classroom. No benchmarks. No limit.

H (24 months) and I learn through reading and exploring the real world, with literature being our starting point. Each week is a book, and each book opens us up to math, science, art, music, gross motor, fine motor, and reading activities.

Books allow us to practice print awareness by following text from left to right by pointing when I read, exploring the cover, spine, author/illustrator concepts, and turning pages. H loves books and going to the library. This interest makes books the perfect springboard to our "lessons".

More on print awareness:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Print_awareness
http://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading101/printawareness/

Our "lessons" and instruction time are not usually distinguishable from the rest of our play-filled day. It only gives purpose and focus to our daily play and creates opportunities to play in new ways.

Each entry will be a week's theme. Not all activities that I plan for the week are completed. I overplan and then plug in what H is interested in. No pressure.

My only student: the "teacher's pet"