Summer Learning - Letter Rr

Rookie (5 yrs old)

Ace (39.5 mos)

Ladybug (14.5 mos)

This week was Letter "R" and I set up their desk area with their RRSP materials, Puzzles, books, and toys that matched the theme which included rabbits and the color red. Our sight word was "it" and we continued our virtue of "gentle".

Ace had the option for Rainbows or Rainforest this week. He chose A LOT of rainbow sheets to do. They really offered more activities that were similar to Rookie's LOTW and I think that is what appealed to him. He was able to try out his scissor skills first and did VERY WELL!

Rookie's LOTW was all rainbows. Here is coloring by number. I really like this type of activity because it really takes him following directions.

 We are still working on scissor skills. These lines really force him to turn the paper and try to stay on the lines. Definitely something we need to work on.

Ace has been doing mazes on our computer lately and I thought he would like to follow his R's through the maze with dot paints. He loved it!

Rookie wanted to dot paint too. The boys love the paints and I have to constantly remind them to share the colors. I should probably invest in more than these four colors. We got them free with a desk we bought off of craigslist when Rookie was younger.

Can you guess what our exercise was for letter "R"? YES, running in place. Rookie really liked this one.

Learning the formation of our letter with the "Big Line", "Little Line" and "Little Curve".

This is a great fine motor activity while practicing our letter formation. We poke holes using a thumb tack and then we put it up to the window to see how well we did.

Ace was just begging me for paint, so I let him free paint for a while.

Ace's attempt at the letter "R". Pretty good I would say. Once again, I don't force him to do this at all. He asked to do this after seeing Rookie doing it.

Rookie's sight word was "it" this week. He has quickly picked up the sight words as we introduce a new one each week. I try to find them in the books we read throughout the day and have him read them to me. He gets excited that he knows the word. It is especially fun when he can read a whole sentence with the words he knows.

Ace just having fun with some Rainforest Rs.

Rookie is always determined to trace every single "R" on the page AND fill the bottom lines with freehand Rs.

Size sorting and excitement to get them correct!

Color puzzle. This puzzle actually used: Red, Orange, Yellow, Green, Blue, Indigo, and Violet.

Tracing with our cars. Still a favorite activity to take our cars for a ride down the formation of our letter.

Dry Erase Graphing. We do well if we SLOW DOWN.

Finally, our wall of FUN! We accomplished a lot this week. It was a great end to our summer of learning. We might change up our curriculum a bit, I haven't quite decided.

This week we will be taking a break for me to make sure we are in order for our regular school year. Ace will begin MDO after Labor Day and that will be the week that we start school for the year. There is a lot to be done in a week to get fully prepared.

Summer Learning - Letter Bb

Rookie (5 yrs old)

Ace (39 mos)

Ladybug (14 mos)

This week was Letter "B" and I set up their desk area with their RRSP materials, Puzzles, books, and toys that matched the theme which included blocks, basketballs, baseballs, butterflies, a bus and the color blue! Our sight word was "they" and our virtue was "gentle"

 We have flopped our learning room to fit our newest addition: a wall mounted tv! Yeehaw! I still have some reorganizing to do and remounting of shelves and other items hung with command strips. 

 Sunny days for calendar time! It is amazing how much sun we have had in the mornings during calendar time even when we end up with rain later in the day.

 "B"alancing on one foot for our morning exercise

 Learning how to make the Letter "B" with our wooden shapes.

 I finally pulled out the chalkboard consistently for our handwriting practice. It made a huge difference in him retaining the letter. We first write the letter with chalk. Starting at the top and making our letters fill the chalkboard.

 Next, we take a sponge (our toothettes work great for this!) and draw our letter again erasing it as we go. Then we do the process one more time with a piece of paper towel, drawing our letter and drying off the chalkboard to begin again. A three step process to help him remember the formation of the letter.

 Ace was very excited about doing this too. He liked the different hands on approach.

 Letter disc matching. I need to make another set of letters as I only had one upper case "T". Oops. But it didn't seem to phase Rookie. He knew right where to put that lower case "t".

 Ace wanted to do what Rookie was doing this week. I have a feeling he is going to be moving into the preschool activities quickly. Here Rookie is matching colors and letters while Ace is putting butterflies in his field according to the number I place in the box.

 Our completed Bb puzzle. Rookie is getting used to me taking pictures and actually told me to take a picture of him so he could move on to the next activity.

 Random dot painting. Rookie and Ace just love to play with the dot painters.

 I think this was the only activity that Ace did out of his tot activities this week.

 Ladybug wanting to be like Rookie and wear his computer headphones.

 Size sorting butterflies. We still have to work on using the words "small", "medium" and "large" instead of "little" and "bigger"

 Magnet Butterfly page. Rookie found every circle on the page and put a magnet regardless if it was meant for the magnets.

 Writing our "B" along with our memory verse. Discussing "peacemakers" this week was interesting trying to put it on their level. It challenges my own understanding of the word!

 This weeks vocabulary. Rookie is getting a lot better at cutting them out as long as he SLOWS DOWN.

 Some prewriting work using our dry erase activity board.

 Coloring our memory verse. Lately, Rookie has been avoiding the pictures and drawing or writing around everything.

Finally, Ace getting in on the prewriting activities. He asked for this the last few days of the week.

Next week will be letter "R". I'm torn. I have activities for rainbows AND robots! We might have to do a combo theme!

Summer Learning - Letter Pp

Rookie (5 yrs old)

Ace (39 mos)

Ladybug (13 mos)

This week was Letter "P" and I set up their desk area with their RRSP materials, Puzzles, books, and toys that matched the theme which included LOTS and LOTS of puppies, pigs, pink, purple and one toy penguin.

For a "light" week of school, we still accomplished quite a bit.

 Morning Calendar had us doing "P"ushups for our Letter of the Week exercise.

 Fingerpainting was pulled out again and Ace matched his colors without any of my help.

 Rookie is getting really good at his sight words. This week was "to" and in the process I think he learned the words "Let's" and "the". He already knew "go". But every page of his easy reader said "Let's go to the ____" So, he saw the other words just as much as "to".

We took two weeks to do the letter "P". So, week one "P" was traced by a train

...and week two our penguin walked the letter P. Ace is also catching on to "where we start our letters? at the top!" While tracing, he was verbalizing how to write a P. I was very impressed. I think he will be able to write his letters soon.

Ladybug is always in the middle of them and sometimes playing with her toys is more fun.

Rookie really had fun with his dotpaints this week. He decided to alternate all of the colors. He started out with a patter, but Ace moved his paints around and the pattern changed. But still a good effort to add some variety to a basic activity.

 Once again, Ladybug HAD to be in the middle...literally. So, I pulled up a chair for her to feel a part of the group.

Grandmommy and Grandpapa brought these pencil grips from Little Giant Steps homeschool booth and BOTH the boys LOVE to use them. It is helping them both to tuck that middle finger behind the pencil. It is also bringing back the love of using pencils over markers. Thank goodness!

 Scissor skills. I am having to remind Rookie to SLOW DOWN. I think his accuracy would improve...well, it DOES improve when he takes his time instead of speeding through everything.

 Matching Capital and lower case "P"s. Typically an easy activity for Rookie, but he did have to rethink a couple of times since the the two look very similar.

Our memory verse this week is sung to Twinkle Twinkle. I think Rookie knew almost every word by the end of the week.

 As Ace looks on, Rookie sorted small, medium and large. Another easy activity, but it peaked Ace's attention and he wanted to do it too. I took this opportunity to build vocabulary since we wanted to call the small pumpkins "little".

Ace put his pencils in small, medium and large order too. When he does this activity, we also talk about first, second and third.

 Magnet pages for the letter "P" loved by both. By the way, pardon the lack of shirts, we had just finished swim lessons that morning.

Finally, our handwriting. Rookie successfully translated TONS of "P"s to the blank line on the bottom. I can honestly say that giving him the verbal ability to talk through his writing has made a huge difference. Every letter starts at the top. We jump to the top to begin the next line, etc. Handwriting Without Tears has been key to helping him take the next step.

We will be continuing on to letter "B" next week. I'm not sure how many letters we will accomplish before the beginning of the school year, but hopefully we will be able to get in 3 more.