Week 3: "A" is for apple

I feel like we have a ton to get through this week! Two bible stories, plus:

Letter: A
Number: 2
Colors: Orange, Red, Purple

Here's what we tackled on day one:

Circle Time
I think keeping circle time consistent from week-to-week and house-to-house has been important. While I'm not sure I've seen a huge amount of progress in terms of remembering the month or the days of the week, I know the kids enjoy taking turns adding things to the calendar. Here's a picture of the calendar we'll use at my house.

Year, month, date, letter of the week, season and weather.
The seven pockets at the bottom are for each day of the week.
Today we took turns putting the "today," "tomorrow" and
"yesterday" sticks in the appropriate pockets.

I was so tempted to address today's date in more detail with the kids. September 11 was such a tragic but important part of our history. I was living in New York 11 years ago and each year on September 11 I can go right back there in my memory. Ultimately, I decided it was too much to tackle with the kids at this age, but I'd be curious to hear from people who successfully found ways to talk about events like September 11 with their young children.

Moving on.

We did a full review of the creation story with the felt board today. The kids took turns applying all seven days. Here's the end result. Those bears are dangerously close to the children, if you ask me.

We're on to number two this week. After reading My Two Book we sang and acted out "One, two buckle my shoe." The kids LOVE this one so much I'm going to find a few more ways to incorporate it into the lesson this week. We also sang and signed "O Be Careful."

"O be careful little ears what you hear" 

Apple craft
We didn't get to the story of Adam and Eve and the forbidden fruit today (we'll tackle that Thursday) but we started our apple craft today anyway. This will be a two-day project that will look like this:

Notice how you can't see the worm from one side? Once we cover the story of Adam and Eve we'll discuss how we may only see an apple, but God sometimes sees more than our eyes can (the wormy side) and he knows what is best for us.

Materials:

• foam balls
• green construction paper
• large craft sticks
• red and green tempera paint
• pipe cleaners, cut in half
• google eyes

I cut the pipe cleaners in half and hot glued on the eyes in advance to expedite the process for the kids. Then I stuck the craft sticks through the bottom of the foam ball and stabbed a hole through one side for the worm (I used a kabob stick to create the hole). 

We painted and cut leaves today and we'll finish up on Thursday.

I stuck the sticks into balls of modeling clay to keep them in place while the kids painted.

Letter Stations
We introduced the first letter this week. Most of the kids know the letter "A" by sight, so I brought in some tactile stations to move beyond identification. We had three stations:

Tracing in salt

I attempted to help guide the tracing with the dots and lines (start at the green dot, follow the line and stop at the red dot).

Building the letter "A" 

Foam sticks with self-stick Velco tabs (I use these at home with the shape cards (pictured)).

Tracing

I got the printables online here and put them inside wipeable pouches I found in the Target dollar bins!

The dry erase pouches were by far the most popular and I was impressed by how well the kids did with this one, particularly Annabelle and Eisley.

I was interested in how differently the kids chose to build their letters. Eisley's "A," for example, wasn't how I demonstrated but was an "A" nonetheless. I think with a little more practice this exercise could be great at helping the kids learn letters, shapes and numbers.

The salt tracing went well, but I think if I were to do this again I'd make it in a larger box and include tracing tools. It could also be fun to dye the salt with food coloring.

Snack

I love that "snack" has become a core part of our curriculum. This week we had apple cake. This was the easiest thing I've ever made. Here's the directions:

1. Cut up two apples. Put them in a casserole dish. 
2. Pour some dry yellow cake mix on top.  
3. Slap some butter pads on top. 
4. Bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.

For real. Here's the link to the source.

Apple cake with ice cream.

Overall, I think today went well. We tested out keeping school and play separate: "big" kids were in the kitchen to do school and the little kids stayed in the playroom. I think it made teaching a little easier, but it was a bit of a struggle keeping the big kids away from the toys. I'm not sure there's a great solution to managing our brood of mixed ages other than to lower expectations and let kids participate when and where they want to. 

We're still missing the Burden's. I'm hoping they're healthy enough on Thursday to join us!