Letter B Week (Day 3)

(29 Months)

I knew when I saw these adorable butterfly counting pages, from Confessions of a Homeschooler, that Little Miss would love them.   I printed the set on card stock and then applied the sticky dot magnets to the back so that we can play with these on our magnetic trays.  It was so precious watching her point to each butterfly and count how many there were (she would count from right to left, but she did get the number right).  Wild One was interested for about two minutes.  He was able to complete the second page (numbers 2, 3 and four), and then lost interest (he said he wanted to count with his eyes closed).  Oh well, we'll try again another day.  Little Miss counted all the way up to ten.  She knew the number zero, but wasn't confident which box had zero butterflies until I told her "none" and then she chose the right box.  It's incredible how quickly they pick things up.  They are always amazing me.

We used to practice jumping on shapes, but for some reason we haven't done that in awhile.  Hmmm.... we need to do that tomorrow.  To be consistent with our B week, I drew a bunch of shapes on a butterfly to assess which shapes they knew and which ones we still need to work on.  Instead of just pointing to the shape, I asked them to put a magnetic pom pom on the shape (when I called out a shape I did not name the color).  I noticed that they automatically chose the corresponding pom pom color to the shape color (wow- we must really do a lot of pom pom activities).

When Wild One knew the shape, he quickly found the correct color pom pom and placed it on the shape.  If he was unsure about a shape, trapezoid, he would look at me as he placed the pom pom on it with a look of "is that right Mommy?"  I let him place his pom poms where he thought they should go and made a mental note of which ones we need to work on.  Little Miss completed the first six shapes correctly and then decided that she wanted to line up the pom poms instead.  We'll come back to this one another day.

The lowercase b, d, p, and q are so unfair.  I wanted to see if they could identify each of the four letters when they were all jumbled together.  It was hit or miss with Wild One, so I'm not sure if it was luck or not that he got the answers correct.  Little Miss was completely absorbed in drawing with markers at the time and then the day escaped us before we had a chance to revisit this.  That's fine though, we do plenty of review days (non-post days).

Letter M Week

(25 Months)

We have been practicing our letters for several months now.  We watched Leap Frog's Letter Factory and loved the big finale song.  It became an instant sensation in our home.  We sang it as we changed diapers, we sang it during bath time, we sang it during walks through the neighborhood and in the car.  At 21 months, Little Miss and Wild One surprised us when they sang their letter sounds.  We knew they probably knew up to E, but they blew us away when they sang all the way to Z!  Hmmm, what else do they know that they aren't letting us in on yet?

I decided to start formal practice with the alphabet.  We're starting with the letter M.  I created a letter M packet to start the week.  The pictures below show you what was in our packet (plus we raided our local library for books on muffins, the moon, mountains, monkeys and magnets).

The kids had a blast identifying objects that are magnetic with this fun magnet set.  Wild One was amazed when he felt the force of the magnets repel one another.

They never cease to amaze me.  Our first exposure to Montessori Nomenclature Cards and after modeling they were able to match the picture to the control card.  Wild One really likes this activity.  He'll sit and do this "game" over and over.   If you are unfamiliar with nomenclature cards, here is a description with examples.  

Since we are talking about the letter M, here is a quick story.  We are in the car and passing a cow pasture, I ask "what do cows say", Little Miss says "mmmmm".  She's her Daddy's daughter alright.