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The Preschool Corner: Letter D

Zachary worked on the Letter “D” this week. He has a great handle on his uppercase letters, and we’re finding that he needs help with the lowercase letters – a big necessary if he tries to read, since obviously books are generally in lowercase. That gets to be rather frustrating for him. Here are some of the things we focused on with the letter “D”.

ABC Book: Dandelion

Our page for the letter “D” was a dandelion (apologies for the scan).

Here’s how we made it:
  • Cut out two yellow circles, one about an inch smaller than the other
  • Cut out a brown or white circle (about half the size of the largest yellow circle)
  • Glue the circles from largest to smallest
  • Use scissors to fringe the yellow circles (causing them to look like dandelions)
  • Add a stem using a green pipe cleaner
Art Activity: Decorating Donuts
This week we made paper donuts. For this craft you will need: a large pieceof paper, white glue, food coloring, paint brush, confetti or glitter.
  1. Cut out large donut shape
  2. Mix a little food coloring in some white glue and put it in a small bowl.
  3. Use a paint brush to “frost” the donut with the colored glue
  4. Sprinkle confetti or glitter on top of wet glue to decorate it

Fun Activities

Duck, Duck Goose

Play Doctor

Letter Sheet/Collage

Click on thumbnail to download the pdf file.

Verse

Philippians 2:14 – “Do everything without complaining or arguing.”

Writing

This week we practiced our letters on our tabletop whiteboard and easel that we have from Melissa and Doug (love that thing).

Rhymes and Songs

Diddle diddle Dumpling, my son John
Went to bed with his stockings on.
One shoe off and one shoe on,
Diddle diddle dumpling, my son John.

Donut Song

Oh I ran around the corner
And I ran around the block
And I ran right into a donut shop.
I picked up a donut and I licked off the grease,
And I handed the lady a five-cent piece.
Well she looked at the nickle
And she looked at me,
And she said, “This nickel isn’t good to me!
There’s a hole in the nickle, and it goes right through!”
And I said, “There’s a hole in my donut too!
Thanks for the donut! Good day!”

Storytime

One Stuck Duck by Phyllis Root
Go, Dog, Go by P.D. Eastman
Danny and the Dinosaur by Syd Hoff

The Preschool Corner: Letter C

Schooltime was a little hectic this week for Zachary. We had our routine thrown off a little bit by a trip to the doctor’s office – so not as much time to focus on preschool as much that day – and then crammed more into another. We talked about the letter “C” this week and that involved crickets. The girls found themselves a cricket, named it “Chirpy” and everyone was having fun playing with him.

Until Kaleb stomped on him.

I seriously laughed out loud – the looks on the other three’s faces was just priceless. I’m not a mean mommy – it was just so funny.

ABC Book: Clock

The alphabet book page for the letter “C” was a Clock (sorry, I know the scan didn’t turn out that great!). We used a rectangle base and Zachary colored it to look like a clock (not one in oru house – he didn’t feel like using brown). He cut out a clock face that I printed off and we added some hands with a brad so that the hands can move around. There is also a little pendulum hanging (just a circle taped onto half a pipe cleaner).

Art Activity: Color Mixing

We used paint to mix primary colors (red, yellow and blue) to see what colors we could make when we mixed them.

Fun Activities

We played Candyland together – what can I say?

We are also using some little workbooks by Kumon called “Let’s Cut Paper” to work on Zachary’s cutting skills (there is a link on the Amazon widget below).

Math

Counting Coins: What child isn’t fascinated with money – and counting pennies can take up a lot of time. We counted, and recounted. Made groups of five, etc… Found pennies in pockets days later…

Calendar: We’ve been working on patterns using our wall calendar, getting the days of the week down pat and also the months of the year. Zachary is thinking he is such big stuff too! Learning by singing is a huge help in our house and the Sounds Like Fun cd from Discovery Toys has some great songs on it for learning your days of the week and months of the year (among other things).

Cotton Ball Counting: Glue correct number of cotton balls onto a sheet of paper next to the number that is written down.

Letter Sheet/Collage

Click on the thumbnail picture to download the pdf file

Verse

Colossians 3:20 – “Children, obey your parents in all things, for this is pleasing to the Lord.”

We’ve been using the book My ABC Bible Verses by Susan Hunt. It has a quick little devotional and a few questions at the end of the story along with review from previous weeks.

Writing

This week we used our Handwriting Without Tears worksheet to practice our letter “C” (the link will take you to the Scribd site where I uploaded the one I made).

Rhymes and Songs

C is for cookie, and that’s good enough for me
C is for cookie, and that’s good enough for me,
C is for cookie, and that’s good enough for me.
Cookie, cookie, cookie.
Cookie starts with C!

Storytime

Clickety Clack by Robert Spence
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle
Caps for Sale by Esphyr Slobodkina

The Preschool Corner: Letter B

Zachary has moved onto the letter “B” this week and it cracks me up how HUGE he has to make his “bellys” on his B’s. His P’s and R’s are normal, but he really enjoys making them larger than life.

He also started preschool 2 days a week (so Mommy has a little more time with Kaleb on those mornings).

ABC Book: Bumblebee

The bumblebee fits onto a standard size piece of paper. He cut out circles for the body and head of the bee and cut black stripes to glue on it also. I cut out wings for the bee using wax paper and then we added googly eyes and antennas to complete it.
Art Activity: Binoculars

We took two toilet paper rolls and stapled them together to look like binoculars, punched holes in the side to tie a long piece of string in for a “strap” of sorts.

Fun Activities

Balance: Have your child try walking with something balanced on their heads.Then try standing on just one leg. Do it while closing your eyes and see what happens!

Balance Beam: Tape a long strip of wide tape down the middle of a hallway floor and walk along the tape line. Can you do it without stepping off the tape?

String Beads: Practice patterning or make a necklace together.

Bounce Balloons: Blow up some balloons and have fun bouncing them back and forth to each other.

Letter Sheet/Collage

Click on thumbnail to download pdf

Writing
This week we used our large easel to practice writing our letters, especially since the bellies on those “B”s can get rather large at times!
Rhymes and Songs
London Bridges Falling Down
Bringing Home a Baby Bumblebee

Storytime

Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle

The Preschool Corner: Letter A

This week we started in a local homeschool co-op. Zachary’s class is focusing on a letter of the alphabet each week, so we started working on letter “Aa” activities.

Zachary also started trying to putting his own words together this week. He kept asking for me to sound out a word and he would use our magnet letters to “write” them on the board: hut, God, cat…he loved it and was so proud of himself for doing it! He even sat down and started reading some simple words to me!! Yeah, Zachary!

He’s also making big improvements in cutting and making most of the letters in his name – that “Z” can be awfully tricky!

ABC Book: Apple

The alphabet book page for the letter “A” was an apple this week. I cut out an apple shape from red construction paper and Zachary ripped it in half horizontally so that it looked like the apple was munched on a little bit. He also tore the sides of a white rectangle cut out from construction paper and we glued the top and the bottom of the apple to it. He added a leaf and made seeds for the core of the apple by making black fingerprints. Too cute!

Art Activity: Ant Fingerprints

Ink pads are always a favorite and since they were already out this week, Zachary went ahead and made little ants using his fingerprints. When he was done making the bodies with his fingerprints, he added legs and antennaes on them.

Fun Activities

Apple Prints – cut an apple in half and use it to stamp colorful prints on paper.

Letter Sheet/Collage

Writing

We have a white board and chalk board all-in-one from Melissa and Doug that Zachary likes to use, so this week he practiced his letters on the white board (because using the eraser is much fun!

Rhymes and Songs

(To the tune of “Farmer in the Dell”)

Let’s sing hurray for A,
Let’s sing hurray for A,
Let’s sing hurray for A today
Let’s sing hurray for A.
Apple starts with A,
Ants starts with A,
Let’s sing hurray for A today,
Let’s sing hurray for A.