We started the letter P. I was pumped about this new letter, because it meant pumpkins! I decided early into this that I was not going to do the alphabet in order. That means we would be doing snowmen in April, pumpkins in January, and caterpillars in November. It's so much nicer (and makes more sense) to learn about each letter when you can join it with real life application. It sticks with children better that way, too.
Anyway, the letter P ...
Our Bible verse for the week also starts with the letter P.
Praise the Lord! for it is good to sing praises to our God. - Psalm 147:1
I decided to make this activity a bit different this week. Instead of just doing this at his seat or on the carpet, I put magnets on the back of the pumpkins and numbers. How many pumpkins are in the pumpkin patch?
I would place a number in the box, and then Cash would stick that many pumpkins to the page on the fridge. This was really nice to do while I was cooking supper. I'd be busy with preparing food while Cash added pumpkins to the "patch." As he finished, I would check it, and then change the number.
We did it on and off through the week. He even got to where he was saying things like, "I'll just have to take away two pumpkins and it will be enough." So I started bringing up things like adding and subtracting. Love it!
We practiced recognizing the big P and the little p, too. I would give him a pumpkin with a P or p on it, and he would staple it to the corresponding leaf.
Don't worry! I always supervise the stapling. I'm sure it's a complete no-no to let a three year-old use a stapler, but the way I see it, it builds hand muscles while working on letter recognition! Plus it's "daddy's stapler," which makes it special to use. :)
Cash also used Cheerios to practice his counting on the numbered pumpkins. This was a fun activity, but Cash wanted to leave them all out all day long to show Heath when he got home. Thankfully, B only ate a few of the Cheerios. Keeping him off the table though was a trick.
P also stood for puny this week. B started getting the runny nose and yuckiness at the end of the week. By the weekend and early into the next week, Cash was congested and had a cough, too.
Letter pogs!
Cash said, "Mommy, I'm going to make you a colorful P." And he did. He used all his do-a-dot markers on this sheet. It's proudly hanging in our kitchen now!
This activity has taken a few weeks for Cash to get the hang of. It's a graphing exercise that you're supposed to use with cheerios, but I let Cash use his do-a-dot markers. You count the pumpkins, and then "dot" that many boxes at the bottom. At first, Cash would count the pumpkins and then "dot" all the boxes, but now he's gotten to where he can do this activity without my help!
And our Bible story this week was of Jesus and Peter walking on the water. (P for Peter)
I found this giant coloring book at Sam's. It's great because for each Bible story, there are about four or five pages. Each day, Cash and I would color a sheet of the story, and while we colored, I would tell him the story and we would talk about it. By the end of the week, Cash was helping me tell the story. And now we have a finished "book" that's colored all about the story of Peter walking to Jesus on the water!
I also found this fun "craft" online. You cut out the pieces and glue them on to show Jesus walking on the water. It gave us a yellow circle, two triangles, and a large brown rectangle to make the boat. We talked about halves while cutting the shapes to make the boat. Although he wasn't a fan of the finished project that much, he loved his "Jesus on a stick."
Also during the week, we watched the movie Peter Pan (many, many times) and Spookley, the Square Pumpkin. We read lots of pumpkin books and ate lots of pumpkin pie, pizza and pancakes! It was a perfectly wonderful week!
No comments:
Post a Comment