Little Adaptations

This is her version of
"shoulders up and down".

Littlest and I had school alone on Friday while Miss M was at her playgroup.  She thrives on one on one time and I am trying to find ways to give each girl more of that.

We warmed up with some Dance N Beats.  She loves the Warm Up song and can follow along quite well.  It's super cute and she is so proud of herself.

We had circle time.  I focused on lots of counting and pointing out the numbers on the calendar and then we did a little bit with identifying two of our letters for the month: M and V.  I put the letter flag up on the board, said the name and sound several times and traced it with my finger (which of course led to her tracing it with her finger).  I pulled out our card stock letters and helped her find the one that was the same, then repeated the activity with the upper case phonics card (I'll wait to lower case for a little bit).  We only spent about three minutes on this because that was the limit of her attention.

We did activities from a couple different units today.  The jingle bell craft was a really hit (also with Miss M when she came home from school.  I found that putting the little cup on one of their hands while they colored it helped them decorate more than just the top/bottom (which is covered in wax to be water-resistant and thus leads to smeared marker).  They could both help me poke the pipe cleaner through the hole but I had to the bell and twist the two ends into a handle.  It's a fun little musical prop that we will leave accessible for the rest of the month.

The shape manipulatives this month are so much fun!  Littlest gave a little shriek of excitement when I poured them on the table.  She wanted to stack in them in the middle more than connect them from the sides but I named the shapes as she grabbed them and we did a little sorting by color.

I adapted the Owl Shapes game a little to make it more portable.  First I laminated and cut out the shapes, then traced around them onto a piece of card stock that I also laminated after labeling the shapes (I like having the printed names on things even if it's way too early to think about reading because it gives them familiarity with the words).  A little bit of double sided tape on the game board and she was happy to play this about five times while I labeled the shape she was currently matching.

All of that took us about 40 minutes and then it was time to pick up Miss M and do a little feeding at the little farm where she has her playgroup.  They have a kangaroo, calf and tons of turkeys and chickens that both girls get really excited to see every week.  I want them to comfortable (and safe) around animals so I love it, too.