Preschool: Big A, Little a

This is the first time doing a lesson with just Robert, so I'm still trying to figure out what he is ready and interested in. First, we did a nursery rhyme. His favorite is Humpty Dumpty which he acts out a lot in Hailey's bed by falling off the railing.

Robert says Humpty Humpty, which is so cute!

Then we read Abby Alligator in our big AlphaTales Book. Robert already knows all his letters and can recognize both uppercase and lowercase most of the time. After our book, we turned the Uppercase A into an awesome alligator.

Here's my example.

Then using an idea from notimeforflashcards.com, we turned the lowercase a into an apple.

My example.

Finally, I wanted to see how much he could do so I gave him two worksheets.

This one is from Winnie-the-Pooh to trace and write the letters. He is not ready for that but it is still good to go through the motions and give him practice with a pencil.

The astronaut came from "My Kindergarten Learning Book" by Bright Start: Learn & Grow (got it at Costco). It has little a's and Big A's to find and count. Robert wasn't into that today.

Our lesson lasted 30 minutes and it was nice having time with just him. Hailey was very jealous but a good sport and stayed in the front room.

Preschool: Abby Alligator

I have done "preschool" twice so far with the alphabet. (The first time was the beginning of Hailey School and the second time was with Josie's girl Audrey). One of the hardest things is getting good books for a certain letter. I got "Izzy Iguana" (which is about of the AlphaTales series) once and loved all the words they used with the letter I. Last year I saw that in the school's book orders there were selling AlphaTales books for $45. I loved on Amazon and was able to get all the books into one big book for less than $10 including shipping.

I've been wanting to do more activities with Robert was finally the house was calm enough that I could do this mini preschool lesson. First we read "Abby Alligator".

Then they colored their letter A's with markers.

After that, I cut out the letters and they could glue triangles for teeth to the A to look like an alligator's mouth. I thought it was a cute idea and Robert loves glue!!!

So here's there final product of turning the letter A into an alligator.

Preschool: A for Apples

Monday was our first day for Preschool. I decided to do apples again like last year. First we read "Ten Apples Up On Top". Then I cut into the apple to show the star. With the apple they could dip it in the green paint to color the letter A page.

Audrey just wanted to use the paint brush.

Robert had fun with the paint. Luckily, it came off the tray pretty easy.

Then we talked about where apples came from. They put their own apples on the trees using their fingers.
After we quickly cleaned up, we read about Johnny Appleseed. Since Robert found the bubbles while I was reading, we played with bubbles when I finished the story. Then we had apples for a snack. All this took 30 minutes.

Then for the next 20 minutes they were pretty happy with play-dough. We finished up preschool with dress-up. I think the kids enjoyed their time together. I was very surprised at how smooth things ran today.

Primary Colors together make BROWN

First we read "Brown as an Acorn" by Molly Dingles and made our own acorn. (Hailey was going to a neighborhood preschool for a short amount of time, and I was in charge on brown one week. I had the acorn base and top already cut out.) Hailey glued the top on herself and then we put stripes on the acorn top to look more realistic.

This would also be a good activity to do with the Letter A. This book is about all the brown things you can find at a campsite. It would be easy to point out that acorns grown on trees and squirrels like acorns.

Then we did the Brown Itsy Bitsy Book.

We read "White Rabbit's Color book" by Alan Baker and made our own brown paint in a Ziploc bag.

A is for Apples

To teach Hailey the letter A, I focused an apples which is her 2nd favorite fruit. (bananas are #1) To Hailey all fruit that is round is an apple.

So I cut the apples in half horizontally so she can see the star is the middle. We tried first painting half of the apple so the star will show up on the paint and not get covered up in too much paint. It didn't work out very well because the apple was too wet. I probably should have dried the apple with a paper towel first before using the paint.
Hailey tried dipping the apple in the paint but couldn't get the apple back out. (It was very slippery for me too.) Maybe a knife or a Popsicle craft stick would have helped to get the apple out if we stuck it in the middle of the apple.

Soon, we gave up on the apple and she just painted the paper that had the letter A.

(The template we use for all the letters are from http://www.dltk-teach.com/)

Next we talked about how apples come from trees and showed her how to add apples to the tree by dipping her finger in the paint (you can use an ink pad too) and putting it on the paper. It I had more time or patience with this activity I would have her color the tree first then paint the apples on.

She likes painting with her fingers as we made fun "bop" noises.

After we were done doing the crafts, we read 10 Apples up on Top and Chicka Chicka 1, 2, 3.

*Side note: This was a very difficult day since neither kid would take a nap and would take turns fussy. By the end of the day I was out of patience and very frustrated but still glad I was able to do Hailey School.