Review Week A-E

I'm seeing the need to do some review with Jason, so this week we are going to go back and review the first five letters of the alphabet.  I am actually going to do this review THIS week and do letter F next week.

As I mentioned in my F lesson plan, I am going to incorporated some Fall themes into our lessons the next little while, so what better way then to do another Apple day?

Then, the rest of the week, instead of doing a specific word theme, we will be doing lots of review activities.  One thing we need to work on is differentiating between the different letters.

MONDAY

MATERIALS

• Items for Stuffed Lacing Apple, from No Time for Flashcards
• Brown grocery bag, craft paper, construction paper
• Newspapers, tissue paper, something for stuffing.  Can even use something soft, like clothing scraps.
• Hole punch
• Ribbon
• Red paint, brown and green paint
• paintbrush
• scissors
• If you don't want to paint it, just use colored construction paper
• Items for Apple Tree Felt Game, by Iowa Farmer's Wife
• 1 piece of green felt
• 1 piece of brown felt
• 1 small piece of beige or light brown felt
• 1 piece of red felt
• black sharpie
• felt board or piece of black (or blue or whatever color) felt for background
• Desired Printables
• Apple Pack from 2 Teaching Mommies
• Confessions of a Homeschooler
• Any from the Fall packs linked in the Letter F post

PREPARATION

• Gather items for Stuffed Lacing Apple, from No Time for Flashcards
• Gather items for Apple Tree Felt Game, by Iowa Farmer's Wife
• Cut a tree trunk out of the brown felt
• Cut a shape of the top of the tree from green felt
• Cut out red apple circles
• Write letters and numbers that your child knows onto the apples
• Cut a basket out of light brown felt
• Print out desired printables

LESSON PLANS

• Sing the alphabet song with your child, pointing out each letter.  
• We've been doing this almost every day, and will continue to do it.
• Quiz your child on the letters and sounds that you've learned so far.  
• We also do this everyday, but Jason seems to want to slack off a little, so I am going to be reinforcing this week.
• Talk about the season of FALL.
• Here is Phoenix, it's still 100 degrees, so the thoughts of cooler weather and all that go with it seem very far off still.  However, it's definitely apple season!  Talk with your child about apples, how they are "in season" during the fall, and all of the fun things that you can do with the apples.  I am going to try to make Apple Nachos this time as I didn't get to it when we did A is for Apples.

•  Do the Stuffed Lacing Apple, from No Time for Flashcards
• Follow the posted directions
• OR, instead of painting, use colored construction paper.  
• You can also, use clothing scraps or something else soft to make the outside of the apple and to stuff it, and have a soft apple!
• Lacing is a great way to increase fine motor skills, which are important for writing, so look for any opportunity to do lacing with your child.
• Play the Apple Tree Felt Game, by Iowa Farmer's Wife 
• Follow the posted directions to make the game.
• I am going to write all five letters onto the apples, then ask Jason to pick all of the "specific letter" apples.
• Do any desired printables

 TUESDAY-FRIDAY

Instead of a specific plan, I am just going to list the review work that I plan on doing with Jason this week.  Use what seems appropriate for you.  I doubt we'll get through everything, but I like to have options :)

First, I am going to pull out all of the past activities that were able to be saved, such as the "Find the Bear" and "Find the Eggs" cards, as well as all the lacing cards that we've made.   I also kept many of the "complete the pattern" pages from our various themes, as well as lots of other odds and ends.

I also have a collection of worksheets that we never got to, maybe two or three a week.  So I am going to pull those out and have Jason work on those.

We will revisit some fun activities that we did the first few weeks:

• Pipe Cleaners in the Strainer
• Paper Plate Hop
• Alphabet Card Matching
• Memory
• Dino Bones Dig
• Painting with Cars

Here is a list of new activities that I have planned for this week.  Again, I doubt we'll do all of it.

•  Tactile letter activities A-E, from Teach Preschool
• Make a car parking lot with letters, numbers, colors, shapes written in the spaces.  Tell child to park his car on the space that matches what you call out.  Got the idea from a friend (hi, Katie!) who, I think, got it from this pin.
• Making roads out of letters.
• Two number review mazes
• Following Instructions Number and Letter Recognition
• This is a great list of A-Z review activities from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  We are not ready for most of them yet, but here are the ones that I think are adaptable to fit us now:
• Clothespin Match-up:  It would be easy to draw this on a paper plate, A-E.
• A-Z Beginning Sounds Game:  Just use A-E
• She also has a Numbers, Shapes, and Color Review page.  All of the ideas look terrific.  Do whatever you have supplies for :)
• This is a terrific eleven page collection of writing patterns on dotted line paper.
• Make letters out of playdough
• 3Dinosaurs A-Z printable pack

I'd also like to do another craft or two, but I'm feeling uninspired at the moment...

What books would you recommend for storytime?

See how the week went by checking out my Following the Plan Friday post!