Following the Plan Friday: Review Week

We had a fun and busy week of review.  Jason did really well, and like I said on Wednesday, I'm going to up the challenge a little next week and see how he does.

Monday we did the first of our Fall days by doing another Apple day. 

We did the Apple Tree Felt Game from Iowa Farmer's Wife, but I changed it up a little.  I wrote A-E on the apples.  Then, I called out a letter and Jason put all of the apples with that letter on them into the tree.  He did really well.

I finally picked up some bingo markers from Dollar Tree, so the boys were able to do Do-A-Dot pages for the first time.  THEY LOVED IT!!!  Seriously, it was quite a hit.

Completing a trace and color page.

Working on the Stuffed Lacing Apple.  I had them paint a lunch bag, then stuff it with tissue paper.  Then I punched holes and they laced it shut.

I have no recollection of Tuesday and no pictures, except that I do remember making masking tape letters on the tile and having the boys drive their cars along them, use them as balance beams, and move to the correct one when I called out a letter or sound.

Wednesday we had a lot of fun doing review activities and we breezed through almost every single on that I had planned.

We did the Tactile Letters Craft, just B-D (I didn't have any elbow macaroni and I figured we did enough A on Monday).  We did beans for B, cotton for C and dots for D.  My ten-year-old wanted to do it, too.  Good sensory play :)

I gave Jason a set of alphabet cards and a set of letter magnets.  I asked him to set out the cards, then put the letter magnet on the matching card.  For each letter, I named it and made the sound and had him copy me.

Inspired by this pin, I made pages with letters on it, and a legend and asked Jason to cover each letter with the correct colored dot.

For Justin, I made pages with the same letter on it and had him cover the letter with a colored dot.

Similar to the Clothespin Matching Game, I cut off the bumpy part of a paper plate, then wrote the letters we were reviewing around the circle multiple times.  Then I wrote the same letters on colored dots and attached each one to a clothespin.  Jason matched the letter on the clothespin to the letter on the paper plate

More Do-A-Dot pages.  These are great for hand-eye coordination.

On Thursday I took the boys to the park and called it a field trip.  We needed a break and the weather was finally nice enough. 

Friday is our longer chapel day, then when we came home, I let the boys play computer games.  I'm awesome that way.  Seriously, though, I had run out of things to do, so it worked.  Jason did do some of his leftover tracer pages.

Overall it was a great week and I can't wait for all the fun we are going to have next week on the letter F!

Had a Chat with the Kindergarten Teacher!

Sunday night I was able to spend a few minutes talking with Jason's (planned-to-be) Kindergarten Teacher.  It was such a blessing to be able to pick her brain while we spent a few minutes standing in line for birthday cake at a party after church :)

I started the conversation by asking her how her Kindergarten class was going this year.  She teaches K4 and K5 in a combined classroom, which usually consists of the K5 students and one or two K4ers.  Well, this year the balance tipped and she actually has more K4 students!  She even has a super-smart 3 year old.  It's definitely a different make-up.

After we talked about that, I expressed my concern that Jason is one of the only students who will be in his Kindergarten class next year who is not going to K4 this year, that he would be behind the rest of the students next year. 

I was so grateful that she was quick to assure me that there wouldn't be any problems, in fact, Jason might be ahead of them, because "he's getting to be home and learning from momma" (her words!)

Then we talked for awhile about what and how I was teaching Jason.

She asked if I was starting with the vowels first.  Um, no, I just started with A and we are working our way through the alphabet.

She recommended that I teach the vowels first, telling Jason "these are the vowels".  Then, as I add in the consonants, I can add the vowels with them, showing him how they work together to form words, and teaching him how to read!  It was very interesting and made a lot of sense.  I am definitely thinking about how to work this in without losing the structure that we have already set in place.

I also shared with her that Jason told me that he was bored.  Her response:  Up the challenge!

I've been going slow because Jason doesn't know his letters yet, but I am going to start adding in more challenging work, not being afraid to add in words and letters that we haven't officially learned yet.

I'm also going to start teaching Jason addition.  He knows all of his numbers and how to count to ten, so he's definitely ready for the next level.

This week we are doing a review week, which is going really well.  I'll share more details of what we are doing on Friday.

Next week I am going to continue with the plan of doing the letter F, but as I've been prepping, I've been picking more challenging worksheets and activities.  I'm excited to see Jason rise to the challenge.

I'm so thankful that I had the opportunity to pick the Kindergarten Teacher's brain, especially while she was "off duty" (we got to church together).

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!