ivey league preschool: t is for trucks!

Here's what we did for T Week a few weeks ago!

We did our play-doh mat, do-a-dot, and pattern block mat for the letter T:

Then we did a couple of truck-themed activities, including a connect-the-dots truck, and a coloring page based on the book Little Blue Truck.

We also played a transportation-themed matching game from one of Caleb's High Five magazines.  He really enjoys hands-on games like this one!

We also did several pages in a pre-K math workbook that was also transportation themed!  We had given this to Caleb when he turned four, but hadn't really busted it out yet.  He likes the Richard Scarry books we have so he enjoyed working with this.

 

As usual, we did a magazine scavenger hunt and collage for the letter T, but I forgot to take a picture of it!  One way I organize and keep on top of all our paper clutter is to use our collages as kind of a book cover at the end of the week.  Any worksheets or coloring pages from that week get stacked together, and then I fold the collage in half and staple it all together (I save the play-doh and pattern block mats though...we have separate binders for each of those so I put them in plastic protector sheets and that way Caleb can work on them again if he wants).  So the T collage is now serving as the cover for a little book of all we did that week!  Caleb has a nice stack of them on one of his shelves...we don't have one for A since it didn't occur to me at the time that there was a way to consolidate everything, but I started doing this for B and we've done it that way since.

Thanks to the library and our own collection at home, we had lots of truck books to choose from!

T Books:

Little Blue Truck by Alice Schertle

Curious George and the Dump Truck (inspired by Margret and H.A. Rey)

Job Site by Nathan Clement

Digger Man by Andrea Zimmerman

Road Builders by B.G. Hennessey

Busy, Busy Town by Richard Scarry

Cars and Trucks and Things That Go by Richard Scarry

When Daddy's Truck Picks Me Up by Jana Novotny Hunter

The Grumpy Dump Truck by Brie Spangler

Chuck's Truck by Peggy Perry Anderson

Links:

Do-A-Dot Alphabet Pages (Home School Creations)
Play-Doh Letter Mats (Home School Creations)
Pattern Block Printable Templates (Jessica's Corner of Cyberspace)

Similar Connect-the-Dots Truck Worksheet (Education.com)

Truck Coloring Page (Twisty Noodle)

ivey league preschool: S is for superheroes!

We've been going strong with preschool for the past month, though you wouldn't know it by looking at this blog.  Currently catching up on posts!

For S week, Caleb had his heart on doing Spiderman-themed activities.  Those were harder to find due to copyright issues.  I found what I could and then supplemented with generic superhero activities as well.

First we did our do-a-dot, play-doh mat, and pattern blocks activity for the letter S:

I also found a fun "I Spy an S" worksheet online.  Caleb stamped everything that began with the letter S!

We counted superheroes and practiced writing our numbers:

And we also did a magazine scavenger hunt and collage for the letter S.

We worked in the story of Samson as well, since while he wasn't a superhero, God gave him great strength and that made him do some pretty extraordinary things.  I read Caleb the story out of his Bible, then we did a fun worksheet where we decoded a message by figuring out beginning sounds:

Though according to Scripture, Delilah didn't cut Samson's hair herself; she called in a man to do her dirty work.  Oh well.  :o)  Caleb also glued yarn onto a face to signify Samson's hair.

Finally, we tried crayon-resist painting.  I drew a spiderweb on a piece of white paper using a white crayon, then Caleb would paint over it.  We also tried a couple more with shape designs.  We didn't have watercolor paints at the time, so we tried it with a water and food coloring combo with mixed results.

We didn't make it to the library this week due to water heater issues (can't beat waking up to a flooded garage!), but overall it was fun!

Links:

Do-A-Dot Alphabet Pages (Home School Creations)
Play-Doh Letter Mats (Home School Creations)
Pattern Block Printable Templates (Jessica's Corner of Cyberspace)

"I Spy an S" Worksheet (Education.com)

Spiderman Number Tracing Worksheet (Preschool Printables)

Superhero Counting Worksheet (Twinkl)

Samson and Delilah Worksheet (Bible Wise Kids' Korner)

Inspiration for Samson's Hair Craft (Crafting the Word of God)

Inspiration for Crayon-Resist Painting (This Reading Mama)

ivey league preschool: rockets and robots

Here's our R Week!

First we did our usual activities:

We also read about Rahab in the Bible.  Caleb got a new "big boy Bible" for his birthday so he was very excited to read a story out of it.  We talked about how Rahab was saved from the destruction of Jericho because she helped hide the two spies, and how the other men knew which house was hers by the red cord she hung in the window.  I found a maze online and Caleb thought it was fun:

We did a couple of robot-themed activities so Caleb could practice his writing skills, as well as following directions and coloring.  I printed out two of the color-by-number worksheets since Caleb often sticks with coloring longer if someone else does it with him.  Plus I just like to color.  :)

We did a space-themed beginning sounds worksheet, and also colored another robot:

Caleb wrote out the word "robot" (I told him each letter and then he'd write it), but he insisted that his robot's name was Spiderman, so I wrote that on the bottom.  I colored a robot, too, and he told me mine was a girl and her name was Cherry Pie.  Alrighty then.

He also requested more baking soda and vinegar goodness this week:

And we ended the week by completing our magazine scavenger hunt and collage:

Our R Books:
The Rooftop Rocket Party by Roland Chambers
Mousetronaut by Mark Kelly
Monkey See, Monkey Do by Donough O'Malley [the monkey ends up in a rocket in this one]

Links:

Do-A-Dot Alphabet Pages (Home School Creations)
Play-Doh Letter Mats (Home School Creations)
Pattern Block Printable Templates (Jessica's Corner of Cyberspace)

Rahab Maze (BibleWise Kids Korner)

Robot Pre-Writing Practice Worksheet (Frog Spot)

"Robots in Space" Color-by-Number Worksheet (Education.com)

"In the Sky" Beginning Sounds Worksheet (Education.com)

Robot Coloring Page (Crayon Action Coloring Pages)

ivey league preschool: don't quit on me, Q!

After we took off a few weeks for the holidays, we jumped back into preschool with Q Week.

Worst.  Week.  Ever.

I know it's probably my fault.  True, I could have tried harder to make things more exciting, but let's face it, Q is just not all that interesting.  So we did our best and I think we were both relieved when the week was over!

We did our play-doh mat, do-a-dot, and pattern block mat as usual.

We also did a magazine scavenger hunt and a collage for the letter Q.  It was the saddest looking collage ever.  A few rare letter Q's, some quinoa, the Quaker oats man, and a quilt.  Really sparse.  In fact, I forgot to take a picture of it!

When we went to the library this week, we found a couple of books that went along with the letter Q, plus we reread a book about a porcupine since his quills make him poky.

Really, that's about it.  We'll do better next week, haha!

Our Q Books:
The Quiet Book by Deborah Underwood
Duck at the Door by Jackie Urbanovic [because he says "Quack"]
A Porcupine Named Fluffy by Helen Lester

Links:

Do-A-Dot Alphabet Pages (Home School Creations)
Play-Doh Letter Mats (Home School Creations)
Pattern Block Printable Templates (Jessica's Corner of Cyberspace)

ivey league preschool: p is for pirate!

Our P week happened before Christmas and after that we took a couple of weeks off for the holidays.  We decided to do mostly pirate stuff and Caleb really enjoyed it!  He helped me find pirate books during our trip to the public library that week as well.

First, we did our do-a-dot, pattern block template, and playdoh mat for the letter P:

We also completed a few pages from a pirate-themed preschool pack.  We worked on beginning letter sounds and tracing words, as well as matching the word to the corresponding object (Caleb needed a little help with this one, which is what I expected.  He'd tell me what letter he thought each object started with, and I'd help him scan the list to find the word).

This pirate pack also had a fun activity where you group word families together...they made it look like grouping coins together to put in treasure chests!

We also made a pirate hat out of a big piece of paper.  Normally you use newspaper, but this time we used a big sheet from his daddy's desk calendar at work (once he finishes a month, he tears it off and brings it home for Caleb to color!).  Caleb was less enthused with wearing it but he indulged me long enough for a picture (and go figure, he wore it around the house the next day!).

Finally, we did our magazine scavenger hunt and collage for the letter P...we found a lot of stuff!

We listened to Christmas music while we worked this week.  :)

Our Pirate Books:
The Pirate Cruncher by Jonny Duddle
How I Became a Pirate by Melinda Long
Pirates, Ho! by Sarah L. Thomson
Pirates Go to School by Corinne Demas
Edward and the Pirates by David McPhail

Links:

Do-A-Dot Alphabet Pages (Home School Creations)
Play-Doh Letter Mats (Home School Creations)
Pattern Block Printable Templates (Jessica's Corner of Cyberspace)

Pirate-Themed Preschool Pack (Homeschool Creations)

Pirate Newspaper Hat Instructions (Skip to My Lou)