Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Letter S

Been a while since I have shared our journey through the alphabet.  This week we are on Letter S
Which is basically a fist with your thumb held in front.  We are focusing on the sign language words sing, snakesun, strong, and sister.  The color this week is brown, our number is five, and our shape is a rectangle.  Click on any of the words to visit Signing Savy and watch the video of how to make the sign.

Our Bible Story this week is about Samson.  We are reading from both the The Beginner's Bible  (p. 146) and My First Study Bible  (p. 106) as well as our Bible (Judges ch. 16). 

The song/rhyme this week is the 5 Little Turkeys.  You can find the song and a free printable to go with it here.  When Princess A and I do songs like this we count up to the new number, i.e. "one waddled off and then there were four.  1, 2, 3, 4 little turkeys....".  This helps her to review her counting skills. 

This weeks Bible verse is Isaiah 55:6

Math:
I decided to introduce Princess A to a bar graph this week.  We used the Pepperidge Farm Colors goldfish.  I poured a handful out on the table and then had her sort them according to color.  After we sorted them we counted them and then colored the bar graph for each color.  Using the bar graph we determined which color we had the most of and which we had the least of.  Then she got to eat her fish!  You could use this opportunity to introduce the sign for swim if you wanted to.  You can download my free printables for this here.

We also sang the 5 little turkey song a LOT.  Once she got over the eating turkey thing (which actually ended up about eating the stick turkeys we made and not about eating real turkeys once she talked about it!) she really liked this one!

Language:
Princess A is getting pretty good at recognizing letters so this week I decided to do a letter hunt with her.  Print out the page here and place it in a plastic sleeve protector.  Then have your child use a dry erase marker to find all of the capital and lower case S's in the poem.  Read it together. 

If your child is up for it you could also do this hidden S worksheet together.  Princess A really enjoys finding the hidden letter and this is usually the activity we do to introduce the new letter.

click the image above to enlarge it and then print the image

Please see the widget at the end of this post for some other suggested books for the letter S


Science:

Take your little one outside after dark and look for stars.  Introduce the North Star and maybe even identify some constellations together.  Make your own constellation projector.  Visit Imagination Soup for instructions.  Don't forget to remind your little one that God created all of the stars (Gen. 1:16) and that God has a name for each of them (Psalm 147:4)

Social Studies:
Since one of our words this week is sister, I chose to focus on family this week.  We talked about what a family is and what our responsibilities are to our family.  I chose not to introduce specific Bible verses for these, but I made sure to tell her things such as, "God tells us that we should obey our moms and dads" and "God tells us that families take care of each other".  Use your best judgement as to what your child is ready for.  Then we drew a picture of our family.  Let your child lead in this activity.  If he/she adds people that are not in your biological family it presents an opportunity to talk about God's family.  If he or she leaves out a sibling, then you can talk about the different people that make up a biological family.  Lots of room here for you to discuss.  You might want to date and save this picture as well as record your child's thoughts on who was included and why, i.e. grandma is in our family because I love her.

Art:
Finger paint.  Let your fingers slide through the paint.  Talk about how slippery it is.  If you don't already have finger paint here is a great recipe:

in a 2 qt sauce pan put 1/3 cup cornstarch.  Slowly stir in 2 cups cold water while stirring.  Bring to a boil over low heat.  Stir constantly until it thickens and becomes almost clear.  Pour into small containers and add food coloring to each container.  Stir to blend.  Allow to cool completely.  Add about a teaspoon of liquid dish soap to each container to help prevent it from staining.  Stir.

Want to avoid the mess?  Get a gallon size ziplock bag.  With the bag laying flat place a dollop of each color in a corner (red in one corner, blue in another etc).  Close the bag almost all the way.  Insert a straw into the open area and suck as much air as you can out.  Seal the bag.  Tape it closed to prevent little fingers from opening it.  Now let your little one squish and slide the colors together.  Be sure to talk about what you observe when two colors mix.

Phys. Ed.
Here is a great way to review colors, shapes, letters, numbers, just about anything.  This week we are reviewing shapes.  I drew a different shape that we have studied on several pieces of paper.  (Circle on one, triangle on another, rectangle on another etc).  If you want these to last then laminate them.  Set the papers in a circle on the floor and then turn on your little ones favorite music.  Stop the music periodically and have your little one tell you what shape he/she is standing on.  You can alter this by changing the pace every time you stop.  One time you tiptoe, another you hop, another you walk, etc. 

Hope you and your little one enjoy the letter S activities.  Have any other ideas?  I would love it if you would share them in the comments!

 

Saturday, November 5, 2011

Thanksgiving Printable

Princess A loves all of the counting songs she hears.  5 Little Monkeys, 5 Little Pumpkins etc.  So for Thanksgiving I searched for a turkey one and came across a cute little poem/song


Five little turkeys standing by the door,
one waddled off and then there were four.
Four little turkeys under a tree
one waddled off and then there were three
Three little turkeys with nothing to do
one waddled off and then there were two
Two little turkeys in the noon day sun
one waddled off and then there was one
One little turkey better run away
for soon will come Thanksgiving day!


Now, I have to be honest here.  Princess A didn't understand why the turkey had to run away so I explained that a lot of families eat turkey for Thanksgiving.  I honestly didn't think it would upset her since her daddy hunts and she has been exposed to the whole process of "what a cute deer, can I pet it?" to butchering, to "Daddy, this deer tastes yummy".  Turkeys however, are a different story for her!  She got so upset and repeatedly informed me, "that's not nice" and "that will hurt the turkey".  Fortunately I am more of a ham gal.  Just have to be sure to avoid pig songs that end with the pig on the table!

I decided to turn this into a little puppet action.  Wish my camera wasn't on the fritz and I could show you pictures, but it is.  So you just have to imagine cute little turkeys on top of popsicle sticks.  And seeing as how all of these little rhymes are floating in my head I decided to make it easy on myself and put each line on the back of a turkey so I didn't have to memorize another song!  They are super simple to put together and only require a printer, a glue stick and 5 popsicle sticks.  If you want to make them last you can use some packing tape or contact paper to "laminate" them after you put them together.


You can click here to download the free pdf.  Would love it if you left me a comment if you decide to use this!

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