Ice Cream and Bingo

Ice cream and bingo sounds like a fun night out, but not as much fun as our lesson today! We started by reviewing the letter "H", which we had practiced yesterday. I had the girls write several upper and lower case "H's", and then they chose their very best and favorite one to show me. I think it's important to touch on the previous lesson before delving into the current one. It didn't take us but a minute or two to review, but it showed me quickly what the girls could do. Sophie (4 years old) had no problem making her letters, but Zoe (3 years old) needed a reminder about her lowercase "H".

Today we practiced writing the letter "I". This is an easy letter so we were done with that very quickly. After that, we made "ice cream cones." I had cut out three different sized "scoops" for ice cream cones that I had drawn on paper. We talked about which was the biggest, which was the smallest and which was in between the two sizes. I told the girls to make their ice cream cones so that the biggest scoop was on the bottom and the smallest on the top. Then we discussed why that way would be best for making an ice cream cone. In hindsight, I think it would have been more fun to let them build their cones however they wanted and then explain their reasoning for how they put it together. Maybe we'll do that another time!

Sophie's ice cream cone

After making ice cream cones we played Bingo. This is a great game for practicing anything. I realized not too long ago that the girls could count forever, but they didn't recognize written numbers past 10. These bingo boards have the numbers 0-15 on them. When we played, I said a number, waited a little to give them time to find the number, and if they seemed lost I said the number again and held up an index card with the number on it. By the way, I have yet to purchase any sort of homeschooling materials. I made these bingo boards with construction paper, I used buttons that I got from my grandmother-in-law, and I wrote the numbers for calling on index cards that I have stockpiled in a drawer.

Our school time ended with snack (carrots and ranch, cheddar cheese sticks, crackers and hard boiled egg slices - I guess I was feeling orangey today!) and then Zoe got computer time to play Math Blaster and Sophie practiced piano.

Today's Lesson

Before starting our lesson this morning, we reviewed our last lesson by tracing our fingers over our macaroni "G's". Then we worked on the letter "H". We started our lesson with this worksheet from Starfall. After finishing the worksheet, I had the girls turn it over to trace their hands. They then colored their hands according to the rainbow (the thumb was red, pointer orange etc. and the palm was purple).Next we did some crafty activities. I had cut out different sized hearts and traced them on paper. The girls had to match the cutout hearts to the traced shapes on the paper and paste them. Then we talked about which heart was the biggest, smallest, how many small hearts, how many big hearts and how many all together. This counted as our math lesson for the day.

Then we got out the playdoh to make some objects that start with "H". Zoe decided to make a hairy heart.

Sophie chose to make a playdoh guy wearing a hat.

I got in on the action too!

Zoe decided she was done doing playdoh, but Sophie wanted to keep playing. Zoe kept me company in the kitchen while I made snack (more on that in a minute), so I decided to try and extend the lesson. We talked about animals that hop, and then she practiced hopping on one foot. By then, Sophie had cleaned up her playdoh, so we hopped over (pun intended) to the family room for stories.

Why do I post pictures of our snack? For my own selfish reasons really. Sometimes I feel like I feed the girls the same things over and over, so it's fun to look back and revisit an old favorite. Today's plate included strawberries, bananas, grapes, homemade banana bread bites and cut up string cheese. They ate all but one smushed grape!

Playing with Macaroni

Today was interesting. The girls were very excited to do school, in fact they were waiting for me at the table. Once we got started however, Sophie started complaining that she was tired and hungry and it was soooo hard to pay attention. She declined the invitation to go to her room instead and eventually got to work. Zoe on the other hand was thrilled to work, but spent the first 5 minutes trying to perfect the "Z" in her name and trying to erase the marker that she was using. I turned around, closed my eyes, said a quick prayer, took a deep breath, planted a big smile on my face and got started with our lessons.

We started by practicing writing the letter "G", both upper and lower case. Today we used a printout from Starfall. We also went over different words that start with "G", focusing only on the hard "G" sound.

Next we played a game I made up called Alphabet Hunt. I have index cards with uppercase letters on them. I scattered them around the house and had the girls find them. Then they had to put them in a row in alphabetical order. Zoe then said, "There's so many. I don't think I can count them all." So we counted the letters, then the girls took turns racing to pick up the letter I called out.

Now that they had gotten their wiggles out, we ended our lesson by gluing macaroni to "G's". Once these dry, we can "trace" our fingers over them. I like gluing small things because it's another way to strengthen fine motor skills. And what kid doesn't like using glue?

After all of that hard work, we all snuggled up on the couch for some stories and snack!