Mother Teacher Scatterbrain

For numbers, we will be beginning with a sheet of paper with just squares drawn on it.  My son will practice putting his linking cubes one in each square.  This is a one to one correspondence activity.

We will begin this week by helping the child begin to understand the concept of one at a time.  This is important as it is the child's first encounter with equal values.  It is also the child's first encounter with equal repeating values, which are what we use in counting.  

My son already knows the sound for C. I am posting this in case someone want to see what we used. We will be reviewing all sounds that he has learned for a few weeks.

My son already knows the sound for A. I am posting this in case someone want to see what we used. We will be reviewing all sounds that he has learned for a few weeks.

We are starting on letter P this week and reviewing what has already been taught: m, a, t, s, and c. Once I am confident that my son is comfortable with these sounds, we will begin with two letter words: at and am. Then we will move to three letter words using continuous initial sounds and those two rimes first: mat, sat, Sam. Then we will attempt three letter words that have stop sounds at the beginning and use these rimes: cat, pat, Tam (in one of our stories), Pam, Cam. Finally, we will work with these sounds to make words with other rimes: tap, cap, map, sap.

I decided that I want to take more pictures of my baby. I want to do more than share them on Facebook though. I came across the idea for a personalized alphabet book on Pinterest. Beautiful books can be printed at any of the major photo developers, so why not add the text and get a book made! This will not only be educational, but also a lovely memory book. I will be using this post and the comments section to brainstorm what types of pictures to use.

I have decided that my son will learn to take good care of himself. We always want our girls to be self-sufficient, but what about our boys? They should be able to function without a woman as well. What's more, they should be able to help their wives out. And as a single mother, I know that I will need his help. Now, while I am not for completely abandoning my child and making him do everything for himself (childhood is fleeting, right?), I do want him to KNOW HOW to do things to take care of himself. I fully intend to teach him as much of these as necessary and possible. Here are some resources that I found on household chores and the appropriate ages to introduce them.

So today, I went on the Georgia's Bright From the Start website and looked at the Parent Activity Guide - Two Year Old Standards.. This document lists several fun developmentally appropriate activities for two year olds. Anyways, in this document, I found several activities for which play dough are useful. Additionally, I found a recipe for DIY play dough. I could tell from looking at their ingredients that it was quite a large batch. I chose to make four small batches. I also added some additional instructions and an ingredient. The recipe I used is below.


INGREDIENTS:
1 1/4 cups flour
1/2 cup salt
1 tablespoon cream of tartar (Found in the baking aisle, this acts as a preservative, keeping the play dough from drying out.)
Food coloring or Kool-Aid (Optional)
1/2 cup boiling water (Boiling water makes the dry ingredients mix better)
1 1/2 teaspoon cooking oil

DIRECTIONS:
Begin boiling water.
Combine dry ingredients: flour, salt, cream of tartar, and Kool-Aid if you chose to color this way. (I used the container in which I intended to keep the play dough--a disposable Tupperware bowl from the grocery store.) Mix the dry ingredients together.
Combine the wet ingredients: oil, water, and food coloring if you chose to color this way. (I put the food coloring in the water because it makes for more even color in the play dough.)

While we are working on learning to read, my son has to learn to spell the most important word he will need in today's world: his own name. He has a rather long name (8 letters), but he can do it. I have scoured Pinterest and the Internet in general and have found some practical and inexpensive games. The pics are below.

We all know the kids need to know letter sounds for phonics, but they don't need to know all of their letters to begin learning to read. They can begin learning to read armed with a handful of consonants and a vowel. Below, you will find an entire kindergarten reading curriculum (just add read alouds).

I am insisting that my son reads before he starts school. I want him to have a basic and logical understanding of the English graphophonic system. More importantly, I want him to be able to navigate the communicative skills involved in literacy: reading and writing. However, even before he is able to do this, there are things I can do to prepare him for reading. Obviously, teaching letters and their sounds is important, but what else?

Well, for us, we will be working on phonemic awareness.

I knew for a while that my son knew M and S, capital and lower case, but I was not prepared to move on. I mean, I knew I was doing T next, but I hadn't gathered the items for the object box/ bag.

I knew that my laziness wasn't doing him any good when he picked up a piece of my mail and identified the M and the S without prompting. So I got up this morning and gathered the materials to begin with a T object box. We have a tomato, a tiger, a turtle, and a flash card of course.

For the next few weeks, I will be working with my baby on getting to know Jesus. He already likes his children's Bible and prayer book. Here are some resources that I will be using to teach him the Lord's Prayer and some Bible verses. These will help his speech and memory as well.

When I have laundry to do, my two year can actually be so helpful. He loves to throw things into the washing machine. When things are done washing, I take them out of the washing machine and he puts them into the dryer which is great because he and the dryer door are low to the ground. Then, he takes the clothes out of the dryer and puts them into the laundry basket. Then I take them and fold them.

We will be using the music, videos, and images from yesterday's post to reinforce the letter s sound in addition to basic lessons. It will be broken up over the day to seldom take longer than 10 or 15 minutes.

Here are some basic ways to word the introductions of letters and their sounds. I am going to look into them.

After a week working with M, I think my little on had it, but he can be quite stubborn so I wasn't sure. Well, this morning, we made the M in the red letter book. He also recognized a lower case M written in a word. He also seems to know the sound. It's time to move on.

He is not 100 percent on the initial sound thing yet. He told me mmmpacifier. Not quite, nut that is a concept we will continue to work with. We are moving on to S.

Oh! And he can count to twelve. After that he says teen until we get to twenty. We will start working on recognition and one to one correspondence 1-5 and enunciating 13-20.

So, today my little one discovered something new! He expanded his understanding of physics.
What happened, you say?

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/jungle-adventure-educational/id569438296?mt=8

Numbers, colors, animals
English, French, German, Spanish

Free today so check it out!

We did a lot today and will continue with this for a while (until Baby gets it or gets bored!) Cilck on the baby to read the rest of the post!


So today we did some rote counting. We counted with Greg and Steve.

We worked with the letter M using the following:

Mimi Mouse's song and a larger image

Object box with a man, Mickey Mouse, and a mitten

And with Coilbrook's Shawn the Train

More on the letter M.

..



We also reviewed colors and counted as we strung beads for fine motor skills.

I read my own Bible verses (Genesis 1:1-2:3) aloud to him. He pretended to read along with one of his own books. As I wrote this on paper, he pretended to write as well.

We also watched a bit of Muzzy in French.


Additional resources:
Coilbrook's Shawn the Train
Colors
Counting
Shapes

Greg and Steve
Numbers
Days
Months

Dr. Jean
Alphabets

From Harry Kindergarten:
2D shapes
3D Shapes
Count to 20

Here is a months video

Here is another M song

We will also begin with A Rhyme A Week: Jack and Jill. (Lesson Plan, Poster, Riddle Rhymes for Older Kids, Picture Cards)

And my son loves this rat!