Sunday, December 19, 2010

My First Post

Well, this is my first post on this amazing adventure of homeschooling.  I am new to blogging and do not know too much about it so please bear with me.  We officially started last week which was the week of December 13-17 and we had a blast!  I started my Princess on the Letter G because I wanted to start with a Letter of the Week theme.  I have worked with her in the past on A-F but did not work on each letter all week long.  She knows A through F pretty well so I made the decision to begin with G.  I got some ideas on the internet and some ideas on my own. 

I have collected many teaching supplies for awhile and the majority of the supplies I buy are purchased at Dollar Tree.  I LOVE Dollar Tree! Costco has some really great preschool books as well. 

Things we did over the week:

I started out putting a very large manuscript alphabet poster on the kitchen wall which was bought at Dollar Tree.  This way she could look at the letters Gg everyday while learning. We will use this each week to learn the Letter of the Week.

I found this template on the DLTK website: 
http://www.dltk-teach.com/alphabuddies/simple-g.htm
I got out all the glitter glue I had and she used every color I had to glue inside the lines. 

I have a book that I bought at Garden Ridge that has a CD read-along, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. She wanted to read this over and over and I let her because I did not have to read it to her.  There are also songs after the story that are super cute.  Dinner with the Bears was really upbeat and we listened to it again and again. 
See more at: http://www.fairytalepop.com/

I read to her, "Go, Dog, Go!" by  P.D. Eastman.  I focused on all the G's on each page and also had her point out each G and g to me. 

Dollar Tree has quite a few educational window clings. I have alphabet ones, colors, numbers, telling time, shapes and holidays. 

I had my Princess pick out the G window cling on two different alphabet ones and put them on the window.  On the color one, she picked out the green color which had a green dinosaur on it.  We also focused on the color green all week since it starts with G.

She fingerpainted the Letter G and g on a large piece of 11 x 17 paper.  I took my alphabet magnets which I think I have three sets and spread them all out on the kitchen table and she found all the G's and then put them on the refrigerator.

I have all kinds of stencils from a Wipe Clean Giant Activity Book that my stepmom bought her.  There are 200 stencils in all. I put the capital letters on one side of an 11 x 17 piece of paper and taped it down and the lower case letters right beside it and taped them down.  Princess used all different colored markers and stenciled the letters.  Then, she pointed out the G's and g's to me and we put this on the refrigerator. 

I got out Little Einsteins Alphabet Flash Cards and laid them on the living room floor.  She found the G cards. 

For snacks one day, we had grape juice and goldfish.  Graham crackers and peanut butter were another day.  As a treat on Friday, I found a cute little gingerbread cookie house at Dollar Tree (of course, LOL!) and she had that as her G snack/treat.

I got this idea at http://www.confessionsofahomeschooler.com/

Letter Poking Page and she used a toothpick to poke holes on the dark line on the upper and lower case Gg's.  She tried using a pushpin but liked the toothpick better.  She had a great idea of getting a flashlight and going into a dark room and shining the light through the holes.  We did it and we saw the letters on the wall.  So cool!

Confessions of a Homeschooler had a link to some alphabet worksheets.
http://beginningreading.com/Alphabet%20Set%202.htm

She found all the G's and circled them and printed G's in each box.  I LOVE these sheets!

Wal-Mart has a "I Can Paste" workbook and I found a Giant Giraffe page in it.  She pasted the spots on the giraffe's neck.  I cut out the words Giant Giraffe at the top of the page and she pasted that on the sheet as well.

I got out her bendaroos and we both shaped G's and g's with them.  We did the same with play-doh on another day.

Each day, we worked on curriculum type workbooks.  One I really like is, "My Preschool Learning Book".  I bought it at Costco.  It has a CD in the back and you can print out as many pages as you want. 
Dollar Tree books we used, Disney Letters of the Alphabet, Sesame Street Letters with Cookie Monster, and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Alphabet Learning Workbook.  Super Deluxe Basics Preschool was bought at Wal-Mart.

Hubby bought her Brain Quest Workbook Pre-K Ages 4-5 at a museum and have seen them at Costco too. My all-time fav book is called First Learning My Giant Sticker Activity Book.  We bought this at Costco.  http://www.priddybooks.com/

I tried making everyday as fun as I could and she begged me to play school all day Saturday and she woke me up this morning wanting to know if we could play school.  She absolutely loved it and I did too! I will admit though that I really need the weekends off to recuperate and recharge.

The Letter H starts tomorrow!