Wow wee what a month! I had planned to blog once a week to show y'all all the fun we had throughout the month, but as you can see that didn't happen. It took me a while to find a balance between planning out the kid's "school work" each day and managing two businesses, Posh Patooties Luxury Baby Boutique and the Mommy Market. I also kept forgetting to have the camera ready and available to snap pics of us in the moment, so I snapped some pics of the work they did after the fact. Hopefully I'll be more on top of things this month.
We did have lots of fun though, and I was pleased with the progress both kids made and how eager they were to do their "school work" every day.
So as not to overwhelm you, I think I'll break this month up into several smaller posts instead of trying to cram it all in to one big long post. Here we go!!
I never managed to get a picture of it, but I have a large cork bulletin board hanging on one wall in the school room. I used borders to split it in half and devoted one side to each child and his or her learning objectives for the month. Hayden's (age 3.5) side consisted of opposites, numbers 1-10, polar animals, L consonant blends and the 5 senses. Sophie's (age 23 months) side consisted of the color white, the number 1, the letters A, B and C, and circles.
We started the month with a Before Five in a Row (BFIAR) study of The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats
so there were a lot of winter themed items on the bulletin board. 
. His task was to order the snowflakes from 1-10 and then find and place the correct magnet on each one.
Although he can count to 20, ordering is not something we worked on until this month, so it was challenging the first few times we did an activity like this. He picked up on it quickly though and Sophie got in on the fun. She has a set of letters and the number she's working on permanently in one of her boxes which she pulls out daily. BTW, I love, love my Trofast
storage system and so do the kids. I only wish I had room for more units.I also love these little strip puzzles. The one pictured was from 2teachingmommies.com. It was challenging for Hayden to remember that the numbers all had to go on the right hand side of the tray for the puzzle to come together correctly.
I made my own set of L consonant blend mittens to use on the bulletin board. Feel free to print them out and use as you see fit.
We also used these mittens for memory matching, sorting, and counting. Sorting by an attribute was quite possibly the most challenging thing for Hayden to grasp and we're still working on it. If anyone has any suggestions, I'm all ears.
I am a big fan of these clothespin activities. They are a fantastic way to incorporate learning objectives with fine motor development. We did several throughout the month. Holding the card with one hand while clipping the clothespin on the correct answer was just the right amount of challenge for Hayden.
I'm clearly not the master of taking non-blurry pictures. :)
I also introduced clothespins to Sophie with a different activity. With a permanent marker, I wrote the upper case letters on 26 clothespins, then pinned them in order around the sides of a plastic storage bin with thin straight sides. She doesn't quite have the coordination yet to remove or pin them back on (even with two hands), but she pulls the box out every few days and puzzles over it. Sometimes she gets lucky and pulls one off by sheer brute force.
. I started the pattern off with the first 4-6 pegs and he completed the pattern in each row. We also did the same activity with LEGO blocks and mittens mentioned above. Next month I'm going to have him work on creating his own patterns.
These stacking pegs were a new manipulative for us. The set I purchased has it's pluses and minuses. I plan on reviewing them in another post very soon.
That's all I have time for right now, but I'll post parts two and three soon along with the review of the stacking pegs. Have a wonderful week!
**As a disclaimer, this post contains affiliate links.**
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