Each week I have decided to focus on one letter at a time and create various activities revolving around it.  I will also throw in counting activities, fine motor activities, arts and crafts, science activities (when relevant), cooking activities and whatever else my brain comes up with!  I am sure we will do more as we get into a good routine, but I figured this was a good start.  I am always open for suggestions on how to do things differently or for new ideas (as I am coming up with most of them on the fly).  Here are some of our activities from the last week. 

Clothespin color matching.  As simple as it sounds, match up the clothespins with the correct color of cardboard.  I hope to find some colored paper clips to do a similar activity with.  She is getting really good at maneuvering the clips, something she struggled with a month ago. 

For this activity she had to identify each shape, color them a certain color depending on what I said and then match them up and glue on top of the correct match.  She loves to glue so anytime I can incorporate that into the lessons she is fully focused!

My friend Lara mentioned she was going to do an activity similar to this with pom poms – tweeze the pom poms or "apples" onto the apple tree.  I didn’t have any pom poms so I went to the cabinet to explore what I could substitute and came up with some large circular brads.  This worked out pretty well, although I think the pom poms would have been easier for her.  After she was finished putting the "apples" on the tree she proceeded to "eat" them all and then throw her trash in the storage bag.  Such an imagination my child.

Letter sorting activity.  While we are only focusing on capital letters at this time, I still thought it was important to at least introduce the lower case letters.  For this activity she is sorting a stack of big and little letters into the correct bowl.  I did this with the M’s too and she is having so much fun with it I think I will incorporate it into each week (as long as she isn’t getting bored with it).  The black letters you see are sandpaper letters I made to help her focus on letter formation.   She can rub her finger along the letters to feel how the letter is written.

More fine motor practice with some lacing.  Made from a cereal box and shoe string I found laying around. 

Push pins into thick cardboard.  After a few times this game was too easy because the holes were too big!

More big and little letter matching.  Letters were written on poker chips.

Clipping correct number of clothespins to numbers.

Apple stickers on the letter A.  This kid loves some stickers!

Apple craft – thanks Lara!  Torn paper for apple, handprint for leaf and real stick for stem.  She was very patient in finding her stem, as she wanted it to be perfect. 

Since ants are everywhere here (and I mean everywhere) what better snack than ants on a log for Letter A week?  Bananas with peanut butter for the log and craisins/raisins for the ants.

Number matching on apples.  We sang songs about how to make the numbers and then traced them and glued over top the matching number.

Apple counting book.  Each page has a different number and she had to glue the correct number of apples to each basket.  She did very well for the first three pages and then the last two she lost focus.  Maybe too many pages at this time for her.

Making some of my Grandma Clark’s famous apples.  Mikayla loves helping "cut" things in the kitchen!

We also did a few activities I failed to take a picture of.  We have felt storyboard pieces to go with Brown Bear, Brown Bear, so we incorporated these into two different activities.  One was a color activity.  She drew out one animal at a time and had to go find something in the room that was the same color.  She loved this game a lot, so we played it several times.  The second activity was acting like the animals.  We even took an apple and worked on position words and following directions!  We also practiced writing the letter A.  She did a great job, although she still regularly switches between her right and left hand.  Anyone know when it is normal to choose one hand over the other to write with?  We even talked about the parts of the apple and colored a picture.  I really wanted to paint with an apple, but I have only been able to get my hands on water color paints so far.  Maybe later we will just for fun!  We did more, but my mind is drawing a blank at the moment.  Some of these activities we will continue on through next week, but we will have many new ones to do as well. 

Next week we will be studying the letter B (think bears, boats, bananas and butterflies) – any good B activities or related art/math/science/fine motor/color ones floating around??  I am also open to suggestions for the letter C!