Last week we had some interrupted learning time so I opted to continue on with the Letter D this week.  We also had some interrupted learning time this week so all in all we got about 4-5 days of D in over two weeks!  On Monday we were in Mbabane to get our TRP’s taken care of and then on Thursday we went on some home visits with childcare staff.  In addition to D activities we also reviewed some of our letters from previous weeks.  Here are some of the D activities we completed this week.

We painted dots on the letter D.

This isn’t letter D, but Mikayla has gotten to wear she will choose school activities to play with instead of her toys.  Here she is playing with a patterning game at the desk while I was making dinner.  I thought she was playing with toys until I turned around!

I took our disc golf discs and scattered them around the floor.  Then I placed letter cards inside.  She dropped the ball onto the disc and identified the letter.  As she gets bigger she can identify things that start with this letter.  We had an extra disc with no letter so that was the dancing disc.  Anytime her ball landed on that disc we both had to start dancing!  And when she got bored with this game we went outside and through them around the yard.

We found this book in town on Monday.  It teachers her basic line movements.  She loves writing in it and then erasing it off!

For our final D project we made donuts.  I found a great recipe that Mikayla could help me with all the way through.  When it came time to rolling out the dough she grabbed her IKEA rolling pin and went to town.  Then she took cookie cutters and cut out her own donuts.  Here she is enjoying them fresh from the oven.

Next week we will move onto the Letter E – elephants, eggs and Elmo.  I know my friend Catherine is cringing right now, but rest assured we will throw in Grover when it come to the Letter G!

Donut Recipe:

1 1/3 cups warm milk, 95 to 105 degrees (divided)
1 packet active dry yeast (2 1/4 teaspoons)
2 tablespoons butter
2/3 cup sugar
2 eggs
5 cups all-purpose flour
A pinch or two of nutmeg, freshly grated
1 teaspoon fine grain sea salt

1/2 cup unsalted butter, melted
1 1/2 cups sugar
1 tablespoon cinnamon

Place 1/3 cup of the warm milk in the bowl of an electric mixer. Stir in the yeast and set aside for five minutes or so. Be sure your milk isn’t too hot or it will kill the yeast. Stir the butter and sugar into the remaining cup of warm milk and add it to the yeast mixture. With a fork, stir in the eggs, flour, nutmeg, and salt – just until the flour is incorporated. With the dough hook attachment of your mixer beat the dough for a few minutes at medium speed. This is where you are going to need to make adjustments – if your dough is overly sticky, add flour a few tablespoons at a time. Too dry? Add more milk a bit at a time. You want the dough to pull away from the sides of the mixing bowl and eventually become supple and smooth. Turn it out onto a floured counter-top, knead a few times (the dough should be barely sticky), and shape into a ball.

Transfer the dough to a buttered (or oiled) bowl, cover, put in a warm place (I turn on the oven at this point and set the bowl on top), and let rise for an hour or until the dough has roughly doubled in size.

Punch down the dough and roll it out 1/2-inch thick on your floured countertop. Most people (like myself) don’t have a doughnut cutter, instead I use a 2-3 inch cookie cutter to stamp out circles. Transfer the circles to a parchment-lined baking sheet and stamp out the smaller inner circles using a smaller cutter. If you cut the inner holes out any earlier, they become distorted when you attempt to move them. Cover with a clean cloth and let rise for another 45 minutes.

Bake in a 375 degree oven until the bottoms are just golden, 8 to 10 minutes – start checking around 8. While the doughnuts are baking, place the butter in a medium bowl. Place the sugar and cinnamon in a separate bowl.

We had a short week at school this week due to a meeting I had on Monday and the abundance of ripe bananas I came across on Friday.  So we really only had three days of school this week.  Next week we will continue on with D and review old letters and activities.  Next week will also be a short week because we head into town on Monday to take care of our TRP’s.  Here are some of our activities from this past week.

We made a letter D duck with paint, feathers and construction paper.

We worked on patterning using pom poms.  She did really well with this so next time I will extend the patterns and maybe leave a blank spot to see if she can figure out what would come next.

We clipped letter clips to spell her name.

We practiced counting by choosing a magnetic number and placing it on the card with the correct number of stars.

We made a D dinosaur.  I had hoped to do some more dinosaur activities but she didn’t act too excited about it so we didn’t!

We had a quick review of B and C by placing B’s in a bowl an C’s in her cookie jar.

We rolled a dice and put stickers on the number that was rolled.

We stacked dice on top of each other like blocks.

We played with an alphabet uppercase and lowercase puzzle (only the letters we had studied so far though, I didn’t want to overwhelm her).

And of course we made deviled eggs.  She was very meticulous with peeling the eggs (an added bonus is it worked on he fine motor some).  She of course loved helping in the kitchen and as you can see below enjoyed eating the deviled eggs even better!

Like I mentioned earlier, next week will be a review of letters and continuation of our letter D study.  We will move on to E the following week!

We had a great week learning about the letter C.  here are some of our favorite activities from the week.

We made a letter C with coffee and then tasted it.  She loves coffee, must take after her parents!

She sorted candies by color.  I started her by showing her how to group all the orange ones and then she did the rest on her own. 

She made a cat mask from a paper plate.

We clipped colored clothespins onto colored cookies and sang this fun song: 

Five little cookies with frosting galore. (Child’s name) ate the red one, then there were four. Four little cookies, two and two you see. (Child’s name) ate the green one, then there were three. Three little cookies, but before I knew (Child’s name) ate the white one, then there were two. Two little cookies, oh what fun. (Child’s name) ate the blue one and then there was one. One little cookie all alone, (Child’s name) ate the yellow one and now there are none!

We made a letter C carrot from a paper plate.  We painted it with orange water colors and then used green pipe cleaners for the stem.  She looks funny here because she is screaming "C is for carrot!".

She helped to make Letter C chocolate chip cookies.  We also made carrot cake at the end of the week!

I put her letter pieces from her alphabet puzzle into a tub with beans and let her fish them out with tongs and put in the right place.  She wanted to do this almost everyday.

We glued C’s onto a cake. 

We made a lot of caterpillar crafts, but this was probably my favorite.  This is the Very Hungry Caterpillar (one of her favorite books) made from torn paper. 

Another caterpillar project made from toilet paper tubes.

She made a color book by placing colored stickers onto the correct colored page.  This book has found a permanent spot in her bookshelf!

I made some cookies with pictures of C objects on the backs.  She placed the ones that started with a C into her cookie jar (which was all of them, but she didn’t know that)!

Another caterpillar, this one made form egg cartons.  She took this one outside to play with us and made him a whole house with a broom, bed, pillow and more!

She counted candies out onto her felt caterpillar.  She did really great with 1-3, but 4 and 5 were not so good.  She got too distracted wanting to eat the candy…imagine that!

She got some scissors from Mimi and Poppy this week so we made her a cutting box to practice cutting.  Basically it is a large box filled with paper scraps.  She can climb in and cut until her hearts content.  She loves it, and it doesn’t make a huge mess on the floor!

Life cycle of a caterpillar project.  The egg is a bean, the caterpillar a spiral noodle, the cocoon a macaroni noodle and the butterfly is made from a coffee filter colored with markers and then sprayed with water.  Once dry, you attach a clothespin to it to make the butterfly.

One final caterpillar made from the letter C’s glued side by side.  You can also see our letter C crab in the background. 

We did some more counting activities with candy and what not this week, but mostly stuck to phonics stuff this week.  Next week we move onto the Letter D – ducks, dogs and dots!