Letter E Week for Preschool

Something about letter E week just beckoned for dyed Easter eggs and I was elated to find an extra dying kit in my pantry!  Bug was enthralled by the whole process!  We dyed a half dozen eggs and also colored with crayons to reveal secret designs on them too!  All in all, it was a total blast!  I also taught Bug the Word for Eggs in Spanish: Los huevos!

Bug used her Egg-shaped sidewalk chalk to make Easter Egg shapes too!

Little Man thought it would be best to pretend the chalk was a ball and throw it :)

I love the free Pre-K reading program from This Reading Mama!  This week Bug learned the sight word: "I" and practiced sounding out the letter /m/ during reading time.  She earned a candy corn for each sentence she read and afterwards I had her put the candy in the shape of the lowercase "e."  

Little Man wasn't very into reading practice!  

E Week was a great time to remind my sweet little ones about the true meaning of Easter.  We talked about John 3:16 "For God so loved the world that he gave His only Son that whoever believes in Him will not perish but have eternal life."  We discussed how Jesus died on the cross for our sins and then rose again after 3 days.  I shared the gospel with them and we discussed that salvation comes from asking Christ to be our Savior and asking Him to forgive us of all our sins. And I was reminded to keep persevering in prayer for Bug to be ready and willing when Jesus knocks on the door of her heart!  

We also made a precious little Easter puzzle and read an Easter book!  And letter E week would not be complete without a fun Easter egg hunt!  Since Little Man is allergic to dairy and peanut butter, we filled his eggs up with Fruit loops!  Just to be safe, we put gummy bears in Bugs eggs.  They were so excited about filling the eggs and then finding them!

We found a cute letter /e/ craft at No Time for Flash Cards.  Bug loved using glitter to decorate her paper Easter eggs and Little Man enjoyed some play-doh time with an Easter Egg play-doh molder! Bug also loved pretending to be an elephant with her tortilla elephant ears!

 

On a side note, I really enjoy how Bug is able to help clean-up her area when she completes a task.  I am hoping that instilling life lessons regarding responsibility will help her to be a blessing to others.

Little Man colored an Elmo sheet while Bug sorted elephants by size!  Little Man kept repeating "Tada" after he was finished!  We found these fun little Elephant sorting cards at Confessions of a Homeschooler Blog.   I love using her letter themed printables each week!  Bug also colored the Letter /E/ Do-A-Dot page from Confessions of A Homeschooler blog (both the size sorting cards Do-A-Dot page can be found here)  and painted an Elephant from her Do-A-Dot coloring book!  

Bug wanted to display all of her "elephant" artwork for pretend Dumbo who was soon to visit!  We found the coloring page at the Family Disney website.

For our movie this week, we had to think outside of the box since I couldn't find a movie starting with the letter /e/ that I just loved.  So, we went with Dumbo since he is an elephant and it was one of my childhood favorites!  Dumbo is spectaculor and definitely found a sweet spot in Bug's heart! She loved pretending to be Dumbo all week!  I am not sure how I felt about being called "Jumbo" (Dumbo's mom's name) being pregnant and all! haha!  Bug also enjoyed pretending that her cereal was peanut soup!

My sweet babies watching Disney's: Dumbo!  I can't believe that my sweet little girl looks so giant in her chair that used to fit her perfectly.  Did I mention they love picnic movies? 

Since Bug adored the Dumbo movie, she loved pretending to visit Disney world to see her most favorite elephant!  She decided that the leafs were tickets for admission into Disney and the acorns were peanuts for Dumbo!  It provided ample opportunities for one to one correspondence counting.  Plus, I just adore watching her imagination thrive as she contemplates ways to intertwine a movie into pretend play!

I purchased the K4 curriculum from Confessions of a Homeschooler for $15 and it was worth every penny!  We are not following the schedule she has outlined but are moving at a slower pace.  There is an abundance of material ranging from literacy activities to math activities and it even includes Spanish language activities.  I absolutely love it! This ABC puzzle was a hit with Bug which is included in the package offered at Confessions of A Homeschooler.

Bug was Dumbo's elephant mommy and loved building him a little pretend home!

We made pretend peanuts out of Play-doh and used this number puzzle I found in the toy section at Tom Thumb for addition practice. 

Bug's favorite craft activity for letter /e/ week was definitely making this paper plate elephant with a sock for a trunk!  I found this precious idea at I heart crafty things and at Deb's Design blog and combined the two ideas!

My sweetest blessings in life!!! I love these two with all of my heart!  I pray all the time that I raise them to the love Lord with all of their heart and to love one another! I love teaching them a bible verse each week either from Awanans or our Sonlight program!  I pray that the Word of the Lord will abide in them always!   

Letter D week

I am so excited to share about our Preschool letter /d/ week!  Of course, one our first ventures was making homemade baked donuts!  I bought a perfect donut pan online at Walmart for less than $10 and found an easy homemade donut recipe on the Food Network website recipe courtesy of Ina Gartner!  We decided to make a glaze for the topping and I found a wonderful recipe at Jenny Steffens blog. They were delightful and fluffy which completely inspired me to keep trying new recipes especially after my weekly baking mishaps!

My little Baker!

Our yummy donuts! YAY!

Did I mention they love to be silly!  I love how Little Man always copies his sister!

Bug just adores Dora the Explorer so it was wonderful to implement her character in a variety of activities to keep Bug motivated.  I will continue to use the idea I found at .... to make rainbow letter in order to make writing fun and motivating with lots of repetition tom improve handwriting skills

 We also practiced number recognition (1-20) using free printables from This Reading Mama.  We had a race to see who could find more numbers first.  Before, she stamped each one with the Do-A-Dot markers, I had her identify the number orally.  I have seen a leap in improvement in her number recognitions skills and I am confident she will have this skill mastered in no time!

Ready to race mom!

Dairy Queen was a perfect choice for our Letter D week!  Bug was so excited to make her Dilly Bar puzzle during preschool time! 

                                                                      

During outside time, we pretended to fly to Dora's house and went on quite the imaginary adventure!  Bug was thrilled to find another caterpillar and treated it like royalty!  She took her green caterpillar on airplane rides, tractor rides, and carried it around like a prized possession for a majority of the day!

Bug and her new found friend!

Bug taking her cute little caterpillar on a plane ride!

During /D/ week, we focused much of our attention on dental health and also on dolphins!

I found this precious idea at Pre-K Fun under the dental theme which had free printables to categorize what is healthy for you teeth and what is not.  We read a book about going to the dentist called:  "Max Goes to the Dentist" by Adria F. Klein. We did this great activity to learn about how to floss which you can find here at From the Hive.  Afterward, we practiced flossing Bug's teeth.  There are several wonderful pinterest activities regarding dental health for the preschool age! I didn't have time for all the ones I had planned! 

Bug and Little Man were elated to visit the pond and feed the ducks for /d/ week also!

Little Man loved how the goose ate right out of his hand!  He kept chasing the geese saying "here, here, here."

Sweet Bug had a wonderful morning visiting the ducks and geese!

Bug loves the outdoors and especially beautiful flowers so I couldn't resist using the idea I found at: Fun at Home with Kids blog to give her the opportunity to create a daisy garden!  We also discussed the four needs that plants have and the basic parts of a flower.  She loved making a bird out of the left-over flower petals!  

 Bug also learned about the sight word "I" and practiced counting syllables this week using these great printables and more at: This Reading Mama!

I love for Bug to practice handwriting but I always try to make sure it is fun!  So, we discussed her favorite things that start with the letter /d/, she traced the letter /D/ and I wrote the rest.  Of course, Dora and Doc Mcstuffins made it to the top!

Little Man enjoying lunch during Preschool time!

Bug earned a dolphin box for a reward this week which she gladly colored purple!  We also read a wonderful book this week called "I am Dolphin: The Life of a Bottlenose Dolphin" by Darlene R. Stille which tells about the daily life and activities of a bottle nosed dolphin from the perspecitive of a dolphin!  Bug learned all about dolphin communication including echo-location!!  She loved nodding her heard up and down to pretend she was a mommy dolphin telling her baby dolphin to stop what she was doing.  We read a cute, funny little book about dog called. We also plowed through our Sonlight books this week and enjoyed them thoroughly too!  Our letter /d/ movie this week was 101 Dalmation and Bug was completely fascinated and entertained buy this fun filled movie! 

I love hands-on learning and this dough project was the ideal fit for our letter /d/ week!  Bug learned about fractions as we measured the ingredients for the dough, fine motor skills as we painted and practiced comparing and contrasting the different play-doh ornaments she created!  We found the idea to make homemade play-doh and leaf impressions at The Imagination Tree blog.  After we finished making the leaf impressions and hypothesizing about the type of tree it came from, Bug asked to use the remainder of the dough to make Christmas ornaments.  Of course, I couldn't resist this sweet little smile!  Afterwards, she enjoyed carefully coloring each ornament.  It was a wonderful activity and so easy!

We had a fun "What begins with letter /d/?" scavenger hunt! We used a cute, free printable from Confessions of A Homeschooler for our letter /d/ hunt!  She has a wealth of ideas for each letter of the alphabet perfect for preschool and I couldn't love her site more!  We also used the free printable dinosaur cards with numbers from her site to practice number recognition and fine motor skills.

 I am so looking forward to sharing about /E/ week!  We had a blast making Easter eggs, going on egg hunts and much, much more!

Loving these Preschool times!