Alphabet of the week: Letter A

 

 

We finished our letter A study 2 weeks back and I finally had the time to post about it today. So much things to do yet so little time. As usual we started off with the reading of the letter A book by thisreadingmama.com. Then I pulled out the tactile letter for Allen to trace with his fingers. The Montessori way of tactile learning is an excellent way to teach letters recognition and preparation for writing. I got mine from ideal school supply which is cheaper than the traditional montessori sandpaper letters. The cards are sturdy so they should be able to last well and so far both my boys love them.

 

 

 

As for big brother, we used kumon wipe-off alphabet flashcards to reinforce the writing.

 

I printed this handwriting worksheet for Allen, he tried his best to trace 2 to 3 letters and started to scribble after that. I am more than happy to see him starting to hold a pencil or marker now:)

 

 

The sightword of the week is 'at'. This is big brother doing the sightword maze worksheet. Easy peasy. Sometimes Allen will ask to try it out, then I will let him at a go.

 

 

Allen working on the tracer page and drawing the apples.

 

For number recognition 1 to 20, instead of the usual marker coloring, I pulled out our sorting pie and used the tongs and apples. Allen gets to practice his fine motor skills and places an apple at the number when I randomly called it out. This sorting pie is also a great hit among homeschoolers. And as usual, I got them from the trusty amazon online.

 

 

 

Allen and I started on the Montessori maths books that I purchased from taobao.com. Dirt cheap for the books but the shipping can kill!

 

Upper case and lower case alphabets matching using hooked on phonics flashcards.

 

And beginning sounds matching as well. OKOK! I admit, I spend a LOT! on the teaching materials. At least it's for their education right? So is worth it man, really, the difference in them is so huge that my husband also think that they are worth the money investment. HEHEHE.

 

 

(Pardon the chocolate stain on Aidan's mouth) Both of them finished their sightword search.

 

Ok, enough of the worksheets, now to the fun portion. Letter A for apples! This is a apple sequencing puzzle which I downloaded from here. Good for introducing the 'whole' concept.

 

And this is Aidan sequencing the apple cards according to size and labelling them. Picture cards are downloaded from confessionsofahomeschooler blog.

 

For counting, I printed this apple tree from confessionsofahomeschooler blog and the boys will draw a number and to count and place the correct number of apples onto the tree. For more budget wise, you can just draw your own tree. I am plain lazy that's y.

 

Next up is the apple life cycle 3 parts cards which I printed from helpfulgarden blog. Do check her out, as she has tons of amazing free Montessori printables.

 

 

And the parts of the apple puzzle. Laminated it so I can chuck it aside and pull them out for revision.

 

Then, we did a little craft and revised the apple parts and life cycle.

 

 

This worksheets for actually both for little brother, but Big brother saw it on the table and just started to work on it along with Allen.

 

Rhyming cut and paste.

 

 

A is for asia. I pulled out our leapfrog world map and talked to Aidan about Asia... He listen till blur blur and just keep talking about the airplane. I even went to the library to borrow a book on our hometown, Singapore. Tried to read it to him, but he is not interested at all and ran away... Sad, chuck the map and book back on shelf... Maybe next time...

 

This is Allen second try on his name writing worksheet. If you wanna me to help you customize it to your child's name, just drop me a comment below and I will get to it asap. As you can see, Allen's handwriting still has a long way to go, well, at least he can recognizes his name well and can spell it out orally. Jiayou!

 

And this concludes our letter A week. Luckily, we had our Chinese new year celebration last week,  we got very slack in our homeschool so it will be a super short and sweet post.

 

Thanks for dropping by

XOXO

Ashley

Alphabet of the week: Letter C

We are in the 5th week of the curriculum by thisreadingmama.com. (mainly for little brother to reinforce his alphabet recognition and to encourage him to write them. Big brother knows his alphabets well enough so I only involves him in the sight words portion and spend more time on his spelling of cvc words and phonics blending.) The first 4 letters covered were T, F, P and M but I wont be covering the stuff we did then as I did not have any nice photos taken.

And I dun really follow the intended lesson plans for each day as we normally finished all the activities planned within 2 to 3 days of homeschool. So I got to look online and get more ideas of activities and games to add on to the weekly plan for the rest of the week.



Everyday we will begin with the reading of the letter booklet. Allen takes a lot of pride in reading the mini books. He will always pester me to listen to him reading the books. After that we willl sing the sight word song.



This week sightword is 'look'. I love the sightword songs cos it makes it so much easier for them to remember the spelling of the words. Both the boys will take turns to do the sight word mazes and sightword search. For big brother, I will also print out the sight word worksheet from confessions of homeschooler blog for him to practice his writing as well. And whenever we had our story time, I will take note to stop and ask the boys to read the words that they have learnt so far to reinforce and help them 'sticks'.



I also printed out the following activities from confessions of a homeschooler blog:
number arranging caterpillar and the hungry caterpillar picture cards which I laminatrd and punched hole in each picture and the boys will practice their fine motor skills by lacing the picture cards in sequence when I read the book to them. They loved this activity so much that I was requested to do this with them for at least 4 times this week.



Next is the pocket chart sentence building for allen. (aidan dun really like doing this activity not sure why but allen loves it. Yup my 2 boys are 1 heaven 1 earth. super different from each other)






Allen is practicing his scissors skills wih the patterning cards and we did the ABAB pattern which allen finds it easy peasy after which I tried AABAAB and he got a bit confused initially. Lol.



For number recognition, I will call out the number and allen will have to color in the correct numbers. He just mastered 1 to 10 and I am hoping to start on 11 to 20 soon.



I also used this Velcro stick on numbers chart for him to play with. This is a printable from http://toddlercanread.blogspot.com/.



Allen writing his alphabet on the salt tray. We will also practice all the alphabets learnt so far and I will also write down all the learnt sight words one by one and ask him to read them for me.

Allen dotting his alphabet C worksheet.

And we baked cookies for breakfast!

Books we read: Corduroy, The very hungry caterpillar, The cat in the hat and many more...



And this concludes our alphabet C week. With a picture of Baby Abbie tutu mouth.

Thanks for dropping by:
XOXO
Ashley

Sight words slapping game

Today I wanted to have a revision activity to assess and reinforce the sight words we have learnt so far. So I used recycled paper, wrote them down and taped them to the wall. Invited the boys over and introduced the game to them. Both of them have to stand a short distance away from the wall, and I have their names written down on the chalkboard for their scores charting. They got so excited with this mini 'competition' and I also mentioned the winner will get chocolate!

To play, I just call out random sightwords and the first one to run over and slap the correct word gets one point.

 

What happened? Aidan started crying after the first game caused he slapped on the wrong word and Allen won the first round. I was shocked!!! OMG! After consoling him and lots of encouragements, he perked up and we continued on our game, this time with happiness and laughers. No more wayangness...

 

My wayang boy... Sigh...

 

Fast recovery.

 

After about 12 rounds, both of them get their chocolates as both are winners! A fun and super easy game to play. You can easily use this idea for other words, numbers and even names!

 

And the scores charting also intrigued the boys a lot. When I was busy making breakfast, both of them are 'playing' the game themselves and charting their own scores. Goodwork boys!