E is for Elephant

 Ok so we are back to a Monday again and we got a little bit back on schedule for the first time since letter B week.  This week is letter E week and we decided to start with one of Gooba's  favorite animals, the elephant.  The first thing we did was an old favorite activity of Gooba's, moving tiny erasers with tongs from different sized containers.  At one point we did count some of the erasers, though right now Gooba can only count up to six.  This has been great fine motor practice for her and she just adores picking things up with the tongs!

 Next we sorted cards with capitol and lowercase letters on them. First we tried to do this on the table, but Gooba insisted that magnets be involved with this activity, so we went for it!  Today, despite some lack of interest for mommy's rules, she did a pretty good job sorting the cards.

Since we already had the magnets out, we moved onto some magnet pages.  I had two different ones, but after this one and the previous activity involving magnets, she started to lose interest.  After playing with the magnets and announcing that she was not listening, I know..., I told her she would not be able to help make elephant cookies if she didn't play by mommy's rules.  The picture to the left is what happened 15 seconds after I made that statement.  Toddlers are such stinkers!

 Next, I followed through with my promise and we made elephant cookies.  We used Pillsbury sugar cookie dough and added some extra flour.  I found the best way was to roll the dough almost back into it's original log form and cut of two circles for each elephant.  The first circle I flattened out to make the head.  The second circle I flattened out and cut into thirds.  The outside two thirds became the ears and the middle became the trunk.  Then I just smooshed them all together.  Very important next step!  I put the whole cookie sheet in the refrigerator for about 10 minutes.  Then I baked them at 350 for 10-12 minutes.  The second batch was much colder and did not spread out nearly as much as the first batch.  Then I just used icing and sugar wafers to make the details on the face.  These were a big hit, Gooba LOVES helping me in the kitchen.  She also loves eating!

A little bit later we worked on some cutting.  One of our kindergarten teachers at my school told me the number one thing kids can't do is cut, since all parents are terrified to give their kids scissors.  This time she did better than last time.  She let me help her with that first cut across the top and then I let her go for it.  This is definitely a skill that needs some attention.  This is also a skill that requires her to have help from mommy, something she is not a fan of.  So I have found that perhaps teaching to cut involves fine motor, listening, patience, and calm.  Of course, all things every toddler possesses!

 Speaking of fine motor, looks how far our line drawing has come!  It's actually touching the line this week.  Boy, she has come a long way with this one in just a few short weeks!

Time for my favorite part... CRAFT TIME! This first one is actually one I worked out in my own little brain, as opposed to all my other ideas being stolen for around the web.  The head and trunk are her footprint and the ears are her hands.  Then she stuck on the eyes where I put the glue and I added the little trunk lines with marker when it was dry.  So cute!  I love how this one turned out.

Then since she loves having her hands and feet painted we painted her hands again to make these two cute little elephants.  She added the eyes where I put the glue and I added the markers when it was dry.  The original idea I saw for this was a mommy and baby elephant, but Gooba was extremely offended that I would paint my hand instead of hers, so we did two babies instead.





We did a few more things I did not take pictures of.  From 1+1+1=1 we used some of the Animal ABC's pages on the computer.  Since we are just now drawing lines, drawing shapes is out of the question.  So instead I pulled up the page on the computer and I called out the shapes and she pointed to them.  We did the same for the colors page.  We also used the vocabulary builder from the same set of worksheets and we talked about and answered questions about the picture of the elephants.  Mostly we talked about the baby elephant.  Somewhere at some point we also kind of did a lacing card, but she was a little to excitable to really pay any attention to that this morning, maybe we'll take it out again this afternoon.  I also hope to take out our plastic elephants and our elephant puppet and have some creative play when she awakes from her nap.  All in all, though we had some spurts on defiance and an absolute refusal to use the potty today even though we've been dry for almost a week, I still feel like we got a lot done and had a lot of fun too!




Printables graciously borrowed from 1+1+1=1, Confessions of a Homeschooler, and Making Learning Fun.