B is for Bears

Today's lesson was all about bears!  We started the morning out by sorting and counting little bears.  We had some little fuzzy ones and some plastic colored bear counters.  We counted the types of bears and how many of each color we had.  Then Gooba had fun sorting them in her trays and using the "clapper catcher" to move them from container to container

The next activity was the biggest hit of the day so far, besides gymnastics class, size sorting.  Gooba just LOVES to classify things by families or size.  Every time we use size cards there's a daddy, a mommy, a big brother, a little sister, and a baby.  We add grandparents in if there are more cards.  On the upside, she is fantastic at sorting things by size.  We played this several times and she got them in the right order every time.

Today we also worked on making the letter B with Bendaroos.  The last time we did this activity we were new to Bendaroos so Gooba was uninterested in making any type of letter.  This time she actually tried putting the Bendaroos on the dotted lines on the paper.  She was not great at this but the effort was definitely there today.



After we were done with Bendaroos we were off to our gymnastics class or "tastics" and Gooba calls it.  I was proud of her today, she was much more confident and adventurous and played with some of the other kids for a little bit as well.  I'm looking forward to how much she will be able to do by the end of the twelve week lessons.

When we got home from gymnastics we had some lunch and worked on our Melissa and Doug Bear Family puzzle.  We got this puzzle for Christmas this past year and Gooba has been a big fan ever since.  She was disappointed today that the Daddy pajama pants are missing and we spent a good 15 minutes looking for them with no such luck.  She does love to put every bear in their pajamas.... hopefully it will turn up.

After puzzle time we snuggled up and read a few stories and now Gooba is down for her nap.  I'm hoping to get started on some bear muffins while she is sleeping and hopefully when she wakes up we can make a bear craft.

After our nap Gooba decided it was time for some art projects.  The first thing we did was finger paint two paper plates for the bear craft below.  While that was drying Gooba was finally into coloring for the first time since we started school.  And we colored ALOT!  I bought some washable markers the other day and she was all about it.

After dinner our paper plates were finally dry and we were able to add the construction paper arms, legs, ears, and face.  Also we got to add Gooba's favorite part.... the googly eyes!


All in all we had a very great bear day.  Looking forward to more bugs and butterflies tomorrow at our play date with Stay at Home Adventures.





Printables borrowed graciously from 1+1+1=1 and Confessions of a Homeschooler.

B is for Birds

Today we continued with the letter B.  We did not do as much stuff as we normally do today since it was Story Time at the library.  Again Gooba had a blast at Story Time and enjoyed, but not more than me, picking out some new books for this week.  We read last weeks books approximately four hundred million times each.

Anyways before we left for Story Time we worked on one of our magnet pages.  Gooba was mostly interested in playing with magnets today instead of placing them in the circles.  Oh well.

We moved on from circles to coloring a letter B printable.  She was not a fan of having me show her how to hold the marker.  This seems to be a constant theme in my blogging I've noticed!  We worked on this for a little while and then she decided it was time to finish breakfast.

 While we were finishing breakfast I managed to squeeze in another activity.  We got out our birds and birdhouses sorting cards.  First we identified the letter B in both of those words and then we sorted the little cards.  I continue to be so amazed at how fast she can complete an activity when she is trying to get rid of me.  It's the same with eating, using the potty, and now school.  She'll poke along and pretend she doesn't know what's she's doing, then all of a sudden, boom we're done.  Smart and stubborn just like her.....  ;)


After we sorted and crammed the rest of our breakfast in our mouths we got dressed for the day and headed to Story Time.  Today's Story Time theme was nap time (lol) and I have found that Gooba will sit and listen to me read her a story for hours on end, but when someone else is reading she enjoys running around the room and yelling "I love dancing!"  She was great however at the music and dancing activities.  She's such a nut!




After we returned home from the library it was time for a much needed lunch.  After lunch I told Gooba I was going to paint her feet and we were going to make a bird craft.  She freaked out and started crying.  Once she calmed down, I told her I was going to tickle her feet with the paintbrush and she seemed intrigued.  Once I put one drop of paint on her foot she kept saying... "More feet paint Mommy!"  Yeah.... Mommy knows what she likes.

So even though it was bird day, Gooba insisted that we continue with the "feet painting" so we decided to make some butterflies since they also begin with B and were on our list of things to do this week anyways.  I think all of the foot paintings came great today.  I tried with the birds to put her foot down on the paper, but had much more success holding the paper on a piece of cardboard and pressing her foot on the paper while she remained seated.  MUCH better detail on the "feets" as Gooba would say!  After our painting adventure we read two new books from the library and went of to nap.  Hopefully we can squeeze in some pattern cards and play doh birds after nap!

 Okay after nap we managed to squeeze in some play doh fun time!

The two on the left are examples of the ones I made to show Gooba what to do.  She was highly intrigued, mostly because of the googly eyes.

The two pictures on the right are Gooba intently focused on the play doh.  Finally, below is her masterpiece!  She did this one all by herself without any help from Mommy.

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

B is for Bugs

After and very successful Letter A Week, we finally made it to Letter B Week!  I think Gooba and I were both very excited to focus on a new letter today.

We began this week with B is for Bugs.  We started our day with a familiar activity - magnets.  Since we used these several times last week, Gooba was a pro.  She took all the magnets and placed them right on all the circles.  After she completed this once she experimented with different sizes of magnets.

 Once we were done with filling in the circles, but not quite done with the magnets, we moved on to another activity and adapted it for use with the magnets.  We used a printable with a capitol B column and a lowercase b column and some bee cards marked with both kinds of letters.  Gooba had to decide where each card went and then stick it there with a magnet.  There seemed to be some confusion at first since all of the bees are the same, just the letters are different.  I'm not sure she was looking at the letter at first.  Eventually we got a little better at noticing and sorting the letters.

 Next we moved on to some "handwriting" practice.  I helped Gooba write a capitol B and a lowercase b and then let her have at the rest.  Pretty much she just scribbled on the paper, but did notice that a lowercase b has a circle on the bottom.  Gooba is a big fan of circles.






The next printable was just a printable with both letters in an outline form with some pictures of bugs on it.  She scribbled on here to, but the scribbling was on top of both letters.  Seemed like there may have actually been a little bit of control somewhere in there!








We traced the letters on the next printable together and then I let her color some herself.  By this point she was quite tired of printable so we just left it and moved on to a favorite activity from last week... the clapper catcher!

This time in our muffin tin we had little erasers in the shapes of bees, ladybugs, butterflies, and dragonflies.  We practiced moving them between different sized containers, counting them, and sorting them.  Later they became "lunch for a dinosaur" and I was no longer allowed to play with or even touch them anymore.

 So after clapper catcher we moved on to another game we played last week - "head and tooshies"  Gooba wanted to play with the magnets again so we adapted this the same way we played the letter sorting game earlier.  She made four quick matches and then was tired of this game.  I'm hoping we can play it again a little bit later.

Then came our favorite activity so far.  I had purchased a bug catcher set at the Dollar Tree which included a little contained, tweezers, and a tiny little net.  I also had purchased a bag of plastic bugs.  I hid the bugs around the house and then had Gooba search for them throughout the house.  Our original plan was to do this outside, but we were having a severe thunderstorm, so staying inside seemed like probably a better idea.

We hid and then found the bugs probably four or five times.  She loved picking them up with the tweezers, putting them in the net, and finally putting them into her little bug container.  After we found the bugs for the billionth time we sorting them by color and we named all the different kinds of bugs.  We also used hiding them as a good way to practice directions.  For example, "this time they are all down low, look down low" or "this time they are all up high."  Needless to say we had a lot of fun with this particular activity.





From bug hunting, we moved onto our bumblebee lacing card.  This seemed much more calm and a great thing for Gooba to do while I was preparing her lunch.  She started here in the kitchen and later moved to the couch, which is where we worked on lacing cards last week.  She is such a creature of habit, I love it!






After lacing cards and after lunch it was time for some quick crafts before nap time.  I cut these pieces out earlier and Gooba helped me glue them onto the half sheets of paper.  She also helped glue the stripes and her personal favorite, the googly eyes.  If it was up to her every craft would have googly eyes on it.  I'm hoping these will help her to tell the difference between Big B and little b throughout the week.

 After a great nap, a trip to the grocery store, and a delicious dinner, we attempted to squeeze in a few more school activities.  We sorted some bugs and flowers pictures cards.  We also played hide and seek with the bugs and bug catching kit with her Daddy.

 Finally the last activity we managed to attempt was the line tracing wipe off page where she could help the bug find the leaf.  She managed despite the look of scribbles on the page to draw a semi-straight line across the page and drew and up and down pattern though it went from the  top to the bottom of the page instead of follow the lines.  Some sort of progress from last week.  I look forward to looking back at these pictures as she grows and getting to see how far she progresses.






Thank you to 1+1+1=1 and Confessions of a Homeschooler for your wonderful printables!