Friday, April 29, 2011

Amazing "A,a" & Beautiful "B,b"

My big sis is really great w/ kids and has two adorable ones of her own. In addition to being a s.a.h.m. for them, she also watches other kiddos during the week and does tons of cool stuff with them. She creates lesson plans and thinks up lots of really neat activities and crafts. So she definitely gets credit for inspiring me to do the same with my daughter!! I started out by making up a lesson plan of my very own:


LESSON PLANS

I.                  LETTERS
A.    Monday
1.       Letter Bag
a.      Ask Peanut to identify objects that start with letter of the week
B.     Tuesday
1.       Letter-Themed Coloring Pages
a.      Ask Peanut to color pages featuring pictures that start with letter of the week
C.     Wednesday
1.       Letter-Themed Recipes or Food
a.      Make meals and snacks that start with letter of the week
D.    Thursday
1.       Letter-Themed Crafts
a.      Make crafts with Peanut that feature letter of the week
E.     Friday
1.       Letter-Themed Story or Book
a.      Read story or book with title featuring letter of the week
2.     Review


And then, I implemented it! So far it's been working out great. It really adds structure to the week and Little P is having a ton of fun learning her letters :) Here's what we've accomplished so far:


AMAZING "A,a"

Letter Bag: Plastic "A", toy antelope, Altoids box, Ace of clubs, Abby keychain,"A" letter card
Letter Craft: Alphabet Soup, Supplies: Foam paper (2 sheets in different colors, foam stickers, scissors, glue

BEAUTIFUL "B,b" 
 
Letter Bag: bread, broccoli, banana, ball, bubbles, brush, bow, bracelet, "B" letter cards
Letter Craft: Buggy Bookmarks, Supplies: bookmark card stock, rubber stamp, ink, yarn, pen, scissors, tape


As I said, I am really loving this and can't wait to continue these lesson plans! I'll be sure to keep you posted in the weeks to come with all of our letter-themed activities :)

Monday, April 11, 2011

80 Degrees and Sunny :)

Sunday was such a perfect day; lazy, beautiful, full of family and full of fun :) We ended up going to my mom's which is one of Peanut's absolute favorite places to be! She not only adores Pop Pop and Gam Gam, but she also loves their great big yard and all of their pets. It was the perfect day for visiting, 80 degrees and sunny (for the first time in a very LONG time)! It felt so good to be out playing in the sunshine again.




P spent some quality time with Simon, trying to feed him peanuts that were meant for the squirrels, LOL!! I think he would have tried one if not for the window glass in the way. She offered some to Lucy but she wasn't very interested. Soon Peanut was moving on to other things.





She got ahold of a watering can which she used to sprinkle everything from her shoes to the driveway. She eventually made her way over to the flowers!! She really got a kick out of spending so much time outside, as did the rest of us!!





It was great just kicking back and spending some time together with the fam. Although we see each other a lot we're usually all in a hurry, running around, trying to get things done. It was great to just sit back and enjoy each others company :)