10.19.09-10.25.09

The Plans
We didn't get to all of the "planned" activities but we are becoming more intentional with our time and will continue on. Next week is a new week.

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Dinosaur Alphabet Flashcards and other activities.

This week was Dd is for Dinosaur in our house. We watched Dinosaur Train on PBS every day and I found these Dinosaur Alphabet Flashcards here. The girls colored on them and later I will cut and laminate them. Chloe and I also did a word search or shall I say attempted to do a word search. All the extra letters were confusing to her.

Green Hunt

This weeks color was green so we went on a green hunt while singing:

We're going on a green hunt, a green hunt, a green hunt
We're going on a green hunt to see what we can find.

Puzzle Number Matching

I had an idea after watching Caitlyn so easily match the numbers in the puzzle earlier this week at the Creative Arts Center. I numbered all the pieces and their corresponding correct spots. Chloe really likes this activity and Caitlyn is starting to warm up to it. I love it because it combines number recognition, matching, and fine motor skills.





Writing and Spelling

Chloe is starting to write and spell a lot more often. She wrote cat on her own and then happily ran to show me. She is still sometimes hit or miss but I think she is doing great considering she won't be 3 until November.



Not Pictured

• Dolch Words we have been focusing on the 2 letter words using the pre-primer flashcards. The words that Chloe recognized on the first try were cat, and, me, big, it, go, we. Starting next week we will have focus words that we will spend more time on since she has shown interest.
• Recognizing #s 1-20 for Chloe, #s 1-10 for Caitlyn
• Candyland
• Starfall - with a focus on -at (they spend hours doing this page on their own)
  
• I wanted to have a dinosaur hunt but due to lack of prep (and dinosaurs to find) it didn't happen, maybe the next time we go through the alphab
  

Creative Arts Center 10.19.09 - Special Post

Creative Arts Center

We went to the Creative Arts Center in Reno with Reno moms like me. It was 8 rooms of hands on fun and learning! Seriously amazing. They are currently only open to people who take their classes. We were very lucky to be able to participate for free. YAY Reno moms like me.

Pumpkin Top Painting

Sensory Tables

Bird seed and water = so much fun! Caitlyn barely left these tables the whole time. I am really grateful that we brought an extra set of clothes because she was SOAKED and it was very cold and windy outside. I didn't look at the weather before getting them dressed. :-(

A sandbox sensory activity

Ball Pit

Bounce Pit
Bouncing, which is one of her favorite things to do

Pumpkin Craft

Both girls did a pumpkin craft in what I called the Alphabet room. Chloe wrote the letter P (both capital and lower case) on her pumpkin. I thought she could only write the letters in her name. My girls never cease to amaze me.

Puzzle Matching

There were pictures and numbers on the inside of the puzzle as well so Caitlyn just started matching them. I didn't know she was able to do that yet. Or that she recognized the numbers so easily.

Marble Run

Interactive Story and Movement Time



Mom and daughters

We had this taken by another mom right before we left and Chloe was NOT wanting to leave because she was having so much fun.



Dad at Work

We visited dad at work after we left the Creative Arts Center so he could see the girls crafts and get a few minutes of time with them. He has been working overtime more lately. Too many high priority projects and not enough time in the day.


Daddy and his little girls

10.12.09-10.18.09

The Plans

We only got to about 5 of our planned activities this week but hey we still were able to do 5 of our activities. It is all about perspective, right?

Playing in the Rain

I bought the girls umbrellas at the MOPs Convention last month. This was the first rain since then so we bundled up (only a little) and they had so much fun playing in the rain. We talked about the clouds and how water comes out of it and the water is rain.

Red Hunt

We continued with the color hunt this week. We looked for items that were red while singing this song:

We're going on a red hunt, a red hunt, a red hunt
We're going on a red hunt to see what we can find.

C is for Color with Water :-)

We had water color time and although there was more paint on Caitlyn than on her paper, they had so much fun. Not only did they have fun, they were also developing their fine motor skills and learning about what happens when you mix colors together - it makes a new color.

C is for Colored Pasta

The girls had their friend Ms. P over for the day. We had some colored pasta left from a MOPs kid activity. We used q-tips to put the glue on the C to decrease the amount of mess from this activity. We put the colored pasta on the letter C. It was also a texture activity since the pasta is bumpy and 3 dimensional.

Name writing and fun with markers

Chloe was practicing writing her name, she is getting better at it. Pretty soon we are going to focus more on holding the pen correctly and writing the letters correctly. According to a speech therapist friend of mine, that is apparently important.

Chloe traced her hands on the paper. I don't know whether she had more marker on her hand or on the paper. I couldn't believe that she had remembered how to trace her hand and did it on her own. This was the first time that she did it on her own, I have usually been the one to trace her hand with a crayon.

Playing with beach balls

The girls played with beach balls. As they were playing they didn't even realize that they were developing their gross motor skills. I love learning especially when they don't realize that they are learning!

Not Pictured

We played Candyland to help with color recognition and taking turns.
They continue to learn with Starfall on a daily basis.
Caitlyn practiced counting to 15. She has the numbers, next we will work on enunciation so that other people can understand her too.
Chloe practiced counting to 20, she still skips 15 but once she is corrected she restarts at 10 and then remembers to include 15.