Y wrap up and Z Preview

We are slowly making out way to the end of the alphabet and I am super excited.  Excited for many reason but I think its nice to finally reach full circle.  So before we have a look at the activities for Z, here is what we did for the letter Y:

We grew yellow animals out of small dollar store capsules, and even though I said it would take a couple days that sat and watched anyway.  Then finally they got to open their jars and play.

We made yellow Y collages.

Happily stamping yarn designs (or not to happily).

Hannah practiced counting.

Probably my favorite picture, here is Hannah teaching Ethan how to use the Jumbo push pin.

Letter Z:

Letter Z box: Zipper, zero, zucchini, zebra, letter z, and a z bean bag.

Matching the animal toy to their photo

Making a sticker zoo. (Source: Little Giraffes)

Zoo cage and lock game.  For this game I will hide the keys and when Hannah or Ethan find them they can unlock the matching cage to free the animals. (Source: Homeschool Share)

This is a terrible picture, it is a zoo animal shadow match. (Source: 2 Teaching Mommies)

Gluing Zebra stripes on the letter Z.

Letter X Wrap-up and Letter Y Preview

Hannah, Ethan and I had a really good time working our way through our X activities.  Andrew was even able to join in a little bit.  We didn't really do anything messy so Ethan was happy.  This week I'll be bringing out the paint so stay tuned.

Hannah is playing with the letter box things, while Ethan ripped off the sticker from the lid.

Hannah had fun doing the X maze, I'll have to print out some more of these because she thought these were lots of fun. 

Working away.

Oh, how much I love these two!

This was definitely a favorite.  It took me a bit of playing to fill the glasses so that they sounded right.  Then I added the food coloring.  I'm not sure why the red is more orange than red (especially since its called Christmas red).  They played their homemade xylophone happily.  It is now sitting on my windowsill and looks pretty when the sun is out (which it hasn't been)

Matching colors.

I had so much fun watching Hannah play tic-tac-toe with Andrew.  He explained it and she seemed to pick it up quickly.  Then after a few games she started cheating.  Hahahahah Andrew would win and she would remove one of his pieces and put hers down instead.

Coming up soon! 

Letter Box Y: Yukon pin, yarn, yo-yo, yellow block, letter y, and a y bean bag.

Yellow cube counting.

Yarn Block Painting (Source: Print and Pattern).  I also left some extra peices of the yarn so that Hannah and Ethan can drag it through the paint.  We will see if Ethan sits at the table with us.

Yellow sponge animals.  These little capsule animals are fun for the kids to watch grow. I thought they could choose and put their capsules in their jar and watch them grow.

Yo-Yo Fun: We are going to make a water balloon yo-yo each, and they can also try their hand at a real yo-yo.  (Source: Delightful Learning)

Letter W wrap up and X preview

I have really enjoyed watching Ethan participate more fully in the activities.  It is especially amusing with his growing vocabulary, he now says the sweetest and funniest things. Hannah and Ethan have there own conversations and I find myself eavesdropping.  More and more I am finding that I can sit back and quietly observe them while they are working.

Here is what I saw during our time with the letter W.

Playing with their letter box items.

Making pinwheels.

Decorating the letter W.

Gluing on some pasta wheels.

Finding the seeds in the watermelon play dough.

Here Hannah is playing the watermelon seed counting game, and Ethan sliding the pasta wheels on pipe cleaners.

Letter X Preview

Letter Box X:  Xylophone, and the letter x, and the x bean bag. 

Xylophone matching game.  

Match the colors, or to make it more difficult and flip the pieces over and match by length only.

Looking at x-rays. (source: My Homemade Montessori)

Dot and pin work.  (I keep including this because Hannah loves it).

Tic Tac Toe game. 

 Letter Maze ( from Carisa  www.1+1+1=1.com)

Letter V wrap up and W preview

We had lots of fun with the letter V.  It seems like we have been finished V for a while but that's just because we were sick last week and we didn't get a chance to start anything new.

Flower arranging:

 Both Hannah and Ethan enjoyed this activities and came back to many times over the week.  Hannah liked arranging the flowers and Ethan (even though he gave it it try) preferred to play with the vase and flat marbles.

By the end, the were filling, pouring, spooning and the flowers were completely forgotten.

Experimenting with Vinegar and Baking Soda:

For this activity I put little dabs of food coloring on their trays and covered over with a layer of baking soda  Then I gave Hannah and Ethan their own bowl of vinegar with a spoon, so that they could drip the vinegar over the baking soda to make it bubble up.

It took a few spoonfuls but eventually Hannah hit some of the hiding color making pink bubbles.

Ethan abandoned this when he thought he might get dirty leaving Hannah to enjoy all her vinegar and Ethan's too.  

More V activities:

Letter V paint printing:

We painted a square of paint onto the tray and with the paint brush painted a big V.

Next we placed a piece of paper on top of the paint and pressed it down. Hannah's job was to carefully peel back the paper to find our design.

Footprint V's.

We also painted our feet to make a V shape.  This was Hannah's idea and she loved it.  Mr clean steered clear of the paint but let me trace his feet with a crayon.

A look ahead to the letter W:

W letter Box: Whale, walrus, wood, window, watermelon, 

wagon card, worm,  letter w. and a w bean bag.

Watermelon seed counting ( I saw something similar on Our Country Road)

Stringing pasta wheels on pipe cleaners. 

Water bead fun.

Watermelon play dough.  I made homemade play dough with cheery Kool-aid (I couldn't find watermelon) and added some small black beads for seeds.

If your not familiar with water beads come back tomorrow for an explanation.