O for Ostrich

We are currently working on our Mommy & Me ABC units.  This week was letter O and ostriches!  Unless otherwise specified, all of the printables are from my Mommy & Me ABC Printables, which are free as we complete them (for a detailed list of all the materials in the printables, check out this post).

 This was his desk setup. On the left is his magnetic calendar.  His white board had some alphabet magnets, and his fridge phonics set.  The shelf had a bunch of Os, a toy ostrich, and some O books.

Letter N Alphabet Sensory Bin

 O and Ostrich Puzzles
We did both printable and store bought puzzles.

Letter Clipping


Playdough
Here he is using cookie cutters to make some Os.  I didn't catch a picture of him using his alphabet play dough mat, though.

 Painting
He painted an O (from 1+1+1=1)

Tracing 
Tracing some Os (from 1+1+1=1).  Not sure why he is using his left hand.

 Building Letters
I picked up the pieces to Handwriting Without Tears at a garage sale, so we practiced building Os.  I hope to eventually be able to buy him the Learning Resrouces Letter Construction Set.

 Ostrich Cutting Strips

 He climbed a chair and somehow accessed his training scissors and brought them to me, asking for paper.  Guess it has been too long since we practiced cutting!

 Peg Letter O
Can't do any peg letters without then playing the "trumpet."

 
 Lacing

Xander asked to do some lacing last weekend, so I made sure to include it this week.  He doesn't have the patience to go all the way around the letter, but I'm glad when he sticks with it long enough to do part of it! 

  Dot Magnet Ostriches
Once again, we used two colors for his dot magnet pages.  He uses one color for the capital letters and one for the lowercase.

 Ostrich Craft

Other Tot School Activities

I still had the Spring Vocabulary Cards out from last week, so Xander matched them up.  He really likes to watch the vocabulary lessons on Little Reader and then playing the matching games.

 We don't do it every day, but we till do our calendar pretty often.  He is usually disappointed that we can't immediately do it again after setting the date.

We also played with our Sight Words Play Mats

For more ideas, check out my Ostrich Pinterest Board!

Sight Words Play Mats

Recently I taught a lesson on subatomic particles to some 9th graders.  As part of the lesson I made a bunch of mats to represent places in the orbitals. They took me a while to put together, so I needed to come up with something else to do with them.  Hence, the Sight Words Play Mats.

To make the mats I cut some $2 shower curtain liners into squares.   Then I used a few colors of duct tape to make borders around each square.  Then I used a big roll of masking tape to put a word on each side of the mat.    I figured the masking tape would be easy to switch out for harder words later.  For now I mostly used sight words and prepositions.

Xander wanted to help out.

Showing off his mats.

We played a few ways.  I put out a bunch of the mats and had him jump, hop, and skip to different words.  In this picture he is attempting to stand on one foot on "because."

Then I put them all out in a big "snake."  He would call out a word then jump on it, working his way around the snake.  Since there were words on both sides, I could just flip over each mat when he made it through them all.  Of course, he had me play too.

I could see tossing balls or shooting darts on them.  What ideas can you think of?

Spring Theme

With my finals approaching, we took a couple of weeks off from the Mommy and Me ABCs.  Instead, we did some spring activities.

Rainbow Math Game

I posted this rainbow math game a while back.  I had him draw a number tile to determine how many clouds (cotton balls) to put in the sky.  He really liked it and wanted to do it multiple times.

Honeycomb Matching

This matching game and corresponding tiles (which can also be used for memory) are from the Bee Tot Pack.  We also did some tracing pages from there, but I never got a picture.

Books

He LOVES this book about Spring!  He wanted to read it every night before bed, and read it to himself multiple times.  We actually have Fall and Winter, so we will definitely need to buy the Summer book as well!

Such a little man sometimes!  He grabbed a box of wheat thins from my desk, grabbed his Bees book, and started reading to himself. 

Coloring

Butterfly and Flower Shape Match

This board was from his Big Button Fun Set.  It seemed to fit perfectly with the spring theme.

Turtle Number Match Game
I found this turtle matching game at a garage sale a while back and had completely forgotten about it.  I set out all the lily pads and had Xander put each turtle on its "home."

Pattern Blocks
We used our magnetic pattern blocks and a template to make a flower for spring.

Butterflies!
Also as part of our spring theme, I bought Xander a butterfly garden.  We ordered our caterpillars, watched them grow and change, and now they are all beautiful butterflies!  He even took them to daycare one day to show them off!  It was such a great experience.

Check out other spring ideas on my Spring Pinterest Board