Captain Silly Wiggles is currently 4 years old.
I guess before I jump in on what we learned this week, it makes sense to describe our structure. Right now we are set up for three days of preschool a week. For our first week, we worked on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday because we were busy on Monday. In the future I plan to aim for Monday, Wednesday and Friday, while being flexible in case we want to make other plans.
Each morning we started off with our board, going over the verse for the week, talking about how we can live out the meaning of the verse, singing a song, learning/reviewing our letter, number and sight word for the week. Then we read his sight word book.
Next, we moved on to workboxes. I currently have five boxes set up for Cap, but will probably add more soon - since he is currently wanting more activities than I have planned. Each box contains one activity. I fill the first two boxes with the weekly printables from 1+1+1=1. The third box is a letter activity (playdough letters, a craft, etc.). Box number four is miscellaneous. Right now I'm rotating between cutting practice, name writing and crafts). Box number five is something fun, yet educational. So far I've put in tag books and different card games and puzzles. Looking ahead at this box keeps Cap motivated to do some of the activities that really aren't his favorites.
Our learning this week was centered around Matthew 5:16:
Let your light shine before men
that they may see your good works
and glorify your Father in heaven.
Cap loves to memorize and recite things. He regularly repeats whole scenes of dialogs from his favorite movies and he genuinely loves reading and talking about the Bible, so he really enjoyed learning this verse and picked it up after hearing me say it three times. We sang the song, "This Little Light of Mine." Cap especially loved teaching the song to Skidamarink. Our letter for the week was Ll, our number was 1, and our sight word was "see". Cap had a great time with his sight word book "I See". I read it the first day and he has read it multiple times every day since - all by himself. He's so proud that he can read it that he has been sharing it with everyone he sees. The only trouble he's having with it is wanting to read the letters individually: "I S see..".
As I said in my last post, Cap has never really wanted much to do with writing or drawing. In an effort to motivate him, I tried giving him some different writing utensils: pens, dry-erase markers and regular markers. I told him to hold them with his pincher-pinchers (a suggestion from 1+1+1=1). He decided that his pinchers were spider pinchers and had a lot of fun with it. Switching often between his right and left hands, he dove into his work:
On Tuesday we...
1. ...did the Getting Ready for Ll worksheet
2. ...worked on vocabulary cards: He traced one Ll and didn't want to do more. So, we just said the words together, emphasizing the L sound and then he cut them out.
3. ...made a playdough L
4. ...worked on his cutting worksheet, but he really wasn't digging it. So, we put it aside to try again on Wednesday.
5. ...played Crazy 8s
On Wednesday we...
1. ...colored the verse: He's not usually a fan of coloring, so I wasn't sure how this would go. He did it though and more than the usual half-hearted single scribble. He was layering colors and having fun.
2. ...put some stickers on a letter L: a leftover from a recent activity he didn't want to do with his class this spring.
3. ...practiced writing some L's
4...I had planned to do some name-writing practice. But instead we finished the cutting worksheet that he didn't want to do the day before. He enjoyed it much more this time.
5... played Crazy Eights
On Thursday we...
1. ...traced our Ll verse page: He did the other two Ll worksheets with dry erase markers on a page protector. He didn't like the idea of doing this one without the plastic and got really upset when he made a mistake. I decided we could get rid of the mistake pretty easily. We got out the white out and covered up his little glitch. That little line of white out gave him so much confidence. He's such a perfectionist. He'll often tell me he can't do something - meaning, he can't do it perfectly, so he doesn't want to try. I loved the look on his face when he realized even if he didn't get it perfect, there was a way to fix his mistakes!
2. ...cut out the verse and taped it together: He really wanted to make a crown and was a little disappointed that it was too big for anyone's head.
3. ...did an L to L: We listed all of the people and things we could think of that started with the letter L then chose one person to give an L thing. This week he wanted to give his friend Levi a Larryboy toy. I'm really excited about this as a way to encourage generosity and thinking about others while emphasizing beginning sounds.
4. ...colored and put together the candle craft: This is the first time I have ever seen him want to color, let alone color a specific object while trying to stay in the lines. He colored for about half an hour, wanting to make sure every part was colored in. I cut out the pieces when he was done and he glued them onto the paper. When I put this one in his binder at the end of the week, he quickly informed me that it has to stay out so he can share it with everyone. He was so proud of this one!
5. ...finally, we filled out his certificate and put all of his hard work in a binder. The goal of the binder was to have it all in one place so we could look back over it and review. Cap's favorite aspect of the binder is ease of transport so he can share what he's learned with his family and friends.
It was a great week! I was blown away with how eager Cap was to learn this week and how willing he was to try new things. Starting the mornings off this way set a precedent for the rest of the day, too. He wanted to keep learning, which meant lots and lots of reading time and playing games (and less time for momma to wash dishes and clean house). Things looked a little hectic in our house last week, but we were having a great time together! I was very willing to trade cleaning time for quality time with my kiddos. Our board for our letter Tt week is all put together, Cap and Skidamarink are both excited about what's coming up and I'm eager to see if this week goes anywhere near as well as last week. I think it's gonna be good!
All of our printables this week came were developed by Carisa at 1+1+1=1. Visit her website for all kids of wonderful resources. You can find her letter Ll printables here: Ll.
The cutting workbook we used is called I Can Cut by School Specialty Publishing.
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