Turtles + Turtle Splash! by Cathryn Falwell

We started letter t this week and school has been a struggle! A lot of meltdowns and time outs. So Tuesday morning I decided to let her have 30 minutes of free play after breakfast to see if that would help with the resistance; not much improvement was made. By Wednesday school went so much better! Not sure what changed besides that maybe she’s finally adapting to the daily routine.

For the second year of preschool I like to introduce my kids to a workbox method. So I plan 6 different activities everyday that I fill her workboxes with and then the 3 extra workboxes we call her Star Boxes. These I just fill with quiet time activities usually relating to our theme or fine motor activities she can do independently. For Olivia, she chose these My Little Pony labels and I attached them with velcro dots on the front and back. So when she has finished her activity she puts it back in the workbox and flips the label over which helps her know what she has left to complete.

For the top of her workboxes, I looked around the house for toys that start with the letter t to display for this week. I came up with a tiger, turtle, tractor, tree, tea pot, and a can of tomato sauce (I was actually looking for a tomato but we must not have one — a lot of apples but no tomatoes).

The first thing she wanted to work on was her word building activity. We spelled out turtle with some letter cards we received with our table top pocket chart.

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LANGUAGE

We started each day by reading Turtle Splash by Cathryn Falwell then completed activities that corresponded with the story or went with our turtle theme. My plan was to get the book from our local library but they did not have it and I didn’t really want to order a new book. So I resorted to YouTube which worked out great. Other books we read were Baby Turtle’s Tale by Elle J. McGuiness, Yertle the Turtle by Dr. Suess, and The Foolish Tortoise by Eric Carle.

We watched What Sam Sees! Nat Geo Turtle Time! on YouTube and then labeled the parts of a turtle.

We talked about a Turtle’s Life Cycle.

We drew a turtle together out of How to Draw 101 Animals

Print Awareness Craft – I cut out her turtle once it was dry and she glued it on blue construction paper. Then we worked on the sentence. I wrote the sentence in gray marker on the construction paper and she had to match the words as we read it together.

She traced the turtle with her black smelly marker and then wanted to paint it when she was done.

As she listened the story we subtracted the number turtles and put the story strips in order. After she completed the story sequencing strips, we taped them together.

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LETTER WORK

She then completed this letter t maze. I always make her do it with her finger first because she tries to do things so fast and without thinking. She then did it with her gold Crayola Color Stick.

She dotted the t’s as we read the letter story hunt. She wanted to dot the uppercase T’s in yellow and the lowercase t’s with green.

Letter Tt Roll and Race – We used a dry erase die that I picked up at Walmart but I found them here on Amazon also.

Follow the Letter Tt path.

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PHONICS

We played I Spy with the Letter T cards. I described one of them and she pointed to them. We also emphasized the letter t sound in this activity.

All About Reading Beginning Sounds

We sorted letter t beginning sounds which came from here.

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WRITING

Worked on building letter Tt with our How To Build An A… book

Reading the Alphabet tracing letter t’s

Made the letter Tt with blue gems. Every time we made the letter Tt I emphasized that we start with the big line down.

Pattern Block Tt

She made lowercase letter t using the All About Reading play dough mats which came from here.

Every day she writes in her handwriting notebook. She traced 3 T’s and then tried writing 3 on her own. The first day was kind of rough but by day 3 she did awesome! The writing worksheet came from here.

We also worked on writing lowercase t’s which I think I will add some boundaries on this worksheet because she had a hard time knowing where to start and stop. There were just too many lines!

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PHONOLOGICAL AWARENESS

We worked on rhyming with the word TOP.

We also worked on counting syllables.

SIGHT WORDS

We read the Letter T Book every day and by Friday she was able to read in all by herself! It could of been completely by memory but we were just focusing mainly on knowing her sight word and pointing to each word as we read it.

Another easy reader we read was Farm Animals which came from here.

Sight Word Search

Sight Word Maze

If you haven’t already guessed Olivia does not find enjoyment (or she just doesn’t care) in coloring unless it is something she chooses to do. I try to include it in our work though because it helps with fine motor skills.

Rainbow Roll and Write

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MATH

Turtle Dot Numbers 1-10 with paint dabbers

20-Grid Counting Game with counting animals

Counting Gems with Turtle Numbers

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EXTRA

We normally only do a 4-day week but since were trying to establish a routine we went ahead and made it a 5-day week. I only chose things that I knew she would enjoy so we did a turtle craft, ABC Find It!, reviewed the Turtle Life Cycle and read her sight word easy readers.

She loves these animal crafts from Learn, Create, Love! For this weeks theme she made a turtle.

I actually had ABC Find It! in her star boxes for this week but I knew it was something she enjoys. Normally we hide the cards around the room but today she just pulled them out of a bowl and found the match.

This activity was one I hadn’t planned on but she decided she wanted to make her sight word with play dough. So that’s what we did!

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TECH TIME

After her workboxes are completed she does educational apps on the IPad. She does Teach Your Monster To Read and Splash Math everyday and then I will add one other app that she can do. This week her favorite was probably Sight Word Ninja. She gets about 20-30 minutes of free tech time before lunch as long as everything is completed and her school time was done with a good spirit.

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DAY ONE

Well today was our FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL and I was so happy with the way things were going until Liam was set free. He had been in his high chair eating breakfast, but after he was done he just wanted to dump everything out, take all of Olivia’s workbox labels off and unstack anything that was stacked and tidy. What a typical 1 year old! LOL! Well I will have to figure something out. He normally does pack n play time (a Babywise term – which is totally worth it) but the pack n play is in the living room which looks into our kitchen. Something will have to be done.

In action…

We start off by listening to The Way I Feel by Janan Cain on YouTube. Following that we talked about different emotions and discussed reasons we would feel that way with this Feelings and Emotions Matching Cards.

I printed this All About Me book for her. We worked on drawing her and her family, talked about how old she is and her favorite colors (she likes them all I guess :)).

We reviewed uppercase letters with a game of Erase the Window. I just wrote all the uppercase letters on our patio door with dry erase marker. We used flashcards, she named the letter and then erased it off the window.

Talked about shapes and made them with playdough

We finished off our learning time with a counting and number recognition activity. I purchased these die cut glue and scissors from Dollar Tree. I wrote numbers 1-10 on the glue bottles and placed stickers on the scissors for her to count and match to the corresponding glue.

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DAY TWO

The second day didn’t seem as chaotic but it might of been because I just rolled with it (oh, and Liam took a cat nap).

In action…

We started out by reading Pete the Cat Rocking in My School Shoes by Eric Litwin and also listened to it on YouTube which was probably her favorite activity of the week. She walks around the house sing Pete’s song. We also used this book to discuss concepts of print by labeling the title, author and illustrator of the book.

Sorting Good vs. Bad choices (I cannot figure out where I got this printable at but as soon as I do I’ll add the link)

We then did a name activity. She started by building her name with the School Bus Puzzle, she then colored the letters of her name and lastly I gave her foam letters for her to stick on the tree.

Back to School Sudoku

So the plan was to trace numbers in our sandbox but it was raining outside so I went and put sand in a pan and we did it on the deck with sticks. We used these number cards.

Patterns using animal counters

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SENSORY

Next to her workboxes is her sensory activities for the week. She usually plays in it during Liam’s nap time as long as all her workboxes have been completed. The top tub is full of all our sensory tools and the bottom tub is the actual sensory activity. This week I filled it with elbow pasta and letters to spell everyone’s name in our family.

MY FAMILY SENSORY BIN! She matched names to the matching picture and then found letters in her sensory bin to spell out our names.

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STAR BOXES

Her bottom three workboxes are what we call star boxes. She did not play with everything this week since it was a short week but her favorite was definitely the play sand. She mainly has to play with these activities in her room during quiet time but obviously not the play sand. She played with this at the kitchen table.

STAR BOX 1! Melissa and Doug Human Anatomy Magnet Doll, Bristle Blocks and Pete the Cat size sequencing

STAR BOX 2! Play sand I bought from Target Dollar Spot, Pattern Blocks, and a School Zone Dry Erase Activity Book and a Sesame Street Number Dry Erase Book I bought from Dollar Tree

STAR BOX 3! Potato Head, Pop Beads, Back To School Trace and Color

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TECH TIME

APPS WE USED THIS WEEK Teach Your Monster To Read and Kindergarten Splash Math

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Today, I’m going to share with you what curriculum choices and resources we are using. Olivia is about 4.5 and doesn’t quite make the deadline for kindergarten enrollment this year. This will be her second year of preschool and our main goal for this year is to get ready for kindergarten.

We do a lot of playing outside when the weather allows and using our imaginations inside. When I plan out our preschool lessons I use my Preschool Lesson Planning page. I usually plan a 4 day week and you can find how our daily routine looks here.

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Morning Basket + Review

We start every morning reading and reviewing out of our morning basket. The books we are reading are:

• Jesus Storybook Bible
• Laugh and Learn Bible For Kids
• The Bible Made Easy For Kids
• Awana Cubbies Book (We get this through our church Awana program – we use this for bible memory verses)
• Classic Storybook Fables by Scott Gustafson
• Classic Fairy Tales by Scott Gustafson
• Favorite Nursery Rhymes by Mother Goose by Scott Gustafson
• Everyday Graces (character + manners)
• The Children’s Book of Virtues
• A Little Book of Manners

We are not reading these all together but different ones each day and some of them will come later in the year after we have finished others. I also include short review activities and our calendar work with our morning basket.

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Language

For language we will be focusing on a different book each week centered around our letter and theme of the week. We will be working on story sequencing, concepts of print, and a print awareness craft from Reading the Alphabet by This Reading Mama. Our science for each week will also correspond with the book we are reading. I am creating most of the activities or search on Pinterest for ideas but will also be using some of 1plus1plus1equals1 Kindergarten Literature Based Unit Studies.

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Reading

Last year we started All About Reading Pre-reading about half way through the year so we will continue to trek through it this year. She loves the books and so do I. We sometime read through the whole book in one sitting or review our letters by reading the stories we’ve already covered.

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Phonics + Sight Words + Math

As our main curriculum this year we are using Reading the Alphabet. Each lesson has a letter and sight word of the week, works on rhyming, counting syllables, phonics and phonemic awareness, print awareness, beginning handwriting, one-to-one correspondence, number recognition 1-20, making patterns and addition and subtraction. Last year we worked on letter recognition but I still feel like we could use some improvement so will also be supplementing with other letter printables.

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Writing

We are using a mixture of things we already have for writing and printables I have found on Pinterest.

• How to build an A
• Handwriting Without Tears Slate Manipulative
• Handwriting Without Tears worksheets

Educational Apps

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Other Resources

• YouTube – You can find a ton of awesome learning videos here. Some of our favorites are Bounce Patrol Kids, Super Simple TV, Akili and Me, Jack Hartman and Tea Time with Tayla
• School Zone Math Stickers
• School Zone Alphabet Stickers
• School Zone Beginning Sounds
• Random Dollar Tree Workbooks