Tot School Week #3
The Letter C
Lydia Joy- 2 years, 3 months

Lydia had a cold for the first part of this week so we tried to take it easy and get some rest for a few days.  We still managed to get in some learning time though.  We had three really fun crafts to do with the letter C this week.

On Monday we started with C for cow.  She did her worksheets and worked on tracing the letters and we did more of our 'letter searches' with C as well as A and B.  I was very pleased with how well she could write the letter C.  I assume she did well with it because it is basically a circle and she already knew how to draw a circle.  She is doing much better with her writing though and also with her letter recognition of the lowercase letters.  She will write on a paper (her new favorite thing to write with is a pencil) then tell me what letter she wrote.  Most of the time I am amazed that they do look a lot like they are supposed to. I think it is more chance than anything though since most of the writing still looks like scribbles. But it's fun when she gets excited that one of her scribbles looks like a letter. 

Our cow craft was made out of a toilet paper roll and came out really cute.  Lydia decided that we should give the cow to Nana since she has cows.  Since we didn't have the van for a few evenings this week due to it being undercoated (sprayed with oil to keep the salt from rusting it this winter) we weren't able to make it to the farm for a visit yet...but the cow is patiently waiting for it's delivery to Nana, as is Lydia: 

On Tuesday we started the morning with a fun book that Great Grandma Laughman gave us a while back. It has places to put cheerios to help the animals do things.  Like the monkeys need help juggling:











Everyone had fun with this activity, including Peanut who proceeded to eat the cheerios off the book as quickly as she was able.  Anna and Lydia ate the ones that Peanut didn't get.  All in all I think there was more eating of Os taking place than placing them in the holes:

We had decided that we should incorporate a Bible lesson into our school week so on Tuesday we did our Bible lesson.  We figured it made sense to start at the beginning so this week we learned about creation- which was appropriate because the word creation starts with the letter C!   I think you can tell from this picture that she wasn't feeling very well that morning....

I used our flannel graph for this and it was a big hit.  Anna joined us for our Bible lesson and enjoyed looking at the pretty pictures too.

Lydia added the items to the board as we talked about what God made on each day:

I was planning to review again later in the week but we ran out of time so we only had Bible 'class' once this week. I think maybe that is what I will continue to do for a while so that we aren't over-loading our days...or maybe more for my sake in not having to prepare something every day.

After Bible class Anna went down for her nap and Lydia did C for caterpillar. We read "The Very Hungry Caterpillar", which has been one of her favorite books since she was very small, but it fit in nicely.
I think probably everyone has made an egg carton caterpillar at some time in their life.  It is such a fun craft though.
Lydia loves paint so this was right up her ally. :) 

The hardest part was waiting for him to dry so she could play with him.  Finally, just before supper I thought he was dry so he began crawling across the floor....

But she soon realized that he was not completely dry yet....

So he sat overnight before he could do more crawling.

I've been having a hard time lately finding time to get outside to play. Between the weather getting cooler and the girls having runny noses this week and trying to plan around nap times I just felt stuck inside a lot.  But one evening Jake stayed in with Anna so that Lydia and I could go out and run around.

 

 

I'm not sure who was more happy to be outside....

But we both had fun. Lydia spent much of the time 'walking' Peanut.  I'm not sure that Peanut was a big fan of this activity but Lydia thought it was great fun saying "tome on, Peanut. dood dirl, Peanut"

Lydia does not say her C sound- she says a T sound instead.  I think this is one reason that she had trouble with the letter C this week.  ...it's hard to learn what a letter says when you can't say the sound it makes.  We practiced and practiced but didn't get very far.  The highlight of the week was when I asked her "what does C say?" and she replied "C says B(buh), apple".   Well, at least she remembers the two letters we've learned about previously....

We had the most successful day of school on Wednesday.  We learned about C for cat.  The craft was excellent!  We were able to talk about colors (what color she was using to color the cat), numbers (counting the circles in that cat) and shapes (circles and triangles to make the cat).  She loved it because she got to use her glue stick.  I think she could sit and use a whole glue stick at one time if I let her. She loves to glue things. 
When she was finished with her cat I wrote the word 'cat' on the bottom of the paper and said "C A T, cat". I didn't talk about it a lot because she had been getting a little frustrated with me trying to get her to say k, k, k earlier (and isn't it dumb that the letter C says the K sound??).  But later in the day when we were reading "The Cat in the Hat" she pointed to the word 'cat' and said "look, C A T spells cat!".  I had only been working on the letter sounds but I'm wondering if putting them in simple words like that might actually make more sense to her than just telling her "C says k, k, k".

 

On Thursday Lydia was feeling better so we went to story time at the library again.  They did a wonderful craft, making an owl out of cookies, cupcakes and candy.  

The 'good' story reader was there this week and read a super cute story called "Hoot and Holler" about two owls.  Lydia must not have thought it as good as I did because she didn't pay attention. She was busy moving her chair around and finding new ways to sit in it. But at the end I asked her if she could go say thank you to the story reader and she DID!  She even spent considerable time talking to her about her headband.  The librarian walked by and Lydia talked to her also, which the librarian make a HUGE deal over.  So I feel we are making great progress in the social area!! :)  

We also joined the library this week and checked out four books!  I'm excited that we are making reading more a part of our school time!

So, the week of letter C was fun.  Now on to the letter D!  Too bad we aren't on letter P because we have a really cute pumpkin around the house these days.....