'A' Lessons

We started family "lessons" for lack of a better word. I have always tried to incorporate learning into the fun stuff we do everyday, but this makes it more purposeful. I decided to break it down by letters. I also am concentrating on one number (in order) and one other such as a color, shape or concept. The first lesson was 'A', 1, and blue.

We made apple smiles for snacks with apple slices, mini marshmallows and peanut butter.

We went on a field trip to the airport. We played a game we called Alligator Food. I drew squares on the driveway (like hopscotch) and numbered them. The first child (called the food) would roll the dice and move that many squares. Then the 2nd (the alligator) would roll the dice and move that number. If the "alligator" caught the "food", the "alligator" won and the game was over. We'd start again with the 2nd child going 1st. If the "food" made it to the end without being caught they won. The boys played quite a few rounds of this game! The boys made ants out of egg cartons. First they painted them, then glued on eyes and stuck in pipe cleaners for the legs

and antennas. Then, because they're boys, they had ant fights!

To work on the color blue we went color shopping. They each took a turn (Little boy needed some help) pushing the cart from room to room collecting blue things to put in their cart. We made it a race to see who could find more blue things within a time limit.

We made a blue scrap picture where they tore blue pieces of paper and then glued them down. We also read the book 10 Apples Up on Top and made a picture to go with it. They each drew a picture of themselves on the bottom of the page. Then I used a small circle punch to make 10 "apples" for each of them to stack on top of their heads.

We made airplanes with a clothes pin, 2 regular Popsicle sticks and 1 small stick. They painted them and then raced around the living room.

We turned a letter 'A' into alligators by drawing on eyes and gluing on teeth. We also did coloring and activity pages from different workbooks I had.

Lastly, we made apple muffins to share with Daddy.

It was really great for all of us. Big Boy worked on writing his letters and numbers a lot and Little Boy can now pick out the letter 'A' from a group of letters. And I had lots of fun making memories with my kiddos!

Some of these activities I came up with on my own, others I found on the Internet. A couple of sites I found that are full of great ideas are: http://www.oopseydaisyblog.com/mommy-school and http://www.preschoolexpress.com/