Cutting Practice

 I am participating in new writing series perfect for JP and CA at a new blog I found called Cheerios and Lattes. The series is called Play to Write-Write to Read where the blog author shares a writing activity and a writing best practice. I have been reminded of so many skills necessary for teaching writing. It is amazing to me how many fundamental skills are necessary for teaching writing. My "teacher brain" knows so many of these skills, but my "mommy brain" tends to forget. It must have something to do with being home for 5+ years now, managing our home and keeping up with our amazing three blessings! That is why I am so thankful for other like minded mommies who blog all of their great ideas and then I can implement them with JP and CA.

So far we have worked on name writing, journal writing, line mazes, and this week scissor skills. I remember when I first taught JP how to use scissors last year I thought I was going to pull my hair out!! Oh my! Thankfully it wasn't so frustrating this week with CA. Although he got frustrated and threw the scissors across the room. Bummer!

I made cutting strips for the boys. I instructed them how to hold the scissors and stayed close while they were cutting. I love their focused, concentrated faces!

This is a new skill for CA. He is 3 1/2 and I really didn't allow him to use scissors much last year during our learning time. But I think now he is ready. We will continue to practice a lot. He had a hard time holding the paper that he was cutting and got frustrated twice to which then he threw the scissors across the room. To be honest and transparent, I got really mad at that point. Unfortunately I yelled and got pretty upset, :( Sad day! I will work on that too. There are some great printables at Cheerios and Lattes that I plan to print to help with this important skill.

Want to learn more writing strategies? Feel free to click on this button to join the series. I'm linking up there!

November Fun so Far!

Hello readers,
We are still here and learning away! Last week JP chose our theme for the week. Back in August when I planned our themes for the year there was one week in November that I didn't have a theme for. So I asked JP what he wanted to learn about and he quickly replied, "Ernie and Big Bird!" So I penciled it in my planner, reluctantly thinking, "Ok, we'll see how this one goes". As that week approached I asked JP if he still wanted to learn about Ernie and Big Bird and my precious four year old clapped his hands, turned himself around and said, "Yes! Yes! Yes!" "Ok, then, we can do that", I thought to myself. So we checked out Sesame Street books from the library and gathered all of our the ones we own and read lots about Big Bird and Ernie. We colored a few pictures, played with our stuffed animals, and just had fun with the theme he picked. Unfortunately, this is is the only picture I took of our learning from that week. :) We just had too much fun to grab the camera, ok maybe I forgot. :)

Then this past week we learned about our five senses and how to use scissors.
We learned about seeing, hearing, touching, tasting, and smelling. We made a "5 Senses Book" with each sense and body part drawn on it that the boys colored. We discussed our senses throughout the week as we cooked, ate, talked, and listened.

These are a few of the books we read.

I also bought JP his first set of scissors ever! I know that preschoolers need to learn this skill, I was just procrastinating. Ok, let me tell you in all my years of teaching preschool in college and then public school for 11 years, I never knew how hard it is to teach a child to hold a pair of scissors. I struggled to find the right words to tell JP how to hold them, so then I finally said, "Ok, just watch Mommy!" With much practice and still more to come his cutting skills are improving. Here he is working so hard!!

I love that when he is thinking really hard, his little tongue pops right out! Priceless!!

Notice the tongue again!

The tot of the house happily coloring!

We also matched number flash cards and worked on numerical order from 1-10.

Then I found a great activity at Spell Outloud  using lids that I loved and so I pulled out lids from my cupboards and we had a little fun!

 First we sorted spoons by color and then counted them.

Sweet CA sorting his spoons.

Such a proud smile of his completed work!

Then JP made a pattern with his lids.

While CA and I discussed large, medium and small.

 What great ideas that I found, I am now collecting an assortment of lids to implement the other great ideas I saw. Thanks Spell Outloud!

I hope you are all having fun with your "littles" too! Now we are gearing up for Thanksgiving! I can't believe it is around the corner. I have found such great ideas at 1+1+1=1 and Preschool Corner that I will be using this week to reinforce Thanksgiving concepts. Hop over there and enjoy!

I am also linking up to Preschool Corner.