March Madness

I love March! I get to welcome spring and a return to warmer weather, the leprechaun can play his harmless tricks, and the best ... March Madness!! Well, that last one's really for me and certainly not Little H.

So what have I got planned for the month? Well ... that's a kind of madness in itself since I'm going to be hopping around to a variety of topics. First on the list: Dr. Seuss to go along with Read Across America on March 2nd. I've already checked out Little H's personal library and she has quite a few Dr. Seuss books ... lucky little girl! I plan on starting the day by making green eggs and ham. Then I'll have an assortment of Seuss activities interspersed throughout the day, making sure she has time to play as well.

Definitely want to share Dr. Seuss's ABC book since I try to work in some letter work each time I sit. Thought that could be followed up by some gross motor activities suggested by 3 Dinosaurs.

Then I made some green egg shapes with letters on the yolks. Little H will have to name the letter correctly and when she does she'll get to lift it into a frying pan. I adapted the idea after looking at this picture/post from The Homeschool Den.

And for the art project, I'll have all of the pieces precut to assemble a Cat in the Hat. Thank you Mrs. Saylor for the idea! Now mind you, it's not going to look quite like the picture since I had to draw all of the pieces freehand ... God, I LOVE that little girl!









But we can't forget a math activity! Obseussed has this cute counting mat to go along with the book 1 Fish 2 Fish. Mmmm, I'm not sure my son realizes what kind of prep and thought goes into each day that I watch Little H.

When I used to teach first grade I just loved that tricky little leprechaun. Luckily I discovered I had quite a few leprechaun books saved from my teaching collection that I can now share with my granddaughter.

I think I will adapt the coin activity at fun-a-day.com. Note to self: make a letter workmat and go shopping for some gold coins. The coins could be used as a stand alone - name the upper case letter or as a matching activity with the workmat of lower case letters.

I found a short counting song on youtube: Counting with a Leprechaun that Little H will like. Then there's this counting fingerplay as well. Little H does like her music and amazingly keeps a steady beat when clapping along. So-o-o I kept searching and found another one: The Little Leprechaun Song.



123Homeschool 4 Me had a handprint rainbow project that i picked because it looked a little different than all the other rainbow crafts out there - kudos to your creativity!! Guess I'll need to get those coins for sure now - this pot needs them too!  Next I found a cute shamrock painting idea to do with q-tips at crafty morning.com. I'm a little worried about taping q-tips together (they seem so fragile) so I'll tape three pencils together instead. Little H will be able to grip that easily and dipping the eraser end in the paint should work just fine! I'll round it off the day with some printables from my trusty pinterest board.

Since Easter falls on the first Sunday in April this year, I'll probably do an Easter theme the last week of March and then continue into the first week of April. Unfortunately I don't have a source for the first craft  pictured below. Might have to let her decorate that eggshell though to I've it more of an Easter look.

Adventures-In-Mommy-Land has a cute peeps craft. Guess that means I better include some peeps in her Easter basket ... Mommy & Daddy please don't hate me!

There are plenty of printables and videos available on my Easter board so I'll wait before making those selections ... Little H changes so quickly in what she can and cannot do! But I do know I'll be making a run to the Dollar Store and stocking up on some plastic eggs ... SO many ways to use those in play/learning activities.

February Is Here!

Well thanks to the frigid chill at the beginning of January I still have a mitten craft to do this February. The wind chill got to 50 below at the beginning of January so I missed a week of babysitting ... both parents opted to stay home and tag team Little H and that meant I got to stay home too! Some of our crafts didn't go quite as planned (she wanted NO part of the white shred and I was happy to accommodate her) since the emphasis last month was on potty training. But she's now wearing those big girl panties and quite proud of herself!! Here are four of our projects from January.

We also did some very casual activities with the first set of letters in Jolly Phonics. One week we worked with magnetic letters: finding the letter as I called its name or made its sound and some simple sound blending. Then the following week I introduced her to a tabletop pocket chart and letter cards. I'd call a letter name and she got to put it in the pocket. Then I modeled some simple sound blending of 3 letter words. She quickly caught on and unfortunately for me ( I only made one set of alphabet cards) she wanted to name a word and have me build it ... doesn't work when we're playing "baby" all day and that was THE word she wanted!!

A great place to start looking for February ideas was at the 1+1+1=1 blog. I signed up for her free printables and she offers amazing resources. Oh to be younger and have that kind of energy once again! Another wonderful site I check regularly is Gift of Curiosity. Be sure to sign up for her printables as well. I'll need to cut out 5 red hearts and then we can use the following chant for our number practice:

Five little valentines, I bought at the store.
gave one to Mother, now I have _____. 

Four little valentines, pretty as can be.
I gave one to Daddy, now I have _____. 

Three little valentines, red, white and blue.
I gave one to brother, now I have _____. 

Two little valentines, enough for everyone.
I gave one to sister, now I have ______. 

One little valentine, what should I do?I know what, I'll give this one to you!          By Jean Warren

Since she doesn't have a brother, I'll substitute with "Poppa" and use "Grandma Sharon" for sister. Then I could repeat using names for the many stuffed characters she has.

    

Woo Hoo!! I scored some craft foam hearts in the $1 bin at Target so we'll be able to make valentines for Mom and Dad. Add some sticker jewels and we'll be ready to go. Letter work could be this cute "heart" song:

I picked up some valentine themed paper at Hobby Lobby and I'll just have to pick one of the heart crafts from my valentine pinterest board to round off the day. 

Hmmmm ... maybe we'll  focus on Abraham Lincoln and George Washington for the latter part of the month. I don't think I saved any of my classroom books on these two presidents, but I'll go through what I have stored just in case. If I don't find anything, there's a simple timeline at Abraham Lincoln for Young Readers that I will use as an introduction. TeacherVision has a short video and I like how they mention that he lived in a log cabin.

Momma Smiles has a simple log cabin craft and the only thing I'll need to get are the craft sticks. I like the idea of the penny in the window - I used to do a similar project when I taught first grade, but that one used pretzel sticks and the cabin took a LOT of pretzels. If I know Little H ...she would be more into eating those pretzels than glueing them! For number practice, we can count pennies and even make a penny person. Then we can count how many pennies in 1 leg or both ...you get the idea. For a movement activity I can sing the following song and we can march ... Little H just loves to march around the house:

Lincoln Was the President

Lincoln was the president
Who helped to free the slaves.
He was honest; he was brave
We call him Honest Abe!                Sung to the tune of "Yankee Doodle" & adapted from Jean Warren

Now on to George Washington ...

Creative Teaching has a cute Washington craft. Yes, I know this comes from a kindergarten post but I could have the pieces cut out and when you're working side-by-side giving directions, it really isn't a problem. We would just do the Washington portion and I would probably have Little H glue it to a red background. If I don't use that craft I found a a darling President's Day Craft Book! I'm a member of TPT and whoopee ... it's a free download. There's no way we could do this in one day but I could pick two of the pages or split it up into two weeks with a morning/afternoon session on both days.

I'm thinking we also need a little song: 

My Hat
My hat it has 3 corners.(form triangle above head)
Three corners has my hat.
If it did not have 3 corners,(raise 3 fingers fingers)
It would not be my hat. (shake head sideways)

Just in case I decide we need to make a matching hat, there's a pattern at A to Z Teaching Stuff.

I don't know if she's familiar with the legend of George and the cherry tree so I might have to do a little background. 

Then there's a fingerplay to go along with the legend:

George Washington(Sung to "Yankee Doodle")

One time there was a little boy
Who had a little hatchet (chop with hand on opposite wrist)
He looked and looked around to find (hands above your eye)
A little tree to catch it.

At last he spied a cherry tree (point away from you)
His father's pride and joy (raise arms in excitement)
He chopped it down, right to the ground. (chop hand)
My! What a naughty boy! (shake your finger back and forth)

And then he heard an angry voice (hand raised by ear)
It sounded like a cymbal. (clap on the word cymbal)
George knew he was in trouble great (point to your head)
And he began to tremble (shake)

Who cut this tree, my son did you? (arms out in shrug)

His father asked the question.

Yes ... was I. I cannot lie. (nod head up and down)

I cut it with my hatchet! (chop with hand on opposite wrist)

Chorus:
Georgie, Georgie, no, no, no.
Be careful what you do.
Hatchets can be dangerous
And you might get hurt too!

Maybe we can sort a pile of coins. This would be good introduction to coin identification. After we make our groups we could put them in rows or columns and practice counting. At the end we might try some coin rubbings ... we did that in the fall with leaves. Fun-A-Day has a penny/quarter sorting mat I could print. Or ... I could get some star stickers and do some counting with those.

Groundhog Day

It's the middle of January and I'm looking ahead to next week when I plan to introduce Little H to groundhogs. In my last post I shared the art project I hope to do with her. 

All Kids Network had a cute template of a groundhog that I will let her paint. I'll have the shadow already cut out and then I plan to put both on a blue background with a sun in the top left-hand corner. She loves to use the glue or glue stick: Grandma I want to do it myself!!

After browsing through the books I saved from my classroom, I hit the jackpot ... I found four!!

The top three are fiction, but the one on the bottom by Gail Gibbons has lots of groundhog information. Some days she's really interested in learning about real animals so I'll bring it just in case. If you want to keep some money in your pocket, two of these books are available on youtube as a storytime reading.

Go to Sleep, Groundhog

Groundhog Day

 I only wish I hadn't given away my Folkmanis puppet ... sigh. Little H would have loved it and I could have used it to teach her this groundhog song. Deb@Living Montessori Now has tons more ideas on her Groundhog board ... be sure to check them out! There's even a link to making a darling groundhog lunch.