Monday, February 7, 2011

A is for Alphabet

Our first official "homeschool" week! We talked about the alphabet. I bought a new set of foam bathtub letters to look at but scrounged the rest of the materials from around the house- alphabet puzzles, cardboard cutout letters, etc. I also rounded up all the alphabet books we have and put them into a basket to read throughout the week.


Here are a few of them.

Evan really got into the Melissa and Doug word puzzle set and chose it almost every time Ethan sat down to write his name or do one of the other puzzles. They also sorted the letters into piles by color and counted them. Good times!
Sidenote: Ethan has been writing his name pretty well for awhile now. One night when Matt got home he asked Ethan what he had done today and had him write his name. Ethan wrote E h n a t, then ran off to do something else. "Wow, you're doing a great job, honey," Matt told me.

The boys talked about the capital and lowercase A and then stamped alphabet letters onto the paper. Well, it was supposed to be letters but they each got into a groove with a single letter and just kept stamping k or n. Whatevs.

Ethan also stamped the letters for Thank You onto, well, thank you cards and we got a few notes written. (Maybe we'll get them sent during a P is for Post Office unit. But don't hold your breath.)


On Tuesday we ran around doing errands so we brought magnetic letters and cookie sheets in the car. Ethan sounded out a lot of beginning letters at the grocery store and was in charge of the list. The rest of the week we did 'homeschool' activities anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour a day. I wouldn't say that Ethan really learned anything school-wise this week but it was a fun, relaxed start into a new journey for us all.

3 comments:

Jenny said...

Hey, I'm impressed. I would feel like I accomplished something just by getting them to sit still for a few minutes to listen to me. Keep up the good work!

Laura said...

Great job, Jenny! It looks like everyone had fun and no one had to stand quietly in line, could use all the tape they wanted and could put more than 4 hearts on their poster - (I just subbed in elementary art today. I completely understand the limitations, because I want them to be quiet in line and I was the one cutting out hundreds of hearts all day.) I'm happy that my darling nephews get more freedom though. Super activities!
P.S. It must be freezing there.

Jen said...

PS Haha, Laura- I've been trying to stuff them into shirts before I take pictures.