Chimps, whales, and shells along the shore

We've been moving right along.  Our next consonant digraph was ch.  By now, we've discussed the rule for digraphs; and we have fun pointing them out at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end of words.  Laken quickly picked up the sound, and was the first one to come up with a word (or two), "Chuck E Cheese."  Go figure.  No, we did not go to Chuck E Cheese.  We did read this book, though.  I've discovered this is how she really learns.

I settled for using cookie cutters to cut shapes out of sliced cheese; but as soon as I find block cheese on sale, we'll be doing cheese sculptures (we only eat organic cheese).

Other activity ideas:

Chick on a chair- positional words.  She put the chick near/far, front/behind, above/below, and left/right of the chair.

Injured cheetah- She played vet to an injured cheetah.

Movies

My grandma sent me this movie for my birthday.  I can't believe I finally have my own copy, or that I'm about to admit that I was an extra in this movie.  They filmed at CBJSHS the year I moved here, in seventh grade.  We saw Chimpanzee in theaters recently, but this went well with our lesson too.  Especially since we are focusing on outer space for science this year, and we just visited a German village in Helen, Ga.  I love it for teaching about our local culture and history, too.  Warning: PG



Other Books we read
Our reading lists are a compilation from the whole week.  There is a review after each lesson; and we review during play, and with books.  As we learn new digraphs, we still point out the others while we're reading.  This carries into our daily conversation as well.

We only had to spend one day on our next consonant digraph (wh), a first for us.
 

Whistles!  "Wheels on the Bus" was a must for music together today, which happened to be in the bath.  She loves acting this song out.  She also put together a Lego jeep to emphasize "wheels."

This was a blast!  I've been wanting to use blue jell-o as an ocean for awhile, but never thought I'd use it for a lesson.  I have other ocean animals, but lots of whales (and one narwhal) that I ended up using.  I knew I had to do the jell-o ocean, and the light-changing "ice cubes" we purchased on sale at wal-mart last month seemed like perfect icebergs!

It looked really cool when she was done playing with it, and we put it back in the fridge.  Her hands were stained blue for a day or so!

Other activities

We discussed and looked at the difference between white and wheat bread (bagels in our case).

We reviewed question words: who, what, when, why, which, and especially, where (she's learning where she lives).

Drawing on the whiteboard.

Exploring white.  We used white paint to lighten other paint colors.

Books we read

I was really happy that the ocean found its way into our lesson, because I would love to be doing an ocean unit right now (amongst other things); but focusing on phonics and reading is really working for her, and she keeps me going.  I actually was having a hard time getting back into our "lessons" after two vacations, but she initiated; and that's always motivating.

Shell mobile invitation.  I've been wanting to make a mini shell mobile with Laken for awhile.  It's something both her grandma and grandpa did, and there are some that are quite beautiful!  It only just occurred to me to let her add beads, and straws.  All great for fine motor development.  This was our warm up activity for our last consonant digraph lesson (for now), sh.

Getting the hang of it, and even re-inventing the art (love how she put a bead and then turned some of the shells upside down so it looked like the bead was in the shell).

I was beyond excited that we were able to fit the pirate ship into a lesson.  Unfortunately, nobody was home; but this probably worked in our favor.  We got a good close look; and avoided the awkwardness of Laken clinging to my leg, and hiding behind me, even though she claimed she was excited to meet a pirate.  She created an imaginary pirate that lives there, and tells tales of him.  That was a nice, quick stop; and we would get to the beach early enough to not be too hot at the playground after.  We will probably do that the other way around next time; but it's hard to get her off the playground, and I had an "actvity" for the beach.  It didn't matter, because we ran into the Beachside playgroup from our Homeschool group; and Laken took off to play with a friend.  She had fun, and that's all that matters; but we still got our activity in at the end when she started to get hungry, and came to sit by mommy.

Shovels of all kinds, and these are just a few!

A bit grumpy, as usual when she's getting hungry.  I give her the space she needs, "are you playing with a sh-sh-shovel?"

Two shovels works better, even though some playgroup friends showed up with a couple of huge shovels; but she was past group interaction at this point.  Serious concentration going on here.

Still a grumpy face, and she didn't want any help so she filled the whole bucket by herself; and then she decided she wanted help dumping it.

Our volcano, at least that's what it turned out to be.  We were already playing with the squirt bottle to spray molds, and I think sand got stuck in the nozzle so we had to pour what we had left on our castle which turned into a really cool volcano!  Better pictures next time.

We used our magnetic letter shapes to do our vocab words today, and drew shapes on the whiteboard.

She finished her mobile, and decided she wanted to hang it up outside where we hang the others.

Then she asked to paint, which worked out perfectly.  It was a great way to introduce sh as an ending digraph since we hadn't talked about it yet.  Lots of paint brushes!  We reviewed wh by using white paint, and mixing with other colors.

This turned into body painting.

And dinosaur painting.

Other activities

Daily responsibilities: getting dressed (shirt, shorts, and shoes), brushing hair and teeth

"Are you putting on your sh-sh-shirt?  And your sh-sh-shorts?  And your sh-sh-shoes?"

Playing doctor: pretending to give shots

Music: "Wheels on the Bus" in the bath worked well for this, too, splashing and swishing in the water.

Books we read

I had to get a bit creative with this lesson.  Fortunately, we didn't have a whole lot of time to read today.  The consonant digraphs don't have to be in the title.  You just have to know it's in the book somewhere, and most books have all the digraphs somewhere!

 We did have a couple of good ones

Love this book!

And everything Dr. Seuss

Consonant Digraphs Sh, Ch, Wh Review

Kids love to cook!  Get them involved in the kitchen with this fun review activity.  Allow them to assist or crack the egg shells on their own, whisk the eggs, observe the cooking process, and add shredded cheese!