It was a complete coincidence that I planned “space theme” for the same week as the eclipse! Way to go mommy! We are officially in week 3 of mommy school and everything seems to be going great. I’m super excited about all of the fun themes I have planned for each week. But, now it’s time to get down to business with space week. To be honest… I’m not that big of a “space” fan, but I was able to find lots of worksheets and fun activities to make it exciting. We started with our magnetic calendar board, the Pledge of Allegiance, journaling and sight word worksheet. Today’s sight word was “is”. We even built the word with magnetic letters on our easel. As we were going through our usual morning routine, Emilee enjoyed coloring on her white paper I rolled out for her. This kept her busy for a little while. I had a few worksheets I pulled from our workbook for Paislee to work on. These included a dot to dot, look and find, and word sounds. I also printed out a fun cutting worksheet from this pack. I didn’t have a chance to swing by the library and pick up any space books yet, so we used our Usborne Lift-the-Flap Questions & Answers book. This is a very cute book with lots of facts about many different things. There were 4 facts that were space related, so we just flipped through and looked at those. For Emilee, I broke out a fun magnetic board I had made for Paislee when I attempted to do tot school before. It’s simply a small baking sheet with a piece of construction paper taped on it. The construction paper has the numbers 0-9 printed on it. She then takes the number magnets and matches it with the correct number on the paper. Obviously, we’re not at that point yet, but she loved moving the magnets around and flipping it over. Got to start somewhere! Paislee’s last activity involved building a rocket ship. I had small pieces of construction paper already cut out. She had to write one letter of her name on each piece. She then pasted the squares on her paper in order. We topped it off with a triangle to finish the rocket. While Paislee was finishing up her last activity, I let Emilee play with the foam letters I talked about last week. I simply dipped them in water and let her stick them to our glass door. She thought it was fun for a minute of two, but quickly lost interest…probably because she could walk around and get into other things! When we finished up, we watched an episode of The Magic School Bus called, “Gets Lost in Space”. After that we stepped out on the porch to experience the solar eclipse. We didn’t have glasses, so we just looked around and talked about how dim and cool it was as the moon passed over the sun. Day 2All this talk about space has really gained Paislee’s interest. She’s been pretending she is an astronaut and traveling in her space rocket. I’m glad that she has such a wonderful imagination! Today we continued on our journey through space. As usual, we had calendar time, the Pledge of Allegiance, journaling, and a sight word worksheet. Today’s sight word was “it”. Paislee used a few worksheets from our workbook, and a few printed worksheets from this pack. With each passing day I can see improvements in her writing and cutting skills. These worksheets are great practice for her. Emilee started out coloring on a paper plate. This was not as exciting as I had hoped, and she started losing interest pretty fast. I think she enjoyed moving the crayons from the plate to the container the most. I switched to my next activity for her pretty soon. This was a stacking toy that she already had. She really enjoyed putting each block inside the other and then stacking them up. Today we read, The Moon, a book I picked up from our local library. We then had a fun gross motor activity. I crumpled up pieces of aluminum foil and called them “moon rocks”. The girls had fun tossing them into a plastic container. It was a nice break from sitting and the girls enjoyed it. The last activity for Paislee involved painting. I cut a paper plate in the shape of a half moon. She then got to pick 3 colors and paint the moon. She loves anything that involves painting, so this was winner. We wrapped up with our usual, The Magic School Bus. Today’s episode was called, “Out of This World”. I also picked up a PBS Kids DVD that has all space episodes on it. Each day I plan on letting her watch an episode or two from that as well. Two days down, three to go! Day 3Today, after we done our normal morning routine, we played the flyswatter sight word game. I put up her two words from this week, “it” and “is”. My plan is to keep adding the new words from each week, and then on Day 5 do an accumulative recap with all the sight words we’ve learnt to date. To get Emilee started off today, I let her play with the magnetic writing board we already had. She enjoyed scribbling and erasing for little while. It is electronic, but we kept it turned off. I had several worksheets from our workbook and from this pack planned for us to do today. She also worked on a cute cut and paste worksheet I got from here. Today’s book was The Magic School Bus Sees Stars. Emilee enjoyed looking through the book while Paislee was working on her activities. Paislee’s last activity involved a sensory bin. For this, I used a plastic shoe container and filled it with black beans. I then created ABC stars on my computer and printed them on yellow paper. After cutting them out (which took forever), I mixed them into the container with the black beans. She then had to search and find all of the stars and put them in order. She loved digging in the beans and then lining all the stars up. We finished off with The Magic School Bus. Today we watched the same episode as the book we read,“sees Stars”. We also watched a space episode from the PBS kids DVD I found. Day 4If I’m being honest, I’m getting a little tired of space week! I guess some topics don’t interest me as much as others. Either way, we are going to finish out strong for space week. The most important thing is that the girls are having fun and learning. Paislee has already gotten to the point where she will start working on her journal as she is waiting on mommy and Emilee to get to the table. She really loves her journal! Once we covered calendar time and the Pledge of Allegiance we started on some worksheets. I printed a few from this pack and pulled a few out of our own workbooks. I’m impressed daily at the progress Paislee has made in only a few short weeks of mommy school. Practice does make perfect! Emilee played with a plastic puzzle toy we already had. If you haven’t already noticed, I’m not following the space theme with her as much because she doesn’t really care. At this age it’s more important to find things that she will play with, than worrying about if it’s cute or theme related. I hate spending time working on something that is thrown aside two seconds later. I think this is the biggest reason my attempt at tot school with Paislee failed so quickly. Just remember to use the things you have and try to make them fun. Even though she’s played with this toy a lot, it still kept her interest for a little while. Today’s book was The Sun Our Nearest Star, which also kept Emilee entertained while Paislee was finishing up her worksheets. This was a great book to lead us into our final activity. We got to paint a sun today! For this I simply used a paper plate and paint. I also added another element in and let her paint with crunched up aluminum foil. I thought it would be nice to try something other than the usual paintbrushes. I was aiming for stamping the paint on, although she wanted to smear it like a regular paintbrush. Either way, she enjoyed this activity. We finished up with another episode of The Magic School Bus called, “Gains Weight”. It went over gravity. Only one more day to go in space week! Day 5Today is the last day of space week! We started with journaling, calendar time and the Pledge of Allegiance. For sight word practice today we reviewed all of the sight words we’d went over since the beginning. We pulled out our flyswatter and taped all of the words to the door. I called each word out and Paislee had to find and swat each word. Emilee’s main activity for today was the Melissa and Doug wooden magnetic alphabet puzzle book we already had. It has the entire alphabet and pictures to go along with each. Super cute book! She loved pulling all the magnets out and flipping through the book. Paislee worked on a few worksheets from our workbooks and from this pack. These included a dot to dot, cut and paste, tracing and coloring. Today’s book was Our Stars. Emilee enjoyed looking at the book while Paislee was finishing up her worksheets. The final activity was just playing with Play-doh. We hadn’t pulled it out in a while and I thought it would be a fun way to end the week. I just let her make her own creations. Overall, this week was fun! I got tired of space theme, but at least they had fun. I still need more gross motor activities to get them up and moving. Obviously, I’m still learning what works and what needs improvement. I’m looking forward to next week and our “under the sea” theme. Please feel free to leave your feedback, ideas, and other suggestions. Be sure to check back next week for an all new mommy school post!
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AuthorI'm a stay at home mommy just doing the best that I can to teach, nourish and love my babies. ArchivesCategories |