Monday, August 27, 2012

Letter A (Alligator) - Part 1


Xander is 21 Months

Hooray!  We have finally started our Mommy & Me ABC!  We are going to spend two weeks per letter and last week was our first week of Letter A and alligators.  Since my son is so young, my goal is more letter recognition and uppercase and lowercase correspondence than phonics or letter formation.  I hadn't realized how many activities we did until I looked through the pictures!  Sorry if it is picture overload!

This was his desk set up for the week.  Hi bulletin board had some alligator cut outs (in the printables), some magnets, and his fridge phonics set.

His shelf had a fabric A, the A from his floor tiles, an A minibook, an alligator book I made him (will post next week), the alligators from his toobs, sandpaper letters, his peg letter, and the alligator from his alphabet zoo.  Above I hung some bulletin board letters and some alligator cards from 1+1+1=1.  His book basket had  a bunch of books about Alligators and the letter A.  He particularly liked the two books Amy's Big Race and Akiko, Miss Alice, and the Dance Class, which are both Phonics Friends books.  He is always surprising me in what books he likes!



I put a tracing page in his activity center.  He still needs a lot of help tracing, but I wanted to make sure we do at least a little.  I hope one day it will just "click" for him (as matching, and other activities have).


 Play Dough Stamping
We did a LOT of play dough this week.  He LOVES his play dough stamper page and the stampers.  I have to say I was a little relieved.  Those stampers weren't exactly cheap.





Making alligator prints.

Color Lakes
Another box had some little alligators with colors shapes on them and a Color Lakes page.  The idea was for him to match up the color of the alligator's shape to the right lake.  He had a lot of fun with this, especially if I had the alligator "chop" its way up his arm after he pointed to the correct lake.  I am also so happy he could match all his colors without my help!


Simple Puzzles
This box had a bunch of two part puzzles, some printed and some purchased.


Lacing
This box had a bunch of lacing supplies.  The alligators are in the printables (as are some letters to use for lacing), but I used some bulletin board letters I found on clearance from Oriental Trading.  The laces are also oriental trading.  I like them because they are thinner than shoe laces, and were pretty inexpensive.  Sorry I took the picture with the little a upside down. Xander surprised me in how much he wanted to do this activity this week.  He needs a lot of help, but he really tries.


Animal Matching
This box had an animal bingo game that I found at a garage sale.  We used it as a matching activity.


I told him camels sometimes stick there tongues out... so of course he had to do it.


Dot Magnet Page - Uppercase
Some gem magnets and a magnet/dot page.  He will put the magnets in the dots for a little while, then enjoys throwing them around the room, collecting them, and throwing them again.


Number Card Matching
Number cards and the corresponding number tiles.  (I also uploaded some number tiles here you could just print and laminate).  We are just starting out with number/numeral correspondence, so we are starting slowly.  Eventually I will probably give him the cards 0-10, but for now he is getting 0-5 and a LOT of modeling from Mommy.  He can really only do zero on his own, but one is a start!  We will just keep adding!



Playing with his lowercase alphabet peg set and doing an animal pattern matching puzzle.


Stamping
We used our uppercase and lowercase stamps to make some As (I like that you can see through the stamps.  It should be helpful later) and his washable stamp pads.  He also used his alligator stamp.  He hasn't had much experience with stamping, so it was a learning experience, but he liked it.



Sensory Bin
I made him an alphabet sensory bin with dyed alphabet pasta and included a bunch of different As that I made and collected from puzzles and magnet and craft sets.  We also grabbed the alligators from his shelf.



We ended up playing this game where I buried the alligators and he found them.
One the left he is saying "ALLIGATOR" while looking.  On the right he is proudly displaying that he found it.


An alligator on each shoulder.


We also did an alligator craft.



For more Alligator ideas you can check out my Alligator Pinterest Board.



Tot School

5 comments:

  1. Hi ! I wonder if you purchased your alphabet pasta already dyed or you did it yourself ? Thanks in advance

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  2. I dyed the pasta myself (put it in a container with a little bit of rubbing alcohol and food coloring, shook, and put it out to dry). Hope that helps.

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  3. How do you set your trays out? Do you leave them all out at once or set them up in your Trofast shelf each day?

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    Replies
    1. The trays are all on my Trofast shelves. The trays with play dough or a ton of small pieces I put on the highest shelves. Things like scissors, markers, or stamps don't go in the trays. I have a couple of open shelves (not the green bins) where I put puzzles and the tracing center, although he has to ask me for the marker.

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  4. Love the dyed alphabet pasta! Such a cute idea. :)

    ReplyDelete

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