Letter V Week

Letter Formation/Pre-Writing

Tracing the letters with his write and wipe cards and Letter Tracing Pages from 1+1+1=1

Practicing writing in his sand box.  (So they kind of look like Us rather than Vs... he'll get there.)

 Do a Dot Markers on the Dot Letters from Confessions of a Homeschooler

 Using his Build a Letter Templates and HWWT pieces. First he built the letters on the templates, then he built them by themselves.

Building letters with pattern blocks.  Templates from Confessions of a Homeschooler. (I couldn't decide which picture I liked better)

Letter Maze

(Printable here)

Literacy

Cut and Paste Phonics Hunt

(Print it here)

This was the first week I left all the pictures together in a grid, instead of cutting them into strips for him (on his insistence).  I'm glad I listened to him, because I didn't think he was ready for that yet.  He did a great job though!

 

Science

We're still doing our Alphabet in Simple Science, and this week was V for Volcano.  I'll post all of the science activities later this week!

Sensory Play

As part of our volcano activities, we made a volcano out of salt dough.  After it "erupted" Xander played in the dough with his dinos for a long time!

 I attended a particle physics class for science teachers and brought home these fun rainbow spectrum prism glasses. I also brought home a spectroscope, but the glasses made it SO easy to see the different colors emitted by lights.  I got out some finger LEDs and he entertained himself for such a long time!  I wish we would have had them when we did our L for Light week!

U for Units (of Measurement)

See what we did for other letters in the Alphabet in Simple Science.

U for Units of Measurement

Science Notebook Page (Click the picture to print).

     Background

We started out talking about how units of measurement are what we use to measure things like length, weight, volume, time, etc.  We also briefly talked about how we use a standard unit so that different people can compare measurements.  We used the example of how if Xander measured his table in crayons and I measured it in markers, we'd come up with different numbers, even though the table is the same size.  We discussed how we used units of measurement every time we made pancakes or cookies so that we got the correct amounts of each ingredient.  We also read a bunch of books.
  

We also just kind of measured a bunch of things.

How Tall Are You?

Materials:

Butcher Paper
Marker
Random toys/household objects
Ruler

Procedure:
I wanted to help illustrate the need for a standard unit of measurement for each characteristic.  To do that I traced Xander on a large piece of paper.  I marked the top of his head and the bottom of his feet and we started measuring him.  We measuring him in feet, inches, markers, and Frisbee.  We would have kept going, but ran out of time.  Then I asked him in the length of his person changed in between times we measured.  Since it did not, why is it that we got different numbers?

Then Xander colored his person.



Units of Measure Sensory Play
Since we did Units of Measure for Science, I made a measuring sensory bin.  I used oatmeal for the based.  I found measuring cups, measuring spoons, and a liquid measuring cup at the dollar store.  The scale I stole from my dad's kitchen.  The muffin tray is from our Bake and Decorate Cupcake set.  I also threw in some silicone cupcake liners.  We got to talk about how two half cups equals a cup and three teaspoons equals a tablespoon, etc.

 

Then I let him take his measuring cups and spoons out on the deck with a couple of bowls of water.  He had a blast just pouring back and forth.

Comparing Weights
I got out Xander's balance and put seven counting bears in one side.  Then I asked him how many colored tiles that would equal if we were using colored tiles as the unit of measure.  Then we got out pop beads, learning links, and other manipulatives (I just got out the box of math manipulatives) to compare weights.  He enjoyed it much more than I had expected.

Check out my Alphabet in Simple Science Pinterest Board for more ideas!