B for Bear - Week 1

 

Xander is 21 Months

We are currently working on our Mommy & Me ABC units.  This was our first week on letter B and bears.

This was his desk set up for the week.  His white board had some bear cut outs (in the printables which will post next week), some alphabet magnets, and his fridge phonics set.  The mini pocket chart (from Target) has his sandpaper letters and some bear flash cards.

His shelf had a fabric B, the B from his floor tiles, an B minibook, a bear book I made him, the bears from his various toobs, his peg letter B, a stuffed polar bear, a finger puppet, and the bear from his alphabet zoo.  Above I hung some bulletin board letters, some bear flash cards from 1+1+1=1, and two bear crafts we did (see below).

As you can see, we had no shortage of books for the book bin this week!  We had some on the letter b and a bunch on bears.  He loved That's Not My Bear and I like a great bear cub series we have that includes Panda Bear Cubs, Black Bear Cubs, Grizzly Bear Cubs and Polar Bear Cubs.  We also read some great fiction like Moonbear and Going on a Bear Hunt.
 
 Tracing

I put a tracing page in his activity center.  He still needs a lot of help tracing, but I want to make sure we do it on a semi-regular basis until it clicks for him.

Mommy and Baby Matching

This box had some pictures of mothers and babies of different kinds of bears (Printable Here).  Xander did a pretty good job of matching them up.  For an added twist, we also matched up his corresponding toob figures (the four bears are from the Wild Toob, the Zoo Babies Toob, and the North American Wildlife Toob) .

Shape Caves
This box had some little bears with colored shapes on them and a Shape Caves page.  The idea was for him to match the bear's shape to the correct cave.  Apparently I have to make the bear climb his arm every time he gets one right.

Size Sorting
This box had five bears of different sizes.  He can find the biggest and the smallest, but struggles with the in between.


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

 

Number Card Matching

Number cards and the corresponding number tiles.  (I also uploaded some number tiles here you could just print and laminate).  We did 0-5 this week week.  This week he was more interested in playing with the number tiles than matching them up.  Oh well, it is his school time, however he wants to use it.

Play Dough
Play dough is always a big hit around here.  He used his lowercase b dough stamp, an uppercase B cookie cutter, some bear cookie cutters, and his dough stamping page.  One of these days I will get around to making my own play dough again!

Finger Rhyme

I typed up this finger rhyme from one of our old National Wildlife Animal Baby magazine.  He LOVED it.  I don't know how many times we did it this week, but he loved being involved in the actions!

Big Button Fun

This box had the bear from our Big Button Fun set.  Because there was only one piece on this side, I also included the corresponding buttons for the reverse side, which happens to be a giraffe with nine buttons.

Extras

Our craft this week was super simple, just some snow paint and some bears cut out of card stock.  For the brown bear I let him sprinkle on some cinnamon and sugar for extra texture.  He loves seeing them on his wall.

Reading Panda Bear Panda Bear with his Tag Jr.

Eating Teddy Grahams with pumpkin dip.

Playing with Magnetix and making letters.  He has a lot of fun with these, but needs supervision to make sure he doesn't stick the balls in his mouth or ears.

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

A for Alligator - Week 2

Xander is 21 Months

We are currently working on our Mommy & Me ABC units.  This was our second week on letter A and alligators.  You can see Week 1 of Letter A and Alligators here.

This was his desk set up for the week.  His white board had some alligator cut outs (in the printables), some alphabet magnets, and his fridge phonics set.  I added a mini pocket chart (from Target) to hold his sandpaper letters.  Above that is my Tot School checklist to help me keep track of what we have done for the week.

His shelf had a fabric A, the A from his floor tiles, an A minibook, an alligator book I made him (you can download it on the Mommy & Me ABC page) , the alligators from his toobs, his peg letter A, and the alligator from his alphabet zoo.  Above I hung some bulletin board letters and some alligator cards from 1+1+1=1.  We also added an alligator craft he made.  His book basket was the same as last week.

Case Sorting

This box had a case sorting activity.  He does not grasp the concept well enough to do it on his own, so  I mostly modeled while talking about each letter.  I know he will be able to do it on his own soon enough.

Letter Clipping

These are some letter clipping cards I made for him.  He really enjoyed finding the corresponding A and trying to clip it.

Bottle Cap Matching
This one one of the bottle cap matching cards to use with the alphabet bottle caps I made.  Eventually I will print the uppercase page on the back and thrown in both cases of bottle caps, but for now I just gave him the lowercase page and bottle caps.  This was really hard for Xander because he doesn't know many of his letters yet.  It will slowly get easier.

Shape Lakes
This box had some little alligators with colored shapes on them and a Shape Lakes page.  The idea was for him to match the alligator's shape to the right lake.

3 Part Puzzles

This box was a step up from the 2 part puzzles last week.  There were two printable puzzles and a purchased one.  He loved the little ant puzzle, but couldn't quite get any of them himself.  

Dot Magnet Page - Lowercase

Pretty much the same as last week's uppercase dot setup.  Some gem magnets and a magnet/dot page.
 

Number Card Matching

Number cards and the corresponding number tiles.  (I also uploaded some number tiles here you could just print and laminate).  We did 0-5 last week, so we did 6-10 this week.  Some days he was interested and got quite a few correct, other days he had no clue what was going on.  That is fine with me!  I will just keep modeling and encouraging and someday he will get it!

Stamping
We did some more stamping with our uppercase and lowercase stamp. Let me just say THANK GOODNESS for washable ink!

Alligator craft (as seen on his wall in the pic above).

Cutting
Xander is by no means ready to use scissors on his own, but he is absolutely fascinated with them.  He is always trying to steal mine, so I decided to go ahead and get him his own pair of training scissors.  The printables include some cutting pages which we worked on together.  He LOVES doing it, but needs a lot of help and supervision.

Alphabet Stickers

Sensory Bin
We played in his sensory bin quite a bit more this week.  He keeps asking for his "noodles."

Playing with his Alphabet Zoo

The Safari Puzzle got a lot of use this week!

I picked up this magnetic color sorter at a garage sale and Xander had so much fun with it.  He can't actually sort the beads yet, but brought it to me daily saying "lap lap" wanting to sit in my lap and watch me.  Then he would try to move the balls around after me.

Life Skills

Lately he has really been into "cleaning."  This week I gave him a squirt bottle of water and a wash cloth and let him clean to his hearts content.

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