Friday, September 5, 2014

Week One Recap!

Lily and Tristan’s first week “back to school” went off without a hitch! There wasn’t really a big change in the routines so no one freaked out. I just snuck in some more structured activities like project time, playing with instruments, exercise time, and of course, story time. We learned how to sign “A” and “red” in sign language, and learned some new finger plays and songs. The projects I chose to do were simple enough that both kids could do them with no trouble and with little help from me. They got to work with different textures than either of them are used to and that was fun to see the different techniques they chose to use. As far as our focus skill of putting our own shoes on---it’s a work in progress!

Here’s a little recap of the week. I am excited to continue to plan and come up with new weekly projects. I’ve been scouring Pinterest, other Mommy blogs, and even got some fun idea from the Oriental Trading catalog!

Tuesday:
It was very, very hot and humid, so our outside play was limited to about thirty minutes after breakfast. Before we went outside, we read our book of the week “Alligator Alphabet”. Once outside, we drew a big A on the pavement and doodled things that started with the letter A. After snack, we painted our Alligator A’s with green water colors. After our naps, we played instruments, danced and did our “exercises”, and then colored some pictures of things that start with the letter A. Not being able to go outside again made us all a little nuts. 


Wednesday:
The weather was slightly more bearable today so we were able to be back on our normal routine. We ate breakfast, got dressed, and had our vitamins. (Our new incentive for Lily to dress herself comes in the form of a gummy vitamin. If she can undress herself and redress herself as best she can without whining, she gets her vitamin). We took our stroller walk and looked for things that were red or started with the letter A, as well as our usual list of trucks, busses, dogs, Cookie Monster eyes (what Lily calls two adapters on the Verizon building we pass), and airplanes.

Since they were very well behaved on the walk, we stopped at the park across the street to play on the swings and then we explored the huge soccer field, looking for acorns. After we collected a few, we headed back to the house to play in the sandbox. A meltdown or two occur in between the sandbox and our project time, but that’s about par for the course. We glued red tissue paper squares onto our apples. It was fun to see the two different ages with two different techniques. Tristan threw all his tissue paper on top of the glue, while Lily carefully placed each piece one by one on her apple.

We got another day of pool time, popsicles, and a wagon ride in! That helped to break up the afternoon a little better.

Thursday:
It was slightly warmer this morning, but we still went on a walk and looked for things that were red. I actually had forgotten I said that we’d be looking for red things until Lily started pointing out red signs, flowers, and cars. Proud (space cadet) mom moment right there. We played in the sandbox, and drew some more pictures with sidewalk chalk of things that start with the Letter A. Then two very large daddy long legs appeared in our play area and we moved our playtime to inside. 

Today’s project was ‘painting’ the letter A with rice. I drew a few lines with Elmer’s glue and gave them each a pile of rice. Today, Lily chose to pick up big handfuls and sprinkle them on the glue trails, where Tristan picked up each piece of rice individually and placed it on the glue.

Lily and Tristan went swimming in the afternoon and ate some homemade popsicles while I paced back and forth waiting for those spiders to return. We had a Code Brown in the pool times two, which was just the icing on the cake of the afternoon I was having. Deep breaths and some laughter helped me to not completely lose it and hide in a dark corner.

Friday:

It’s another warm and muggy day today, so we opted for some outside play after breakfast and took a short wagon ride. When we came inside, I asked if they wanted snack or to do a project, and they picked the project! 

Originally I was going to cut an apple in half and show them how to use it as a stamp, but I forgot to grab an extra apple at the store and I found these chunky stamps my mom had given me. Conveniently, two were shaped as apples. I dipped each one in paint and showed them each how to stamp on their papers. They got a little crazy and ended up ‘painting’ with the stamps but I just let them do their thing. 

We played with dress up clothes, and had a little snack. Right now they're snoozing and I am brainstorming ideas for more fun and easy projects!

Happy Friday!

No comments:

Post a Comment