Oo Lessons

Well, we started off the week planning on focusing on Oo and we did. We had a very productive week. We got to get a full lesson in on Tuesday as there was no playgroup. And I was able to have lots of learning time today as I didn't need to get finished early as we didn't have care group. And there were no doctor appointments I had to be responsible for driving people to. Plus I have been trying to stay more organized and I am excited about our positive beginning of incorporating some Montessori activities, which I have discussed previously this week. I've pulled myself away from the computer and spent a lot more time with the girls in activities in addition to the "lesson time" and projects.

Now, on to our Oo lessons. Before I forget, it is so cute. Amelia will try to say the short o sound, but every time, before she ends the sound, she ends up saying the long vowel sound. Anyhow, we started the week by making shape books with orange shapes. Each page was devoted to a specific shape (square, triangle, circle and rectangle).

As I had printed out extra pictures accidentally I decided one of our projects could be a letter collage. We haven't done them for every letter, sometimes only as a last resort if I couldn't think of something to do on a particular day, so I figured, "Why not?"

These are the same pictures I use for the word cards and to go in the books.

Found signs for these words: octopus and orange

Made up a sign for ostrich

No signs for Oscar, olives or otter that I could find.

Amelia was so adorable. She saw the picture of the octopus the one morning, before we did our lesson, and she attempted to sign it. Later that day I got pictures of both the girls signing octopus while they colored their octopus picture.

We definitely had a lot of octopus related projects this week. Not only did the girls color a picture of an octopus, we had a poem about an octopus called "Once I Saw an Octopus" which I found while looking for an octopus poem of the same name recommended by letter of the week. I do not think this was the correct poem because, though the poem on the letter of the week website had an author, the website where I found it said the original author was unknown. That's okay, the girls liked the poem that I found at preschooleducation.com. We made a project out of it. I let the girls paint the ocean under the poem:

When the paint was dry I glued on an octopus body I cut out. I put eight pieces of velcro on the bottom of the octopus:

The next couple of mornings I recited the poem and we attached the tentacles.

Here is another octopus activity I found on the blog Counting Coconuts. The writer of that blog actually found it at a different website, but I just drew my own octopus. I figured it went along with the Montessori exercises I introduced this week. They needed to use fine motor skills to put the "o" cereal on the circles drawn on the octopus. Once again I used a shoe box lid as a tray. Tabitha was able to get all the circles covered along with the mouth, eyes and o in octopus. Amelia mainly places them on the paper randomly, though at times she does try to place one on a circle. Unfortunately most times it moves off anyway. Though she does real well with her pincer grasp.

When they are done they are allowed to eat the "TO's" so they really like doing this activity. Maybe I will think of a "P" picture to use this activity with for next week.

And our last octopus project was made today. We made oval octopuses to put in their O Books. I traced an oval for the body, let the girls glue on oval eyes and then we glued on the tentacles. Unfortunately I didn't get a picture of Amelia making hers as I was holding the bottom of the body out of the way while she glued the tentacles underneath. Tabitha was able to do it independently for the most part.

Our week wasn't all octopuses. I went out and bought oranges and the girls chowed down on them for a snack on Wednesday. Then we cut some into slices to make potpourri. Another activity I found at the Counting Coconuts blog. I cut the oranges into 1/4 inch slices and had the children arrange them on the oven rack I had laid on the dining room table, while the oven heated to 225 degrees.

As you can see, they thought it was snack time still!

Then they sprinkled on the cinnamon. I had to use my Magic Bullet to grind up some cinnamon sticks as we had used almost all our cinnamon up baking Amish Friendship Bread. Didn't come quite as fine as I would have hoped, but it worked. Unfortunately mommy had been distracted by something and when I noticed what Tabitha had done I realized two orange slices had quite a bit of cinnamon on them. But we fixed it. Then I realized that the second step was supposed to be, use a paper towel to blot off excess juice, so I gave them all I nice pat, even though they already had the cinnamon on.

We also made octagons. I cut out white strips of paper and we glued them onto orange paper. I put on a line of white glue and let the girls put the strips on. Funnily enough I had this all cut up and ready to go over the weekend and then I saw something similar on the Counting Coconuts blog. Only difference was, the colors were reversed.

Well, that is it for Oo. we will put pictures in their sound books tomorrow so we can be ready to start Pp on Monday. Looking at the time I guess when you read today I mean Friday and tomorrow means Saturday.