Y lessons

Lately our Monday's have been lazy days.  This week was no exception.  Especially because we slept in because of coming home late from the fireworks the night before.  And Tuesdays we go to playgroup.  The children really look forward to going to play with friends.  So needless to say we don't get any "lessons" done the first part of the week.  The remainder of the week tends to be jammed packed though.
The girls continue to use the easel chalk board daily (they erased my house diagram, so no more map/treasure hunts for now) and they each enjoy their own workbook.  Tabitha has been using her Brainquest workbook(though she tends to work ahead and not quite follow all the instructions,like what color to use),

 while Amelia will pull out the Wipe-Off Alphabet Book at least once a day.  I also made another great find at the thrift shop this week!  I had just recently seen someone post about Leap Frog Fridge Phonics letter sets and wished I could get some (we had seen them at Wal-Mart when Tabitha was choosing her gift to get with grandma's birthday money, but she chose that laptop computer instead).  This week I found what I believe is an older version of the set for just 50 cents.  There is at least one piece missing and one that doesn't work, but I figured my girls would lose one right away anyway if I bought it new, so....  Tabitha has enjoyed playing with it.

The toy plays the song from the DVD that she'd been singing constantly anyway.  Daddy shuddered/cringed a little though.  The girls have continued to enjoy using the magnetic alphabet matching activity I made as well.

 Both girls can match the upper case magnetic letters with the upper case letters I wrote on paper, and Tabitha can match upper to lower case.

We've been tolerating the hot weather by heading out to the sprinkler.

I even walked under with Hannah, as did Steven.
Our first craft of the week was a yo-yo.  It was supposed to be a yellow yo-yo with designs, but Tabitha's turned completely green.  In fact, she was still trying to fill in the yellow spots when it was time to glue it together.  While she was coloring she once stated it looked like a cresent

and another time said it looked like a 7

The girls just colored two construction paper circles

and then they each glued a circle shaped foam bead in the center (unto which I had taped the black cord).

 Then when it was dry we wrapped the cord up and pretended to play with them.  They go down well, but the up part is missing. That's okay, we formed them into a "y" and then I taped them to the wall.

I did however promise the children some real yo-yo's, and I found some at the Dollar Store yesterday.  Surprisingly they work really well.

We made frozen yogurt pops:

They spooned yogurt 

into ice cube trays.

Sticking straws in for handles

I recommend loosening them with a knife 

after a couple of hours otherwise they won't come out

without running under hot water.

YUMMY!!

(poor Amelia had gotten bitten on the eyelid by a mosquito 

the night before and it had swollen up.)

Yesterday the girls made yarn collages.  Nothing fancy.  I just let the girls cut up various colors of yarn,

 Amelia coming a little too close to her fingers for comfort at times, and glue them onto the yellow paper.

Today we focused on yellow.  I had purchased yellow hair gel to put in plastic zippy bags.  Then we placed these over some letters I wrote on paper and the girls traced them.

I have wanted to do this for a while as a tactile activity to help with letter formation. Then, we had a yellow lunch.

We had scrambled eggs, corn, Muenster cheese and toast and butter (though I realize the toast wasn't yellow).  Unfortunately I forgot the pineapple.  For dessert we had still-warm-from-the-oven lemon cake.

I believe hubby brought this recipe home from work, it is delicious.  It was close enough to being yellow and we know that lemons are yellow.
The girls colored a "y" yellow. And we played in shaving cream loosely following the instructions found here.  We started out with plain white and then added yellow.

Then we did some color mixing.  Amelia was given blue to mix in with her shaving cream for a pretty green and I gave Tabitha red to make orange, it actually turned out closer to peach.  Then we laid a piece of paper on the colored shaving cream, pressed gently, lifted it off and scraped off the excess shaving cream.  The resulting art was really pretty.

Though the other results were messy hands, clothes, table and chairs.

I knew there was some sort of way to do this project and I was thrilled to find instructions at the above link.

Our word card words are yacht, yawn, yarn, yak and yo-yo.
We also had some adventures with fruit flies, but that will be a separate post.
Also stay tuned, I have been running the idea of a meme through my head.

To see what others are doing with their toddlers and preschoolers head on over to 1+1+1=1 and Homeschool Creations.

I am also linking up to the Ultimate Alphabet Craft Collection which is hosted by Cathy at the Attached Mama.  Head on over there to find ideas or share your own ideas for any and every letter of the alphabet.