Two/Orange

This week I have still been focusing on organizing and planning, but we did get a few activities completed.  I had mentioned last week that we played the number 2 game.  When Tabitha asked me to play the number game for 2, I was completely lost as to what she was referring to.  I remembered playing the hidden red cards hunt, but she kept insisting we played a number game.  Wow, I must be getting old to be this forgetful.  She was referring to the game I mentioned in our number 1 post.  This time the girls needed to bring me 2 of each item I asked for.

We actually played it a second time, once during the week of VBS (above) and then at the beginning of this week.  I say, "Amelia, please go get me 2 clothespins." While Amelia heads to the playroom to find the clothespins I then ask Tabitha to bring me something different.  It is a great way to reinforce quantity.  Amelia brought 3 clothespins to me, so I had the opportunity to count them with her: "There are 3 clothespins here, 1, 2, 3"  and show her how to take one away to make 2.

We also finished our Number 2 books today.  Because we were rearranging the rooms the papers I had ready for this project had gotten buried. When I found them early this morning, Tabitha wanted to work on them right then and there.  And that was before breakfast!!  I readily agreed as I didn't want them to end up missing again.  So, we got Amelia up, quickly got dressed and worked on the books and their number 2 worksheet, which I printed out from Handwriting for Kids.  I love this website by the way.  I have used it for calendars and numbers, but I just realized I can put in a list of words (I am using Tabitha's "at" words and her "ad" words to start with) and it will generate the list in dotted form for your child to trace.

Here are the girls working on their Number 2 books.

When I showed Amelia the hands and asked her 

what they were she got real excited and yelled

"Hand prints!!"

Here is Amelia's completed book:

(How many ants on the anthill?)

(How many grapes are there?)

And their Number 2 worksheets.

As I was trying to somewhat stay on an insect theme we made red and orange butterflies.  I was thinking I was so brilliant.  One ant at the picnic.  Two wings on a butterfly.  Until my son reminded me that a butterfly has 4 wings, forewings and hindwings. So, I told the girls they have 2 sets or pairs of wings.
We painted the body (a toilet paper roll) black.

(I love having them paint paper rolls because they

can hold it by sticking their hands in the hole)

And then used sponges held with clothespins to paint the body after cutting it out.  We only painted one side, so they could fold it over and get symmetrical designs.

 It sort of worked.

Then we glued toothpicks on the inside of the roll sticking up for antennae and wiggle eyes on the front after the antennae dried.

The girls completed their orange collages.

And we had an hidden orange card hunt and find.  I just found outline/coloring book type pictures and printed them onto orange construction paper.

Each girl has to find her own set, one of each picture. Then they "hid" the pictures so I could find them.  Now I wish I had taken pictures. I was part of the action so I wasn't taking pictures.  The girls did a good job placing them all in one corner of the room, some on top of the others.  Our next activity was a matching game.  I laid one set of cards on the floor and the girls had to pick a card out of my hand and match it to the one on the floor and then they could hold their matches.  A little over Amelia's head, but I think if we keep working on it she will have it soon.  

We store the color cards on our playroom door:

I am bringing back our money "activity."  The girls get 10 (it used to be 5) pennies each morning.  We count them on the number mat I made, one to one counting.  Then they get to keep it in their cup.  If they want a piece of candy (right now we have spice drops and candy corn, yes candy corn is in the stores already) they need to give me one penny.  As a consequence, if they are in time out and still not behaving they need to give me a penny, or if they hit, bite, kick, headbutt (an Amelia favorite), pinch, scratch, etc they give me a penny right away (this is a new idea of mine, which is why they get 10 instead of 5).  At the end of the day (or more likely the next morning) they get to put whatever money they have left in their big bank.  On Sunday they will take their tithe out of the bank (3 cents this week, 7 cents after that because we will have a full week of earning money).  I am trying to decide what they would be able to do to earn extra money.  Any ideas would be appreciated.

Here are pictures of the girls counting their money:

The girls also had some fun with daddy:

And Tabitha decided to put some toys on a dowel rod.

At first she only had a few of the stacking bowls down 

by her hand.  We conveniently didn't mention it 

looked like a sword.

You can still participate in Words of Wisdom Wednesday.  This week's question was:

Why do we brush our teeth?

Stay tuned for next week's question

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

I realized I have a lot of math concepts in here (symmetry, counting money, one to one corresponding, #2), so I decided to also link up to Math Monday over at Joyful Learner.

I am also linking to

Carnival of Maths Play