D is for...Donut Dots Math Game

I began this Blogging Through the Alphabet journey a couple of weeks ago, and I am determined to stay faithful this time around. I might not always post on the same day of the week, but I have every plan to post something each week. And I can't believe I almost missed the letter D. I completely forgot to get this posted before heading out for my son's wedding this weekend. Phew, I got it up though.

Cristi from Through the Calm and Through the Storm and Meg from Adventures with Jude are hosting this weekly party. All are welcome to join in. You don't have to be a Schoolhouse Review Crew blogger or a homeschooler, but you do have to keep your posts family-friendly.

Here is how I decided my "theme" for this round of Blogging Through the Alphabet. As I was going through old blog posts recently, I noticed I have some neat ideas for activities and crafts that I did with in the past. Unfortunately, I always included them in my weekly wrap up posts or more recently in Poppins Book Nook posts, so they sort of got buried. I can't really share them as individual activities or create pinnable images to promote them and share my ideas, which is why I started this blog in the first place (to share my ideas with others who work with children). So, I am going to make new posts for these ideas.

One of the benefits in doing this is, I am remembering these ideas that I had forgotten, which means I can now do these activities with the younger children. I will be sharing the old pictures and possibly sharing new pictures of the younger children participating.

Several years ago I decided to make a math game out of donuts. We were doing Letter of the Week and had made donuts to go with D. They were really yummy too. Then we made these simple donut crafts that I decided would make a great game.

D is for . . . Donut Dots Math Game

I just cut a donut shape out of white construction paper.  Then I cut out the brown paper to look like chocolate glaze.  The girls glued them together. Not much of a craft, but it was meant for them to take part in making our game. 

To play the game we used pony beads as sprinkles and I made game cards.  We had cards numbered where the girls could add on 1-5 sprinkles, represented by the dots.  Or they could lose 1-3 sprinkles (I wrote these cards in red pencil and left only used outlines of dots instead of the black dots). We drew one card per turn and added or subtracted the designated number of  "sprinkles."  The winner was the one with the most sprinkles after we ran out of cards.

Toddler Ideas Tuesday: November 11, 2014: Featuring the Letter D and Dotted D's

Welcome back to Toddler Idea Tuesdays! I hope you will join with me again in sharing the fun activities, crafts, and lessons that you are doing with your young children. 

I am finally getting back on track with the two younger children during our lesson time. We are still way back on the letter D. I printed out some worksheets from abctwiggles.com for both of them. Then we made some Dotted D's.

This worksheet focuses on upper/lower case identification.

Hannah worked on writing the letter Dd, coloring pictures that start with /d/, identifying the D/d to color the dinosaur, and identifying the pictures that started with /d/ while giving the dog the bones.

 Even Harold did well telling me which pictures started with /d/.

He colored a Dd poster as well and did a wonderful job gluing the bones onto the paper after I cut them out. I didn't help him with the gluing part at all.

And here are their Dotted D's. I just cut a D out of a piece of construction paper and cut out circles for the dots. Harold chose colors for the paper.

Harold's:

Hannah's:

I have to say, I have missed making letter crafts for the children.

Now onto:

Toddler Idea Tuesday Features

On my last Toddler Idea Tuesday post, there were 3 wonderful posts linked up. As there were no clicks at all last week, I have decided to highlight all 3 posts. 

1- Christianity Cove shared 13 Thanksgiving Bible Activities That Teach Gratitude. I have to say, this is perfect timing, because we have been learning about gratitude.  

2- The Bewitchin' Kitchen shared Tips for Planning a Train Themed Birthday Party. I'm not sure if we will be doing a train themed party any time soon. However, I can really see making use of these ideas when we are doing the letter T. I love the look of the train snack ideas.

3- Mimi and the Grands shared T is for Turkey - Book Study Unit. There are many great ideas for a Thanksgiving unit study. I need to see if I can find the book T is for Turkey to read to the children. 

I would love to have you join in this week! What sort of activities do you do with your toddlers and preschoolers? Do you have some favorite activities you would like to share? I invite you to link up below. I will be pinning posts on my Toddler Ideas board and I would love to feature some of the activities each week from what is linked up. Please know I may share a picture from your post and link back to it, along with sharing how we used your idea in our toddler time. By linking up you are giving me permission to use a picture from your post. I will ALWAYS give credit and link back. Additionally, if you choose to try out any of the ideas with your toddler, please make sure you give credit where credit is due.

Linky will be open through Sunday night, to give me time to check out all the posts and get the Features organized. Please take the time to visit some of the other wonderful posts linked up.

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D is for Dinosaur

We recently finished our Dd: Dinosaur unit with My Father's World.  Our D unit was combined with our study of the "Letters, Numbers and Shapes" lapbook from A Journey Through Learning that I was reviewing for the Schoolhouse Review Crew. Here are a few of the highlights of our Dinosaur unit.

We started our lapbook study by focusing on a shape at a time. At the same time we were also focusing on a color at a time as we worked our way through the colors toward St. Patrick's Day (that has sort of become a tradition).

I created these Shape Dinosaur Mazes. 

When we focused on "Circle" I had the girls color the circles to help the dinosaur find her nest.

I had also found this great idea for making fossils using salt dough and toy dinosaurs.

The girls enjoyed playing with the dinosaurs for a little bit.

Then we made the salt dough.

It was a little sticky at first.

We finally got it the correct consistency to hold the dinosaur's shape.

Harold wanted to play too.

Our salt dough fossils.

Then, on another day we made playdough to go with our review of ARTistic Pursuits. We made it green as it was the color we were up to. 

Besides molding the dough, the girls had a blast burying their dinosaurs.

Here is our Green Square Dinosaur maze

And Tabitha had a blast drawing some dinosaurs.

Dot to Dots are very popular with the older two girls right now.  I've been googling at least one picture for each new unit we are doing.

They all had a blast acting out the Three Enormous Dinosaurs poem we have. I can not remember where I found it. I have had it copied out on paper since the first time we did the letter D.

And here is Amelia working on her Blue Rectangle Dinosaur Maze.

They loved digging through a bowl of "dirt" on a hunt for their dinosaur fossils. 

And they gently brushed them off.

We also played a Counting Dinosaur Matching/Memory Game. 

Similar to a regular memory game, but I had them draw a number card (2, 3, or 4) and they had to count that many cards as they flipped them over. At this point we were working on the "Numbers" section of the A Journey Through Learning lapbook.

If you would like to try blogging through the alphabet, don't forget to link up with Marcy from Ben and Me.

School Time: Week 17 Dd Concluded: Donuts, Dots, and Drums

This week we had a couple of days of actual "lessons," but those days were quite full.   We are still learning about the letter/sound Dd, so I decided we would make homemade donuts with the recipe from our bread machine.

Pouring in the milk

and the butter

Now it is time for the flour

Doing good...

As you can see, she had a little mishap.  Further down I will share what my floor looked like after said mishap.

Time to throw it in the machine.

Anyway, her mishap gave her a chance to use her new broom she got from Christmas (I ordered them from Montessori Services)

We just grabbed our old dustpan as I didn't want her new dustpan all flour.

Tabitha wanted to help too.  Isn't it great that at this age they want to help.

While we waited on the donuts we played our donut game. Last week I made the donuts with the girls.  I just cut out a donut shape in white construction paper.  Then I cut out the brown paper to look like chocolate glaze.  The girls glued them together.

  To play the game we used pony beads as sprinkles and I made game cards.  We had cards numbered where the girls could add on 1-5 sprinkles, represented by the dots.  Or they could lose 1-3 sprinkles (I wrote these cards in red pencil and left only used outlines of dots instead of the black dots). We drew one card per turn and added or subtracted the designated number of  "sprinkles."  The winner was the one with the most sprinkles after we ran out of cards.

When the dough was ready we rolled it out.

And cut out the donuts.  We used a glass as we don't have a donut cutter.

Yummy donuts:

I forgot to take a picture until they were almost all gone.  I fried them up while the girls were sleeping and them I sprinkled on cinnamon sugar.

We made dotty d's

And D drums.  First they wanted to play their drums.

Then we glued on the "d"

And traced the design.

Amelia was so proud of her H and l she wrote all by herself.

And Tabitha's:

Then we had a "Find the difference" meal:

What kind of meal is this mom?

Then for the fun of it, they had a roll up meal (you'd have thought I was doing the letter R, but I was just having fun.  Actually Steven and I were having wrap sandwiches so I made the children: peanut butter and jelly wraps, cheese rolls, turkey rolled around some spinach leaves and spiral cheesies.)

Tiny Tot Time

Hannah is starting to stand while holding on to things.

She likes the activity cube.  However, when she leans on it it stops spinning and the music stops.

This is how I keep her in the living room, now that she is crawling.

Yummy!  

Playing with her foam alphabet.  The older girls had some,but I never liked the fact that some of the letters just looked weird.  I like these big ones we found.  I like the girls to have lots of letters to play with, taking some advice from the book Native Reading by Timothy Kailing that I purchased when Tabitha was little (two years ago).  My children didn't start reading as young as the author's children, but I definitely agree with exposing them to letters in a fun way.

And I try to let her color, but she is still more interested in eating the crayons.

I am linking up to