Seeing the Beauty in Some of God's Smallest Creatures

     It has been an incredibly interesting week learning all about the interesting insects of our area. Insects are a fun topic of discussion and learning for kids, but especially for young boys. Getting up close to bugs is muddy dirty work and boys tend to love getting up close and messy. There are SO many insects to learn with which nakes it a fun theme to pick. I guess you could also call thie an Eric Carle appreciation week, but that is mainly because I just love his books for kids at this age. They are fun and colorful, and he likes to use insects as his main characters in a lot of his books. Also for more of the study of the insects I used a book I found at The Dollar Tree called Bugs by The Clever Factory. Putting that here instead of repeatedly posting it for each day.

     Along with exploring the world of insects it has also been a big review week since last week we ended pur first conplete round of tge alphabet. As far as all the books we read together this week, I honestly used whatever books we already own that fir with whichever letter we focused on. Because of that I am not gonna show any of the review books I used as they have been listed in past posts for each letter. Use what books are in your home or local library whenever you are looking for books about the letters of the alphabet.

Monday:Uppercase Letter Review/Aa-Ee Vocab Review/Butterflies
Books:The Very Hungry Catterpillar by Eric Carle

Songs:
A-Ants Go Marching One by One
B-Baby Bumblebee
C-Cha Cha Slide
D-Five Little Ducks
E-Eagle's Wings

Activities:
A- play with abacus
B- butterfly footprint activity
C- play with chalk outside
D- get dizzy and dance
E- fun exploring

Uppercase review activity- make a paper filled with all the letters of the alphabet...some uppercase and others lowercase. See what uppercase letters your child can find.

Tuesday:Primary Colors Review/Ff-Jj Vocab Review/Ladybugs

Book: The Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle

Songs:
F: Friendship song from the girl scouts
G: Ghostbusters
H- Hokey Pokey
I-Iguana Song (from my post on the letter I)
J-Jesus Loves the Little Children

Activities:
F- Play with foam blocks
G-Grouchy Ladybugs Glitter activity. Take a half apple and dip in red paint for ladybug body. Fingerprint on black spots. Finish with glitter.
H- play with people and play houses
I-practice with iron (unplugged ofcourse right now)
J: take jars and prinary colored pom poms. Sort pom poms into jars by color...then if they are interested still by size...

Wednesday:Lowercase Review/Kk-Oo Vocab Review/Bees and Wasps

Books:
The Very Lonely Firefly by Eric Carle

Songs:
K- Let's Go FlyA Kite
L: This Little Light of Mine
M: Five Little Monkeys
N- All I Really Need by Raffi
O-Octopus Garden by Raffi

Activities:
K-Killer Bee Footprint activity
L-Ladder Fun
M-Magnets
N-Dry Noodle Sensory Play
O-Outside backyard fun

Lowercase Review Project- use paper you did on monday for uppercase review, only have child focus on lowercase letters this time.

Thursday: Secondary Colors Review/ Pp-Tt Vocabulary Review/Dragonfly
Books:Pooh and the Dragon by Ann Braybrooks

Songs:
P-Purple People Eater
Q-Quarterback Song (can be found in my Qq actvities post
R- Somewhere Over the Rainbow
S- Baby Shark
T- Twinkle Twinkle Little Star

Activities:
P- Park fun
Q- Sensory fun using quinoa
R- Rainbow activity
S- Simon Says
T- Truck fun

Secondary color activity- play outside with buckets of and primary colored water and different containers to let the child mix differemt combos and make secondary colored water.

Friday:Uppercase and Lowercase Letter Matching Fun/Uu-Zz Vocab Review/bug Review Fun
Books: by Bob Barner

Songs:
U-Under the Sea from The Little Mermaid
V- Veggie Tales Theme Song
W-Witch Doctor
X-Xylophone Song (from my Xx activities post)
Y- YMCA
Z-Zippidy Doo Dah from Disney

Activities

U- Umbrella Fun
V- Vaccuum Inspection
X- Xylophone
Y- Sensory fun with yarn
Z- Fun With Zig-zags

Play matching game with all uppercase and lowercase letters...make 1 set of paper cards with uppercase letters and 1 set of lowercase. Take turns helping match the right pairs together.

Insect Activity...go outside with a container filled with plastic insects (I found some at our Dollar Tree) and bury them in potting soil for kids to dig and find.  As the find a new one review what it is with them.

These are the fun ways we reviewed our alhabet and explored insects. Starting next week we will move from the introduction phase to beginnings of writing the letters out phase. I will focus more on that in a different post.