Stars & Shapes

Today, we discussed stars!  Abbie knows the shape well, and can pick it out by name, so she enjoyed this conversation!  We started off our lesson with Circle Time, and after Abbie led with her version of the ABC's, we read a book called "Apple Pie 4th of July".  We finally made it to the library yesterday, and while books about the 4th are hard to come by, I had searched and found 2 online that were great and reserved them for us!  This was one of them!  She enjoyed the book, and was a fantastic "page turner"!!

She of course was most excited about our craft.  She always is!  Maybe when she grows up, she will be crafty too!  I got the idea for our craft from another blog, and I thought it would be fun.  I realized recently that my daughter is 2 1/2 years old, and I have NEVER let her use paint!  Other people have, so she has been exposed to the medium, but mom just doesn't like messy paint!  I decided that I would put all of that behind me, and bought Crayola WASHABLE paint!  Abbie was beyond excited when I pulled it out of the box, and told her we were going to paint!  

I had a star cookie cutter in my cabinet, so I simply took 2 paper plates and put blue paint on one, and red on the other.  I had a smock that I put on Abbie, which she felt like was so kind of magically cape!!  

 I gave her a piece of white construction paper, and let her stamp it with the cookie cutter in the 2 colors of paint!  I think it turned out really cute, and Abbie was VERY proud of it!  

Since today is the 4th of July, and we have lots of holiday plans... we may skip our lesson this afternoon.  It will all depend on how much time we have!

This week... July 4th!

We finally picked our home-school lessons back up!  After planning for a few weeks, I decided that our theme this week would be July 4th!  It's completely appropriate being that July 4th is tomorrow!  

Our first lesson was yesterday.  We talked about July 4th, and how why we celebrate it!  We also talked about the flag, and we said the Pledge of Allegiance together!  It was more than adorable to hear her version of the pledge!  We didn't read a book with our lesson, because I haven't managed to make it to the library yet.  However, I am hoping that we can do that this afternoon!  

Abbie got to make a flag of her own!  I cut out the pieces for her, but she did a lot of the gluing herself!  The stars are actually glow in the dark stickers, and Abbie thought they were the coolest things ever!  We should totally convert the US flag to have glow in the dark stickers!!!

She really seemed to enjoy doing our "lesson" again!  She has been talking about "circle time" for over a week!  Since she did such a great job, she earned a little time on the iPad!   I think it is cute that she sees this as a "reward", being that she is actually using Apps that are learning tools!

This was also the first home-school lesson that Brady was a part of!  While I know he is FAR too young to learn or be taught... he did enjoy sitting in his chair and working on his fine motor skills!  He really seems to like Abbie's room, and Abbie really seems to like having Brady in her room!!!

Planning Again

I am finally working on lesson plans for preschool again!!  As soon as I get a month's worth of plans together... we will begin class!!