Y week!

 1/10-1/14/2011

It was time to jump back in and finish up the last two letters of our Letter of the Week "curriculum"....I say "curriculum" in quotation marks because I just ended up piecing activities together that I found here and there.

We made our Y out of yarn!

I created a yellow sensory tub which she eagerly excavated! 

This really had nothing to do with the letter Y, but I found the color wheel activity off of Mama Jenn's blog and thought Isabel would just love it...she really likes the fine motor eye-dropper activities.  It's just dropping one drop of red blue or yellow to match the colors, then using a toothpick to stir the colors together in each circle, and finally placing a paper towel over your colors to absorb the colors!

Below, I made my own three part cards for Isabel to try using "Y words".  What are three part cards?  I first discovered them when working at a Montessori school several years ago.  The child gets to match picture to picture, then word to word, and it helps them learn visual discrimination and build up their vocabulary!  Iz really liked this, I think in part because it was something new, and I think she felt pretty accomplished in being able to look at the words and decide if they matched or not.  My only frustration (in hindsight) is that I didn't print out the words in a bigger font!

 

Also not a "Y" activity, but she rhymed every single one of her rhyming cards this week!  I only put half the cards on the shelf at any given time (rotating them out), but this week she asked if she could try all of them at once!  And....wallah!

Here are some of our Y words for the week:

 

We also worked on a Y tracing worksheet, which she was quite frustrated with.  Between capital and lowercase Y she just does not have an easy time yet.  She practiced tracing out Y in the sand tray, colored in a "find the hidden Y" worksheet, and worked on a "which word begins with Y" worksheet as well.  We measured each other with a yardstick, and that was about it for Y week.

Y words that I thought of:  yak, yodel, year, yesterday, yarn, young, yellow, you, yam, yo-yo, yogurt, yawn, yellow jacket, yolk, yacht, yell, yardstick, yes

Ballet!

This January I registered Isabel for her first dance class with the city parks and recreation department.  She is in a very small class of four girls, but with a very knowledgeable and capable instructor, and she just loves it.  Her favorite thing is her teacher (I just asked her!), but I know for a fact she also likes her little pink leotard and footless tights too ;)  The class only lasts 4 weeks (one Monday each week), but I'm pretty sure I'm going to put her in for next month as well.  The instructor says that Isabel is just a delight to teach and the only one in the class who remembers the names of the moves and steps she teaches.  They would also continue to learn new things next month, so it's not like she would be repeating everything she has already learned!  I'm really excited that she enjoys it so much!  The class focuses on introducing both ballet and tap steps, but we just call it "ballet" class :)

Three Kings' Day January 6th, 2011

 January 6th was Three Kings Day, also known as the Epiphany.  This was the first time we have celebrated this feast day.  We remember the three wise men who came to visit baby Jesus, and thus celebrate the "epiphany" or "making known" of God the Son coming to us as a human, in Christ Jesus.  This week we had been to the library and found a book about how people in Puerto Rico celebrate Three Kings' Day.  Isabel was really excited about their traditions, so we decided to try a few of them.   (Above is a picture of Isabel doing some traceables I made:  wise men, star, frankincense, myrrh and gold.)

Below, you see Isabel making a box for the three kings which she put under her bed the night before Three Kings Day.  The three kings came and left her a small gift in her box during the night.  We also put out a bowl of grass and a bowl of water (according to the custom!) for their camels :)

 Below is a picture of the sweet rice dessert (which we actually served for breakfast on Three Kings Day).  It is usually served as a dessert the evening before.  "Arroz con dulce", it is made with rice, coconut milk, raisins and some sugars.

Below:  We made a three kings craft, complete with  their traced names; Balthazar, Melchior and Gaspar.  Isabel still remembers their names!!  (And this was the first year I think I really learned them too!)  All in all it was a fun celebration and a great way to remember this feast that our church celebrates of Jesus being made known to the world!

A few pics from Christmas Day 2010

We had a wonderful Christmas with Rob's side of the family.  You can see the pic of Isabel with her two cousins!  Iz loved leaving out milk and cookies for Santa as well as "reindeer food" on the back porch.  She was delighted to see that the reindeer made quite a mess on the patio table, even turning over a chair to get to the food!

Her favorite presents this year were:  Go-go My Walking Pup, Fisher Price Loving Family Dollhouse (she has played with this EVERY DAY since Christmas), an easel and paints, a retired Littlest Pet Shop ladybug that was available for sale last year, but not on shelves this year, and a ladybug pillow pet. 

It was a lovely Christmas and the following morning we woke up to this:

4th Week of Advent 2010

She was very proud of the geometric pattern snowflake!

Tonging mini bows!

Matching nativity characters to the letter(s) that starts the sound of the word.

 She graphed the contents of her sensory tub this week!

Above is one of the placecards we made (for Santa).  The rest we made for all of the family who came over for Christmas breakfast.  You can see her making the fingerprint reindeer faces in the previous picture.

Counting star shaped buttons.

An attempt at a gingerbread man peanut butter and jelly sandwich.