Roar: D is for Dinosaur!

*Dd*

Cricket loved our dinosaur theme this week, and she did really well with everything. She even started off the week by asking for more school! On Sunday, I asked Cricket if there was anything she wanted to do that day, anything at all, and her answer was "school". I can't say how much I love that she loves learning!

Cricket loved the dinosaur song I found to incorporate into our daily work this week. She laughed at it, or me singing it, everyday. She is also getting better at the pledge. This week she was able to recite each line after I said the first word of the line. It is so cute listening to her say indivisible!

Letter of the Week

Our letter this week was "Dd". Our focus was dinosaurs, and we primarily focused on this theme. We continued our Hooked on Phonics book, talked about the d sound, traced it, wrote it, and made it. Look at that beautiful grip!

She really liked the dinosaur prewriting activity from Confessions of a Homeschooler. She did pretty well with it too. Cricket traced everything she was supposed to correctly, but she also added some free hand work. 

Cricket used dinosaur stickers to decorate her letter's this week and then colored them. She also wrote out uppercase and lowercase letters in shaving cream.

In recognition of the letter d Cricket had some special treats this week. She had dinosaur sandwiches, dinosaur chicken nuggets, and doughnuts.

Language Arts

At library story time this week, the librarian used a felt board to tell the story of the Three Little Pigs. Then the kids made pig puppets.

Our theme books for this week were Danny and the Dinosaur, How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You?, My Big Dinosaur Book, Triceratops (Let's Read About Dinosaurs), The Day of the Dinosaur, and Encyclopedia Prehistorica Dinosaurs: The Definitive Pop-Up. I personally thought How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You was more of a list of bad behaviors, followed by a few good ones that symbolized I love you. I really don't care for books that I have to correct. I also had to correct The Day of the Dinosaur for content. That maybe why I liked My big dinosaur book so much. It really didn't have a story just high quality images and discussion points. One of our favorites was the pop-up encyclopedia though, we own this one and have always liked it. The pop-ups are well made and the book has lots of interesting facts.

Cricket had a hard time picking up the sign for the letter d this week. She has done really well with retaining the previous signs though.

I continued having her work on her name this week with a bottle cap name sort. She can now do the first two letters without looking, and the rest while looking at her name.

Math

Cricket worked on the number 3 this week. She did really well with tracing these and writing a couple on her own. She dot painted a large number 3. Cricket also worked on a 0-7 number sort. At first she had trouble with where to place the zero, but by the end of the week she could arrange them all correctly. I continued to work on the concept of zero, Cricket will answer there is "none" and I'm trying to teacher her that the number for none is zero.

I also introduced addition to Cricket using manipulatives and visual cues. She is catching on to this faster and better than I expected.

Cricket began studying diamonds this week. She used the diamond cut-outs to search the house for diamonds and yellow items. Diamonds were very hard to find that's why I added the color of the shape. One of my proudest moments this week was when she completed an identify the different shape worksheet. She colored all of the different shapes correctly, but what made me proud is that she stopped there. Translation: SHE FOLLOWED DIRECTIONS!!!! She did this without nagging or prompts from mommy too.

Geography

Cricket did a brief review of Delaware this week. She completed a coloring sheet on it and I showed her it on the puzzle map and talked to her about it.

 

Art

In addition to our stART project this week, we did a play doh activity. First, I let Cricket just play with play doh one of her favorites, and when she was running out of ideas I broke out the dinosaurs. We made foot prints through the play doh and compared the marks left by the different dinosaurs. She then buried and excavated them, like a good little archaeologist.

Cricket became very attached to her triceratops or "favorite green dinosaur" as she lovingly referred to it. The dinosaur participated in most of our activities through out the week.

Physical Education

Cricket had her gymnastics "debut" this week, when she participated in the Y's gymnastics display at the Labor Day event. She did well all things considered, but she didn't want to walk barefoot on the ground or the hot mats. Once she got going she actually did her "tricks" well though. She also had regular class later in the week, and the coach noticed improvements. Cricket was actually able to do chin-ups on the bar by herself for the 1st time (strength is her weakness so this was a big deal).

We also went swimming and had a play day at Mimi's on Wednesday.

Life Skills

Cricket continued to work on potty training, and we increased the difficulty of earning a reward for this. Previously, Cricket was getting to pick a prize from the prize bag if she made it all day without an accident. These prizes were an assortment of dollar store or Target dollar spot items I collected ahead of time. Now Cricket has a chart for the week, and if she makes it all day she earns a sticker for the chart. She has to earn at least 5 stars during the week to get to go to the store and pick out a special prize. This week she managed to earn 5 stars and really enjoyed our store trip to pick out her special prize, a buzz light year doll.

Tot School

We went to the dinosaur train website several times, and played sequencing games. Cricket also liked picking different dinosaurs to look at and learn about in the "field guide".

Cricket completed a dinosaur cut out, a dog cutting page, and a maze.

Cricket did a dinosaur match game, heads and tails, that I found here. She correctly completed a dinosaur sequencing sheet too.

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