A Week-Amazing and Apple Filled

Right before Cordie turned 3, we did Letter of the Week.  We began in September and ended (at X) when Theo suddenly made his appearance on the scene.  Cordie has been asking to do it again since last summer.  I had a three month old baby and it was just too much to consider and plan at that time.  Recently, we've discovered that Cordie is having some fine motor control issues.  I decided to do a second round of Letter of the Week with an emphasis on fine motor activities.  There are so few years of childhood and I wanted it to feel like play, even if she's really working on something.  This was A week; here's a look at our schedule of activities.

Monday:  Archeologist dig and Airplane play
Tuesday:  Alligator A and Aladdin
Wednesday:  Ant from spoons and Apple sensory box
Thursday:  Apple stamping and Aliens & Astronauts
Friday:  A worksheet and Arctic Activity-blubber

When we did LotW the first go-round I had specific categories I wanted to fill in each week:  food, motion, Disney movie, and craft.  This time I am trying to be a little more chill.  It was an intense experience the first time.  I tried to do 3-4 activities each day and that is not reasonable now.  This time my categories are:  fine motor, science, Disney movie, worksheet.  Of course, there are tons of other categories you could add like music or nature.

Every week I scour both kids' book shelves for books that fit our letter.  Last time I strove for 15 different books each week (enough for our three nightly stories for all five days of activities).  Again, I'm going more relaxed this time, so whatever we have is what we have.  A is an easy one and we had a lot of choices.

Our Archeologist dig was my favorite fine motor activity.  I took small dinosaurs like you get at the dollar tree, buried them in a planter, and gave her different diameter brushes to brush away the dirt from the dinos.  After the dinos were exhumed, they got a bath from a squirt bottle while I suggested specific parts that she douse to encourage not only working her finger and hand muscles by squeezing, but also aim the stream onto teeny tiny dino feet and tails.

Airplane play included some in flight snacks and imaging what all we could see from the air (and an all to real kicking of the chair in front of us).  This was Theo's favorite because he got in on the action.

Alligator A practiced fine motor skills with squeezing the glue bottle, cutting teeth, coloring the eyes, and placing the teeth.  Unfortunately, our alligator had rotten teeth that began to fall out.  The dentist had to be called and the teeth had to be extracted.  I feel torn when she does crafts like this because I know a teacher won't say that it's "right", but it's way more creative than just filling the interior of the A with teeth as I had planned.

Our Ant from spoons was a Pinterest fail.  If you attempt this one yourself, black spoons are the way to go.  Our ant legs were too short because we needed to cover the body thoroughly.  Eh, whatever.  We're pretty short ourselves!  Fine motor skills were gluing and wrapping the pipe cleaners.

Aliens and Astronauts is a variation of hide and seek.  The astronaut hunts for the alien and when found, the alien chases the astronaut.  The astronaut can make it back to base for safety or be caught and eaten (tickled and nom-nom-nomed) by the alien.  I conceived it as a fun game because she loves hide and seek, but there is definitely a deeper and darker narrative about colonialism if you want to get into that.  Who doesn't want to discuss the crimes against indigenous people with their preschooler!?

Our science activity for the week was an Arctic theme.  First Cordie put her hand in icy water to feel how cold it is.  Then I put on a plastic glove, a layer of Crisco, and a second glove.  Then she stuck her hand back in to feel how much warmer she felt.  Then I talked to her about how polar bears, whales, and other Arctic animals have a similar layer of fat that keeps them warm in subzero temperatures.  Afterward, the unused Crisco turned into dumplings, so this was probably Josh's favorite activity!

Whew!  It was a busy week and we've got 25 more to go, or less if I decided to combine some of those hard to find letters into one week-I'm looking at you X, I can't take a whole week of xylophone playing!  Stay tuned for B week!