A week: day five

This morning we had a friend's 21 month old little girl Addie here for a couple of hours. We did preschool while she was here (and Abby was in bed). Connor was excited to do it with Addie. I love that he's totally open to doing preschool whenever and with whomever. He knows that it's time that's dedicated for Mommy and him to learn together and that my focus will be on him, even if there are a couple of interruptions. He's great.

We did our computer time and our chart time. I'm excited that he's learning the days of the week and can help me say, "today is Friday, September 15, 2006."

Then we reviewed our A word cards. He can remember all five words: apple, animal, acrobat, astronaut, and alligator. And he's been excited throughout the week when he sees an astronaut or an alligator (in a book or pictured elsewhere) and tells me that it starts with A. It's helpful for kids to know words that go with each letter so if they ever forget the sound, they can say the word and hear the sound. Especially the short vowel sounds.

Then we said our poem. He almost has this memorized. It's so cute to hear him saying it with me. And later in the day he'll reference it or say a few lines of it out of the blue. This is our A week poem:

Apples, apples, one two three.
Apples for you;
Apples for me.
Apples big;
Apples small.
Apple trees shiny;
Apple trees tall.
Apples sour;
Apples sweet.
Apples, apples, are good to eat!

We read The Apple Pie Tree by Zoe Hall and Animal Orchestra by Tibor Gergely. Both are great books.

This afternoon we did apple printing. We cut an apple in half to see the star shape inside, removed the seeds, then put paint on the apple, and pressed it onto paper to make a print. Not amazing results, but the goal was not a great painting, but the fun of the process. It worked better when I cut the apple into a square and pentagon shape. smaller, easier to work with stamps. (Also note: cut straight through the apple or it won't be a flat surface and it won't print evenly.)


Connor requested apple shake-ups (see A week: day four) for a snack again today. So we got to do dancing time and shaking time again! And Connor just had to take a picture of Abby and me doing dancing time and shaking time. Kind of missed our heads on the first shot, but it gives you a good view of the apples. They were so yummy!


We got to color in the Aa on our alphabet poster because today is the last day of A week. Connor is excited that we'll get to do G week someday. G seems to be his favorite letter lately. He talks about it all the time and writes it whenever he has a pencil in hand. He especially likes that it's a C, just with another little line added on.