Short week

Rachel here. Because Bryan and I were out of town Monday and Tuesday, Reese had the days off of preschool, but we hit it with full force come Wednesday. I wanted to get her started on letter sounds to start reading with her but wasn't sure if she was ready. I looked into the parts of a whole activities to see if she grasped the concept. She did great. I had this Winnie the Pooh puzzle game, so we gave that a go. She did awesome, and I didn't even have to explain it to her.

She also LOVED this transferring activity. Basically you take the appetizer tongs, pick up one of the colored frogs, and transfer it into one portion of the egg carton. She did it OVER and OVER again.

This activity KICKED HER BEHIND. She could not for the life of her squeeze the clothespins hard enough to keep them opened long enough to put on the rim of the tupperware. It was pretty interesting to see. She tried and tried and tried, and she finally gave up and said "it's just too hard Mommy."

SO instead she did this number puzzle I found in the dollar section of Target.

Her mouse also came in the mail FINALLY. We hooked it up and had another unsuccessful try at the old computer. Looking back at the pictures, I realized I had her trying to use her right had to control the mouse... she's a LEFTIE... FAIL.

She later began digging through some of my "school" cabinets and found a number matching game I was saving. Basically one side of the puzzle is a numeral (which she doesn't know), and the other side is a certain number of objects. The idea is to match the numeral to the objects. She can count objects, but was just kind of putting two pieces together until they all fit.

We also, after dinner, put in her "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" dvd we got from the library. She immediately ran to find her book, so she could "read" it while singing the song. :)

Today (Thursday) we started with our first letter sound. /R/. The first four sounds we are going to be doing are r, a, m, and f. I wasn't really sure how this was going to workout. I've tried to drill into her head that this is an "R". It starts her name. I can say "Reese this is an R... what letter is this?" And then she looks at me like I've just grown an extra set of eyes. I am proud to tell you though that we did this lesson this morning, and I asked her about 10 minutes ago what sound "this" was, and she said the sound with a smile on her face. :)

Basically I showed her the sheet below. I told her what sound it made, and we both traced the letter with our fingers. She then attempted to trace the letter with the dry erase marker (one inclination that we have some pre-writing practice to do), and then we "wrote" the letter in sugar that had been poured into a cookie sheet.

We then went over our /R/ basket. Everything in the basket begins with the /R/ sound... we named each item and REALLY emphasized the sound.

It was then time to "decorate" our /R/ with red rice. I just took 1/2 of rice and mixed it with 10 drops of red food coloring and 1/2 teaspoon of rubbing alcohol... then you bake at 200 degrees for 45 minutes. Reese put tacky glue inside her /R/'s and then sprinkled the red rice on top. The finished product is hanging on the wall in the dining/school room. (The "R" sheet is from First school over there to the right.)

She also had some "rainbow"... /r/ for rainbow... activities to work on. Sorting her frog beads by color.

This is where the day started to get hairy. Reese is NOT really into coloring. I happened to have TWO coloring activities for her today... both of which turned out "special" and unfinished. She pretty much fought me tooth and nail. In her defense, I later discovered she had a 100.4 temperature, so we'll try to finish them tomorrow. (Both of these activities are from First School.)

We also worked a bit on circles. She knows all her shapes, but these activities were really cute. The first is a lacing activity, and the second... Reese had to put a smiley sticker on each of the small circles. Both activities work on fine motor skills. (These activites are from Preschool Palace.)

The lacing activity was interesting. Reese had no problem putting the lace in the small holes, but not putting the lace in any random hole was where she had some difficulties. Needless to say, this activity is being saved again for tomorrow.

She LOVES LOVES LOVES stickers, so that portion was cake.

We also worked on mixing primary colors to make secondary colors. She has no clue why we did this or what it means, but she got to paint, so all was right with the world. :) We'll try again later for the concept. (First School)

This was about when she told me she was hungry, but didn't eat, and that she was "weally cold." Alas... a temperature. :(