The Letter B

Our second week of homeschool focused on the letter B. Most of our themes and activities came from Preschool Alphabet. We only added a few activities and mostly these were ways to incorporate Spanish into our lessons.

Bears:

• I reenacted the story of Goldilocks and The Three Bears in Spanish using my flannelboard and the story characters that I already had on hand. Since it was in Spanish, I stopped along the way to ask questions to ensure comprehension. Her responses were in English unless I gave her specific choices like  ¿Es grande o pequeña? This was a great story for teaching the concepts and Spanish words for small, medium and large. After telling the story twice, per Ellie's request, I had her retell it using the flannelboard characters. She had so much fun - y'all, flannelboards are really under appreciated! Next we watched this Spanish video of the story. 

• We read Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? by Bill Martin Jr. & Eric Carle. Well, actually we read the Spanish version - Oso Pardo, Oso Pardo  ¿qué ves ahí?  The Spanish version has a great rhythm to it and I think it more catchy than the original. Ellie has enjoyed it since she was a little baby! I laminated pictures of all the different animals from the book and had her try to guess which one was next by repeating the name and color of the animal in Spanish. After the story, I placed laminated construction paper of various colors on the floor and had her hop from color to color as I named it in Spanish. She enjoyed this game so much that we played it multiple times over the week. I also made a clank can to go along with the story using the printable and tutorial over at Making Learning Fun. The girls got a lesson in sharing and taking turns since the clank can was so popular! Hannah Rose enjoyed the clanking noise and the coins (a.k.a. juice can lids!) were just the right size for her. Some of you may remember that I have been saving juice lids for awhile (see this post...which coincidentally also shows a pencil holder that has now evolved into the clank clan below. Ha!). I was able to make four different sets of clank coins for future stories with all that I have saved. 

Butterflies:

• Read The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle in Spanish (La Oruga Muy Hambrienta). I, again, used cut out pictures from the story and let Ellie help act out the story as we read. We have a clank clan for this story too! 

Buttons:

• I pulled out my stash of miscellaneous buttons and had Ellie sort them in the egg carton color box I made after seeing this idea at Create Studio. 
• Using a letter B printout, I let Ellie glue buttons in the shape of the letter B. 

Ballet:

• Ellie started ballet over the summer and loves it. I knew this would make for a fun theme. We completed some of the prewriting practice and the graphing game available in the Ballerina Preschool Pack by 1+1+1=1. 
• Read Angelina Ballerina and dressed up like Angelina. I made her ears from pink and brown felt and a stretchy headband. We were even able to get Hannah Rose to dress up...but she didn't cooperate for a picture :)
• I printed an Angelina coloring page for Ellie but now I wish I would have also used this website - lots of interactive games and activities for any Angelina Ballerina fans. 
• Each week I try to incorporate some time for Ellie to "practice" her ballet from class. I like to play this music and let her dance around the room. 

That sums up the letter B! On a side note, Ellie has insisted on wearing her panda bear ears ever since we read Goldilocks and the Three Bears. She refers to herself as "Baby Bear".