Week 15 & 16 - ABC Jesus Loves Me

We are several weeks behind in the curriculum, so I'm going to list the Bible stories/themes, but we didn't always go along exactly.  You'll understand as you go.  As always you can get the full lesson plans for Week 15 and Week 16 at ABC Jesus Loves Me.

This week's goals:

Bible Theme/Story:  Happy Birthday, Jesus

Bible Verse:  I John 4:8

Books:  Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?, I Love You Through And Through
Color:  Brown, Yellow
Letters: Q-S
Number: 1-5
Shapes:  Star, Square

Information:  Mom's name

Self-Care and Manners:  saying "excuse me", "please", "thank you"

Fine Motor Skill:  play with water, containers, sponge; square poster painted on vertical surface

Gross Motor Skill:  Memory obstacle course; march around the room singing your favorite song or nursery rhyme

The past 2 weeks we've been working on Valentine's Day cards for some family and friends.  And yes, it took us 2 weeks to get done all the cards we wanted to do.  You saw part of the process in the last post, and here's part of an almost finished product:

By the time that we working on our last card, Isaiah was with some guidance actually writing letters!  Go ahead, imagine this mama doing quite the happy dance!

Bible Story

Since we were making "Hearts of Many Colors", I decided to read the story of Joseph (and his coat of many colors) with the kids.  

Books

We enjoyed reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?  This book was great for colors, of course; and we also used it for reviewing animals and their sounds.  Since we don't have I Love You Through and Through, we read Guess How Much I Love You, which is one of my favorites and has a cute brown hare in it after all.  

The M&M's Brand Chocolate Candies Counting Book was a favorite for all 3 of us.  We used it for colors, counting and shapes.  It also has a fun section for subtraction if your child is ready to play with that fun aspect of learning - and eat a few M&M's.

Colors and Shapes and Numbers

Lots of coloring and play-doh worked for us.  Oh, and the M&M book again.  

Isaiah is really into playing kitchen right now.  We have a pretty good supply of plastic food and such, which we used for naming and talking about colors and shapes.  I'm finally starting to learn how to better direct Isaiah's play to be more of a learning opportunity.  This has been quite freeing for me, and I really like it!

Information, Self-care and Manners
Isaiah has all this down cold!  He's really something.  I have to remind him sometimes to call me "Mommy" when he gets really excited and starts hollering for "Cristy!"


If you've been around him for any length of time, then you know how well Isaiah uses "please" and "thank you".  We're working on "excuse me", which is a good thing as he becomes more familiar with those bodily things that boys think are so funny.


Fine Motor Skills
Continuing with our Valentine's Day activities, we made sugar cookies and cut them into hearts.  Isaiah did a great job with this, especially after I realized that his stander was at the perfect level to come right up to the table.  He seemed to have a great time!

We had to keep up our family tradition of "floured noses".

Nadia REALLY got into this baking!  She insisted on finishing all the dough once Isaiah had lost interest.

Our finished product.  Thanks to Grandma's sugar cookie recipe, they were a great hit!

Enjoying the fruit of his labors

We have been quite excited with Isaiah's activity in occupational therapy.  He stacked these pegs all by himself - all 10 of them!  This activity is something that he LOATHED doing in the past.




While we didn't even attempt a Memory Obstacle Course as the lesson plan suggested, Isaiah did work really hard in physical therapy on a tough obstacle course by his therapist.  He's learning how to lift his walker over small obstacles, and it's really hard.  He doesn't like it, but he's getting better at it.

On Valentine's Day, Isaiah and I got to spend lots of time together.  We had his pre-op visit for his upcoming surgery.  For 4 hours we waited and saw doctors, but mostly waited.  We had to pass the time somehow, so we made faces.





While I wasn't crazy about waiting 4 hours, I really did enjoy having some one on one time with my boy.

My sister-in-law, Emily has started posting her creative activities with her 3 little people, and you should definitely check it out!  She's a great teacher and a terrific mama.

Two for One - Weeks 13 & 14 ABCJLM

So, as you probably didn't notice, I'm late as usual with posting what we're up to, and I actually have a good reason this time.  I've been sick, and I'm not going any further than that because it was really unpleasant.  We'll just combine the last 2 weeks work in to 1 post, and then we'll hope that next week I can post something from this week.  And if you feel dizzy from that last sentence, you're not the only one.

This week's goals:

Bible Theme/Story:  Thank you, God, for making me

Bible Verse:  Psalm 139:14

Books:  Wheels on the Bus, What Do You Do with a Grumpy Kangaroo?, Chicka, Chicka, Boom, Boom, My First Body Board Book, Put Me In The Zoo

Color:  Red, Blue, Yellow, Green, Purple

Letters: A-P

Number: 1-4

Shapes:  Circle, Line, Square, Triangle

Information:  First, middle, and last name

Self-Care and Manners:  Dress self and name clothing

Fine Motor Skill:  String Beads

Gross Motor Skill:  Throw a bean bag into a goal of some sort

For the Bible Theme/Story we read about creation again and talked about God making each person to live for Him and bring Him glory.  We made a collage of pictures from magazines of people from all different races.  We even found a picture of a boy in a wheelchair, which Isaiah seemed to enjoy.  I didn't do the worksheets from the curriculum, because quite honestly, Isaiah doesn't like to color, so only today did I think of an alternative that I'll post about later.

Isaiah still enjoyed his Wheels on the Bus app very much.  He's figured out how to switch the languages, so we'll often hear German, Spanish, French or Italian floating through the house.

To talk about feelings I cut out the emotions printables and laminated them.  I had the great idea that I would them glue them to popsicle sticks with the word written on there.  Lamination and glue don't get along.  Now I know.

We did several activities with Put Me In The Zoo which we actually own, thank goodness.

I drew an outline of what was supposed to be the animal from the book and had the kids draw dots like his spots.

Then Isaiah actually tried to write!  I was so excited!  You can't see it clearly here, but he was trying to hold the marker in a very correct position and everything.

Sister got in on the action, too.  Yes, these are washable.

Next we played with poms in lots of different ways always talking about the colors.  Isaiah LOVES glue, so he enjoyed gluing the poms to a plate.  We also practiced throwing them into a big bowl and putting them in little bowls.

Isaiah later asked me to help him draw Buzz Lightyear who then became Daddy.  I'm just excited that he wanted to draw!

We've started working on some super secret Valentine cards.  He did a great job with his cutting, which we hadn't tried in a while.

Then we tore some paper for our cards, and I had him drop the pieces in the bag to work on fine motor and following directions.  It also helped him stretch to the left, which is something good for his PT.

And we're in the process of celebrating his birthday for a little while, so I can't wait to share about that next week!  Unless of course, I'm late, as usual.