Oh, letter O. I had a lot of ideas, but they all came together SUPER last minute. So thankful for my talented husband, the #1 supporter of Parker Prep. He made some clutch manipulatives for me. Thanks Ryan!
Day 1
How perfect that O week just so happened to fall during the Olympics? We had been watching them pretty non-stop the past week, so Parker had a bit of an idea of what they were and why it was okay to have the TV on a majority of the day. His current favorite was bobsledding, which he calls, the Bobcat Sled. He likes it because it requires driving. Ryan was pushing him around in a little wagon the night before saying "Feel the rhythm. Feel the Ride. Get on Up, it's Bobsled time!" (From Cool Runnings) Parker could not stop laughing.
We usually do our preschool in the morning when Adley is sleeping, but today was SO nice, so we had to go outside. We didn't have to go far to find some huge piles that we pretended to bobsled down. Parker loved yelling, "It's bobsled time!"
Later that day, we sang the Jolly Phonics song for letter O. Then we counted to 40, reviewed numbers 1-10, reviewed shapes and noticed that oval and octagon both start with O. Then we reviewed letters A-N, their verses, and then we sang the Alphabet. We don't do this too much, but I wanted to call his attention to the "L, M, N, O, P" part. Usually when he gets to that part, he sings "Ella, Enno, P." I figured it was about time to fix that, even though I always thought it was cute when he sang it wrong.
We learned letter O and its verse,
"Obey the Lord, and follow His commands." Deuteronomy 27:10
For our Intro to Letter O activity, I had an O made out of a coffee filter that I had him cover with yellow octagons.
I just did the uppercase since the lowercase looks the same, and so I could continue on with the big picture... The Olympic Rings! I laid out four more coffee filter rings around the yellow one and showed him a picture of the rings in Sochi. I taught him a little about how the five rings represent the five regions of the world that compete in the Olympics, that the inter-locking symbolizes the unity of the countries during this time, and that at least one color of every country's flag is represented with the five colors. He covered the rings with the right color pattern blocks and puff balls.
Then we read
We played the Olympic Match Game. (I printed off two sets of the flashcards to make it work like a match game). I pulled out one of each card to show him the different sports. Then we laid them out and played the game. Parker was very excited when he got the Bobcat Sleds ;)
When we were finished, he wanted to lay them all out and tell me which one was his favorite. By this time, he had all the other sports memorized, including speed skating, ice hockey, snowboarding, cross-country skiing, and a few more. What a great way to learn!
Of course we watched the Olympics later that night, and Parker played the match game with Ryan the next day.
Day 2
Usually Day 1 is the "random things that start with that letter" day, but I was excited to do the Olympics. Day two was a bit random, but it came together pretty well.
We started by matching up the shades of orange.
Next, I had him pick out six toys of his choice.
I gave him an orange and asked him it was heavy or light. He said, "heavy." Then I had him hold the orange in one hand and take the toys one by one in the other hand and decide whether it was lighter or heavier than the orange.
Then, we read
The second time through, I would say the first word, we would act it out, Parker would tell me the opposite and we would do that, too. Then we ate the orange. Must've been tart ;)
While we were doing all of that, Ryan was making a letter maze based on a picture I showed him on Pinterest. His final product was 100x more awesome than what I had in mind!
Parker moved the owl along the O's, through the maze until it landed safely on the branch.
Ryan also made a sweet owl craft for them to put together. Boy's got skills!
Later, we read
Day 3
Originally, I was thinking O week would be all about the ocean, but for some reason this idea just became intimidating. Probably because the ocean is SO big. I can't possibly teach it in depth. haha. We were going to a friend's house in the morning, so I brought along some supplies.
First, we read
Then the kids painted toilet paper tubes (that would eventually turn into octopuses).
Then we read
Once the tubes were dry, I cut the 8 legs, curled them up with a pencil, and the kids picked out the eyes they wanted to use. (Not sure why they even make red googly eyes).
I thought they turned out pretty cute.
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