Sophie School: The Letter A

Hello friends!  I know it's been a while since I blogged, but it's not like we haven't been doing anything!  In August, I began introducing Sophie to structured learning.  She catches onto things so quickly, so I wanted to begin introducing school-type things to her.  Some things I wanted to focus on were letters, numbers, and colors.  There is not too much out there online for learning at her age as most begin around preschool age (3-4 years old), but I was able to find a few websites that had activities that either were fit for her age, was something I could adjust to her level, or just barely beyond her level (to push her a little and see what she could do).  Most importantly, I want her to learn, yet still have fun!

Our first focus was on the letter A, the color red, and the number 1.  We also did a few activities with apples to help us with A.  Even though these were our main focus, we did do other colors and numbers as we saw them.  Here are some of the things we did:

I drew an apple, traced it onto red, green, and yellow construction paper, then laminated them for us to go "apple picking".

Sophie "picking" the apples from around the living room.

Since picking didn't take long, we went over the colors a lot for the next week or so.  She loved holding them and playing with them.

Sophie and Daddy did some finger painting!  They were putting apple thumbprints on the tree in the top painting.  The bottom is just for fun once they finished.  :)

Three part apple puzzle.  I put magnets on the back for her to do on a magnetic white board and on the refrigerator. 

Think she had fun??  Silly girl! She actually did the puzzle there as well.

Trying her hand at lacing around the apple.  She isn't too interested in this, I guess because she has a very hard time with it.  We'll try again another letter.

Felt board I made.  I did the red one here, Sophie did the yellow.  Not too bad!  And don't forget the worm.

The last thing we did before calling A done was to create the following folder.  The idea and printouts to do it came from a free download I had several months ago that turned out to be so fabulous that I recommend if you can buy it, buy it!  I believe it's marked at $40, but it's fabulous.  You could probably come up with it by yourself as well if you are not able to buy it.  The download is a 1008 page book called Exploring Letters in My World.  The link for it is HERE.

The front is the letter A as an angel.  Sophie helped me color it, even though it looks like I did it all.  One exciting thing about putting the folder together was Sophie was able to begin using glue as well.  After making sure it was gluten-free (which all of Elmer's glue is!), then I helped her maneuver a glue stick.  She did very well on it!  She likes to go over the same place over and over, so I have to finish by getting glue all over the paper, but she tries very hard and concentrates on it very well.  She placed on the head and halo below.  :)

A for Angel

Inside is a poem on the left using several A words.  The right has the Bible verse under the A flap: A soft answer turneth away wrath. Proverbs 15:1.  In the pocket below is flashcards for A words, most of which were a little much for Sophie, such as Astronaut.  She's barely on 2 syllable words so that one was tough.  The bottom right is actually a flap as well for things that are red.  It has a fire truck, apple, and strawberry under the flap that she colored red.

Inside the folder

The back shows a printout of the ASL for the letter A.  We've been doing sign language a bit with Sophie since she was about 6 months old, so this was something that I definitely wanted to incorporate and was very happy that it was included in the lessons.  She is very close to being able to sign A! It just looks more like the letter S sometimes depending on where she puts her thumb.  :)

Back of the folder

Some other things we did was to color printouts of the letter A, color an apple, look in magazines for things that were red or had 1 item, play with dominoes to find the ones, work on showing 1 with her fingers, singing the ABCs, and lots and lots of flashcards.  Sophie LOVES flashcards, so I have a few sets that have the alphabet, colors, shapes, numbers, and opposites on them.  She does well with ones that have words on them with a picture she can identify.  We're still working on the rest. 

I cannot say that I came up with all of this.  There are some brilliant moms out there who did most of that for me.  Here are their sites so please go visit them!  There are older activities on there as well.  Brilliant I tell ya!

www.1plus1plus1equals1.com - Her activities we did are listed as Tot School.
www.oopseydaisyblog.com - Her activities are listed as Mommy School.