Day One of Apples

It's been almost a year since I started doing fun, sensory activities with my little girl. All throughout these months, I've come across wonderful moms and kindergarten teachers on Instagram that share the same passion like I do, in fact, some of them have become my friends. I also get inspiration from so many blogs and kids' activities websites. Ever since then, I look forward to waking up everyday so I can do all these things with Lia. At times overwhelming, but exciting for sure!

I started letter of the week with my little girl when she was around 18 months. I first gave her simple worksheets to color and some alphabet books we can go through. We watched videos and sang songs...and that was it- she was done! After we got through the letter C, I decided to give her a break. After all, she's the boss. 

So here we are some few months after she has mastered the alphabet, I tried doing letter of the week activities again with her. We are doing a whole week of apples, along with the preschool curriculum I purchased from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I tweaked most of it according to my little girl's interest and capability, so I primarily used Confessions for our worksheets.

The first day of Apples was super fun! Our story was Ten Apples Up on Top by Theo Lesieg, along with a short Bible story of Adam and Eve. She was only half attentive while I read the books to her, flipping the pages endlessly... so I gave up {she's the boss!}. One thing I have learned is to read your child's cues. They will be interested when they are, so I always tell myself that we can try again next time. We moved over to decorating the Aa activity sheet with a red stamper and a red marker for a few minutes.

 Decorating the Aa with a red marker. One, because apples are mostly red. Two, we need to work more on identifying colors at 22 Months.

When she was done with the first activity, we proceeded with another activity from Confessions of a Homeschooler. It's a magnet sheet that I laminated so we can reuse it again in the future. Lia was to put in the magnets on the circle. I showed her how to do it- but it's not a totally successful activity for now, as she is so curious about why some of these magnets do not stay on top of each other. She would often times ask me to help her put them on top of each other!

Another worksheet we've worked on is matching these laminated upper and lower case Aa's with those on the tree. Wow, she was good!

 Surprised that she stayed focus the entire time doing this activity! She asked to do this again when she was done!

I actually put tape behind the laminated apples so she can stick them on the tree. The worksheet and the apples are laminated, so they have the tendency to slip. This is Lia showing off her work.

Here is another idea I knew she would love.  "Apple Fingers" as we call it. We sang an apple song with these as props and Lia got too excited! She was giggling!

She loves something that sticks on her nose too. So we did. 

 She was actually singing the finger song in this picture

For the arts and crafts activity, we were going to make an apple tree with tissue paper and a cardboard roll. I made the tree, Lia was going to glue the apples.

Tiny, fine motor muscles at work!

Gluing is one her favorite things to do. It's sensory play too!

Yay! Our finished product :)

The first day of Tot School wouldn't be complete without gross motor play. So here we are balancing some apples on our head. I knew she was going to LOVE it!

She actually balanced one on her head for a few seconds!

It wasn't bad for a first day after all. I actually allocated two whole weeks to plan out for the first week. The whole planning, organizing and taking notes was a challenge, all because everything was new to me. But everything was fun- and especially when I see that happy, contented, little face...hear those happy giggles...I know it's going to be worth it :)