Friday, August 16, 2013

August Day 4 - Hold It Together

Day 4's activities fell on a Wednesday when Colton and Riley are here.  We were learning about things that hold stuff together.  Like paperclips, staples, even band-aids. 

Peter was the only one interested in the Sticky Bandage guy.  I had him climb up at the counter and worked with him on coloring the little man cut out.  I read the little poem on the cut out.  It said:

I was twirling in a circle,
(Roll hands and twist)

Then I fell and scraped my knee
(Hold knee with a sad face.)

My Dad gave me a bandage,
(Pretend to put on bandage and smile.)

Then kissed away my owie!
(Blow kiss.)

As I read, I acted it out as it describes.  Peter then put the bandage on the little cut outs knee.  I have to say, he thought it was pretty cool to use a bandage in a project.  Both boys love them and go to get them anytime someone is hurt.  Even if Mommy says "ouch" they run off to get one.  They can, as you know, make all things better.  I explained to Lachlan and Peter that band-aids hold our owies together until they get better.

What Begins with B?  Instead of getting out a piece of paper and writing the letter B on it I just grabbed a B flashcard.  I held it up and made the sound /b/ band-aid, /b/b/ blocks.  Then we explored for a little while other words that begin with the /b/ sound.  The flashcard had a picture of a bee on it, so that was one more word.

The two littles were taking naps so I gathered the big kids at the counter.  I gave them each a piece of paper as instructed in the Staple the Letters activity.  First I instructed them to cut their piece of paper into smaller pieces, 3 or more.  Once that was completed I had them write the letter B on each piece.  Colton whizzed through this and Riley too.  She is great at writing.  Lachlan, has not been very willing to practice writing.  He especially doesn't like just free handing but enjoys tracing better.  All of it helps.  But for this exercise he had to free hand.  I was encouraging him to give it a try and so was sweet Riley, but it was just getting him more frustrated.  Finally he began to try on his own.  He did one of the round parts on the front of a B first and then the other and then the line.  I tried to show him to draw the line first and then the two bumps.  Again he got pretty mad.  He really likes to figure things out on his own.  However, it is much easier to write each letter in the correct order then to do it all backwards.  So I need to find a way for him to sit down on his own and work it out but a way that shows him the correct order.  I have a couple letter tracing apps but it's tracing.  I sure would love for him free hand.  I might just have to try to show him the ones that have the arrows and numbers showing him which way to start.  Or maybe this isn't that big of a deal at this point?  Any thoughts from all of you? 


Eventually he listened to my verbal instruction.  First the line, then one big belly, then the other big belly.  He got a couple B's just perfect. 


When all our B's were written we stacked the papers together and stapled them on the edge to make a B book.  They all loved the stapling part and all the books were quite sturdy for their size with many staples holding them together. 

The next project we did with the three big kids was the Paperclips and Shapes.  For this one we were to create paperclip chains.  Then take the chains to make different shapes.  This was right up Colton's alley.  He loved this project.  He wanted to make the longest chain, so did Riley and Lachlan of course.  So it quickly turned into a paperclip chain making competition.  But it is such a good fine motor task.  They spent forever working on this.  At the very end we connected all of our chains together to see just how long they were. 

Everyone getting to work.

Riley's chain so far.


Checking the length of his chain.
All of the chains paperclips put together.  They stretch all the way from the kitchen through the living room.
I told Colton he should play a prank on his Dad.  He should buy him a brand new box of paperclips and hook them all together.  Then put them back in the box and then wrap them up for his Dad to take to work.  Then when he goes to grab a paperclip he will get a lot more than he intended.  Colton liked the idea.  I don't think Travis reads my blog, so hopefully I'm not giving it away.

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