Treasure Island - Captain

Day 2 of this months theme we whizzed through, now Day 3 has taken us days to work through.  I am not exactly sure what makes one day so easy and another day more of a challenge.  I know that it's not the curriculum, it's more our busy schedule and some bad moods that sometimes come the day after a busy day.  I need to get better at establishing a routine for my boys, as best as I can with our days not being predictable right now.  This is something I will work on.  But none the less, this was a fun "Day" of curriculum where we learned about the Captain of a ship.

We were watching a neighbor girl when we started the first project and I thought she would really enjoy/be a lot of help with the lesson Alphabet Tree.  So I cut out and set up the big palm tree that Mother Goose Time provided us with.  Then I punched out the cocoanuts.  One with each letter of the alphabet on it, and hid them around the room.

 Here they are in search of the cocoanuts.  I had them just set all over the room.  But one of them I had in a basket and it was the last one to be found.

Peter found it!

 Everyone brought there cocoanuts over and we placed the whole collection on the floor right by the palm tree.

 We started with A.  I had Autumn find A, then asked Lachlan to find B and Peter to find C and we kept working through the alphabet like that, placing them up on the tree.  That is until Lachlan got frustrated looking for the letter H.  He said he couldn't do it and wanted me to show him where it was.  When I refused and encouraged him to find the H on his own he got so frustrated.  My poor little guy wants to be perfect the first time he does anything.  He gives up very easy.  So I don't know if that is a sign that I have been stepping in to help him with things too quickly, or if that's just part of who he is.  I need to keep working on his skill to keep trying and working hard on something even when it's getting frustrating.  Now that I think back, as a toddler he would try to stack blocks and get so mad when one would fall he would smash the rest of the blocks down and move on.  So if any of you have tips on this, that would be great!  I think for now I will just keep encouraging him on the little things.

 Next we did the Passing Ships activity.  This was fun.  I think I will keep these numbered ship cards handy so we can do it again.

 I set out the ship cards around the outside of the rug in the living room.  Then I turned on the music CD from Mother Goose Time, the Treasure Island songs, and they danced around the rug until the music stopped.  When the music stopped they grabbed the ship card closest to them and told me the number.  Then they went again and again until all the numbers were picked up.  Adam enjoyed the show.

 The last lesson I have pictures of for this day is Letter Logs.  But we ended up doing it a little different.  We were suppose to point out each cocoanut on the tree and have them find it in their My Little Journal and then trace it.

I have been trying to teach Lachlan the correct way to write each letter, but he really does not like taking direct instruction from me.  He says "I know, I know."  This is why Mother Goose Time has been so great, because he has been learning with out direct instruction, just play.  But sometimes he just needs to listen and learn, so we are working on it.

I decided to put the tracing app I have on the iPad to good use.  It's an app by Alligator apps.  I love their stuff.  It gives them a starting point to place their finger and only allows them to trace the direction and order you are supposed to for each letter.  So I put it on it's all caps setting on random.  Lachlan would trace the letter with his finger, then find it on the journal page and trace it with the marker.  Most of the time he would follow the muscle memory from just tracing it on the iPad and write it in the correct order and from top to bottom.  Normally he starts at the bottom of the letter and struggles to make a straight line.  It's tough to pull a pen or marker up but much easier pulling it down on the page.

He kept going at this until he had worked through all of the letters.  We are going to have to do this again for sure!

 The only tough part was that as soon as he was done tracing the letter on the app it pulled up a new letter.  So he couldn't look back to see what that letter was and find it.  But I did discover towards the end, that you can swipe back to the previous letter and pull it up again if needed.

He was pretty proud of himself, and I was proud of him too!  He moved through this activity with excitement and joy, no frustration.  That's always a good way to learn!