Weekly Wrap-Up

Here is what we've been up to this week, by our learning box categories (for those new to the blog, my son is 2 years, 10 months old, but an early reader.  I fill a rolling cart of 10 drawers with activities for him, and he asks to do them when he feels like it).

Fun with Numbers
We read the Greedy Triangle, and did a fun companion activity that I posted about (and shared a shapes printable for) in this post.

We also read two fantastic books on Addition (What's New at the Zoo) and Subtraction (What's the Difference?).  I'll be reviewing/heartily praising both more fully in a blog post on Monday.

Animals and Nature (and Science)

Our focus animal of the week was a zebra.  We read and enjoyed these two books, both of which were at a nice level for him:

I noticed when he was playing Jumpstart on the computer last week that he seems to get size ordering activities wrong sometimes, so I printed an ordering activity with zebras, and another the next day with tigers.  (Of course he had to sit on his zebra chair while he did it!).  He sometimes transposes the order of two of the animals, but eventually gets it.  So I think it's an activity that we'll keep doing.  If you'd like these printables uploaded to Scribd, just let me know in a comment.

Last weekend, I also introduced the idea of climate. (See blog post here).

Arts and Crafts
We did a fun Matisse-inspired tissue art craft; blog post about it is here.  We also did a few other artist-inspired art projects that I will post about in the future.  (I'm not usually very good about scheduling posts; I get too excited to share things!  But I'm trying.)  We also did some more salad spinner art, after he begged (here's our post from when we last did this).

Let's Get Moving
I've neglected this box lately, but we did get moving; we attended a Walk For Food Allergies on Saturday (the Bibliophile is allergic to wheat, milk, nuts, eggs, sesame, and oat).

Word Games

I gave him a page from a workbook with ending sound digraphs (ch, th, etc.).  He LOVES workbook pages (right up there with sticker books), and I was just curious how he’d do on it.  He loved it, and got them all, except for trying "sh" for couch at first, until I demonstrated the different sounds for him.

Game Box
This week's new-to-him game is Stonewall, and he has been loving it.  I think the game is technically for age 8 and up.  The rules are basic, though.  A player starts in one corner of the cloth board.  Each turn, he roles, then moves that number of spaces.  He then gets to place one wooden wall down anywhere he chooses (within a few limitations).  His goal is to make it to the opposite corner of the board, then back to his starting point again.  Adding walls allows him to make it more difficult for his opponent, but also might make his route back home more difficult.  Note that some of the walls are small, so there are choking hazards.  When we play with the Bibliophile, we don't bother going back home again - he just has to make it to the other side of the board.  And of course we're not very ruthless in our placement of walls to block him.  He likes to place his wall and say, "I am making it hard for you!" though.  Skills taught: counting, strategy/reasoning/general smartiepantsedness.

Reading and Storytelling
Over the weekend, he kept asking me for his "story ideas" sheet.  I had created it with him a few months ago, when he kept asking me to tell him stories about his hotwheels cars.  The sheet had long since disappeared, so we created another one together.  We titled it Story Ideas for Cars and Trucks.  It contains a table with 16 ideas, like "he gets a flat tire" or "they go to the zoo."  Ideally, he uses it to prompt himself to tell stories.  But often he uses it to pick which story Daddy or I will tell.

Play Fun (our miscellaneous box; he named it "Play Fun").
We both loved doing our My First Photo Assignment activity; blog post and free printable can be found here.  I also printed some simple mazes, which he loved.  I see a Kumon book of mazes in his birthday future.

Spanish
He has been enjoying a new video - Sing and Learn Spanish.  I also printed a flashcards sheet from here (I didn't cut them out as flashcards - we just read it like that a few times).  We've started singing Happy Birthday in Spanish occasionally.  But mostly he enjoys singing numbers in Spanish.  I used to sing 1-10 in Spanish, to a little made up tune.  He lengthened it, and now will go up to 30 often, and sometimes as high as 100, stopping to quiz me at the powers of 10, and then taking it from there (he gets the y uno, y dos, y tres idea). 

Countries/Places (Geography)
This week, we focused on Belarus, and posted about it here.

Reminder: Our give away for a super fun game - Aquarius - ends Friday night.  Click here to enter!

I am linking this post up Preschool Corner, Weekly Wrap-Up, and Tot School.

Comments! What have your kids been learning about this week?

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