November 2011 Activities

 I was trying to figure out why I didn't have more pictures for this month.  Then I remembered that my camera got broken and I had to wait for a new one to arrive.

Ryan has been really into his name.  He has been practicing writing the letters.  Here he is with a slate and some letters from Handwriting Without Tears.  He doesn't have a good grasp yet, but he can build letters out of sticks and curves and has an idea of how to form capital letters.

Here is Ryan using a handwriting app that I like.  It is called Write Words.  I like that it requires you to form the letters using the correct formation AND it gives you some leeway, but not too much as to the boundaries.  He is getting good.  I wish Justin had had this when he was Ryan's age.

Lots of walking on our vacation over Thanksgiving weekend.

My boys love boxes.  They don't have any toys you know.

Packaging material is as much fun as the boxes.

Ryan is able to sort by color and size.

Justin's corn cob printing/painting.

Ryan's corn cob printing/painting.

Ryan really likes to get into his painting.  Why use other tools when you have hands available.

Justin doesn't make QUITE as much of a mess with paint as Ryan.

We colored turkeys and then cut them out and put them in order big to small and small to big.

I don't know what happened to the other turkey.  This one is Justin's.

Building The Alphabet

Justin has loved letters since he was about 19 months old.  Right now he is frustrated that his fine motor skills are not good enough to write letters and words the way he wants them to look.  I found some pages from a Handwriting Without Tears workbook that I had from when I was teaching.  I didn't have the wooden sticks that go with it though.  I solved the problem by making some out of cardstock and laminating them for durability.  In one of my classrooms I know I used cheap vinyl placemats to make the pieces that I needed since we didn't have enough of the wooden ones.  I have also seen people sell them on ebay for reasonable prices.

Once I showed him what to do and told him to look at the numbers to know what order to put the pieces in, he had a fun time with the activity.  Of course he wanted to show me after he built each letter.  That meant the activity didn't really buy me any time away from him, but maybe in the future.

I figured that I needed four big lines, 3 short lines, 2 big curves, and 2 little curves, but I made extra pieces while I was at it.  That way if I lose one or two I am still okay.  It also means that TB can work along side his brother, which of course he wants to do.