School Is In!

Well, not exactly "schooooool."  I found a very fun little curriculum online for ages 2 - 4 here:  http://www.letteroftheweek.com/index.html.  It's a fun little weekly toddler/preschool learning adventure and, best of all, it's FREE!  :)

We're in week 1, and here's what Ever and I are learning all about:

Theme : Cows
Vocabulary Word:  Calf
Shape:  Square
Letter:  A
Number:  1
Nursery Rhyme:  Hey Diddle Diddle

So far, he seems to grasp that cows give us milk and other dairy products.  He can say "calf" if I ask him to, but usually just says "baby" when I point to one and ask him what it is.

The square, though. <Sigh>  He calls them triangles..lol.  He had a pretty good grasp of shapes (and numbers and letters, for that matter) up until a couple of months ago when he just lost all interest in them.  It's probably my fault for not reinforcing what he had learned, but I'm sure he'll get interested again soon enough.  He already knew what the letter "A" was all about, the sound it makes, etc, so I can't complain too much about the shapes. :)

Here's my 2 little activities for today.  Wednesday is when the letter of the week is introduced, so our main focus today has been on "A".  I should mention that I also got these activity suggestions from the above-mentioned site.  While I'd like to become more creative and imaginative, it'll probably be awhile. I did, however, pick up a lot of very cool "Montessori" like things at Goodwill yesterday.  Some of which are pictured below.  (More on my feelings about Montessori at some later point).

Little coloring station:

 Rice for tracing "A" with his finger:

 His little "table of the week":

Learning poster (I suck at posters)  Something new gets added on daily:

 What he did this morning instead of the activities I set out for him:

 Half-hearted, left-handed attempt at coloring:

He did have fun with the rice for all of 2 minutes.  It ended up being a nice fine motor activity, since he had to help me pick up all the rice he inevitably spilled:

We then read a couple of cow books that we checked out from the library, sang Old MacDonald and called it a day.  :)  I think he enjoyed story time at the library this morning (We need to go to that every week) and playing at the park and then at McDonald's far more than "school."  But, I think he's at least learning to have an appreciation for our very moo-y friends.

Currently trying to hunt down someone with a farm so he can see one up close and personal.  I have a lead.....hoping we get to have our first real field trip on Friday! :)