Tot School: Letter U

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We have spent our time with umbrellas and umbrella birds.  John has loved creating and writing Us this week and I am so very proud of him!

 Bible verse of the week:

Hide me under the shadow of Your wings.  Psalm 141:2 

We use the ABC bible verse songs from Songs for Saplings.  These songs are so catchy, beautiful, not “children’s music annoying,” and I find myself singing and learning and memorizing the bible verses along with John.  Carisa at 1plus1plus1equals1 has made coordinating ABC Bible Verses posters which have really helped with his memorization as well.

Letter of the week: Uu

Our curriculum consists of 1plus1plus1equals1‘s Tot School ABC’s.  

I didn’t get a picture of our table area, but we put up our bible verse, a Uu small poster from Tot School, a Uu sign from my Kindergarten teaching days, and these wonderful Montessori sandpaper letters above John’s table.  We put these up on the wall so he could feel the letter every morning and trace his fingers on the letter.  Our bin has his printables in an envelope, all ready, along with his poetry books and bibles.

Our poem, Rain, was the perfect poem for this week from my Robert Louis Stevenson Free Printables,

We also made a Uu on our beloved Expedit shelves and I made a couple Tot Trays too.  I included Confessions of a Homeschooler’s Shape Game and Lauri Alphabet Pegs.

Stations

I decided to present John’s Uu Activities as “Stations” on the kitchen table.  Check out the Learning Stations at The Measured Mom which is where I got this idea.  John loves this and we are doing it at least three times per letter now.

I put five stations out.

Stamping Us on the umbrella — then he loves stamping cows :)

Check out his U!  John has been very excited to make his R, S, T, and now U these last few weeks.  I am so proud of him — I am not pushing handwriting at all — and when I do it will be easier to harder letters — right now we are just exploring.  You can check out my post on pre-writing and uppercase letter writing here: {Early Literacy Stage 3!}  This wonderful handwriting sheet is free from The Measured Mom.

This weather themed activity: a rainbow color sort is from All Our Days.

Always loves using the Do-A-Dot markers.

I cut the color cards out and presented them on a tray.  John loved this and colored so well!  We use Crayola Triangular Crayons.

And coloring the Uu with dry erase markers!
Another day of stations!

We started with creating a Uu out of Wiki Stix on Carisa’s Animal Playdough Mats!

Gluing umbrella shapes onto the umbrella! Putting unifix cubes into the bowls with the proper number! More dry erase markers!.  John loves this!

Here is his work on the clothesline in his room:

I gave John a dish of salt and told him to make a Uu with his finger.  He loved this activity!  He got the hang of creating lines and circles and loved feeling it with his hands.

May wanted to try, but her brother did not want her in the way!

We played with Gluten Free Cloud Dough as part of our Sensory fun this week.

We also love to put out lentils or beans on a blanket and John plays with his trucks for at least an hour.  This is a wonderfully easy sensory quiet time.  

We also worked on many important skills in the kitchen.  See our posts on Transferring Marshmallows, Scooping Oatmeal, and Using a Knife!  (Click on a picture below to get to the post!)  

We made a U is for Umbrella Bird Felt Craft!

 

We are making an alphabet book with uppercase letters.  We are starting it now, but we’ll start the alphabet again after our Tot School ends with Z.  I will save these and put them in a “book” — probably just with three pieces of yarn — for him to remember each letter!  We are using printables from The Unlikely Homeschool.
It is simple — just decorate your letter with something related to that letter.

This week it is U for Upside-down Umbrella!  He loved this activity!

During our station times, May sits at the opposite end of the table and is happy to work with Do A Dot Markers!  She gets so proud of herself!  Her pages are from the wonderful ABeka Art Books.  

She also got to make an umbrella page with rain!

Enjoy your little ones,

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