Wednesday, July 30, 2008

Learning Letters

I had planned Breesa preschool for the year. However, after stumbling upon www.starfall.com I may have to start over. Starfall has great activities for kids. I was looking for activities I could do with Breesa to work on phonics. We are supposed to be learning letters and their sounds. Well, I found Starfall and decided to let Breesa try her hand at the computer. It was so exciting to see her little brain connecting the dots of how to use and enjoy this computer.

What a natural! Actually, it took her a little while to get used to the eye-hand coordination of using the mouse. She would be jerky or fast. But anyway, she has been playing letters all day. Ok not all day. But after lunch she played a while. I had to set the timer and then put her down for a nap. After her nap, she snuggled on the couch with me. Peyton read her some books. Then I let her play some more.

She was working on the letter H h. The sentence read "See the happy hippo". She told me all the letters except e and i. This morning she didn't even know any little letters except a, which is our letter of the week. I can't believe she picked up those letters with just an afternoon of playing. I am so excited.

We did a lot of preschool today. I made a list of daily subjects. We attempt to get to them but if not no biggie. Here is what our daily check list looks like:

Preschool

Calendar Activities
Month, Day of Week, Date
Weather

Reading
15 minutes of reading

Letter of the Week
Check daily activities

Bible
Read story
Songs
Verse
Practice hymn

Math
Number of the week
Activity or Game

Writing
Pre-writing books

We got to most of this today. We visited the calendar first thing this morning. She liked looking outside the window and then picking the cloud to put on the calendar. She played Hi Ho Cherry-O for math. This may seem silly but she is counting, sorting colors, taking turns, recognizing numbers, getting to spend time with mom "playing". We did different things with the game but all in all it's a math lesson. She also worked in her pre-writing books. This she LOVES to do. Yesterday she circled the "little a's" in the words, though this wasn't the assignment.

After lunch, she got to play on the computer. Then, take her nap.

After her nap, Peyton read books to her. She read a bible story from Breesa's little book of bible stories. Then they read books that I had picked out. The books are mostly letter or number themed. Some are just alphabet books, a few Dr. Seuss books about letters, a counting book with glittery fairies, and one called Five Little Bunnies (similar to Monkeys Jumping on the Bed). I am sure they read longer than 15 minutes. Anyway, I picked all those books to support our number and letter learning. These are the books I put on her desk for easy access.

We didn't get to sing bible songs together. But Breesa often sings as she plays whether they are bible songs or something she is making up as she goes. We also haven't practiced her bible verses or her church song. So we missed a few things. Like I said, we have a list we can follow and we do what we do. But Breesa thinks it is SO fun to do preschool. I have a feeling most days will be like today.

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