Year One, Week One (with freebie lesson plan)

We did substitute the book “My First 100 Word Book” by Richard Scarry for the My First Word Book, simply because that’s what I already owned.

Monday:

The first activity I set out for Zoey was one that I had done for Zeke when he was a bit older. I used a Melissa and Doug wooden tray and had him sort pairs of animals into the compartments. Since Zoey was so much younger, I set one of each animal in the compartment and tried to show her how to match the animals. She didn’t get the concept yet, but she did have fun playing with the animals, kissing them, and placing them in and out of the tray.

Later in the day I gave her a large plastic container and some 2-inch black pom-poms. I love this larger size for younger toddlers who still put things in their mouths. She had fun putting them in the container and then dumping it out again. 

We also looked at some circles, especially one of her bath rings. She even said “circle”, although it sounded like “kurkle.”

Tuesday:

I didn’t have any animal stickers or animal crackers, so I printed out some animal clip art for this activity. Zoey colored her ark brown and then I put some glue spots on the ark. Zoey put the different animals on the ark! She liked doing this, especially touching the glue and feeling how sticky it is.

Then she colored her train black. This will be part of a Color Train, with cars of every color.

We talked about “So Big” – I asked her, “How big are you?” and tried to get her to stretch out her arms and say, “So big!” She smiled a lot but she hasn’t said “so big” yet.

Wednesday:

We started out water-painting a black circle I cut out from construction paper. Let me tell you – she loved this activity! I’ve learned to never skip the “simple” things, because they always wind up being a favorite. She did enjoy painting her head and clothes, too, so I was really thankful it was only water. But soon she tore up the soggy circle and tried to eat it, so the activity ended! But it kept her engaged for a good fifteen minutes.

And then I threw some of their stuffed animals into an empty laundry basket so she could play Noah’s Ark and take the animals in and out. She loved this, too, and played with the basket off and on for hours. Zeke even got in on the fun!

– They’re riding horses –

I was super dreading the Sensory Bin because Zoey is my messy child – but I decided to let her explore it on the porch. It was a little chilly, nearly 50 degrees, but she really enjoyed playing (and she didn’t make a mess at all!). Plus, I’m trying to get her 1000 Hours Outside in this year, so altogether we spent 2 hours outside today! I used Fruity Pebbles since they’re small enough for her to eat and rainbow colored to go along with the Noah’s Ark theme. I put some Little People animals in there and she had a blast.

Thursday:

I had planned to do the tissue stain craft that is listed in the extra activities for Noah’s Ark on the ABCJesusLovesMe website. We laid our tissue on the paper and sprayed with water, but it didn’t bleed through! Not sure if it was my tissue or what, but we decided to glue the tissue on the paper. Again, I used a glue stick to make dots for Zoey to place the tissue squares. She enjoyed it but her fingers kept getting sticky and the tissue would ball up in her hands! 

I’m also making her a Color Box each week with objects in that week’s color. This week is black – so I included a large black pom-pom, a black horse, a few black cars and trucks, a large plastic ant, a black Batman figure, a black gorilla, and a black domino. Her favorite object was the domino for sure!

The gross motor skill was kicking a ball, and she is so good at kicking! She likes to walk around the yard or house kicking a ball. We joke that she’s going to be a soccer player one day!

Friday:

I cut some circles from black construction paper and Zoey made a circle collage! She wanted to use the glue stick, so I let her. She did pretty good considering she’s 15 months old! She needed a bit of help putting the circles on the glue spots, but for the most part she did this by herself. She wanted to keep gluing, so I got out the Kwik Stix paint sticks, and she loved those! She did two pages of painting, and then decided to paint her head with them…so we had to put them up. Luckily she didn’t put up a fight since I mentioned the word bath, her favorite thing!

While she painted I read her 1, 2, 3 To The Zoo. We also read some of her favorite animal pop-up books!

Peek-A-Boo is a favorite game we play, so we played that some more this week, too.

Your Turn:

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