New toys!

We used some of Isaac's birthday money and got him some new toys!  Err...I mean, education tools. 

I'm very pleased with our purchases and we have been using them a lot this week. 

One thing we got was Crayon Stones.  They are just little crayon "rocks".  The idea is to work on the tripod pincher grasp and transition to holding pencil correctly.  Since Isaac has a few fine motor delays I thought this would be a very useful tool for him.  And as soon as he took them out of the bag he was holding them correctly and colored much more than he normally does.  So I say they are a success.  And they are so cute and fun.  They also write very smoothly, I was impressed at that.  

We also got a tub of wooden pattern blocks.  I saw several different sets of these, but opted for the plain wooden ones in a big tub over magnetic ones, foam ones, ones with lots of pattern cards.  I found several pattern sheets online, including a set for all the letters and numbers.  Isaac too right to these, copying the patterns both on the sheet and off the sheet.  Plus they are just fun to play with.  I also plan to make some patterns on the copier, photo copy them, and then let him recreate them. 

I didn't get a picture of our last purchase, we haven't used it as much yet.  But I got a tub of geometric shape blocks.  I plan to have him copy designs and patterns with them too.  He has played with them some, building various structures but nothing directed as of yet. 

Dot Markers

Dot Markers.  Dab a Dot.  Bingo Markers.  Whatever you call them.  They are  my new favorite tool.  I would see these dot sheets and I thought, oh those are weird.  However, I thought the dot markers might be good for Isaac's motor skills so I bought a set.  He LOVES them.  He begs to do them every day.  Yesterday he stayed with grandma for a while and I asked if he wanted to take a toy...no he wanted to take "school" he said, and wanted to take his markers and sheets.  So I printed him off a stack of sheets of various letters and he happily took them along!

Also excited to say that the train patterns and dot markers combines the kid FINALLY got the AB pattern.  SO excited.  I wasn't worried but I am so thrilled to see him picking up a new skill that he didn't know a few weeks ago!

You can also use the dot sheets for stickers, fingerpaint, and magnets.  Use your creativity!

B is for Bee/Butterfly/Brown Bear

The letter B got short changed a bit between stomach bug, VBS, and Peach Festival.  However, he already was familar so I feel confident moving on.

We started the week with watching Magic School Bus episode on Bees.  We counted bees, we colored butterflies, we read Brown Bear (and pointed out all the letter B's), we ate honey!  (Pet peeve of beekeeper hubby, why do all the bee stuff have WASP NESTS for beehives...lol)

Our biggest challenge is him learning patterns, he is really struggling with the concept of what comes next, but we are still working on it and I'm sure he'll get it.  He's sitting here right now gluing and copying a pattern of CANDY!  (C is for Candy!)    And off to count some M&Ms...colors, numbers, letter C...its all good!! Maybe we should also make COOKIES!

Letter C will also get a bit shortchanged when we revisit B for BIRTHDAYS!  Yes, its birthday week!  We'll soon have a 4 year old and a 1 year old!  (Stay tuned for birthday posts!!)


Also have a speech therapy evaluation this week, while he has an amazing vocabulary and talks no stop most people have trouble understanding him so we'll see if he needs a little help!

A is for Apple/Airplane/Alligator

Today we started our homeschool preschool.  I was going to wait but he was getting bored, things were organized, and he was excited and interested so we started! 

We are doing "letter of the week" with other concepts and activities based off that.  Today was the letter A...which I'll probably breeze through and go on  because he knows that one.  Of course we'll review regularly.

We talked about the letter, introduced the idea of "big letters" and "little letters".  Which was new to him.  We looked at the letter on flash cards, picked it out of the magnetic letters, colored a letter A.  Traced the letter A.  Did fingerpaint Alligator and Apple.  Did some tracing of "airplane routes" and counted airplanes. Which he surprised me on...he is now counting to 9 and recognizing numbers I didnt know he knew!  (If you look at the pics of the counted planes, he counted them and circled the correct one but wanted to X out the wrong ones..) 

FIne motor is something we need to really work on, along with pencil control but he is only turning 4 in a couple weeks so while we are working on the writing we arent pushing it hard yet. 

I also quizzed him to see what he knew, he knows ALL his colors, most of his shapes (Rectangle and Diamond are newbies to him).  He also recognizes nearly all numbers 1-9, with the exception of 6 and 9.