Letter of the week: Aa

I am getting ready for this week and, since its fall, have decided to do the letter A so that we can do apple and autumn. Using index cards I wrote "I see a/an/the" (one word on each card).  Now I am printing pictures off the internet of words that begin with the letter A: angel, ark, animals, aardvark, alphabet, acorn, ant, acorn, apple, and ape.  I will put one picture at a time at the end of the sentence and let Lillian "read" the sentence.  The first couple I will need to demonstrate, then we can do a couple together, and then she should be able to read the sentence on her own by the third day or so.
I have also gathered up some Arthur books for us to read.  I am planning a trip to the orchard to get some apples and we'll be making apple ring (flatten biscuits, put a little cinnamon, butter and sugar on them, top with an apple ring and bake.  Easy for kids to make!  In addition, we can cut an apple in half to see the star shape inside, examine and count the seeds, and do floating experiments with the apples.
Another activity we'll do is play matching the alphabet (an "a" word!) - simply matching uppercase and lowercase letters.
We went out in the woods this past week and picked up acorns in preparation for this weeks activities.  We can also use the acorns, along with the apples, to do science (float, magnifying glasses, etc), but in addition we can use them for math: adding, subtracting, cover up a number and have her tell me what number is covered; they can be used lots of ways.
I have an apple cutting sheet to provide cutting practice, and am making a large apple cut out so we can write fall words on them as we think of them the next couple of weeks.  This way if she wants to write about a fall activity she'll have the words to refer to!
It's such a fun time of year and there's so much to do its hard to get it all in!

Sensory "table"

Lillian and Nicole love it when we get out the sensory tub.  At school I had a $300 dollar sensory table, but of course here at home we don't have such luxuries so I created my own tubs!  I use two different kinds depending on what we are going to put in it.  During the Fall I used a long, heavy duty card board box that my sons train table came in.  For this activity we got out our clear plastic tub.  You need one shallow enough that the kids can reach in easily, but with high enough sides the items don't come out as they sift through the treasure.  Today we put "rocks" in the table.  I don't just have rocks in it though, there are also marbles, flower deco's they put in vases, etc.  Some are round (good opportunity to teach the word sphere!), and others are round on one side but flat on the bottom.  It goes with out saying that they are all different sizes and, of course, the colors vary.  You can pick all of these, even the rocks, up at dollar stores so they can be obtained pretty cheaply.  When we get done with a sensory item I store it in a clear container; plastic shoe boxes work well.  Of course if you have young children who put items in their mouths you'll want to use larger items in your sensory tub until they out grow that stage.  There are an endless number of possibilities for your tub: bows, ribbon, dry pasta, dried beans, and buttons are just a few ideas you might want to try.  Don't hesitate to put an item in; what seems simple to adults children may spend hours exploring!  Lastly, you might notice in the picture that I have provided the kids with measuring spoons, measuring cups, a bowl, a spoon, etc to use in the tub too.  This helps them learn about volume and size and can help them develop large motor skills (filling the cups and dumping them into other containers).