I taught the first week, so we did the letter A:
It was super foggy and rainy that day, so we couldn't get a very good picture
2 out of 4 looking at the camera isn't bad, right? (notice that they all have their play phones... good thing we have exactly 4 of them!)
we did a sensory bin with things starting with the letter a. the kids went crazy for it!
We also did a lot of activities with apples. We talked about the different colors apples come in and tasted all the different types. We cut open the apples horizontally and vertically to see how they could make either a circle shape or butterfly shape and that the seeds made either a circle or a star shape. And then we did apple stamps. I cut some apples and let them dry overnight. Then we dipped them in paint and stamped them on a paper with the letter A. The kids really liked that activity :) I'm bummed I forgot to take pictures!
The next time it was my turn to teach we did the letter E:
We did another sensory bin with things starting with E and then did a letter E craft. I had puff balls on the end of a clothespin that they dipped in paint and then had to put a dot on each circle inside the block letter E.
I had a hard time thinking of activities for the letter E, so we ended up meeting at my parents' property so they could be explorers. I made them binoculars and we did a little scavenger hunt on the golf cart (don't worry... I sat on the back with those 2).
They ate their snacks out of plastic eggs.
And then we had some extra time so they "painted" the house with water.
We got a little bit out of order with our letters, so I actually taught G the next time it was my turn.
For our craft we glued puff balls onto a G-shaped gumball machine.
Then we played red light green light. Emily loves telling me what color the traffic lights are when we're driving. She always says "green means go" or "red means stop," so I thought the kids would do ok with this game. I was wrong :( They liked running and stopping, but didn't really get the concept of when to do it. Little Jack was the only one who did it right :)
I taught the last class before Christmas and it was the letter L.
We used their fingerprints to make a strand of lights in the letter L. Again, I forgot to take pictures :(
Then we made candy canes with beads and pipe cleaners. I couldn't find red beads that close to Christmas, so our candy canes were green and white. They were all able to strand the beads on the pipe cleaners, but Emily was the only one that really took any interest in it. I think at that point they just wanted to play :)
Unfortunately, one of the girls in our group is moving next month :( we tried to get one last group shot, but that just wasn't working out
And now for some Emily updates :) Maybe it's just because she's my first kid, but she continues to amaze me everyday with the things she's able to do and everything she knows! Here are some of her more recent accomplishments:
-Her vocabulary is really exploding! Her pronunciation still isn't always the best, so I have to translate for her a lot of the time, but she's doing a good job communicating things and using her words :) She loves describing things, whether it be their color or their size or if they're heavy or not. And when she sees something she doesn't know a word for she'll ask, "what is this?" She wants to have a word for everything!
-Emily has a fascination with letters. Whether it's letters from preschool, letters on puzzles, magnet letters, etc. she just loves working with them. She knows about 20 of her letters now. There are a few that she only knows capital or lowercase, but most of them she can identify both. She's constantly pointing out letters to me on signs while I'm driving or in books. I'm very impressed!
-She's finally started counting! She can count to 10, but we usually have to give her 7 if she's going to continue with 8, 9, 10. If we don't she'll say, "1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 5, 6, 5, 6"
-We listen to primary songs while we're driving, so she knows the words to a lot of them. We always sing a primary song before bed each night and she's started singing with us. It's adorable! This girl is still very much into singing and dancing and I love that!
-She can still throw a good tantrum every now and then :( She's good about calming down and asking for things nicely when we tell her too, but if it's something she really wants and doesn't get it, she knows how to get pretty upset.
-Just recently, Emily has really gotten into playing dress-up. We don't have a whole lot of dress-up items, but she has a lot of fun with what we do have.
-She's been pretty good about adjusting to sisterhood so far. She loves giving Adelyn kisses and seeing what she's doing. She'll always announce to us when she's crying or sleeping or eating. And she says "Addie funny" a lot. We're starting to see some hints of jealousy though :( It's mostly when we tell her to be careful or be soft, she'll sometimes be a little rough on purpose because she doesn't like the fact that she's getting in trouble because of this baby. It's been nice having Grant home so one of us can always be giving Emily attention as well. I'm a little worried about the transition once he goes back to work next week.
-And, lastly, Emily's hair is finally starting to fill in... now what do we do with it?!
We love this awesome, smart, funny, talented, energetic, beautiful, sweet little girl!!
