Aside from our FIAR stuff, we spent some time on other activities. I decided we needed a bit more organization and planning so I put our workboxes back to work :). Instead of setting them all up for each day, I used them to cover the entire week. Each day we will do one or two boxes. Some of them go along with our FIAR readings and some don't.
One of the things we are working on nightly is Bubby's reading. My sister recommended I check out the Ordinary Parent's Guide for Teaching Reading, I did and I love it! The layout is really simple and the lessons are quick. I let Bubby do some of the leading, we do a lesson a night, unless he wants to keep going, then we may do two or three.
To go along with his reading I am using the Mario word family ladders I found
here. He is currently learning blends with "a" such as "at" "am" "an" "ad". So each night we go over his reading lesson and then practice making words with the ladders.
I included two handwriting boxes this week. One is from
here and has a passage from Madeline. The other simply includes workbook pages featuring "H". I will be including one letter a week for him to focus on. He has the freedom to do them all at once, or over the entire week.
I found these fantastic Phineas and Ferb math printables
here. We LOVE Phineas and Ferb at our house. This fun set includes fractions, number lines, a count down, coin mats, and greater than/less than pieces. We used the greater than less than pieces this week and practiced using the alligators that came with the set.
After we tried a variety of problems using the printables I pulled out some cubes so we could use bigger numbers. Eventually I showed him how to "cheat" using various methods. For instance, I lined up cubes in four rows of four and four rows of five, then explained to him that he only needed to count the number of rows to determine which had more. We also worked on estimating some more by using groups of blocks that had wide margins and picking the one that looked like it had more or less.
I finally finished Monkey's color matching game. I took off the magnets and used clear Velcro dots instead. These are one of the greatest inventions ever! I found them for a much better price by ordering through Amazon. Monkey and Bubby put all of the pictures face down then took turns picking one and matching it to the boards. This was Bubby's idea and it was so much fun to watch him teaching Monkey his colors. They happily played this "game" for about forty five minutes.
I also got out our fall sensory box and gave Monkey a plastic vegetable tray I recently unearthed while cleaning out cabinets.
I started him off by putting a few of the items into different sections, then he begin sorting things himself.
Another day I pulled out these fun colored buttons and showed him how to sort the different colors into each spot. He was able to match up the colors with little difficulty, he still only identified two or three colors correctly each time though.
While these buttons were out Bubby asked if we could do some estimating. We pulled out a 1/2 cup and filled it up, I gave Bubby a piece of paper to write down our guesses on and then we counted them up to see who was the closest.
I also suggested that we estimate whether we could fit more of one shape then another. He lost interested half way through the ovals.
