Month 1, Week 2: All about B...

We have just wrapped up our second week of home learning and this week we learned all about the letter B, Fall colors: red and green, and the Armor of God! A new addition to our routine this year is putting up a preview of what we will be learning during the week on our whiteboard, as you can see below. Like previous weeks we kicked off this week with learning, tracing, and writing our uppercase and lowercase B's from our workbooks. Following with our letter B learning we like to add a letter of the week craft, you can catch our letter B crafts from our previous year here. Continuing in letter learning, our preschooler has quickly grown fond of filling a letter B with all the words we can possibly think of that begin with this letter. This is just an easy way to start your week and really get your preschooler finding connections between the letter they are learning and words or objects in their surrounding environments.

 

 

We really shifted our focus for this week to learning our Fall colors: red and green through some fun sensory learning. Thanks to Pinterest I was able to find some color sorting flashcards that you can print out here for free. We used these along with some everyday objects we had around our home to create a two bin color sorting activity. These even carried over to our sensory box this week, giving our preschooler a hands on learning week. You can find my tutorial on how to dye rice for a filler in this week's activities here, giving you an easy step by step guide. These were such a hit with our toddlers that we continued to use them daily this week as a quiet activity for winding down before naps. You can just use things you find around your own homes or you can fit it into a theme with what you are learning this week, the options are endless!

 

 

Thanks to our Oregon weather we have had the opportunity to take a nature walk this week with our toddlers to scope out some Fall treasures. This month we were lucky to have received our monthly Kiwi Crate that was filled with materials for our preschooler to make his very own nature collector box which played in nicely this week for our walk. Despite the rain we were able to get the whole family out together and find some Fall inspired collectibles while burning off some of our toddlers energy.

 

 

Shifting focus once again we wanted to finish the week strong with our bible lesson of this week being all about the Armor of God. We started our lesson by drawing a boy wearing his Armor of God on our whiteboard this week, demonstrating all the different pieces that makeup this armor for our preschooler to see. I wanted our son to be able to make the connections of himself and this armor while reading our lesson from Ephesians 6:10-6:17. We found a great visual using oranges to communicate to our preschooler how important our Armor of God is and what can happen when we forget to put on our pieces each day.

 

 

 

All you need is two oranges and a bowl of water deep enough to for the oranges to float/sink. Then you simply read to them:

Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil’s schemes. For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms.  Therefore put on the full armor of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God.

 

Place the oranges in the water, one will stand firm (float) in the water with it's "Armor of God" (skin) on and the other orange you will start to strip it's armor away while giving examples of what piece of armor this orange forgot to put on this day. After the second orange has completely removed all of it's "armor" you will place it alongside the other orange in the water. The second orange should completely sink to the bottom while the other orange remains "standing firm". Use this lesson as a way to teach your preschoolers to think purposefully about putting on their own armor each day to stand firmly.

 

Finishing the week off we set off to our local library to pick up some new books for next weeks learning, we even came across a great learning tub filled with materials for next week that we can't wait to share with you! Wrapping up the week we wanted to share some of our favorite books we have been enjoying this week:

 

 

We hope you all enjoyed another week learning at home and look forward to finishing the last week of this month's learning theme with you. Be sure to check back in with us next week as we learn all about the letter C, community helpers in our town, and even more fun Fall learning with some crafts, games, and even a themed snack!