Month 4, Week 1: All about the letter J.

Welcome back everyone! We have officially switched back over to homeschool mode around here and have been excited to get back to our learning. This week kicked off with learning all about snow, ice, and winter (it has definitely been cold enough lately to feel like winter). With that we are focusing on the color white, the number 5, rectangles, and of course the letter J this week. Since we have been on such a long break lately, we took the first partial week of this month just to review what we have already learned so far this school year. And now we have jumped back into our normal routine with introducing the letter J, learning it, tracing it, and writing it.

To get our week rolling in a fun direction, we did a fun snowman themed name recognition craft this week. Both our toddlers were able to participate in this activity (obviously, our youngest toddler receives more hands on help than our preschooler does). All you need for this activity is some construction paper, a marker, and glue of some sort. I go ahead and prep this activity by cutting out all the snowman circles we will be needing (we also added hats that I had already cut out as well) and I letter them like so:

At this point we let our preschooler start putting the letters in order to spell out his name. Name recognition is something we work on each day and this activity is a fun reinforcement of remembering what we have learned. This is such a simple task that doesn't take much supplies and can be changed to fit with different themes as well. In the end your preschooler should end up with something like this:

To keep in theme with our fun snowman names, we came across a fun little snowman science activity that was just perfect for this week's learning! It is called "melting snowman" and it is sure to be a big hit with your little homeschoolers as well! Since the instructions are a bit long I made a separate post with all the details for this fun science activity that you can find here.

Not to miss out on any of the winter fun this week we moved straight into a sensory art project that was all about the cold. With the lack of snowflakes in our area, we had to get creative and make our own. With a few pipe cleaners and a few other ingredients you can create your very own snowflakes as well. You will need the following:
1/3 cup of borax, 2/3 cups of water, pipe cleaners, and some string.
Cut a pipe cleaner into six pieces to create simple snowflakes, once they are ready you can tie a small string around them and tie the other end of your string around a pencil to hang in your glass. Boil your water and mix the borax into it, when completely mixed together you can then add your pipe cleaner snowflakes in. Once you have your pipe cleaners in your glass, you will need to leave them overnight. After a few hours crystals will start to form and before long you will have your very own little crystal snowflakes.

As our first week back after our winter break came winding down, we made sure to find time for our letter of the week crafts. This week to celebrate our capital J we made a baby Jesus (this was actually our preschoolers idea for our letter of the week craft and I couldn't get over how creative it was) and for our lowercase j we made a jellyfish. The ideas for these letter of the week crafts are endless and can be altered to what your own toddlers like that still goes in line with the letter of that week.

Our week is winding down to an end and we are still trying to transition back into our routine from a very relaxed break. That being said we have had to overcome some concentration hurdles lately for both our toddlers, this has brought up some need for hands on instruments to help calm our little homeschoolers as well as help them refocus. For this we made our own stress balls out of leftover balloons, play dough, and flour. These are simple to make and effective for helping toddlers overcome stress, emotions, or even needing concentration help. All you need is some balloons, a funnel, and either play dough or flour (we made two of each kind for a variety of textures). Fill your balloon up until the neck of the balloon and work any air bubbles off, then tie them off and you have your very own stress balls. We also made our own version of a calming glitter bottle that you can find here.

We are officially wrapped up with this week and hope you enjoyed some of our fun winter learning! Be sure to check back in with us as we continue our winter learning into arctic animals and some cold hands on learning, literally!