Week One Color Red Activities

This week I have generally kept our schedule the same as it has been.  I want to ease into changing our new schooling habits so that it doesn't seem like all work and no play.  Typically we start our day by reading some books on the couch, drinking coffee (for me) and milk (for E).  After I do my morning cleaning routine (dishes, vacuuming, etc.) we have playtime together.  Except now, I try to fit our weekly theme into playtime.  It's still fun, mostly unstructured play, as before, but with a slight emphasis on learning.  So this is what we have been up to this week during playtime:

Block play, with just the red blocks.  It's still a bunch of different shapes and sizes, just all the color RED.  After we played with just red for awhile, I pulled out all the rest so E could mix them all up again.

Magnet play.  These are from our 'A' discovery basket.  A capital letter A and a lowercase case, along with an apple tree magnet.  E loves to take the magnets off and put them back on the refrigerator.

These are also from our letter 'A' discovery basket this week.  I took 3 flashcards (alligator, apple, and ant), and the corresponding small items.  I would introduce each card by naming the object on the card, then putting the matching object on top.  Then I would move on to the next card and object.  Then I would take off the objects, name the cards one at a time, and give E the objects to place on the cards.  I would hand her the object, then point to the correct card, all the while naming the object/card.  By the end of the week, E was able to almost always correctly match the right card to the right object on her own.

This was a fun fine motor skill activity!  I placed a few large pom poms in a ramekin, and one empty ramekin next to it.  I gave E different tools to practice picking up the pom poms to transfer.  She couldn't figure out how to open the tools the correct way yet, but she had fun placing the pom poms inside the tools regardless.  She also worked on transferring the pom poms with just her fingers, and that was great too!