Big Boy

I have been spending a TON of time trying to prepare for starting school with Link.  The main thing that has been holding me back is that I don't have a space to dedicate to school.  I finally decided that I was letting that and the lack of a full fledged plan keep me from starting.  So on Friday I decided to just start small.  Here's what I did...

First I made a small list of activities to pull from.  I used the book Child's Play by Maja Pitamic to get some ideas, others came from Gettman and a list I bought, or I just read about them somewhere.  This was my list:

• I Spy
• Guess the Sound Game
• Hard & Soft Game
• Sort Beans
• Walk the Line
• Bean Bag Throwing
• Traffic Lights
• If You're Happy & You Know It

There are several reasons I wanted to start with this list.  "I Spy" is of course the first language activity recommended by everyone and I'm very anxious to get started with language.  The next three would give me a chance to practice presenting an activity, and get Link used to sitting with me while I show him something.  The three after that I can do inside or outside, and since I often just want to play outside, it'll get me going while fulfilling that need.  And the last one will encourage Link to sing, listen and perform certain actions.

So, shortly after breakfast we have about a three hour period that works great for doing whatever I have planned for the day.  I chose bean sorting since there was not a lot of prep work involved.  I didn't really present it the way I should, I just said "want to help mamma sort some beans?" Since he said yes (he's back into helper mode) I got one big bowl and two little bowls, and some black beans and lima beans, mixed them up and showed him how to put one in each bowl.  He did great considering I put way too many little black beans in the bowl, and they were very very small.  Then he decided he wanted a snack, so he left, ate a little, then came back.  He got almost all the way through it before he decided he was done.  So I finished up and put it all away.  Not bad for our first activity.

After his nap (and snack this time) I decided to try pouring rice.  Nope, it wasn't on the list, but whatever!  I read in the Gettman book how I should present it, then I jumped in.  This one was a little more difficult.  Link didn't want to watch me demonstrate and he certainly didn't want me to help place his hands correctly.  This is where "BIG BOY" came in!  When Link wants to do something by himself he lets me know he's a big boy and wants me to leave him alone.  I handled it well I think.... He only fussed a little, and he ended up letting me show him.  This is where I think starting small and getting him used to the whole presentation idea is important.  He did well, and only dumped the rice out once, but was very enthusiastic about picking up the rice.  Then he was all done, and I put it away.

Those were the only activities we did.  I plan on starting the I Spy one on Monday.  I made a list of all the sounds to help me and Daddy keep track of the sounds and a chart for each week showing the sounds we're working on for the day.  Here they are:

It is very hard to think of things that I have to use for the I Spy game.  I don't have a ton of little miniatures, so I think I'm going to use the I Spy Phonics Book Set and Alphatales Book Set that MyBoysTeacher uses :)  I'm going to try to do activities at least two days next week and I Spy every day.