September: Apple Theme

For September I chose the theme of Apples, Red, and Circle. (I am not going to get into number are letters just yet.) I chose apples because it is harvest season. I chose red and circles because apples can be red and are fairly circular. You want your theme to naturally flow that way it reinforces skills over and over.

I have broken my plans into Literature/Music, Crafts/Games, and Dramatic Play. There are activities for each of the three sections. They do not need to be completed in any particular order and should be repeated multiple times (sometimes daily) to reiterate the skill.
September: Apple Theme Plans
The Plans Document includes all of the activities as well as a book list. Included are; words to songs and story board stories. It is important to reiterate that the plans do not need to be completed in any particular order. It can be problematic to try to plan too much in advance. My suggestion is to have all supplies on hand, that way if your toddler's mood is compliant than you can do an activity. You want to make sure that Structured Play time stays fun and exciting. You never want tension, frustration, or boredom!
September: Apple Theme Resources
The Resources Document should be printed on card stock paper, preferably with a color printer. If that is not available just color the pictures after printing. Next cut them out and laminate. If you do not have the resources to laminate a great option would be to use clear contact paper. (This is a teacher trick.) Pick up some clear contact paper (Found at the Dollar Tree dollar store!!) Peal the backing and lay cut out pieces on top. Then place another sheet over top of that one. Squish down to seal all the edges and then just cut out! Instant laminating! :) This will protect your game pieces for quite sometime.

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Play to Write- Week 3

We participating in a Wednesday Play Group called Play to Write over at Cherrios and Lattes . This is week 3- Write/Spell Your Name. We started this week's practice with some name tracing. Cherrios and Lattes provides the printable for some dotted letters. She suggested doing rainbow writing with this sheet. I showed Jacob but he was more interested in writing all the Jacobs. I started by modeling on the first name. Then I held his hand and we did it together. Finally I let him do the last three on his own with only my verbal prompts. He took this very seriously and was very proud of himself! I was surprised at how much he liked doing this activity. He has a long way to go but he did pretty well! One thing I had to repeat was not to go around the o and a more than once. He wanted to go around and around. This is an activity that I think he will want to do again! The next activity was Missing Letter Name Practice. We started by singing a little song I sing fo...

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Name Writing Practice

Jacob did a little name writing practice today. He was asked to trace the dotted lines to write letters for his name. This is good practice with spelling as well. I had him say each letter as he wrote the letter. As you can see he is very choppy and not exactly on the dotted lines. His motor skills are not quite sharp enough yet to be able to hold the crayon and he especially loses control as he works on towards the end. We also did a Missing Letter Name Practice. Both of these ideas came from Cherrios and Lattes ' Play to Write, Write to Read. These are good ways to practice names and writing. He gets very angry if he thinks he made a mistake. See the scribbling. I have to reinforce that it is ok to make a mistake and that everyone makes mistakes but we just keep trying. Practice is the only way to get better. When this happens I cannot help but think of my former students that did the very same thing and proceeded to throw fits and give up. I hope to help Jacob ge...

Structured Play

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