Listed below are the objectives I am focusing on for the themed weeks. I have updated our objectives a second time because I felt like we were ready to focus on something new. I plan to continue to implement activities to practice and reinforce our previous objectives while putting more emphasis on our new objectives. Some of them won't necessarily be targeted with specific activities during our weeks, but I wanted to list them to help me remember to practice them continually. The highlighted objectives are ones Carter received exposure to during our theme this week:
- Continue to improve fine motor skills and drawing (specifically I'm looking for him to be able to copy a circle and a square as well as draw a person with 2-4 body parts).
- Understand same and different.
- Accurately tell stories as well as retell the story from a book.
- Use age appropriate scissors.
- Develop a better understanding of time (for example, be able to describe when things happen using morning, afternoon, night)
- Group objects based on a category (sort by defining feature).
- Count and understand what the numbers mean.
- Sensory bins always turn out to be one of my favorite parts of our learning themes. They are easy to throw together and I love getting to be creative with what I put in them. It's also minimal work for all the fun and entertainment they provide for the kids. I made multiple sensory bins for this week. One was an actual bin that I filled with fake Easter grass, plastic eggs, bunny toys, and Carter's bunny tongs. Carter liked finding small eggs and putting them inside the big eggs and then bringing them to me to surprise me. The other bin was a large bowl (like a Halloween candy bowl) filled with an assortment of eggs. I put Carter and Elise's new Easter baskets from Oma and Opa with that bin along with an egg carton and it provided so much fun for the kids.
Carter took all the eggs out of the baskets and put them in the egg carton. 
- I used the eggs and the basket for some play and practice with Elise. I'd help her fill the basket with eggs and then let her dump it out which she thought was hilarious. I also showed her how to open eggs and had her try. She couldn't quite do it but did get very excited when I put something in the egg and then opened it to show her what it was.
- For some fine motor practice, I put eggs in a muffin tin for Elise to reach in and pull out. I hadn't thought about their shape being a bit trickier than a Christmas ornament but realized that when she had a bit of a harder time grasping and pulling the eggs out than she had with the ornaments during our Christmas learning theme.
Insisting on holding a marker in her free hand may have made it a bit trickier as well. - When Elise was playing with the eggs in the muffin tin Carter got a bit jealous of the praise she would receive when she pulled one of the eggs out. He ran on over to show off that he could do it even easier than sister could. I took that as an opportunity to do some other practice with him using the eggs in the muffin tin. I made simple AB color patterns using the eggs while filling the muffin tin and had him tell me what my pattern was. Then I asked him what color came next. This is a bit tricky for him, but he's able to figure it out when he really focuses.
- Early in the week I pulled out all of my Easter cookie cutters. I kept them in an Easter basket on Carter's craft table for him to play with. Then we got out Play Doh one day and we used the cookie cutters while playing Play Doh. While we were playing Carter went and got a bunny figurine out of his sensory bin and used it to make bunny tracks in the Play Doh.
- Of course we had to dye Easter eggs. It was so much fun and was a great way to practice a few different skills. I picked up some bunny egg tongs at the store and had Carter use those to manipulate his eggs. It was good practice for him to hold them like he would a pair of scissors and it took some skill to grasp the eggs using the tong mouth. As he worked we also talked about the different colors of dye we had and what color he would make if he mixed certain colors together. He had one egg that amazingly he dyed black which I thought was nearly impossible. I tend to always make a yucky, dark brown when I attempt to mix colors in order to make black.
- Once we had dyed our hard boiled eggs and the fake white eggs, we had 3 different kinds of Easter eggs. We had the fake plastic eggs, fake white eggs, and the hard boiled eggs. We used those eggs to talk about same and different. We discussed how the different kinds of eggs were alike and how they were different.
- We used the bunny egg tongs a lot throughout the week to practice gripping and holding it just like you would a pair of scissors. Each time Carter used them he'd need a refresher on how to hold them in a way that makes them easy to maneuver, but I noticed the following week he was already holding scissors much better to cut than he had been before our Easter theme! Sometimes it just takes a cute bunny and some eggs to get a kid excited about practicing a skill!
Picking eggs up with his tongs was tricky enough he had to stick his tongue out! - Another activity that is becoming a favorite of mine is special themed baths. We did an Easter themed bath which basically meant I pulled the toys from their sensory bin and put them in the bathtub. I also added one of our special bath color changing tablets to make the water pink. Carter liked filling the eggs with water and dumping them out. Elise really liked chewing on the different bunny plastic toys.
- I tried playing Bunny Says rather than Simon Says a few different times with Carter and it didn't go over very well. He is going through a bit of a phase of not wanting to follow directions so this was a major no go for him. I thought he'd want to be the bunny and tell me what to do but he didn't like that very much either. I think we will have fun playing it when he's a bit older.
- I wanted to do an egg matching activity so I pulled multiple eggs all of the same color and drew shapes on them. I pulled the egg apart and drew the same shape on each side of the egg. Then it was Carter's job to find and match the pairs together to get all the eggs put back together. I made it a bit more challenging by drawing the shapes in the position you normally see them drawn on one part of the egg and then by switching the position up on the other side. Carter impressed me by not getting mixed up at all with the shapes being shown in different positions. He could even tell the square drawn with it's point facing up apart from a rhombus which was quite impressive to me. That was always something that would throw off most of my first graders when I'd do it!
- I searched through our eggs and found some that were already broken apart. Then we used those eggs to stack and make into a tower. Carter loves stacking and building and even more so, knocking things over!
- I put Carter's afternoon snack in Easter eggs one day because he'd enjoyed it so much during his morning snack. Then I hid his eggs, per his request, and he searched for them throughout the kitchen. It was so cute to watch him excitedly search for and find him. I filled the eggs with popcorn and raisins like I had earlier in the day and then threw in one surprise every few eggs, putting in a jelly bean or a Reese's piece. He would get so excited and squeal each time he found a special treat in his egg, I loved it!
Found an egg in our vase of flowers from Elise's birthday, they were wilted but I was still enjoying them! 
Searching for eggs.
- As a special surprise I hid one egg during the egg hunt in the living room and filled it with jelly beans. After Carter had finished eating his snacks out of all the other eggs, I told him there was an egg in the living room. He was so excited when he found out what was inside. I told him we were going to use the jelly beans for an activity and then he could eat them. He ran all the way into the kitchen for our activity, he was so excited! When he opened the egg we sorted the jelly beans by color. Then I asked him to look at them and guess which pile had the most jelly beans. To help us determine which one had the most, I lined the jelly beans up to make a graph. Then I had him tell me which color there was the most of and which there was the least of. He was able to really quickly look and tell me. I told him that's why graphs are really helpful, they allow us to organize data and find information really quickly. Then we counted the jelly beans to see how many of each color we had.
Pointing out the color with the least jelly beans. - I searched online and found a website that shows how to make tons of different animals out of tangrams. I used the rabbit solution from their website to make an Easter bunny for Carter. He did a great job rotating the shapes and talking out loud about what shape went where and how he knew as he put the shapes together to make the rabbit. I was impressed to hear him say the square had 4 points! We talk about stuff like that a lot, but he knew it without even counting!
- For some practice drawing circles I showed Carter how to make a bunny out of circles and ovals. He drew the circle for the bunny and added the legs but wanted me to draw the oval ears and add the face. Then he drew Easter eggs all around the bunny. It was so cute. I love that he drew long bunny legs!
More eggs for the Easter bunny!
- I saw the cutest little handprint chicks here and knew they were the Easter craft I wanted to make! They were simple and adorable and made out of hands, right up my alley! I had the kids make a fingerprint for the beak and then I drew the black parts. Carter loved doing the fingerprints and is getting to where he can do the handprint by himself, I just help push it down a bit to make sure all his fingers made it against the paper.
- At the Discovery Center there were a few Easter stations set up when we went. Elise helped me color a bunny mask, actually holding a crayon and making a few marks on paper. It is extremely difficult to get her to make marks on paper because she just wants to eat the crayon the entire time! We then used the mask to play peek-a-boo which she loved!
Elise and me coloring her bunny mask.
 |
| Elise coming after her bunny mask! |
 |
| Elise wearing her bunny mask. You can see the faint red coloring she did. |
Special Snack:
- Carter's favorite activity from our Easter learning theme last year was eating his snack out of Easter eggs so we had to repeat that activity this year. I filled eggs with popcorn and raisins and Carter ate all of his snacks. Later in the day he asked for his snack out of eggs again so I filled them again for his afternoon snacktime and hid them. The great thing about using popcorn was that I could only fit about 2-3 pieces in each egg so I could use quite a few eggs and still only give him an appropriate serving for a snack. He had a blast with our game and would get so excited any time he found one of the special treats inside of an egg.
 |
| I had to throw this in here just because it was so funny! Later I found Carter perched like this with the popcorn bag in his Easter basket! |
- After we had dyed the Easter eggs the kids got to eat hard boiled eggs every now and then for lunch or as a snack. I was so excited Elise had no adverse reactions and does not appear to be allergic to egg whites like Carter was! We have an egg slicer and Carter loved using it! He would get a hard boiled egg out of the fridge, rinse it off, and then cut it all by himself.
- Oma and Opa got Carter a cupcake mix and some bunny ears made out of candy to decorate the cupcakes. Carter and I made them one night when we knew everyone would be over for dinner and Carter had such a blast and kept talking about his bunny cupcakes.
Carter and Uncie J enjoying their bunny cupcakes.
- Once the bunny ears came out Carter was quick to put them on and hop around pretending to be a bunny. I also did a song/movement game with Elise that Carter caught onto and wanted to do with us. I'm not sure where I heard it, but it is cute!
Here is bunny with ears so funny (put your index fingers on top of your head to make ears).
And here is her home in the ground (cup hand for home).
A noise she hears and pricks up her ears (move fingers as ears).
And jumps to her home in the ground (hop away).
 |
| Do you like our mixed-upness of Christmas jammies with bunny ears? Haha |
 |
| He was hopping so fast it was hard to get a picture! |
- I sang "10 Little Easter Eggs" to Carter and he followed along by putting an egg in his basket with each egg I sang. The song is really simple and goes like this:
1 little, 2 little, 3 little Easter eggs.
4 little, 5 little, 6 little Easter eggs.
7 little, 8 little, 9 little Easter eggs.
10 little eggs in my basket.
- Carter wasn't interested in doing the Bunny Hokey Pokey so I did it with Elise. We hopped our legs in, our arms in, our whole selves in. Basically I just sang the Hokey Pokey while adding Bunny in front and then said "you hop your" instead of "you put your" because you do the Bunny Hokey Pokey and you hop yourself around, that's what it's all about!
- We got to do multiple Easter egg hunts. One was at a local community center which accepted food donations for the food bank and the other was at Gma and Gpa's house. Carter enjoyed both of them, but seemed to prefer hunts that involved actually searching for and finding eggs rather than running around, finding them in plain sight.
Searching for eggs at Gma and Gpa's house. 
Checking out their eggs after the hunt.
- The Little Rabbit by Judy Dunn
- Little Chick by Lauren Thompson
- Peep! Peep! by Charles Reasoner
- Hank Finds An Egg by Rebecca Dudley
- Egg in the Hole by Richard Scarry
- Lamb's Easter Surprise by Christine Taylor Butler
- 5 Busy Ducklings by Rookie Toddler
- Hatch by Katie Cox
- That's Not My Bunny by Melanie Watt
- The Bunny Rabbit Show by Sandra Boynton
- Bunny My Honey by Anita Jeram
- Hatch, Little Egg by Edouard Manceau
- The Easter Ribbit by Bernice Chardiet
- Bunny Trouble by Hans Wilhelm
- Easter Eggs Everywhere by Steve Metzger
- Easter Egg Hunt by Abby Klein
- Olivia and the Easter Egg Hunt by Cordelia Evans
- The Night Before Easter by Natasha Wing
- Happy Easter, Little Critter by Mercer Mayer
- Easter Bunny's On His Way! by Brian James
- How Spider Saved Easter by Robert Kraus
- The Best Easter Prize by Kristina Evans
- The Littlest Rabbit by Robert Kraus
- Last One Is a Rotten Egg by Diane de Groat
- The Easter Bunny Is Missing by Steve Metzger
- The Cow That Laid an Egg by Andy Cutbill
- Pig's Egg by Katherine Sully
- The Berenstain Bears' Baby Easter Bunny by Jan & Mike Berenstain
- Peter Cottontail's Easter Egg Hunt by Joseph R. Ritchie
- I Hatched! by Jill Esbaum
- Llama Llama Easter Egg by Anna Dewdney
- Spot's Easter Surprise by Eric Hill
No comments:
Post a Comment