Wordless Wednesday::Letters And Lessons

Monday Morning

Monday morning. S's out of playdough with Em, and Math gnomes with Grace (oh, how I wish I'd learned math this way when I was little!). A lovely start to our week. 

Letter A

This picture was actually taken last week but I other blogposts kept getting in the way of it. So, since I have been feeling crummy and spent most of the day laying low I figured now was the perfect time to share it. Emma was so excited to begin working on her letters last week! We went outside and collected some sticks (to use for a variety of reasons) and she took some out of the bag and made them into many letter As. Such a sweetly simple thing and one that gave her much joy!

First Letters!

There's a budding new writer in our midst!  For awhile now, Em has made a lovely E.  When she was first beginning to make her E she would often say "pull down" each time she made one of its arms (and her Es often had many, many extra arms).  Lately, however her E has had three arms and other letters have been appearing in her writing too (you should see how she signed her name in my parents 40th anniversary card last week). 

 

As you know we are not a family that pushes littles to do things before they are ready.  Instead we wait and follow their lead and see what they are ready for or interested in.  Grace only just learned the upper case letters last "year" (having no interest in it prior) and upon her request has begun to learn the lower case ones.  Since Em is the younger sister in a homeschool family it should come as no surprise that she is beginning to write.  She has the added benefit of seeing what Grace is doing and attempting it herself.  Now, this is not to say that she is always able to do everything as well as she would like to as quickly as she'd like.  There are many times that one of us gently reminds her that "it may not be her time" to do something that she desperately wants to do. That gentle reminder has been enough for each girl to be empowered and not discouraged, knowing instead that when the time is right they will be able to find success in whatever it is they are striving to do. 

 

With much patience Emma waited for "her time" and clearly her time has come.  We couldn't be more proud!

Alphabet Hide And Seek

For the last couple of days the girls have been all about having egg hunts.  They discovered their Easter baskets in our closet the other day, along with some alabaster eggs that we decorate with at Spingtime, and from that moment on it was all about egg hunts.  As I watched them this morning I had a brilliant idea:  what about a letter hunt?!  I quickly gathered the letter blocks, sorted out the ones that Grace knows (A-L) from the ones she doesn't, and then gathered the girls. I told them that we were going to have a letter hunt.  To say they were over the moon about this game would be an understatement!  We laid out the letter blocks, reviewed the letter names and sounds and then I sent the girls upstairs so I could hide all the blocks on the first floor.  These girls are hunting machines! After all the letters had been found they would dump them out on the table and we would again go through the letter names and sounds.  Then we would count up each pile of blocks and see who had the most.  It's amazing how something so simple can provide hours of fun!  I think it's safe to say that alphabet hide and seek was a huge hit and that there are many more letter hunts in our future!

Spiffy Letters

A, B, and C never looked so good!



Magnetic Letters

It's amazing how a simple set of magnetic letters and a couple of cookie sheets can provide copious amounts of fun!