Dora Days

“Come on Vamanos! Little Ava…Lets Go!”

I was super excited when Carisa posted this Dora Tot Pack! Although, Ava is not forgotten in any other way, I do feel sometimes she gets left in the dust as most of what I do “educationally” centers around the boys and more specifically Zachariah.
This Dora Tot pack is the perfect fit for Ava to work on while I am working with the boys on their Sensory ABC lessons lessons this summer. Most of what is in the tot pack, I was able to adapt so that she is doing about the same thing the boys are doing, but with a theme she loves!
The first day, Ava worked on her pack, she matched the color words in English to the color words in Spanish. (by matching the color) I would read to her the 2 different ways to say each color.

She couldn’t contain herself when she saw me making jello flashcards with Zachariah…so I let her write her name in glue and then sprinkle powered jello on top.



The next day we worked on her Dora Tot Pack…
I adapted her coloring page by outlining the color I wanted her to color each part of the page. This is something I have learned from my training with Zach’s sensory ABC class. This helps her color within a border and learn to choose different colors for different parts of her color page. She is also using an adaptive crayon to help her grasp development.

We also worked on helping the “Momma Letters” find their lost “Baby Letters”

This picture shows her thinking!

Next, I used the Dora materials for her to work alongside Zachariah as he worked on one of his activities by precoloring these Dora outlines in Watercolor Map Pencils. Each card says “Dora is blue…Dora is purple” etc.  Zachariah has to color his own, but mama helped Ava out. After, they are colored, she took a q-tip and dipped it into water to paint back over the picture.  This is a great activity for kiddos who have shorter attention spans and don’t want to color the entire page!


Ava also has some fun Dora themed things in her boxes this week.
Dora Lego Sets


Dora Dress Up Sets
I blogged a little a few years ago about the blessing of these toys here.

Getting Dora ready for Nap….she hadn’t caught on yet…they were BOTH going down to nap!


I use the activities in her boxes when I am working with one of the boys. I always put things her in boxes that don’t require me at all.

TripleSmiles Hard At Work. Day 1

Well today is the DAY! The day I have been planning for at least 2 months now. Having all 3 kids home with me all summer requires planning or else I will be cleaning up raw eggs off my kitchen floor all summer. I must keep them busy and their minds active.

I have also been trying to think of a way to share my planning with out a play by play of what we are doing every second of each day. I know for certain of one person who is interested in every second, but the majority of you are not! LOL. That one person is Nana Liner.

First let me say today was CRAZY. Within 5 minutes, I was having to rethink and readjust my planning. After about 2-5 minutes, Ava went up to her room and played in there about an hour. I just let her be because the boys were so engaged in the learning activities, I didn’t want to stress over Ava “not doing the plan.” I knew she was safe in her room. Every few minutes, I’d have one of the boys run up to “report” what she was doing.

Also, a lot of these pictures were taken after I actually sat down and taught them what we were doing b.c obviously I can’t teach and take pictures at the same time. So many people have ask me what I am planning this summer, so I want to try to really document and share this first week, but I won’t be able to do this every week.

The boys were engaged about 15 minutes per activity. We went outside, etc in between things. This was not all in one sitting.

The Basics- I bought the curriculum Handwriting Without Tears. It provides wonderful multisensory lessons and activities to help preschoolers learn to write their letters. I am primarily working on this with my oldest, 4 year old. The other 2 are somewhat interested at times, and I let them participate as they can. www.hwtears.com

With this curriculum I ordered a teachers guide which tells me the order in which to teach the letters. The first letter is Letter L. I knew this would present a problem for my oldest, since his brother’s name began with the Letter L….so I had to find something he loves to link with letter L….and that is Lightning McQueen from Cars. So when they woke up this morning their toys trays centered around the movie CARS.

With each letter I am using these 3 multi-sensory activities.

Wooden pieces- On the white piece of paper, he lays the wooden pieces on top of a letter L already drawn for him. On the blue mat he lays the pieces independently making the letter L with the wooden pieces.

Roll-A- Dough Letters-

He starts by rolling dough and putting it on top of this card. After mastery of that step….he forms another letter L in the blue tray with out a guide. (except I am guiding him with the cues ”We start our letters at the top” “Big Line down” “Little Line across”

Stamp and See Screen-

This activity allow the child to stamp out each part of the letter. (Big line down, little line across) My 3 and 4 year old were able to do this easily. My 2 year old was able to stamp, but she was not able to connect the lines in the correct places.

Enhancements to Learning-

Bible Verse—This weeks verse is Matthew 22:37

Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul and mind. I taught them the verse at breakfast and go back to it as much as possible during the day.

Tot Books- I got this from one of my very favorite Blog 1+1+1=1

http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/CarsTotBook.html

And last but not least….FUN FOOD!

Traffic Light Graham Crackers

Cars themed lunch.

1. Mater Sandwich (Thanks to www.funkylunch.com for the Mater inspiration and to my my friend Brittany Poe from http://www.thepoefam.blogspot.com/ for sharing it with me:)

2. Chocolate Pudding fuel with Fillmore…he makes organic fuel in Radiator Springs.

3. Mini Oreo Tires with Luigi and Guido's from the tire shop in Radiator Springs.

4. Sally’s Cozy Cone Hotel with Cheese cubes.

Learn and Move

Well Blog Friends and Real Life Friends, today I put into action the suggestion of my friend who is a wonderful home school mom to 7 fabulous children. I was looking for ways to have individual learning time with one child…while keeping the other 2 happy and occupied at the same time:) My friend suggested making centers. So “Learn and Move” is my twist on centers. I wanted to give it a fun name so the children would associate what we were doing to the expectations I set. Today, I set up 4 stations. I took the kids around and showed them what to do at each station. I then explained to them they had to stay until they heard the kitchen timer go off. Today…we started with 5 minutes.

I spent much of the time today setting expectations and sending them back to their assigned station until the timer went off. But I believe with consistency and effort this system will work! I did manage to work with both boys for 5 minutes each. I am planning to use these 4 stations all week this week.

Levi is putting magnetic clothes on a magnetic person

Pegboard Fun!

These are a set of “Go Fish” cards. I just had them on the tray and told the kids to match all the cards. It took right at 5 minutes for this task.

This was the favorite of the day!

A Fun Dinosaur adding set I found through a book order. I had the kids match the dinos to the cards and then count them out loud after their dinos matched the cards. Next time, I will only give them 2 or 3 cards instead of the whole stack.

A couple of notes…

TRAYS! Levi’s preschool teacher always has her activities set up on trays when the kids arrive. The tray itself helps give the kids a perimeter in which to work. I found these fun trays at the dollar spot at Target last week. I have also gotten some great tray ideas from this site http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/2009/02/tot-school-back-to-trays.html

LEARNING ACTIVITIES! I am constantly on the look for fun things for my kids to do. I look at garage sales, thrift stores, consignment sales…other peoples trash (seriously) I almost NEVER buy anything new…has to be cheap! I keep all these things in baggies or plastic tubs in my laundry room. That way they don’t get mixed in with the play toys and so the kids are interested in them when I bring them out.

Also, if you are reading this, please let me know who you are on facebook! Join the triplesmiles fan page http://www.facebook.com/pages/triplesmilesblogspotcom/319260222533?ref=ts

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Peace in Desk Time

Well, this is really part 2 of my last entry. Another way that I have found peace is making each child their own space for some quiet activity time during the day. A sweet lady in my church closed down a school and gave me a desk for each of the boys.

As moms…we NEED time to put the dishes in the dishwasher without the kids making another mess for us to clean up while we are cleaning up the dishes.

If you watch 18 kids and Counting Michelle Duggar uses a method called “Chair Time” I think. In this time, she sends her children to a chair to be quiet or do an activity. This is not a punishment.

So, I placed the two desks in different areas in my kitchen/family room. I gave each boy a box of books for the week. I don’t have a rigid schedule, but desk time will be used when they are having a difficult moment playing with one another, or when I just need them to be still and quiet. Scripture says “Be Still and Know I am God” We can teach them to be still…even at an early age.

Be creative, keep great “desk time” activities handy so they want to go to their desks.

Here are some of our Desk Time Activities from the past few days…

These are actually crayons, he started off coloring, but then stacked his crayons.

Reading his Bible….Precious!

Spinning a spinner and choosing the correct shape the spinner lands on…

Sorting plastic dinosaurs by color

(I got the whole dishwasher unloaded and re-loaded during this activity.)

Interesting, Levi is doing the same activity..but his sorting method is totally different! Love it!

This really has been the most peaceful week…in a long long time!

Happy Thanksgiving to All!