Tot School - Qq

Tot School - Letter Qq is for Quarters, Quack and Quilt!

Owen and Eli: 42 months old

Qq is always a struggle for me. I have all boys, so they aren't really interested in Queens; Quails seems like a lame topic and Quarters is still a little above their heads, I think. When I realized that they could write a Q (both tracing and freehand), knew what sound it made, and could name a few words that started with Q, I decided to let the rest go and just have fun with some extra activities. The worksheets we did this week were from here (the letter Q Get Ready for Reading page), here (the tracing page) and here (the letter maze).

Isn't it funny how one day's worksheets can look like this...

And the next day's look like this?! (Can you even see the reverse side of the page that was fully scribbled on?) Three year olds will be three year olds, I guess!

We made Q's out of playdoh too.

They really loved this game. I wrote all of the capital and lowercase letters we've learned so far on the chalkboard and put corresponding letters in a basket. One boy would choose a letter and have to tell the other what it was (a lowercase e, a capital G, etc) and the one who was told would find and paint over the correct letter with a water paintbrush. Great for taking turns, letter recognition and writing practice!

We did a lot with Quarters this week, but mostly in the examining sense. They used tweezers to pick them up and fill up a Q made from cardboard and to drop them in the slot of a bank. They also looked at them through magnifying glasses. The big fail of the week was spending an entire 'quiet time' on creating a Roll-a-Coin game for them using Quarters, Dimes, Nickels and Pennies only to have them left completely confused as to which silver coin was which. So frustrating! Playing with quarters is much more fun : )

Crafts: We water-colored with Q-Tips, made hand print Ducks for Q is for Quack, and painted our palms to make a patchwork quilt. Our playroom is so colorful these days with all this art hanging on the walls!

I think next week will be Rr is for Rockets and Robots, carrying into the next week for Ss is for Space. Should be fun! To see what others did this week, click here!

Tot School - Qq

Owen & Eli: 33 months old

I wasn't looking forward to the letter Qq because I thought it was going to be boring, but it turned out to be pretty fun! I made a counting/dice game with quarters that the boys loved playing. It was as easy as writing the numbers 1-6 on a plain wooden die and making a card with numbers 1-20 written on it. We would roll the die, then count out that many quarters and keep taking turns until all 20 spots were filled. Now they can count to 20 like pros! They really liked using their magnifying glasses (from their bug boxes that I bought at Michaels) to check out the quarters in more detail.

We used the Confessions of a Homeschooler letter hunt page to play a bingo type game: I would call out a color on the quilt or say capital or lowercase Q and they would fill up their page with the glass gems that we've been using lately. We used her pre-writing practice for the letter Q too.

The two crafty projects we did were making a Capital Q out of quilt squares and using Q-tips to paint a Q with watercolors.

I cut capital Qs out of cardboard for the boys to try out tiny clothespins for the first time. They were getting frustrated because they couldn't quite figure out how to pinch them open, but they'll get it with practice. They used tweezers for the first time too and really liked that part. We got our first pair of tweezers in the same bug box that the magnifying glass came in - what a winner of a purchase at $2.99!

We had a short week because we left for family camp but still managed to fit in quite a few activities. The same goes for next week with the letter Rr, but we'll do the best with what we can! Hope y'all, the other Tot Schoolers especially, had a great week too!