Letter Oo Books

Here are the books we read for our two Letter Oo weeks:

Our main theme for the Letter Oo was Oo is for Octopus.

The only cute book on octopus that I could find was An Octopus Followed Me Home by Dan Yaccarino. It was such an adorable book though. The little girl takes home an octopus and asks her daddy if she can keep it. Her Daddy points out all of the crazy animals she has already brought home. She takes the octopus back to the ocean and comes home with a dinosaur. This was my daughter's favorite story for the letter O.

Our other theme was Oo is for opposites.




God Must Really Love Opposites by Rondi DeBoer was a really cute story. It talks about how God created opposites in our world like the bunny who runs fast and the turtle who is slow. The pictures were really nice too.

Black? White? Day? Night! A Book of Opposites by Laura Vaccaro Seeger.  This book is a little flip up book. You lift the flap to find the opposite. My shortcake loved picking up the flaps to find the opposite!



We read two books by Jane Katirgis: Over and Under; Front and Back
These books were a little too young for my 4 year old. They repeat the same opposite in almost the same way. I was kind of disappointed.





We read a cute book about a polar bear named Alex and a penguin named Zina. It was called Polar Opposites by Erik Brooks. The whole book focuses on the opposites found in both of them until they end up on vacation at the equator together!


 

Lastly, we read What's Up, Duck? A Book of Opposites by Tad Hills. This is a board book but it was a great book for my 4 year old. She was able to complete the opposites. The pictures are darling too! My 18 month old had fun "reading" it too!

Letter Ll Activities

Here are some of the activities we planned for our two Ll weeks:

ASL (American Sign Language)
We love ASL in our home. We use it all the time. Here are some of the signs we used for the Letter Ll.
-Letter L
-love
-Lord
-leaf
-light

You can find signs here on my Pinterest board: My 2nd Language

We also used the signs for "same" and "different" in our Phonics lesson. I gave her word pairs that were the same or different.

"same"

"different"

Snacks
-ladybug strawberries
-lemonade
-cherry limeade
 
Bible Connections
Our Bible verse for this week was "Love the Lord your God with all your heart." Deuteronomy 6:5a. (This is included in my Stored In Your Heart Bible Verse Set.) My shortcake loved doing some ASL with this verse we did "love" "Lord" "God" "all" "heart" "6" "5". You can find some signs on my Pinterest Board.

Every week we also pick a prayer person to pray for. It just so happened that my daughter has a friend named LeAnna and another friend named Luke. We made them some cards and sent it to them. We cut out a coloring page for a ladybug and a lion and attached it to a construction paper. 

Ladybug Activities
-Ladybug counting rocks
-HUGE collection of Ladybug activities here!
-Egg carton ladybugs
-Ladybug nails

Leaf Activities
-Leaf Fall Garland craft
-1+1+1=1 Tot School Letter Ll
-Sun catcher Tissue Paper Leaves craft


Here are all of my plans for the Letter Ll. You can download them for free!

These are the books we read.
This is the music we listened to.

Letter Ll Books

Here are the books we read for both Ll weeks:

We started the first week focusing on ladybugs. We read Ten Little Ladybugs by Melanie Gerth. This is a cute story that gives a great practice with counting 1-10. My daughter has been counting to ten for a long time, but this was perfect for practicing one-to-one correspondence. (This means that she practiced pointing to each ladybug while she counted.) The other great thing is my little shortcake loved reading it to her little brother! This also went well with several ladybug activities.




We read a fun poem called Ladybug, Ladybug from Ladybug, Ladybug and Other Favorite Poems from Cricket Books that I found at our local library. I love incorporating poems when I can.





We read Mary Had A Little Lamb nursery rhyme. I used this print off to read it! I had planned a little lamb craft too!




During week 2 we switched our focus from ladybugs to leaves. We read Zero Is The Leaves On The Tree by Betsy Franco. This was a cute story that talked about many things during the Fall that show us the number zero, including leaves that are no longer on the tree.








As we continued to focus on leaves, we read Leaves, Leaves, Leaves by Nancy E. Wallace. It was a cute story about a little cub who goes on a leaf walk with his Mom during all of the seasons. This was a great introduction to fall time. It was a longer book for a preschooler so it could be split into several different reading times. My shortcake didn't seem to mind sitting still for this one.







Another great leaf book is Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert. The pictures are really nice in this book. We had read this last year and we ran out of time, so we skipped this book.













We finished out the two weeks of the Letter Ll by reading Is Your Mama a Llama by Deborah Guarino. This story is about a little baby who is looking to find her mama.











Don't forget to check out activities that went along with these stories and the music we listened to. Thanks for stopping by!

Letter Ll: Music

We study each letter for two weeks.

Here is the music we had for the
Letter Ll

The first song we did was a favorite classic of mine. I LOVE it because it teaches how to spell the word LOVE while introducing my kiddos to Jazz & Blues :) Of course I'm talking about Nat King Cole's L-O-V-E song!!

My Little Shortcake LOVED dancing to Nat King Cole!!





Part of our Bible time is also music time. I just love Steve Green's music! It is such a great way to have little one's learn bible verses!

This week we are learning Deuteronomy 6:5a NIV. "Love the LORD your God with all your heart." Steve Green's song "You Shall Love the Lord" is set to Matthew 22:37 but it was still a perfect match!!


During our first L week, we learned that Ll is for ladybug. I found this really cute video/song from Little Fingers that Play: Little Ladybug. This ladybug loses her spots and collects them counting from 1-10. This went perfect with learning ten this week! If I had ambition, I could totally see this with a felt ladybug with black felt spots to do as we sang this song!




During our second L week, we focused on Ll is for leaf. I found this song from Great Worship Songs for Kids 4 called "Autumn's A Song".

It talks about the seasons and how God has blessed us with Harvest time. The Autumn colors remind us that God is the giver of beautiful things. "Autumn's a song creation sings".







Since we are talking about Ll is a ladybug and the colors of fall, we are talking about the color red for these 2 weeks.

When I taught First Grade, I loved using Frog Street's Colors books and songs! We sang "I Can Spell Red". It talks about how firetrucks and stop signs are red!



I Can Spell Red
(tune of Are You Sleeping)

R-E-D red, R-E-D red,
I can spell red.
I can spell red.
Firetrucks are red.
Stop signs are red too.
R-E-D, R-E-D


(I wish they had this in MP3 format though so I could have them right on my MP3 player!)

Hope you find this to be helpful while teaching your little ones! Feel free to leave a link or comment if you have other suggestions for other readers.

Now I Know My ABC's

Getting started with letters is a little more tricky. There is no time like "potty time" to get started. When you are making those billion 5-10 minute trips to the potty, it's a perfect time to have some learning time.

As soon as my daughter was introduced to the potty I put an ABC strip up on the wall. Any time we sat down I would quiz her. We started with the letters in her name. We also pointed to the letters while we sang the ABC songs.

There are several alphabet songs you can choose from. We kept it interesting and used all of them.
     Alphabet song---traditional
     Super Why's ABC song
     Jesus ABCs
     Christian ABCs
     Elmo's ABCs
     Elmo's ABC rap

As soon as she learned the 5 letters of her name, we started adding more letters until she knew all 26. About every 1-3 days we added a new letter.

Driving is a perfect time to get your little one practicing their letters. The McDonald's arches, letters on highway signs, and of course you can't miss the car brand letters: H for Honda, F for Ford and V for Volkswagen!


Searching cereal boxes and magazines are great ways to practice letters. We love the Zoobies and Zootles magazines from Zoobooks. We learn about animals and have fun with letters too!

We love our alphabet cookie cutters too. We use them with cookies and play dough. I believe I found my set at Goodwill for $1.

My daughter also loves Starfall. It's a website full of ABC learning. Not only is she getting experience with letters and beginning sounds, but she is also getting computer learning in too!



One of my other favorites are the LeapFrog Alphabet movies. They are cute, fun and educational!!! I LOVE the farm one!!

 


Some great toys from LeapFrog that encourage independent practice:


 You can find other ideas on my Pinterest board: Now I know my ABCs.