Max’s School Time

Max used to do school with Alex during Jensyn’s morning nap time.  When she dropped her morning nap, it became really tricky to have a combined school time in the afternoon.  Max was just too cranky/tired to concentrate, and eventually I dropped his special learning time.

We still did puzzles, played games, and did other good preschool-ish stuff together, but Max was really missing having his own special school work.  He’s really been complaining about that since Christmas, so I figured it was time to get back to working with Max.

I posted our mini Insect pack earlier today.  Here are the pictures of our pack in action with Max (…and a very jealous Alex, who wished he was doing the pages too!)

We put all the pages in plastic page protectors in a 3-ring binder, and he completed the pages with Crayola Dry Erase Crayons.   (I’ve fallen in LOVE with these crayons for working with preschoolers!  They’re awesome!)

prewriting

How Many? 
Max counted each insect & circled the correct number at the bottom of the page
He didn’t recognize 4, but he knew everything else!

Handwriting Page

Max didn’t do the handwriting portion – we just talked about the uppercase letter I.
He found and circle the uppercase letter I’s in the box a the top of the page.

Count & Circle

Max loves to count!  This page was right up his alley!
All I had to do was tell him how many, and he did the rest.

Max was easily able to recognize which insect in each row was different.
He had to really concentrate the last time we did a page like this, so I was impressed with how easy this was for him today.  Sometimes a little time makes all the difference!

Jensyn kept herself busy by sticking circles of tape all over her face while we worked.
Later, she resorted to climbing me and trying to sit on top of my head.
Finally, we settled for a bribe of a handful of chocolate chips to keep her quiet while we finished.
(Whatever works, right? )

3-part puzzles

Memory Game
I love to back these with fun scrapbook paper, not that it makes a difference in how the game is played.  It’s just a little more “festive”.

Alex & I got matches before Max did, so he was THRILLED when he got his first match!
He was even more excited to get his second match.

Roll & Cover Game
We saved the best game for last – we played using chocolate chips as counting chips.
Max won, but we think he cheated

We’ll be sure to include Max when we read insect books (fiction AND non-fiction) throughout the week, and he’ll also do an art project and some baking (with honey, made by insects) later this week.  Even if we just do one morning of learning like this a week, I think Max will be thrilled!  (And I’ll be BUSY making sure we have printables to match each of Alex’s units…yikes!)