We started learning about forest animals this week.
For our first project, Roo made pine cone bird feeders. We had been waiting for some snow in order to make the feeders more useful (and hopefully get more bird traffic) so we jumped on the chance over the weekend.
I coupled our trip outside to hang the feeders with a search for tracks in the snow – ours, our boxer’s, Roo’s daddy’s tires for when he drove to work, etc. We must take advantage of the snow while it’s here!
The next day, we read “Big Tracks, Little Tracks Following Animal Prints” and discussed the tracks different animals make.
We also read “Animals in Winter“.
Using google, I printed out and laminated a few one-page sheets of tracks shown with pictures of corresponding animals.
This one:
And this one:
Then Roo and her daddy went outside in earnest to search for tracks in the remaining snow spots. So much fun!
And at least we were confident the birds had found their pine come feeders!
This week I changed my lesson planning to start incorporating more letter recognition (sight and sound) and writing for Roo. She has started pulling chapter books off our shelves and pointing out the letters she knows. And she’s been asking “what’s that say?” as we read her books.
Last summer, while in Texas, I found an inexpensive “Home Workbooks” series from Carson-Dellosa Publishing for learning the Alphabet so I’ve pulled that out to start using now. I laminated the letter writing page so she can practice a lot and I’m making copies of the coloring pages so the books can be used again for baby bear, maybe 
I also found a Sesame Street Numbers book (laminated) at our discount Amish store (for $0.50!) and received a Sesame Street Counting book last year for Roo’s birthday so I’ve pulled those out too. I’m making copies of the writing/coloring pages in the non-laminated book so it can also be used again, as well.
This week Roo learned the letter “O” for otter (since it was an animal on her tracks list) and we learned about the number one. Learning “O” and “1″ are confidence-boosting!
I’m also incorporating more multimedia in her learning.
She watched the Sesame Street podcast of the letter “O” one day.
She watched the Magic School Bus episode of “City Critters” another day.
And she did the Starfall.com *free* “game” for the letter “O” on yet another day. I can’t recommend the free options on starfall.com enough for someone just learning their letters. But it does require more hands-on support than our other multimedia learning experiences.
And on our school days, Roo is also learning about Bible stories as well. The highlight of her week this week was singing “God made a great big beautiful world” from the Hooked on Phonics CD and acting out the story of Adam and Eve.
Next week, we start our Valentines Day unit!
