B4FIAR - Corduroy

In addition to our letter of the week school plans, I have decided to add in Before Five in a Row books. This week, we rowed Corduroy by Don Freeman since we were learning about the letter C. I wasn't sure how Kaleb was going to react with reading the same book every day but he actually liked it - he liked it so much that he and J reenacted the story after our school day was over!

C is for Corduroy - Kaleb used buttons to trace the letter C. Corduroy lost his button to his overalls and tried to find it in the book.

We played a free game that I found from Gold Country SLP's TPT store (link below). We used large buttons for place markers and I added a number cube. We played this several times this week.

Kaleb worked on some bear patterning strips that I found from The Measured Mom (link below). I only used the ABAB pattern strips to start with. I did not want to overwhelm him.

I printed the button shape book from Home School Creations (link below) and we used the large buttons that came with one of my Melissa and Doug Games. Kaleb matched the buttons to button shapes on the pages go the book. We discovered that we had more circle buttons than any other shape. It took him awhile to match just the shape - he wanted to match the shape and color of the button pages.

Because Kaleb loves school right now, he gets upset if we don't start the day with his activities. Sometimes, I allow him to play on the iPad while I am working with J. When I told him it was time for school, he informed me that he was learning his letters on the iPad  and showed me where C was. He was super proud!

Since Corduroy was a bear, I added the bear counters to the pop corn and had him use the tongs/tweezers to pick each bear out. Then, he placed the bears in the correct color cup. While he was doing this, we practiced counting and his color words, which is a skill I placed on his learning objectives for the school year.

I made a simple game from an egg carton. I wrote numbers in the egg cups and added a button. Kaleb would shake the carton and then open it to see what number the button landed in. Then, we would count foam blocks for that number. After all the blocks were gone, we counted to see who had the most.

We made a simple piggy bank from a chip canister and I added number bottle caps as well as plastic coins. We counted them as he placed them in the piggy bank. This was a hit with J as well.

I found this cute button printable from Living Breathing and Loving TPT store. I cut the cards and added a handful of small buttons. I had Kaleb choose a card and say the number while adding buttons. We worked on the numbers 1 thru 6. The printable includes numbers up to 12.

He painted his very own Corduroy Bear.

I gave Kaleb some buttons and a few spaghetti noodles with his play dough, an idea I found at Cheerios and Lattes (below). He played with these for some time. He called the noodles trees and pressed the buttons into the play dough with his hammer. Not quite the fine motor activity I planned but he still had fun.

For some extra fun, I made some bear shaped pancakes for breakfast. Yummy! The kids are waiting patiently with Psych the fish for breakfast.

They loved this book, J included! A friend gave me some baby items and inside the bag was this white teddy bear. J took to it, calling it Corduroy (even though it was white). I went to the craft store, found some green felt, and made overalls complete with white buttons just like Corduroy in the book. Now they are re-inacting the story, complete with a Corduroy of their own. I love how things sometimes work out.

All of the mini books and printables that I printed will be placed in a Corduroy book folder for Kaleb to enjoy later. I will be saving the games for later use as well. We will be working on a few things this week pertaining to Corduroy, trying to finish up some skills that need to be reviewed and some ideas that are just too good to skip. All in all, it was a good first time "ROW." I wasn't sure how Kaleb would respond to BFIAR but he loved this book and activities. So we will be rowing more soon.

Links

Gold Country SLP - Corduroy Freebie game.

The Measured Mom - free Bear Counter Pattern Strips.

Home School Creations - free printable Corduroy pack to go along with B4FIAR.

Living Breathing and Loving TPT - free button number printable chart/cards.

Cheerios and Lattes - button and spaghetti noodle fine motor activity.

Homeschool Share - free Corduroy printables and mini books.