<p>~Day 1~</p>  <p>Our first book is <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Alphabet-Rescue-Audrey-Wood/dp/0439853168/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1378754313&amp;sr=1-1&amp;keywords=alphabet+rescue" target="_blank">Alphabet Rescue</a> by Audrey Wood and Bruce Wood.</p>  <p><a href="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04329.jpg"><img title="DSC04329" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="DSC04329" src="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04329_thumb.jpg" width="354" height="266" /></a></p>  <p>We started the lesson for that day sitting on this chair in the playroom, snuggled under a blanket, enjoying the book together. I love this. Reading to my children is one of my most favorite things to do with them.</p>  <p><a href="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04330.jpg"><img title="DSC04330" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="DSC04330" src="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04330_thumb.jpg" width="254" height="337" /></a></p>  <p>After we read the book, stopping to discuss things in the book as we read, Little Bug hopped down and ran to the homeschool room to open the drawer for her activities of the day. I'm using a <a href="http://www.faithfullyinfertile.com/2013/09/workboxes-3-weeks-in/" target="_blank">workbox system</a> to organize our daily activities.</p>  <p><a href="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC042921.jpg"><img title="DSC04292" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="DSC04292" src="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04292_thumb1.jpg" width="254" height="337" /></a></p>  <p>In the book the capitol and lowercase letters work together to put out a fire in the Letter Factory so in the first drawer was everything (except the shoe box that wouldn’t fit in there) we needed to make a fire truck! </p>  <p><a href="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04293.jpg"><img title="DSC04293" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="DSC04293" src="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04293_thumb.jpg" width="354" height="266" /></a></p>  <p>During Learning Time Little Bug painted the shoe box red and during naptime we let it dry.</p>  <p><a href="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04331.jpg"><img title="DSC04331" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="DSC04331" src="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04331_thumb.jpg" width="354" height="266" /></a></p>  <p>After naptime Little Bug counted the tires and glued them onto the fire truck. She also placed the “911” on the truck and glued on the ladder, windows and siren!</p>  <p><a href="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04333.jpg"><img title="DSC04333" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="DSC04333" src="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04333_thumb.jpg" width="354" height="266" /></a></p>  <p>The end result was this adorable fire truck!</p>  <p><a href="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04352.jpg"><img title="DSC04352" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="DSC04352" src="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04352_thumb.jpg" width="354" height="266" /></a></p>  <p>&#160;</p>  <p>~Day 2~</p>  <p>Every day begins by reading the book for the week. So again we snuggled up together under a blanket and read Alphabet Rescue!</p>  <p>And then we made these Alphabet Puzzles!</p>  <p><a href="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04351.jpg"><img title="DSC04351" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="DSC04351" src="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04351_thumb.jpg" width="354" height="266" /></a></p>  <p>I told Little Bug she would get to make a lowercase and capitol letters puzzle but, because there were two puzzles, she insisted one was for her and one was for Mommy! </p>  <p>&#160;</p>  <p>~Day 3~</p>  <p>After reading the story together, we had two activities. One was to make a Thank You note for someone because at the end of Alphabet Rescue, the boy sits down to write a Thank You note to his grandparents for taking him on vacation. Little Bug chose to make a Thank You note for Grace. On the inside, she told me to write, <em>Thank you for coming over to play with me at my house. </em>Little Bug decorated the front.</p>  <p><a href="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04348.jpg"><em><img title="DSC04348" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="DSC04348" src="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04348_thumb.jpg" width="354" height="266" /></em></a></p>  <p>The second activity was to decorate the cover of her ABC Book. Every week she will work on her ABC Book by cutting out pictures from magazines and gluing them on the page of the letter that the pictures start with. She was quite creative with her decorations. First thing she did was to cut this blue ribbon, glue it along the backside of her book and then she said the flaps were to “lock” the book. So I went and found her some velcro strips and we put those on her book so she could “lock” it! (I cropped the first picture because of her name.)</p>  <p align="center"><a href="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04349.jpg"><img title="DSC04349" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="DSC04349" src="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04349_thumb.jpg" width="244" height="132" /></a><a href="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04350.jpg"><img title="DSC04350" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="DSC04350" src="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04350_thumb.jpg" width="244" height="184" /></a></p>  <p align="center">(front, back)</p>  <p align="left">&#160;</p>  <p align="left">~Day 4~</p>  <p>We didn’t read the book this day because a certain little girl could not wait to decorate her Mystery Box!</p>  <p><a href="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04379.jpg"><img title="DSC04379" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="DSC04379" src="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04379_thumb.jpg" width="354" height="266" /></a></p>  <p>Every week I will hide the box with an object inside and Little Bug will have to find it to discover what our Letter of the Week will be! The object will start with the Letter of the Week. This first week, Little Bug just worked on decorating the box. She chose to paint the box with pink and purple paint. That night her Daddy helped her put little rhinestones all over before she went to bed.</p>  <p><a href="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04390.jpg"><img title="DSC04390" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="DSC04390" src="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04390_thumb.jpg" width="354" height="266" /></a></p>  <p>&#160;</p>  <p>Today was “Letter Formation” time and this is when we practice “writing” letters by many different ways that do not require Little Bug to use pencil and paper! I’ve come up with 7 ways we can “write” letters this year, using ideas from the Ready-Made Preschool curriculum and other ideas I have found from Homeschool Blogs. (I will share a post of these 7 ideas soon.)</p>  <p>Little Bug chose to write letters this day in her Salt Box! We went out on the deck which was a smart idea although I told Little Bug we would be keeping the salt <em>in the box</em> and we would be writing letters in the salt and not going crazy! She did very well.</p>  <p><a href="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04380.jpg"><img title="DSC04380" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="DSC04380" src="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04380_thumb.jpg" width="354" height="266" /></a></p>  <p>I was absolutely AMAZED at how effective this method was in getting Little Bug to practice “writing” some letters! This was her “R”. She started at the very end (where the edge of the plastic box is), but you can see the half-circle pretty good and then the little stick on the bottom. This was one of several “R’s” she wrote. She was really into writing “R” for some reason!</p>  <p><a href="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04381.jpg"><img title="DSC04381" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="DSC04381" src="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04381_thumb.jpg" width="254" height="337" /></a></p>  <p>We spent about 10-15 minutes playing with this! I wrote letters, she wrote letters. Then she wanted me to close my eyes and guess the letter she wrote. She closed her eyes and I wrote a letter and she guessed what it was. </p>  <p>This is a “C” she wrote during one of our guessing games.</p>  <p><a href="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04382.jpg"><img title="DSC04382" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="DSC04382" src="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04382_thumb.jpg" width="354" height="266" /></a></p>  <p>&#160;</p>  <p>After that, we were to play one of the Learning Games in the teacher’s manual. This curriculum came with a set of ABC flashcards and you are to use those flashcards to play games such as matching the lowercase letters to the capital letters or by playing Memory. Those types of games are “old news” to Little Bug as we have already played those games many times before. So, I printed this picture out, laminated it and whenever we are to play a Learning Game from the teacher’s manual, I place this card in Little Bug’s workbox. Then Little Bug gets to go to our Educational Games shelf and choose a game that she wants to play. <a href="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC03808.jpg"><img title="DSC03808" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="DSC03808" src="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC03808_thumb.jpg" width="254" height="337" /></a></p>  <p>She chose <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Goodnight-Moon-World-ABC-Game/dp/B004NPFLWK/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&amp;qid=1379099489&amp;sr=8-1&amp;keywords=goodnight+moon+abc+game" target="_blank">Goodnight Moon My World ABC Game</a>. </p>  <p><a href="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC043881.jpg"><img title="DSC04388" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="DSC04388" src="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC043881_thumb.jpg" width="356" height="264" /></a></p>  <p>This is an excellent game for practicing letter sounds with Little Bug via play! I would read the picture card and then she would look for the letter that the word started with. </p>  <p><a href="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04384.jpg"><img title="DSC04384" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="DSC04384" src="/1DB25B0C4C9C4FF725BBC44D009EECCD22E13F05/images/2013/09/DSC04384_thumb.jpg" width="354" height="290" /></a></p>  <p>&#160;</p>  <p>And that was Week One! We are looking forward already to Week Two, which starts today!!</p>