Letter Aa

 "Circle the A's in the story." I realize that part of homeschool is teaching my children how to follow specific directions. You must circle--not sketch out.  I say something like, "Play time you can play however you want, but at school-time, you need to follow the directions..."

 For my two year old, I let him color the page however he wants, hoping he will start to just pick up on recognizing the letter A.

 We practice tracing and I attempt at teaching Nehemiah (3) how to circle the A's at the bottom of our worksheet.

 I print several pages that have to do with the letter of the week. Elijah (2) can't focus long enough to color a page. I encourage N to color within the lines.

 The boys seem to get very excited and attentive at the start, but lose steam quickly. One way to keep them going is by switching up our choice in medium. I start with pencil, then will switch to marker, crayon, or maybe watercolor.

One thing I do throughout the week is mention over and over what the letter says. "A says ah" I then will say words like apple, ant, animal, ... and ask them or point out that they start with A, because they make the a sound. I made a sheet with most of the words we talked about that week and then found two images per word. I found one and colored it in and N found the other.  

They colored parts of an alligator, I cut out and I tried to teach them about glue.

 We also busted out the paint and made a hand print tree. They colored apples that I cut out and they glued on.

We decorate a letter A with Apple Jacks.