Oo is for Octopus !

    The little munchkin and I have gone from learning about little fishies in a fishbowl, to now exploring the big guys in the Ocean!

     I am super excited to do a mini Ocean unit b/c with the change of jobs mid-year, my Ocean unit was overlooked! I have lots of fun ideas for an Ocean theme and I hope to have time to play with my little munchkin as she learns a little more about Ocean Animals.

     But first things first: The Letter Oo

     Here are a few things I set out for her to introduce the Letter Oo.

     As I observe her in everyday tasks, I can see how her visual discrimination skills are developing. She can point out things that look the same/different fairly easy. So, the Letter Oo search worksheet was easy for her. This time I changed things up a bit and gave her Crayola Glitter Crayons.

     Her fine motor skills are always at work, and I am seeing improvement in the way she grasps a writing tool.

     She even took to writing the Letter Oo rather than painting the entire letter stencil, as she had done previously with other letters. =)

     I purchased this book from The Mailbox about 2 years ago but never put it to use. They are learning mats with additional paper pieces for different kinds of games.

 In working with little munchkins, I have learned (many times the hard way) that keeping track of small game/file folder pieces is near impossible, no matter how hard I “train” them to put things away correctly! So I hardly ever saw good use for these kinds of learning mats…until a little light bulb went off in my head! I will use tangible items/toys/counters, etc with these mats! Now WHY didn’t I think of that sooner?!

     Anyhow, so I pulled out the 3 different mats that just happened to be Under the Sea Mats! Yay! And to focus on identifying the Letter Oo, I used different sizes of Letter magnets.

     My little munchkin was so into this activity, she even pulled out some number "zero" magnets from a different bucket and identified them as the Letter O. I couldn’t argue with her, now could I? Zero sure looks like a Letter O.  =)  Smart girl, I tell ya! (OK... that is just me being a proud momma!)

     After reading the Book: Octopus' Den, we learned that an Octopus has 8 legs/tentacles. Then we made this fun octopus! 

      I found an Octopus template (which anyone can make but I chose to photocopy from a resource book) and I punched tiny holes with pipe cleaners and attached the pipe cleaners onto the sheet. I grabbed some cheerios and put the little one right to work. 
     It was “Cheerio for the Octopus, Cheerio for Me”, as she worked in her fine motor skills and eye hand coordination! 

    Isn’t that one yummy looking Octopus? =)