Each Monday at the daycare, we would start the week learning one letter, one number, one color, and one shape for the week. Honestly, that made my lesson planning easy. All my activities centered on the designated week’s symbols and colors.
I had a letterbox and each Monday I would pull a letter out and we would sing the letter song. On “A” week the song was “The name of the letter is A A A and the Sound of the Letter is ah, ah, ah,” …. I think you get the pictures.
Each day I would pull out as many A’s out of the box as the number of the week. We would decide where we would put up the A’s on the wall. The letter of the week was always the color of the week. By the end of the week, we had many letters in each room where we played, ate, or slept.
Throughout the day we did activities that started with A – like pretending we were airplanes. We would read books about A words (Animals) or A places (Alaska). Whenever possible, we would eat foods that were the color of the week Red (Apples) or start with the letter of the week “A” (Apples).
At least one paint project a week was the color of the week. One cut-and-paste project was the color of the week with the shape of the week. We would go on treasure hunts for the shape of the week or things that were the color of the week.
Repetition is the best teacher for little ones and soon they knew enough to begin reading at a very early age. Our favorite beginning books for reading were the BOB books. I just checked Amazon to see if they are still available, and they are. Look for Bob Books set: Beginning Readers. Amazon Link for Bob Books https://a.co/d/diNSDQy gave you this link to see what you are looking for perhaps in other retail outlets or just go to Amazon. My daycare kids were much younger than the suggested 4 years old. I started at 2 as soon as they could talk.
Have fun be creative and enjoy every day they grow so fast. Kids in my daycare are now in their thirties and have kids of their own. My memories remind me of the best times in my life.
Starting next Monday, my new friends, I will list each Monday a letter, number, color, and shape, along with activities, recipes, projects, and story books.
I hope you will also join in and share your ideas.