The One With February Plans, Week Two

Hey there! Here is week 2 of February!
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Objectives:
Letters: P, Q, R
Color: Pink
Shape: Heart
Number: 7
Themes: Valentine's Day, quarters, pennies
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The monthly lesson plans for February are loaded here. Click and print, then add to your fridge for easy reference! 

Qq Dot Art*
Directions: Print file.  Allow child to decorate the uppercase and lowercase Q. (You can use circle stickers, dot stampers, play dough pieces, or pom poms) You can read Dr Suess's ABC book and demonstrate which letter is big Q and which one is little q.  Hang paper on fridge for the week to reference.

Heart Hop Game
Directions: Cut out paper hearts and tape them onto the floor. Write things on each heart that you want to practice with your kids. For example, I drew shapes and wrote letters on my hearts. I asked them to hop on a particular heart and they were so excited! I wrote their name on some hearts to reinforce recognizing their written name as well.
Younger toddlers: Make hearts out of different colored paper and ask them to hop on the blue heart, etc.
Older preschoolers: Write words/letters on each heart for the child to recognize and hop to.  It's fun to have games that encourage movement and gross motor skills. If the weather is nice where you live, you can also play this outside with chalk. 

Valentine's Day Sensory Bin
Directions: Gather lots of red/pink Valentines day trinkets. You know, the junk you get in goody bags? They are all over right now, especially in the dollar store/party favor sections of stores. I found these cute heart trays at my Walgreens for 50 cents! I filled them with navy beans and then lots of random Valentines/heart stuff! I had cookie cutters, heart buttons, heart confetti, glitter/felt hearts, and fake rose petals. I provided some scoopers and cups and trays and my kiddos loved scooping. One girl said she was making "A Valentine Pie" and another was making a "Valentine's surprise"...whatever that means! I even made a baby-friendly sensory bin with some rose petals and cookie cutters. Have fun!

Q Snack: Q is for Quilt
Directions: Describe a quilt for your kiddos. Surprisingly, a quilt is a foreign concept for most toddlers. (It's funny that I assume they know about certain things!) We talked about how a quilt is a blanket made of lots of little pieces. I gave my kiddos a piece of toast and invited them to make a quilt snack out of it. I provided some squares of cheese and turkey, but you can choose whatever you'd like! You can use some spreadable cheese or other condiment to hold it together! Yum! (This was actually a tasty kid-lunch!)

Q is for Quarter* 
Directions: Print file. Show your child that this is the letter Q. Invite them to trace the letter with their finger. Show them the quarters on the side of the page and count them together. (Spoiler alert: there's 7, the number of the month!) If you feel comfortable (choking-wise), invite your child to lay real quarters on top of the paper quarters. Try to see if they can compare them to pennies we learned about last week. (Smooth edges vs ridged edges, copper vs silver, etc). Discuss how a quarter is worth 25 cents. 

Sorting Conversation Hearts*
Directions: Print file. Give your child a box of conversation hearts! Invite them to sort their hearts onto the paper. Simple and fun! 

Q Letter Recognition*
Directions: print file. Ask your child to find the letter Q on the paper. (use bingo stampers, crayons, stickers, etc to mark the letters.) Discuss that Q is for Quail. (P.S. Have you seen the Leapfrog Phonics Farm video? My kiddos love it, and it's on Netflix! It teaches an animal per letter, and Q is for quiet quail! It's my girls' favorite!)

Counting Conversation Hearts*
Directions: Print file. Give your child a box of conversation hearts. Together, make a vertical bar graph out of the hearts. You will be color sorting and counting at the same time! I needed to help my 3 year olds with this because the vertical sorting was a foreign concept. They also were quite upset if they had 0 of a certain color, so we shared! Count and talk about the hearts together! 

All printables are free here:
Qq Dot Art
Q is for Quarter
Conversation Heart Sorting
Q Letter Recognition
Counting Conversation Hearts