M is for Me and My Mama
ASL M and Mom
M template and tracer pages.  You can make your M a Mountain here.

Drumroll Please!  I have waited halfway through the alphabet to share these.  A Mini Office is a must have for early childhood through early elementary grades.  We LOVE them!  I will talk more about this next week as well. Teachers use minioffices to teach and review the essential skills for these levels such as the colors, shapes, phonograms, left/right, phone number/address, etc We have adapted the minioffice to our notebooks to make them more practical for home use. We didn’t think poster board stood a chance honestly. ; ) Check out these links. This lifesaver project costs you only printing and binder materials. Afterwards you need no longer fret over missing some essential skill. When you begin your learning time flip through the pages like a game and talk about them.

 

M is for Math and the Mathsmarts series from Stuart Murphy. (he cooperated so well in the name dept didn’t he?) The books are grouped by levels and introduce various topics like time telling, more/less, even/odd, etc in a very elementary manner. You can try Circus Shapes this week to review shapes.

Another favorite concept author is Bruce Macmillan. He uses photography to illustrate his topics such as The Alphabet Symphony and What the Classroom Mouse Saw

One of my favorite math resources for this age group is Mathematics Their Way.  Mary Barrata Lorton is a hero of mine. You can ck out the blackline masters for the program here. Some great ideas for this week would be the More and Less cards

We’re Making Breakfast for Mother

Does a Kangaroo have a Mother Too?

Are You My Mother?

Lyle Finds His Mother  (my kids remind me that I should have introduced Lyle last week as well – my bad)

Is Your Mama a LLama?

If you give a Moose a Muffin – not a mom but still an M

My Mother is the Most Beautiful Woman in the World

Mother Goose – Every child should be familiar with these rhymes and we try to introduce new ones each week. If you haven’t purchased an anthology you might wish to this week. DLTK has activities here.

Science – animal babies and their mothers.  Match pairs of pictures of babies with their mama’s and learn the proper names.  This is a fun drill to practice that skill.

Magnets – Magnet Discovery Bottle

Art:

Marble Painting – tape a sheet of paper to the bottom of a large flat box. Dip marbles in cups of paint, drop them into the box and tip the box gently side to side.

Felt mittens – if you are interested in a "real" craft you could trace pairs of fleece or felt and lace them together.  I am told 100% wool felt works best for sewing through.

Memories – Create an All About Me book  such as these

Songs:
Five Little Monkeys

Five Little Monkeys jumping on the bed
One fell off and bumped his head
Mama called the Dr and the Dr said
No more monkey business jumping on the bed.

Tomie De Paola’s Mother Goose anthology is very nice.

Mary Had a Little Lamb

Mary Mary Quite Contrary

Saints/Bible stories:
Miracles of Jesus
and
Mary, Mother of Jesus Two more favorites by Tomie