Tot School – I Am an Artist

- Adam is 33 months old -

For Tot School the past week (well, 2 weeks) we read “I Am an Artist” by Pat Lowery Collins using Before Five in a Row as an activity guide. We reviewed and relearned the ASL signs for tree, leaf, flower, stars, apple, water, and rainbow. This book was actually more of a nature book than an art book, but it’s focus was on how everything around us is art.

For Family Home Evening on Monday night we briefly told Adam the story of the creation and how Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ were ‘artists’ when they created this beautiful earth and all the things that live here. I don’t know how much he understood, but we feel it’s never too early to begin teaching about God and the gospel of Jesus Christ!

The highlight of our week was taking a nature walk at the park. I had to show Adam how to find “treasures” and place them in his pail. I thought all kids instinctively collected things but I guess not! I made sure to be really excited and in awe of everything we found and soon Adam was also really excited about it.

After gathering some items, we played on the playground, which for Adam usually means just playing in the sand.

He eventually decided he wanted to swing and I thought it would fun to have Abby sit in there with him. She loved it! Adam, on the other hand, quickly grew tired of the slow swinging and demanded Abby be removed.

When we got home, we made a collage out of our nature treasures by taping them down onto paper. I think I liked this activity a lot more than he did!

On one page of the book, there is a picture of an apple cut in half, revealing the hidden star. Adam thought it was quite cool to see the star inside. Although he said it looked like a flower. I agree.

This is the face of a boy that has just eaten an apple seed. I was cutting up slices for our snack and when I looked up he was chomping on something with this weird look on his face. We had an impromptu lesson on not eating seeds.

I made a little book out of some drawings and paintings that Adam did.

I didn’t plan very many activities for our book this week because we had a play date at a children’s museum one day and I went out of town for a wedding on Friday. But that’s ok. Some weeks are more filled up than others and that’s how I like it!

Other tot school activities:

Melissa & Doug Beginning Pattern Blocks

Color matching file folder game from Confessions of a Homeschooler

Magnetic Thingys (can’t remember their name)
I tried to get him to match up all the colors but that only lasted about a minute…

so we built robots instead! And on another day he discovered that my computer chair was magnetic and turned my chair into a robot. He’s in to robots lately. :)

And of course there was play doh

Check out 1+1+1=1 for more great ideas on what to do with your tot!