Tot School–”The Snowy Day” and Snow/Winter Theme

- Adam is 38 months old -

This week for Tot School we focused on the book “The Snowy Day” by Ezra Jack Keats and used Before Five in a Row, Homeschool Share, and a few wonderful websites to have lots of snowy fun!

This is one of my favorite books that we’ve read from the Before Five in a Row manual.  The illustrations are colorful and the story is all about a little boy’s adventures in the snow.  I had planned this unit several weeks ago when we had a lot of snow, but it quickly warmed up and melted away.  I’ve been waiting and waiting for snow and when we woke up to 2 inches on Tuesday, I pulled out everything and we got started!

We also read a few books from the library:
“Snowy, Blowy Winter” by Bob Rackza
“Millions of Snowflakes” by Mary McKenna Siddals
“The Mitten” by Jim Aylesworth

And sang, “Once There Was a Snowman” which is a favorite children’s primary song in our church.
I meant to remind him of the ASL sign for ‘snow’ but completely forgot!

I downloaded the following activities from Homeschool Share.

“S is for Snow” Letter Search
Adam marked all the letter s’s.

He glued pieces of paper to make a snowman and if you look closely, you can see little twig arms and buttons.

After reading “The Snowy Day” 5 or 6 times, we practiced remembering the story by putting these cards into order.  He didn’t understand what I was asking him to do at first, but once we got started he could choose between two cards and remember which one came next and which one was later in the story.

I used Carisa’s Winter Fun Tot Pack for the following:

Snowflake Halves
The colored version was a cinch, but he had to really focus and look carefully to match the black and white snowflakes halves together.

Snowman ABC’s
He matched alphabet magnets to the letter on the snowman

Snowflake Matching

These next activities I got from a website called Musings of Me written by a mom named Michelle.  She put together a huge winter themed preschool pack and posted it all for free!  Having other people do all the leg work sure makes my job a little faster and easier.  Thanks Michelle!

“W is for Winter”
Adam used pom-pom magnets on top of a cookie sheet to fill in all the dots. (I made these by simply gluing pom-poms onto round craft magnets)

Snowman Counting
Adam counted the stars on the snowman’s belly and then placed the corresponding numbered hat onto his head.

He counted and matched correctly up to number 7 and then needed my help keeping track of the stars while he counted the 8-10 cards.  I was pleasantly surprised that he identified all 10 numbers correctly on the hats (only needing help distinguishing 6 from 9).  When I “tested” him a few weeks ago, he only knew 1-5 and 7.

Using a snowman hat to sing, “Once There Was a Snowman”…his idea!

Snowflake Sizes
Adam sorted snowflakes into large, medium, and small piles
While sorting he said, “Large Diet Coke!” as he put a large snowflake into the pile.  I guess I run through McDonald’s for their $1 drinks too often while running errands!  After that, he just wanted to pretend that the snowflakes were food and put them into lunch boxes.

Using our snowflakes to sing a song I made up based on a children’s Primary song called “It’s Autumn Time”.  The song is about snow falling so we lightly drifted threw the snowflakes around.
“The Colors of Winter”
He lost interest after only 3 pictures.  Coloring is not his idea of fun most of the time.

Instead we hopped around holding one of the pictures.  Don’t ask me why.

“Winter Things Counting”

We did two fun art projects this week that I saw on Confessions of a Homeschooler under her Arts & Crafts/Christmas drop-down link.

Cotton Ball Snowman

Popsicle Stick Snowflakes

  Messy!

Fun in the Snow! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

On the one day when the snow was still on the ground, Adam got to stay up past his naptime and play in the snow!  We made tracks, snow angels, and hit the snow off a tree just like Peter did in the story.  He LOVED being outside!

Snow Ice Cream VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

There was a recipe in the back of “Snowy, Blowy Winter” for Snow Ice Cream.  Adam loved it but my husband and I thought it tasted like snow….not very appealing.  It was fun though!

We had a great week and my Mom even got in on a little Tot School one day.  Here she is reading “The Snowy Day” to Adam.  Oh how he loves his Nana!

Whew…what a long post!  I do these posts as a way to remember what Adam was like in this moment in time so pardon the length and picture overload! 

Go to 1+1+1=1 for more Tot School ideas.

Pure Joy

It’s amazing what you come across when you go through every single picture on your computer!  I saw this picture of Adam taken last March and just smiled!  I love how his feet are pointed upward and back trying to stay balanced while spinning around on the merry-go-round at the park. 
I love this boy.

Teeny Tot School–Trial Run?

- Abby is 11 months old -

Abby is 11 1/2 months old but seems to be maturing physically sooner (she started walking at 10 1/2 months!) than my son Adam did so for the past couple of weeks I’ve been noticing how she’s playing and how deliberate she is about how she puts things together, in, out, etc.  I’ve been thinking she would enjoy early Tot School type activities…..I just haven’t wanted to start yet!

I feel bad that she doesn’t get as much one-on-one attention from me as her brother did when he was her age.  He is just SO demanding of my time and attention that she (now that she’s completely mobile) gets a little left behind.

One day this week, Adam and I had finished our Tot School time so he asked to watch something.  Abby was awake so I sat down with some toys and just played with her and it was great!

She is very deliberate and tries to get things 'just so’ even though her motor skills haven’t caught up with her thinking skills yet.

We played with a ring stacker and she tried and tried to get the rings off and put them back on.

I would get them started and she would pull them the rest of the way off.

I held the stacker (that rocks) steady and helped her place the rings back on.  We did this several times.

Peek-a-boo!

We also played with these Discovery Toys blocks that she got for Christmas.  She loved trying to stack them.

And discovering all the things hiding inside the blocks like this mirror.

Adam was using these large colored shape buttons and she spent a long time, (when he wasn’t pulling the bowl away from her), throwing buttons in and taking them back out.  She has always been very forceful when she plays.  No daintily placing things, she throws them!

And of course, everything still ends up in her mouth.

I didn’t start Tot School with Adam until he was older so I have a lot of planning and acquiring to do before I officially start with her but this fun day with her has got my wheels turning and I’m excited!  It’ll take me a bit to get ready so I’m planning on starting weekly Teeny Tot School posts after she turns 1 in a couple weeks.  She is leaving her babyhood behind way too quickly but I love watching her develop and grow and I’m excited to plan one-on-one time with her (gotta figure out what to do with Adam though)!

Tot School–“Corduroy”

- Adam is 37 months old -

We are finally back in the swing of using Before Five in a Row to “study” a book each week.  This week we focused on “Corduroy” by Don Freeman.

This book, along with “A Pocket for Corduroy” were two of Adam’s favorite books as a toddler.  I put them away planning on bringing them back out within a couple of months but this unit got pushed back several times so Adam hadn’t seen them for probably 6 or 8 months or so.  He loves them just as much today as he did back then!  Both Nat and I have nearly have them memorized we’ve read them so many times in the past and SO many times this week!

To go along with reading “Corduroy” and “A Pocket for Corduroy” we checked out a third book, “Corduroy Lost and Found”

We had fun with the following rhymes:

“Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear”
“Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear touch your nose,
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear touch your toes.
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear touch the ground,
Teddy Bear Teddy Bear, turn around.
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear climb the stairs,
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear say your prayers.
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear turn off the light,
Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear say ‘goodnight’.”

“The Teddy Bear Song”
“Hug, hug, hug your bear,
Squeeze him very tight.
Hold him high, watch him fly,
Then hug with all your might!”

Adam glued on Corduroy’s green overalls with two buttons, a purple pocket, and a slip of paper with Corduroy’s name to put inside the pocket, just like in the books. 
(This bear and the following color/counting/sorting bears are from Homeschool Share.)

We sorted and counted gummy bears.
Whenever he sorts something he always says one is a baby and that the baby needs his Mama and Daddy.  I then have to encourage him to continue sorting or he’d stop at a happy family of 3 pieces each.

We counted the beds, lamps, and sofas on this page of the book.

Adam played with these big shape buttons from Oriental Trading.  He was pretending they were cookies.  I think this kid has a cookie obsession!  Lots of things turn into cookies in our house.

Making a ‘gingerbread man’….I guess because gingerbread men have buttons on them.

We used the big buttons to make “Button Soup”.  I asked for a particular color and shape and he carefully spooned it into the bowl and stirred it up.

Little Sister also go in on the action.  She LOVES these buttons!  They played with them nearly every day this week.

This picture needs the explanation that he was putting buttons on his own pair of overalls.

I attempted to have him practice lacing….he did one button and declared he was done.

We also played with some small buttons. 
He sorted them into colors….for about 5 minutes.  Then we wanted to play kitchen and bake, you guessed it, cookies.

“It’s a kaleidoscope!”He noticed the transparent buttons and we talked about the difference between see-through and not see-through.  We also talked about light vs. dark colors.

Teddy Graham counting
(counting sheets from Confessions of a Homeschooler)
He made it to 7 and was done and just wanted to eat them.

So he did….in my bed while watching a little TV.  What could be better?

We also had a short discussion on manners (Lisa is a very polite little girl) and spent some time acting out the action words that Corduroy does in the story, (looking, climbing, tugging, falling, etc.)  He LOVED acting out the story!
I had planned on taking him to the mall to ride on the escalator (Corduroy rides an escalator) but it didn’t happen.

It was fun being back to using Before Five in a Row for our Tot School.   I forgot how much work it was to plan and execute everything.  It’s worth it, but man, it’s a lot of work!  I’m going to do a post on Abby’s impromptu mini Tot School this week.  I think she’s ready but I’m not!