Teeny Tot School–Week 5

- Abby is 14 months old -

Tot School with Abby is completely random and unorganized.  Oh well.  She makes doing Tot School with her big brother very difficult, but he needs it and loves it so we plow ahead.  I tried pulling out many different activities for her to keep her occupied but this is what usually happens:

She played with pom-poms and liked putting them into cups and then dumping them out.

She colored!
This is the first time I’ve given her crayons and paper to color with and she loved it!

She loves to sit at Adam’s table.

And climb on it.  Look at that look she’s giving me!  Stinker.

Pretending to color on Adam’s picture.
Notice what a genius she is…she’s using the matching marker!
Coincidence, I’m sure.

Counting Bears

She spent quite a bit of time stacking the cups in and out.

 

While Adam and I were playing a memory game on his table, she was happily putting cards away for us.

Baby Signing Time
Even though she loves Baby Signing Time and asks for it several times a day by signing and saying “beh-bee”, her attention span is about 5 minutes.  But Adam is re-learning all the signs he knew as a toddler and loves it!

Abby participated in Adam’s “mud” painting (chocolate pudding) that we did while reading “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt” this week.

She loved using a paintbrush…..

Not so much her hands!

Cute Brother and Sister working.

Just for fun….this is the first time I’ve let her on the counter while using the mixer.  She was fascinated!  Notice Adam’s careful grip on her leg.  He’s already such a great, protective, big brother.

Circle Time

In an effort to give us a better routine, and let’s face it, to help me be more motivated to actually do Tot School with my kids, we’ve started doing Circle Time each morning.  The kids are loving it!

We start with a fun song like “Do as I’m Doing”, “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”, or “Old McDonald” and/or a finger play, and then have a prayer.  I am looking for a Bible or Book of Mormon picture book that we can read a story from following our prayer.  I have one in mind but any suggestions would be much appreciated!

We then do our calendar
I got this pocket calendar from Oriental Trading.
Adam counts up to the current date and then finds the number from the cards I put on the bottom row.  I’m hoping this will help him learn to count past 12 (he currently gets to 12 and then inserts random ‘teen’ numbers)

Then we do our Morning Board.  I got the idea and printables from 1+1+1=1 and Confessions of a Homeschooler.  I used a foam board and removeable adhesive squares to mount the laminated pieces and then used rings for the top 2 pieces so I could flip them over to save space (great idea from Carisa at 1+1+1=1!)

Here is a close-up of the first 2 pages.  We sing songs for all of these and Adam changes out the day of the week card.  He has loved learning these songs!

The other pages hiding underneath the top ones.
We don’t sing the month song every day, maybe just twice a week or so.

This is Adam’s favorite part…the weather!  He hops up on his bed to look out his window and then sticks up the corresponding card.  By the way, the card pieces are stuck on with velcro circles.

On the bottom I have a sheet protector that I trimmed down a little and filled with the Primary songs for this year.  We sing this one song every day and will keep at it until I feel he has really mastered the song and then I’ll switch it to the next one.  I want my kids to really know these wonderful songs and to build their testimonies from them.  Plus, he’ll be the kid in the Primary program blurting out every song from heart!
(and he has pretty good pitch for a 3 year old boy if I do say so myself!) :)

So there you have it!  This only takes us about 5 minutes and then we’re off to do whatever I have (or don’t have) planned for Tot School.  Once I get a scripture stories book, it’ll take a few more minutes but I can’t think of a better way to start our day!