Tot School– “Play With Me”

- Adam is 42 months -
- Abigail is 16 months -

We finally completed our last Before Five in a Row book!  I have loved reading these books and doing activities with Adam!  We read our first book exactly one year ago and my very first Tot School post was on “Caps for Sale” using Before Five in a Row as a guide.  Here’s a link.  My, how Adam has grown in a year!

June 2010

Our 18th, and last, Before Five in a Row book was “Play With Me” by Marie Hall Etts.  It’s such a cute little story!  A little girl wants to play with the different animals she meets but they all run away, until she sits very still and quiet!

We talked about the expressions on the little girls face and how she must have felt when the animals ran away from her and then when they all came back.  It’s amazing how our conversations have changed over the course of the year.  Adam thinks, reasons, and expresses so much more now, as a 3 1/2 year old, than he did as a 2 1/2 year old and it’s fun to see!  He’s a funny little guy to talk to!  (Side note….he uses “an” for everything.  Example, “I see an bug!”….”Can I watch an show?”  No matter how many times I respond with, “You see a bug?” or “You want to watch a show?”, he always says “an”.  It’s cute!)

During our Circle Time we had fun learning a couple of finger plays/songs, “Five Little Speckled Frogs”, “The Little Turtle”, and “Turtle Turtle”.

Acting like a turtle in “Turtle Turtle”

Adam sitting very still, looking around like the girl in the story.

“What Animals Would You Like to Play With?” book from Homeschool Share.
He glued the pictures on, and then I had him find the animal’s name by looking for the beginning sound.  Some were tricky because they were blends, but by separating the sounds, he was able to figure it out.

Size Sorting
(the following activities are all from 1+1+1=1’s Pond Life Tot Book and Preschool Pack)

Pre-Writing Practice
I was happy to see that he could do this activity.  The Letter of the Week curriculum we’re doing for Preschool has a lot of this and he loved it!  If he slowed down, he was really good at following the lines!  Now if only I could get him to use the correct grip!

He drew on this page and “re-rased” it over and over again.  He even came back to it several times throughout the day!

“How Many Turtles Can You Stack?” Math Mat

“Reading” 

Spelling his name with scrambled letters.

Although he can’t write it, he can spell his name!  He used this Magnetic Alphabet app on the iPad to drag letters to spell his name on his own, without any prompting from us, (this was before the scrambled letters above).  Another day, he was playing the iPad while I was busy with something and he ran over to show me that he had spelled “off” with the same app.  I’m not sure when he learned how to spell “off”!

Using a cute printable from Life with my Giggly Girls, the kids fed this frog, flies.
The picture is taped to an empty cereal box with a slit in the frog’s mouth. 
They played with this for a long time, both together and separately!

Homemade Bird Feeders!
We used pine cones, peanut butter, and bird seed to made bird feeders for our trees.

 

 

 

 

 

Too bad no birds have decided to eat our tasty treat for them.  It may have to do with the fact that they aren’t canaries or finches…we had a very limited variety of bird seed to choose from!  Or they don’t like peanut butter.

We took a trip to the aquarium with some friends!
The picture is blurry, but this is all 4 kids.
Two 3.5 year olds and two 15-16 month olds.

Adam and his friend Lexie looking at the rays.  Neither one wanted to touch.  Abby, however, couldn’t get enough of the water and didn’t flinch when the rays came up under her hand.

We also had a picnic at the park.  I wish they lived closer so we could play more often!

Ok, here are a few things Abby did this week.  I would love to be able to focus more on her…I just don’t know how!  I’m going crazy trying to juggle the two of them because one is always unhappy about the attention on the other.  Unless they are parked in front of the TV.  Any tips?

Playing with matching cards.  She loves to put them back into the box.

Bug Puzzle
Although she needs a little help getting them situated just right, I watched her look at the piece, then look at the board, and find the spot that matched.  It was neat watching her concentrate!

Stacking the puzzle pieces

Wooden Tool Box
She kept putting the pieces on her fingers and then banging them together.

Fun in the Sun!
It has been HOT so we had fun playing in the kiddie pool.  Adam was off squirting things with his squirt gun the whole time while Abby got in and out at least 100 times!

Picnic!  We’re loving summer!!

Check out Carisa’s awesome blog at 1+1+1=1!

Tot School

- Adam is 42 months old -
- Abigail is 16 months old -

I haven’t done a Tot School post since Easter!  I’d be lying if I said we’d been doing Tot School, but not posting about it.  We just simply haven’t been doing it!  But, I went to the Utah Home Education Association’s annual convention last weekend and it inspired me to get my act in gear for my kids.  And myself.  I’m a better mom if I am organized and have a plan for our days that includes more than just the same toys and things.  I’ll be honest, it’s not easy.  But I feel like God is telling me that this is what I should be doing for my kids, and for myself.  I’m planning Adam’s Preschool year right now and I’m excited!  I just have to figure out how to handle both kids at the same time.  And where to do “school”.  And how to balance learning activities, free play, music, art, gross motor, fine motor, social skills, etc. without bogging us down unnecessarily.  It’s good that I have a couple months to figure it all out.  In the mean time, we’ll be doing the last Before Five in a Row unit, a summer/4th of July theme, and some Preschool Packs from 1+1+1=1 as well as having a lot of weeks with nothing planned other than playing.

This week wasn’t planned, but I did manage to get 3 days of Circle Time and “school” in.  And boy, was Adam excited about it!

Calendar

Morning Board

Abby checking the weather for us.

Adam’s favorite thing this week was his new Busy Bugs from Discovery Toys.  I bought the set at the homeschool convention from the same nice lady I bought several birthday/Christmas gifts from at a gift show last November.  I had my eye on this set back then, but chose other toys so when I saw the Discovery Toys booth at the convention, I already knew I wanted the bugs!

They are brightly colored rubbery bugs that have cards that will build on early math skills.  He really just wanted to play with the bugs, but I encouraged him to do a few cards first.  First he matched colors, then he matched one type of bug of each color.  Eventually, it’ll have him doing simple addition and patterns.

 

 

 

 

 

 

He lined them up and made up all kinds of games with them.  At one point, he had them all separated out around his room.  The spiders were in the closet where it was dark, the bees were in their beehive, the caterpillars were up on a tree (the window sill), etc.

Abby liked the bugs too….assuming her brother wasn’t snatching them away from her.

Adam actually asked if he could color one day!  I was busy doing something else, so he sat in his room and colored for a good 10 minutes on his own.  Yay!

He had fun putting the stickers he got on our vacation to San Diego on a piece of paper while Abby colored…mostly on the table.

He played with his Boggle Jr. game for a little bit but he got frustrated trying to find the letter he needed.  He kept turning the dice over and over without understanding that he needed to check other dice as well.  He did better when I gave him the correct dice and had him find the letter.  He’s starting to understand how to sound out words but has trouble making the sounds flow together in order to get the word.  I had once thought he was ready to read, but ended up feeling like I shouldn’t rush to teach him just because he knew all his sounds and letters.  I may try as we get into his Preschool year, but only if he really wants to learn.  He asks what words are a lot though.  Funny story….while in the doctor’s office for an appointment with Abby’s eye doctor, he saw a small TV on the wall with the Dell logo and said, “duh-eh-l-l.  What does that say?”  I said, “Dell”.  He responded with, “Yeah, Dell TVs and computers”.  I think he watches too much TV!   :)

I had the kids play together a lot this week.  Frankly, I can’t figure out how to have them doing separate things!  No matter what, they always want to be doing what the other one is doing!

Fisher Price Laugh & Learn Piggy Bank

Alex - Little Hands Button Art
This was the first time Abby played with this, and she loved it.  She was using her palm to push the buttons in the holes so they wound up sticking to her palm and coming back up.  I want to work on her pincher grip to put them in next time.

Story Time
I want to get in the habit of reading aloud every day (in addition to our regular before naps and bedtime routine) and that will generally mean that Abby needs to be occupied on the floor so she isn’t pulling on the pages and climbing all over us.  We were successful one day!  I just love how Adam’s little feet were crossed while sitting on my lap, with Abby playing happily on the floor as I read.  Of course as soon as she heard the camera, she stopped and wanted to get up with us!

She spent quite a while playing with her Melissa and Doug Stack and Sort Board

Making Banana Nut Bread

This is what Abby did while we mixed the bread batter.  She loves to watch Baby Signing Time!

And lastly, we finally had some good weather after a cold and rainy spring so we spent some time outside blowing bubbles, bouncing balls, and tossing rings, (until we learned that if they hit the cement, they break open and all the little marbles fall out).

Adam has gotten really good at riding his Strider Bike!  All of a sudden he is taking off and gliding and has so much confidence!  I need to buy him a helmet ASAP because he’s going so fast now!

What a hodge-podge week!

Check out Carisa’s awesome blog, 1+1+1=1 for other Tot Schoolers!

Tot School–Easter Theme

- Adam is 41 months and Abby is 14 months old -

The last 2 weeks were spent on a few Easter themed activities.  We’ve been really busy so Tot School has been very infrequent but I’m hoping to get back to “full time” this coming week.  It’s always a trade-off, one week I’m gung-ho about it and wind up exhausted, the next week I slack off and am driven crazy by a boy who obviously needs some structure in the day other than just playing.  Either way….I’m tired!  I have a sneaking suspicion that that will not change any time soon. :)

Lowercase/Uppercase Letter Match
from Musings of Me

Missing Number from Musings of Me
Adam had a hard time figuring out which number was missing unless he started counting from number 1.

Letter Ee Sort, also from Musings of Me

Jelly Bean Counting from Confessions of a Homeschooler 

Easter Egg and Flower dots pages from Mama to 4 Blessings

Sound Matching game
I got this idea from a couple of blogs.  I put pennies, bells, beads, and nothing in 2 eggs and then Adam had to match which eggs sounded the same.  I didn’t expect this to be hard for him, but it was.  I think he really just didn’t get why I was asking him to listen to them!  He just wanted to open them up and see what was inside!  Maybe we’ll try this again next year.

The kids had fun tossing, dropping, and chucking plastic eggs around the house….for days.

Water Colored Easter Eggs
We did this a few months ago and I thought it’d be a great Easter art project.  I cut coffee filters in egg shapes and then we dropped colored water on them with droppers.

Mostly Adam just likes playing with the water!

The finished product up in our window

Marshmallow Egg
Again, this idea came from somewhere in the blogosphere (I really need to be better at giving credit for art ideas!)
I made the shape of an egg with glue and we stuck white marshmallows on the outside, then colored marshmallows to decorate the egg.

Adam’s free-form art.
I was visiting with a friend and didn’t see just how much glue he dumped onto the page!

Here are just a few things Abby has done for Tot School lately.

Laugh & Learn Piggy Bank

Magneatos

Coloring

And the ever-present Baby Signing Time.Every time we walk downstairs she signs baby and says “Bee-bee…..bee-bee!” to let me know she wants to watch Baby Signing Time.  She is picking signs up like crazy though!  Just today she saw a doll in a book and signed doll.  Another new favorite is wind and rain.  Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE sign language for babies?  And how much I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE Baby Signing Time to help teach them?  Here’s a link if you’ve never checked them out.

We didn’t get to a few other spring/Easter related activities so I may try and sneak those in this week before moving on to the Transportation Preschool Pack from Carisa at 1+1+1=1 and Jolanthe at Homeschool Creations. 

Stop by 1+1+1=1 for other great Tot Schoolers!