Tot School: Ponds

Kayleigh is 41 months old

Raising Rockstars

This week we finished up our Ll unit.   She handled it about like I expected with a few surprises. 

Her tracing was better than expected and she the Ls she traced actually looked like Ls.  Although, I’m sure that if I asked to write an L, I’d get a blank stare and then some scribble. LOL

We also made Ll out of play doh using play doh mats from Homeschool Creations.  Great fun!!

We made a “light” craft that came with the Raising Rockstars bundle.  It had their Bible verse on it.  (Mackenzie is learning the verses with us. 

She did a great job cutting out her verse, Matthew 5:16, and had a blast taping it together.  Tape is such a thrill for her!

She loved that it was bigger than she was. LOL

I wasn’t really expecting her to actually memorize the whole verse.  I was thinking that she’d be able help me say it by filling in some of the words.  But yesterday she just said the whole thing, right out of the blue.  That’s typical Kayleigh.  You never really know what she knows until she decides that she wants you to.  LOL

I even managed to get her to say it on camera.   She was kind of rushing but I couldn’t get her to say it again clearly.  You’ll get the idea. LOL

Kayleigh’s first Bible Verse; Matthew 5:16

That was a nice wrap-up to our first Raising Rockstars Unit.

Pond Theme

We also did a pond theme this week.  Most of our stuff came from 2 Teaching Mommies, Homeschool Creations, and 1+1+1=1.

We used the Pond Life Nomenclature cards from 1+1+1=1 with our pocket chart.   This was primarily a vocabulary builder.

She had a great time teaching me the names of the picture with the pointer.

We played pond match up  with these boards and cards, also from 1+1+1=1.

Not pictured, she matched the pond animals from her sensory bin to the animals on the board.  She LOVED that.

And since I brought up the bin.  Here it is…

We have blue pom poms, blue/clear gems, and blue marbles for water.

Pond animals from various Toob animals. (Farm, river, and frogs and turtles to be specific)

A blue suction mat fish.  We like to stick marbles on those for fine motor.

Lily pads made out of fun and whatever silk flowers that I had on had. 

Not pictured: Spoons, small buckets, and tongs

Generally she likes to play pretend with the creatures in the tubs but this time she actually did some of the fine motor aspects.  She’s a mystery, this one.

She practiced counting playing with the Feed the Frog game that I made last year.  We got all the way to ten before she lost interest in the counting and only wanted to feed. You can download it here.

The following activities came from Homeschool Creations Pond Life Pack and 2 Teaching Mommies Pond Unit.  So cute!

Tracing…

Sorting insects and non-insects

Graphing pond animals

Another sorting activity…

Pond Spelling…with ABC cookies!  Yum!

The Rest

We also did a ladybug shape activity from Making Learning Fun.

She hunted big and little Ls.  She was a really stickler to find every one.  This was f rom Confessions of a Homeschooler pre-k pack.

Her first dot-to-dot from a Kumon Number book.

We built worked those motor skills with some foam, golf tees, marbles, and a hammer.  Anything with marbles and a hammer is a hit here.

She loves the Kumon Let’s Fold book.  It usually ends in a game of peek-a-book with a paper animal.  Woot!

Our game for this week was Melissa and Doug’s Sandwich Stacking Games.  It is loads of fun!  It gets the kids moving, they learn sequencing and following directions, and it’s fun to play “restaurant” with.  The big kids loved it too.

 

Tot School

Kayleigh is 31 months

Click the Tot School button to see more fun tot activities!

We had such a great week this week. Kayleigh was 75% cooperative and she even got to go back to Jamestown with us. (We went last week without her but decided to go back and explore on our own sans tour guide. It’s nice that those home school tickets are good for two weeks. And that we live so close. )

Literacy Activities

Our letter this week was F. A lot of our activities focused on fish and feelings.

We did a 1:1 correspondence activity with letters. We got this from COAH’s Letter of the Week curriculum. I didn’t think she’d really like this, as she tends to feeling that matching anything is beneath her, but she did. It was a pleasant surprise.

She also did a great job sorting capital and lowercase Ff, also from COAH. I knew she COULD do it, but she usually refuses. Maybe it was because I called them “Mommy Fs and Baby fs.” LOL She likes family. LOL

On our one hour drive to Jamestown she watched Brainy Baby : ABC's : Introducing the Alphabet. Every time she watches it she runs around saying “Uble-u says wu, wu, wu.” It’s nice knowing we won’t really have to focus on that sound in the future. LOL

We read Ten Little Fishand made a cute fish snack. I stumbled upon that on Totally Tots on accident the day after we read the book. That worked out nice.

Kayleigh liked making it but the only thing she really ate was the cream cheese that stuck the “body” to the “tail.” You can see how she licked it off. LOL Who doesn’t like chocolate covered pretzels? Crazy!

View Full Album

One of her favorite activities of the week was her Feelings Tot Book from 1+1+1=1. She had so much fun with it.

First we read a couple of books about feelings, The Pigeon Has Feelings, Too! and Duck and Goose: How are You Feeling? .

She absolutely loved the mini-book. So much that I couldn’t glue it into the folder. I’m going to velcro it in so that she can remove it and read it. She loved acting out the feelings. Especially “angwee!”

The “How are you Feeling?” game was a lot of fun too. At first she was very sweet and did it correctly. I’d say “Oh the little girl has a tummy ache. How does she feel?” She’d say “Sooo sick.” And put on the “sick face.” Then she went back to normal. “The little boy got a new bike. How does he feel?” Kayleigh’s answer, “Gwumpy!” “Why Kayleigh?” “It falled.” Technically, under her scenario, she was correct. LOL

She also liked coloring the color cards and lining them up all over the room. She’s usually not one for coloring but she was happy to do it this week. And she used the correct colors. Bonus!

The only activities we didn’t get to were the concentration/matching and the “draw” your feelings. Next week, I hope.

View Full Album

I did add in one other activity. I was totally IN LOVE with the Roll-a-Graph activity from the 2 Teaching Mommies’ forest unit. It looked like such fun. I thought about just doing their forest one because forest does start with F but I wanted to stick with the feelings theme because Kayleigh was really into it. So I adapted it for our feelings “study.”

(Although I might do the entire forest unit next week because, like I said, it does start with F and we still have to do our F page in our ABC book. And it is the cutest unit. LOL)

She really had fun doing this, once she accepted that she couldn’t just place the stickers anywhere she wanted. LOL She also liked just rolling the feelings die and acting out the feelings.

View Full Album

Click the picture below to download it.

She also played with her Melissa & Doug Alphabet Puzzle Book several times this week. She's never had that much interest in it before so that was nice.

Numbers, Shapes, and other “Mathy Stuff”

We did some big/little sorting with zip ties. I got the idea from Chasing Marcus who did TONS of fun things with zip ties. I plan on borrowing more of those ideas in the future. Lots of fun for only a dollar. She did this every day. Naturally she divided them into “mommies and tute babies.” LOL

She played with her MATCHIN' MIDDLESshape matching game. It’s good for matching and snacking.

View Full Album

Since my Feed the Elephant Game was such a hit with her, I made a new one for F. This week we Fed the Frog. Flies. Kayleigh thought it was Fantastic! She even did all the numbers, 1-10, without losing interest.

View Full Album

Click on the frog below to download it for your tot.

Fine Motor and Learning Toys

I saw this adorable leaf stringing activity over at My Montessori Journey. And I had everything I need to make it already. It’s very similar to the button snake but it has an autumn twist.

She really liked it. I was a tad worried that it might frustrate her because the button and the slit were smaller than the button snake, not to mention the leaf is flimsier than felt, but she did great. It took her a while to get the hang of it but she kept trying.

View Full Album

She’s been very into her Melissa & Doug Lacing Beads lately. Although never for more than 4 beads. It’s apparently an unwritten rule.

As always, instruments are a favorite activity. Please notice that she made a “T” with the rhythm sticks in the first picture. She called it a “T” too. That was impressive because we’ve haven’t done T yet and I don’t really expect her to start recognizing letters for about another year. So that and her “W says wu” were nice bonuses this week. LOL (I hope next week doesn’t feel disappointing after all these bonuses. LOL)

And here’s a little peek of her at Jamestown. She had a great time despite the fact that she declared that the Powhatan dwellings were “spooky” and smelled “ewwww…discussin’!” The nice thing about Kayleigh is that you always know where you stand with her.

View Full Album