Tot School: A is for Animal

Charger is 29 months, Mini Cooper is 7 months

After a couple weeks off {yep that's normal around here and I am just starting to accept it}, We had great week here this week! The weather was amazing so we spent a lot of time outside, but we did do a few things inside too.

A is for Alligator, so we made the ever popular and SUPER cute alligator from No Time for Flash Cards (thanks Jolanthe for the link). This picture makes me laugh, as it is so much like the picture Jolanthe has on her site. Must be the way little boys show off their alligators :).



A is for Animals. I pulled out our Little Tikes 3-D Farm Animal Match up, a thrift store find from last fall.




The point of the game is to hide the heads and hineys of the animals under haystacks and then play a memory game to find them. We didnt play the game, I just let Charger have fun putting the animals together. First, he put them all together with their correct matches. Then, he pulled them apart and put them together with what ever animal he wanted. I would come up with names for the animals using part of each of the animal words. His favorite was our Chicken/Duck, or Chuck. We love Chuck {the show} around here!



Charger also played with our new animal play sets. A horse, lion, and pig all in the same cage-now that could get interesting! He spent a long time with these.



Using the new Viking Toys Chubbies Charger got for Easter, he sorted them by color. And, I know for sure I got this idea from another Tot School mommy, but I checked the blog where I thought I got this and didnt find it. If it was you PLEASE tell me! I want to give you credit.



A is for Ant. I printed and laminated this ant shape matching game from Confessions of a Homeschooler. He looked at it, proudly matched ONE ant, and then said 'I'm done, Mommy. No more.' *sigh*

What he wanted was to play with our T sound box. Each week, I have been putting out a box with activities based on our letter of the week. These have been for Mustang, or so I thought. I bring out the letter for the previous week, too, so while Mustang was working on A, Charger dove into the T box. I was amazed at how well he did with the activities in the box!



He matched lowercase and uppercase T's from Confessions of a Homeschooler.



And matched T puzzles from Alphabet Avenue.



He mostly wanted to play with the T box objects, particularly the toaster.



The next day he begged to play with the A box, too. {post on the A box coming later this week}



Tiny Tot Play

Mini Cooper played with {er um ate} our Melissa and Doug Farm Puzzle.



She is also starting to pull up on things, which makes life {and school} interesting!

And this week, Mini has started to really play with toys. She crawls over and takes whatever it is that she wants to play with and will start to yell and fuss if a toy she wants has been taken away. This is trying Charger's patience a lot. So, I purposely gave them a school toy to share.



It is our 'new' Ikea stacker that neither one had seen prior to this activity. I bought it at a yard sale prior to CHARGER's birth. Somehow, it got lost in a box and I found it last week. I would have saved it for a birthday, but was afraid it would get lost again.

We took lots of Nature Walks this week, which I will be writing about soon. But, I wanted to share this picture. My favorite for the week!



To see what other's did at their Tot School this week, check out 1+1+1=1. God Bless!!

School Letter T

Mustang is 4 1/2 years, Charger is 28 months, & Mini Cooper is 7 months

This week went so smoothly! I was able to plan it out ahead of time and it felt so organized.

We had our Raising Rock Stars {Bible} lesson and introduced our letter of the week, T. I also introduced our T sound box.

Reading



We read Tiger Tales by Ronne Randall, a very cute book that we found at the thrift for 10 cents. Then we got out our plastic minature bugs and animals and retold the story. They loved doing this!



Choo Choo the Runaway Engine by Virginia Lee Burton, one of my favorite authors. Before we read this book, we went to Little Fingers Play and sang The Train Song. Warning: The Train Song is VERY catchy. I found myself singing it while doing dishes, and cleaning this week. Luckily, it's also very cute and the kids loved it. After we read the book, we put together an alphabet train from Childcareland.com. I had intended to have Mustang match begining sounds with the train, but it was all I could do to keep our new crawler, Mini Cooper, from attacking the train while we built it!






We read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault. Then made a T Tree, an idea I found on Counting Coconuts. I say we, but really it was just Charger, Mustang wanted NOTHING to do with this project.





Math

T is for Tractor so I pulled out our tractor coverall game. I was playing, too, so no action pictures, but Charger is doing much better with this. We played one on one team against Mustang. He rolled the die, I helped him count the number of spots, and he covered the tractors with very little help.




Mustang finally played the St Patty's day shamrock match I made. I cut out shamrocks from my scrap book paper stash and cut apart cards I found on Our Worldwide Classroom. They were intended for a clip game, but I changed them to fit our needs. I had Mustang match the cards and then clip them together on a clothesline. She found this work very hard, but was so very pleased when she finally got the hang of clipping on the clothesline.

Practical Life

So yes, this is a Montessori Category, and No there isnt anything 'Montessori' about this weeks Practical Life activity. That said, I really believe that computer usage is very important in every day life, so I feel it should be in this section.

Together, we played on Starfall, and then I let Mustang have computer time for 1 hour 2 seperate times throughout the week. She chose to play Starfall.com and Nickjr.com.

Sensorial



Color Tablets, or er Color Toothpaste tubes? I have been learning more about the Montessori methods {not just ideals} on My Montessori Journey, and came to understand the point of the color tablets. My understanding is that there are 2 tablets in each color. One set is set around the room and the other is kept with the teacher and child. The teacher asks the child to name a color and then asks them to find the matching tablet in the room. The first 3 colors are Red, Yellow, and Blue. Well, I do not own any color tablets {though I have read a few tutorials to make them and have added them to my long list of to makes}, but I do own these 3 tooth paste tubes. So, Charger and I played the color tablet game using the tubes. I found that when I ask him what color something is, he automatically answers 'Red.' I was able to get him to answer blue a few times, but he quickly reverted to red. He can easily match the colors, though. We will practice this again.



Charger placed green gems on this T is for Turtle magnet page I found from Confessions of a Homeschooler. She has lots of fun Turtle resources.



Charger and Mustang took turns playing with our Colors book. Its a cool magnetic game that Mustang got from Grandma a year or two ago. This was easy for Mustang, but she feels the need to play with all of Charger's games in addition to her own. He did pretty well with it. He could match the objects, but not the words.

Geography

We added South Dakota to our map, and put together our Melissa Doug floor puzzle again. Sorry no pictures! I made a little South Dakota {Great Grandma & Grandpa's state} book of the state, flag, bird, and flower. I found the book on Homeschoolshare.com.

Educational Toys



My Little Pony Memory-Mustang played with this everyday this week. I did pull out 10 pairs instead of a full game. We played together and she won every time-I didnt have to let her win either! She decided to 'pose' for this picture.




Race Driver Set from Priddy Books-Charger loves this book. He saw me pull it out of the cabinet on Sunday and asked every day for it. My only frustration is that he STILL puts things in his mouth sometimes and I found him putting the cars in his mouth one day and the next, I found him pulling the paper off one of the pieces. Is it normal to have a child who knows most of his letters and numbers and still puts toys in their mouth?!? It really makes choosing games a bit challenging.




T is for Twister, so we pulled out our game again. It didnt last very long this time. It quickly became a parachute, so it didnt stay out too long.



We used our spring cookie cutters with our Aqua Doodle. The cookie cutters really make the Aqua Doodle a lot more fun! We do have small issue with this, the kids have figured out that you can suck the water out of the end of the 'brushes'. Oy!

TINY TOT SCHOOL




I couldnt believe how excited Mini Cooper got when I pulled out our Little People Noahs Ark. She had a great time playing with them, and as you can see she has mastered sitting. She is army crawling everywhere and even did a little 'real' crawling this week. She is growing up too fast!!

We hope you enjoyed reading about our fun week. If you would like to see what others did this week, check out Tot School at 1+1+1=1 and Prechool Corner at Homeschool Creations.