Halloween Tot School

Love Bug is 32 months old

This week for tot school we did a Halloween theme!!

Love Bug and I (along with her older sister) went to the local orchard and did a hay ride and pumpkin patch.

School this week was a lot of fun stuff. We did a really casual unit. Puzzles are always a favorite.

 Love Bug played with the build a monster several times this week. We picked it up from Michael's at some  point in time. It was meant to be stickers you put on him, but I mounted them on paper and laminated the pieces, and added velcro so it's reusable.

 We put the alphabet in order with a few different alphabet sets this week. Magnets, blocks, and cards. We even started working on spelling Love Bug's (real) name. I was totally blown away when she repeated it to her dad later in the evening.

 Love Bug absolutely adores playdough. Every afternoon when Jedi got home from school they played with it together.

 We made pumpkin shaped pbj sandwiches and made them into jack-o-lanterns.

Tots Together

(Tots Together is a day each week a few parents of "home preschooled" tots get our kids together to socialize and practice being in a group setting while learning.)

All the tots brought little pumpkins with them this week. I cut out jack-o-latern faces making the eyes and noses triangles, and all the mouths were different letters. I used adhesive felt for it. My "bright idea" to peel the backs and put them on wax paper for easy removal---was not so bright. It stuck so bad! Mount on plastic or foil instead. (glad I could figure that out for you so you wouldn't have to make that mistake ;)

Love Bug chose the "U" mouth. 

 The tots with their pumpkins

 One got away.....

We practiced the letter "H" with our do-a-dot letters.

Two words: table scatter

If you aren't familiar with them, the you're missing out. Table scatter is the new confetti for parties. All the cuteness without the microscopic mess. I have found them in ALL sorts of fun shapes, colors, etc. These were from the Target $1 zone. I hit up Michael's, Joann, etc after holiday and seasons end to pick up clearanced items to use in school. 

These pumpkins fit perfectly in the circles AND are great for sensory boxes too! 

 We made ghosts out of footprints

We practiced trick or treating- especially learning to say "Thank You".

We played "pass the cookie jar". We passed the jar while counting "1,2,3". The person who was number "3" got to pick a cookie. Next round we picked two cookies, and last round we picked three cookies. Each time we counted as we picked and passed.

And we shared our fun game of catching "falling" leaves!

It was such a fun week of learning!!

Apples & Fall Tot School

Lovebug is 32 months old

This week Love Bug had fun with Apples and Leaves!!

We loved the apple unit we found Confessions of a Homeschooler and the Fall unit we found at

Homeschool creations. Both were great units.

We matched shapes on apple puzzle cards

We practice the letter "L" using oversized push pins and a cute "L" printable. We used a foam mat that has cork on one side for pushing the pins in.

Oversized pushpin. A new favorite. I found them at Walmart :)

We stamped the one that is different with our Do-a-dot stampers.....

Then Love Bug decided to stamp them all

We practiced direction...Love Bug's favorite was putting the leaf on the apple---"the apple is UNDER the leaf".

THEN WE HAD SOME REAL FUN!!

Inspired by this post

Her son was using a ball toy. I thought of using our Elefun game..but that didn't work so well. (she posted using an elefun later in the week, so I guess we were thinking alike)

But it was the most fun using a fan!

 This went on for a good 20 minutes.

 Love Bug decided to catch the leaves with the elefun nets. She didn't have any luck.

Tots Together

(Tots Together is a day each week a few parents of "home preschooled" tots get our kids together to socialize and practice being in a group setting while learning.)

We practiced the letters A and L with our magnets

and do-a-dots

We did size sequencing apples 

 We marble painted leaves. I cut out leaves with my silhouette sd and taped them to the pie pans

 put the marble in paint (the big marbles work best)

and this is how they turned out! I have no idea why she wanted to stick them to her shirt for the picture.

 We did apple stamping...which is like potato stamping. Cutting the apple horizontally makes the "star" in the center leave a great pattern.

 We used the apple peeler-slicer-corer on our apples

 had apples and caramel (Love Bug calls it "apple sauce"because its the sauce she dips apples in)

 I live in a forested area and was so looking forward to letting the tots play in the leaves. Then the forecast called for rain. The day before it rained, I collected a big pile of leaves in a garbage bag.

We brought in a tarp and an inflatable kid pool......

and had a blast!

 I hid pretend apples in the leaves and they had to find them

 Then they jumped and jumped and jumped some more!!

 It was a happy week of tot school!!!!