Monday, November 14, 2011

Thanksgiving Tot school

Tot School
Love Bug is currently 33 months

Autumn on the east coast is one of my FAVORITE things. I do adore a drive down a winding road with trees painted bright orange, crimson red, and vibrant yellows. But what I really love, is throwing my kiddos out into that gorgeous scenerey and taking some pictures of them. :)

A bit of Love Bug love


Her brother Jedi
 Teenager
 And Junie B

Now on to Tot School, which is probably why you're here.
We worked on a Thanksgiving unit last week that I found at Over the big moon. We'll be doing it again this week, since Love Bug will in the care of Gma and Gpa while I'm away on a little trip with my sweetheart!!

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 worked with our three-part cards. We begin with the card that has both the picture AND word on it. The tots then use the words to match up with the first card. Then we match pictures. This works best in our word easel because adding the picture first covers the word- which is much harder for them.

 We sorted turkeys by size
 We did puzzles
 We classified food and people

We made pumpkin and apple "pie"
 using tongs, scoops etc to put into a pie pan through a pastry cutter (idea from here via Pinterest. Are you on pinterest yet? There is a whole world of tot ideas on pinterest...think about it)
 


We made a delicious thanksgiving feast!!
We began with a pan and spoon for each tot. They could fill it with whatever they wanted to. Then we put all the food back and they had to pick an item that was the same color I called out.

We did LOTS of counting. We started with counting squash and fruit for our cornucopia. There were 10 items. We put ten in, pulled 10 out, and repeat.
 Then we made our OWN cornucopia with icecream cones, goldfish crackers and pretzels, marshmallows, and craisins. Idea from here again..through pinterest.

Each tot had a cone, and 5 of each item listed.
 First we sorted them by type
  Then we counted how many of each type we had, followed by counting as we put them in our cones. 
We counted Thankgiving things on our cards and clipped the right number.

We made the Mayflower with handprints-- pinterest....

And after a very busy Tots together day, we sent the tots home with these so cute (and partially healthy) Indian corn snacks (seriously...you know I saw it on pinterst...right??)
 

This week, Love Bug also worked on sorting turkeys by small, medium, large- which she caught right on to.
 She found which one was different and  put a pumpkin on it
 And she made another pumpkin pie with her pie playdough mat printable (but used the acrylic pumpkins)
Love Bug repeated a few favorites from Tots together day several times this week.

AND she found a cart I left out and decided to use it to play....library, grocery store, mommy, etc this week. She loves to wheel it around. She even helped me put my groceries away using it to put items from bags in and then wheel them to the pantry and fridge. She classified them on the shelves by where they would be going......
Happy Thanksgiving!!! 


Thursday, November 10, 2011

Get a Melissa & Doug 25% Off Coupon When You Take the North "Poll"



Attention Melissa & Doug Fans!!!!

Melissa & Doug want you to tell them which of their educational toys you think is the best! Just click on the image below to place your vote in the North "Poll!" You'll Get a Melissa & Doug 25% Off Coupon** to use at MelissaAndDoug.com just for voting!


We absolutely love Melissa & Doug toys at our house, and if you haven't played with any of their products with your Tot, you're missing out!

Sunday, November 6, 2011

Princess and Knight Tot School

Tot School
Love Bug is currently 32.5 months

*I have a feeling that this will be my opening statement for the next several months....*
We had a busy week and didn't get as much tot school in as we had hoped to!

This week we redid our Princess unit- find it  here, and added a bit of Knight from here. These two ladies have some of my FAVORITE tot blogs.

I didn't get any pictures of Tot school alone this week. Love Bug did a LOT on her own. Our big move this week was taking all the toys- save the doll house, scooter, and Buddy Bear, out of our family room. Our toy bins are now full of tot school items, as that's what Love Bug asks to do all-day-long!

This week we also had only one friend join us for Tots together. Everyone else was sick or their mom's just had babies.

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.)
I made crowns out of felt, and Love Bug decorated them with jewels.



We built castles 
 Used our number floor mats (Love Bug used these EVERY day!)

 Practiced pre-writing skills

 Matched words to pictures
 (side note: One evening while I was making dinner, Love Bug got these out again. She would bring me a word and ask if it was - Carriage. It was, so she matched it up. Then wand...it was....this happened for all four words. No one was helping her. I can personally declare that my 2.5 year old is NOT reading. She can read the letters, and maybe she figured it out by the first letter, but I've yet to hear her identify beginning sounds. AND since both castle and carriage start with "c" I call it luck. Unless she memorized what the word said from previous times playing this week. But I truly doubt it.)

UPDATE: After a comment from a reader, I pulled out our cards again to see if Love Bug really could recognize them. I showed her just the words and she only picked out tiera. She kept saying "um...just a minute". I could tell she was really thinking though. So I got out the pictures- and sure enough, she could tell me what every word was and which picture it went to. So yes, she memorized what the word looked like that went with the picture. I'm definately going to run with this one :)

 Practiced "K"

 Decorated and ate cheese and bread crowns
 And worked on AB patterns- which Love Bug is really getting the hang of.
 Love Bug absolutely love to use her magnets on her do-a-dot letters...and she really loves the letter K. I'm sure you can guess why ;)
If you want to see our previous Princess Unit, go here.