Saturday, September 24, 2011

Camping tot school

Tot School
Lovebug is 31 months old
Trying to squeeze in the last bit of summer before autumn takes over, we decided to do a camping unit for tot school this week. We used the fabulous camping unit from 2teachingmamas. Love Bug absolutely loved it!

We set up a few tents and added a bit of camping gear (bear included).
Love Bug has a great time playing in the tee pee I made for Jedi several years ago. Nice when things last for more than one child.

Puzzles are a favorite for her, and she's really starting to understand that the numbers written are the same thing we are saying as we count.

More puzzle magic. This is probably waaaay to easy for her at this point, but she loves to do them anyway.

Size sequencing

"Clippy" numbers.
One of the things I love about Love Bug is her ability to give things names that just make sense. She thinks the clips are great and asks for a clippy activity every day.

Magnet dots. We can't get enough of dots around here.

Letter "T" again with the pink theme...

Reading with Buddy Bear

Camping themed sensory box.

Tots Together day!!
We made "alphabet soup" then took turns serving up letters and put them in alphabetical order-then sang the alphabet song to check our work!

Snack was a mini 'campfire' compliments of my friend RG whose turn it was for snack time.

Of course we roasted marshmallow and made smore's

And made "t's" hiding in tents


Then we sorted bears by color. So popular, it was done twice and some kids even wanted to do it a third time.

Love our little campfire. It was made with the cardboard for a freezer pizza as the base, two wrapping paper rolls cut up, yellow and red cellophane, and a battery operated candle. (and hot glue for the logs, tape for the flames) We plan to use it again soon!! (inspiration)

Happy camping!!

Sunday, September 18, 2011

Under the sea tot school

Tot School
Lovebug is 31 months old
This week was a busy one for Love Bug and I. There was a lot going on this week and I was certainly tempted to just give up and try again next week. I knew if I did, the next week would be "too busy" as well, and we would never get to Tot school. I always have a good reason to not make time for it. The key is that I am *making time* to spend quality one-on-one time with Love Bug.
We had a great time working on our Under the Sea Tot School courtesy of Carissa over at 1+1+1=1, and our get-together day was a success!

Love Bug is still swaying between left and right handedness. Of our eight kids, four are left, three are right, and Love Bug is undecided. I'm a lefty, my husband right handed, and we don't push either way with our kids.

This week Love Bug worked on her ocean sensory box. I added to it and put it in a larger box for our get together day.

She loves to use tweezers.

Magnet fishing game. This was actually great practice for Love Bug both in patience and holding still. She would get the magnet swinging too far and would have to wait for it to slow down and stop and then try to get it just over the tack on the blocks.
 Ocean in a bottle!! I made some of these for a party that I did for a friends daughter. My kids all wanted one, so I made one for our family too.
 Playdough
 Love Bug is not very comfortable with scissors. I think it has a lot to do with her not deciding on which hand to use with them.
 She also did a bit of exploring on her own. Can I just say that red powered koolaid makes a kitchen look like a crime scene?

 Love Bug's older brother Jedi had a birthday recently, and she helped make his cake. I think that "licking" is a learned skill. This was a great time to practice. Maybe next time she eats an ice cream cone she'll be more proficient at it ;)
 Our lesson plan came from 1+1+1=1. Carissa has lots of great ideas and free printables.

Do a dot crab and whale

Pre writing page

I helped Love Bug figure out the first sound from each picture and she put the "clippy" on the letter.

Magnet dot "J". She did this several times and was very careful to get them right on the circles.

Loved it so much she put them on her whale and crab. Can you guess her favorite color??

Playdough is by far Love Bug's favorite thing to do. I never let her older sibs play with playdough because it was such a nightmare to clean up. After making my own using a great recipe (check out this post), I have loved playing playdough with her.

She decided to make turtles.

My turtle in the right corner, her turtles on the left upper :) She told me mine looked like an elf. ??

Tots together day!!
This was our first one, and not having spend a lot of time playing with the other kids in our group, I wasn't sure where their interest and attention levels lie.
I planned a lot of things and then went with the flow.

We made "O" Octopus pictures

Starfish stampers- which came from this great idea. She made rollers, but her kids seem to be older.


I used one of our blocks and the bubble wrap just taped on. Both the paint and the tape came off just fine, the block was unscathed.

Working on our three-part cards. We're only up to two parts...
The stand is from Target $1 zone. If you're happens to still have them there, snag one up. The back side has a white board and more pockets.

While we would have loved to head to our local aquarium, it's a bit pricey and we'll just wait until half price days roll around this fall. Instead, we headed to our local aquarium store, where the kids were more than thrilled to see all the fishes that are for sale.

They even got to feed the big fish in the koi pond.
Fun week!!