Penguin Tot School

Love Bug is currently 35.5 months

Penguins!! We LOVE penguins at our house. This week I didn't find a penguin unit that I absolutely loved, so I threw some things together from here and there.

 I found some penguin activities over at Lawteedah.

We have been busy planning Love Bug's older brother, Jedi's birthday party for the past several weeks. I worked on that while Love Bug worked on her tot school, so pictures are lacking this week. I just totally forgot about photos! :(

Love Bug read a LOT of books about penguins this week. She also did some penguin size sorting, color matching and painting.

Tots Together

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

We had a great tots together day!

We had March of the Penguins playing in the background and the tots watched the penguins from time to time during our morning.

We got out our Pictureka Penguin Game and played a counting game

 We sat in a circle and counted our cards as the penguin dealt them out to us. I had the tots count three cards first, then added three more, etc until we got to ten. It helped them practice their counting several times by stopping and starting again.

We went on a hunt for things that start with the Letter P. I set out items in another room and had them all find four items each. This time around I ONLY put out items that start with P. This was the first time we did this together and I wanted them all to get their items for the next part.

We then sat down and took turns pulling things out of our bags. The tot who's turn it was would hold up their item and say what it was. We would then decide if it started with P (of course it did)

The other tots would hold up their "P is for Penguin" card if it did.

We made a letter P Penguin- which we've done here before, but who can resist?

We did potato painting Penguins- (thanks TH)

Not only did I NOT get a final picture of the penguins, but it's also gone missing! Sorry that I don't have it to show you. You can see where its going though. We added an eye and beak.

We learned about penguins and practiced waddling with our babies on our feet (thanks RJ)

 and sliding on our tummies

We counted fishes and put them on our penguin's tummies...some tots put on too many fishes and had to eat them to get the right amount that was on their card.

and we had a penguin treat. I used what I had on hand, so these are made with Famous chocolate wafers (three of them), frosting, chocolate chips, jelly bellies and candy corn.

It was a great week!

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Owl Tot School

Love Bug is currently 35.5 months

This week we did a lot with Owls! We have a barn owl that lives near our home, and after learning out it years ago when we first hear it, I've been a bit more intrigued by owls. Love Bug likes several owl books we have so I thought it would make a nice week of school.

We used a super cute owl unit from Mama's Monkeys

We checked out a lot of books about Owls from the library

Did our do-a-dots (The girl still gravitates toward pink)

We scored 4 nice wooden puzzles from Goodwill this week for $3 total (sweet!) and Love Bug couldn't wait to use it! 

 Then she did her dots with "Jedi's favorite color"

We colored Owls.

We also listened to the sounds that different owls make on our computer.

Tots Together

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

This week we used our tongs to put pom poms in an ice cube tray

 (Target $1 zone had these again so I picked up a few more)

 We counted a lot! We counted owls on our cards and clipped the correct number at the bottom

 Practiced cutting- still not a strong point for Love Bug

 We practiced writing "O" and "Owl"

 Circled the largest owl (I then asked them to all circle the smallest)

 We matched the shape on the owls tummy with the shape on the branch

 We placed eggs in the owls "nest" based on the number the owl displayed.

 We had yummy sticky owl treats (thanks to a tot mom RJ)

 We read a poem about owls (counting backward skill) provided by another tot mom RG.

 Then the girls acted it out with these so cute owl masks (also by RG)

 "Flying away"

 We practices positioning- Above, below, next to, and on. (RG)

 We learned about owls, how their heads turn, they eyes don't turn, they fly so quietly, etc.

It was a fun Tots Together Day!

I've been searching for things to do with Love Bug while its cold outside that can help sooth her playground angst. I dug our slide out of the garage, cleaned it up and brought it inside. Love Bug had a blast!! So did her siblings.

 This was Love Bugs attempt to keep Angel from going down the slide.

It was a fun week.

Last bit of Lazies

We've had a slow start to our new year, and didn't do any official Tot School this past week. Mostly it was because we had big plans to tackle THIS:

Love Bug so wants to be a big girl, and she's super excited about all of it, but we aren't quite there yet. I'm a kid-paced mama, and after a few days of trying, a few hits and more misses, we packed it all up.

Love Bug down right refused, and pushing isn't the way to go. There is only so much encouragement you can do before it becomes persuasion.

We'll revisit it in a month or so.

We have also been busy trying to get the plans together for Love Bug's birthday party at the end of next month, as well as Jedi's party at the end of THIS month.

I'm a planner, and I'm so glad I decided to crack down on a theme for the party because I've been so very blessed with some great deals on item for it.

Here is a little teaser of what we have planned for her theme.

I CAN'T WAIT...and neither can she. She's been telling everyone who will listen that she's having "a fairy party tomorrow!!" Not quite tomorrow, but fairy indeed. She spend several hours shopping for fairy items on clearance from Christmas with me and Grandma this week-- dressed in her Tinkerbell costume. Talk about making a magical scene.

We also did a few things the previous week that I had failed to mention.

We did our traditional Gingerbread houses.  We do them after Christmas so we can get some great deals on clearance candy.

 Love Bug ate an Oreo and then licked her lips...nice mustache.

 We got a *tiny* bit of snow and Love Bug and Jedi just HAD to go out to play in it.

 There really wasn't much to play in. Love Bug cried at naptime when she had to come in, and by the time she woke up it had all melted. :(

We also took a tour and signed up Love Bug for Preschool in the fall. I found a local school that I'm really excited about. We are planning to do home preschool two days a week and away school three half days a week. Love Bug is so excited for school. She has to see three of her siblings go to school every day, and she's left behind.

This year we are adding more reading and math to Tot School. Love Bug is doing a great job with all her letters and is beginning to get the concept of them making words. She tries to read the words in books and does a great job of tracking the words and putting her own story in its place based on the pictures on that page.

We are also going to focus more on identifying lower case letters and different fonts.

Somewhere in all of this, I also need to convince Love Bug that writing is fun. She's not a huge fan of that or cutting. We've got plenty of time though.