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!!!!

Magnetic glove Tot school tool

Love Bug has a little addiction. She HAS to play with magnets EVERY DAY!!

Magnets are Love Bug's go-to activity, her first choice every day!

I honestly think we are all a bit "attracted" to magnets.

So I got to thinking about magnets and how much fun they are. I thought having a glove that was magnetic would be pretty fabulous. So I did a little search online and came up with two that were kinda what I was looking for. One was a pair of dive gloves for kids, the other was a pair of gloves for working on cars etc---meant for man-size hands. Neither really fit the bill.

So of course, I MADE one that was just what we were looking for!!

Total cost: $3.65 for 1 glove.

I didn't want a pair, because Love Bug is little and magnets are pretty powerful. She will need a hand to help put things on and pull things off of her "magic" hand (as she calls it).

I bought the supplies yesterday and Love Bug and I got right to them this morning.

We headed up to our craft/play room and got busy. (side note....how is this view from my window for creative inspiration??)

What you'll need:

3 Extra powerful magnets- available at Walmart, Michael's, etc.

1 pair of kid-sized knit gloves- Walmart, Target, etc.

Glue gun

Sewing machine/thread (or you can hand sew)

Turn gloves inside-out.

Put a spot of hot glue on the thumb.

 I learned it was better to put my finger in the glove before adding the glue so it wouldn't go through and stick to the backside of the glove as well.

Repeat with middle finger and pinkie. You can put them on all the fingers, but I would recommend doing that with less powerful magnets or only doing that for an older child.

Love Bug couldn't keep her fingers apart to use them when I had them on all the fingers.

Turn the glove outside out. Place the other glove (inside out) inside the glove making sure that the fingers are in all the way.

Sew the bottoms of the two gloves together. You'll want to stretch a bit as you sew so the knit can stretch when hands get put in.

Being sure that each finger of the inside glove is all the way at the top of the outside glove, make a few small stitches at the very top of each finger. This will keep the fingers together.

Now, if you have a righty, keep the glove as it is. If you have a lefty, turn the whole thing inside out.

Ready for the fun??

Place an assortment of metal objects in a bin and let your tot explore. I found most of my items in my kitchen "junk drawer" (see-- I really need to be cleaning my house about now).

  

Love Bug and I wandered through the house seeing what she could touch with her magic hand that would stick. She learned that the wood chairs don't work, but the metal one does. She also learned that while the front door makes her "hand sticky", the closet doors do not. She tried the walls, but nothing happened. When she tried a different wall, I told her that we already tried the walls, didn't we? But she happened upon a corner....and of course it stuck where the metal strip in on the corner. I got the most "you have no idea what you are talking about" look from her yet!

One thing I love about this idea is that you can also use it with little ones that are too young to use magnets otherwise for fear they might swallow them. You could put them in mittens instead if you don't want to fuss with fingers. Just put the two mittens together in the same fashion. I would stitch around the magnet to keep it in place.

Hope you have happy magnetic adventures too!!

WATER!!

Lovebug is 31.5 months old

This week Tot School went on the road!
We learned a lot about water, while enjoying a long weekend at an indoor water park.
Love Bug really loves water, and this weekend she was in heaven!

I did a lot of learning too. I learned that even though Love Bug protests about water getting in her face and ears when she takes a shower or bath, she doesn't mind it ONE BIT when she going under water in a pool setting. (how to translate that over to bathtime is going to be a task)

I also learned that she is one brave little girl who has to be watched EVERY SECOND around water. Especially because she refused to wear a life jacket for long.

Here are some pictures of our weekend in the water:

Love Bug spent a lot of time playing at the water channel station. She loved making the water stop flowing, then start again. She learned how to block it off up higher and let it build up so it would flow faster through the pipes.

My little thrill seeker also fell in love with a water slide that was 4 stories tall. She called it the "light slide" because it had neon lights and funky music playing in it. I was shocked that she loved it so much, as it was not at all a toddler slide. She went on it a total of 15 times.....7 of those were in a row (man were my calves killing me from walking up those stairs).

So what did we learn?? Water = FUN!!

Vehicles Tot school

Lovebug is 31.5 months old

I guess we're really into vehicles right now, with planes trains and automobiles abundant in our learning lately.

We used the Transportation pack from Home School creations.

We worked on her number train

Used pom poms on her do-a-dot letter "B"

Put together her three-part cards
(which she did really well with)

And was quite proud of herself!!

 Shadow matching- which I think is becoming way too easy for her, but she loves it anyway.

 As you can see....

 She also did her magnet on the letter "B". I don't think a day goes by when she doesn't do something with magnets.

This week I also made and used this so cute color sorting tool. I saw it here first, and then caught a glimpse of it on a few tot blogs. I just *had* to make one!!!

Love Bug is having a great time using it. I added cars in each color to the box this week, but didn't get a picture of it.

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.)

Learning Left and Right

A lot of guessing went on with this activity. It was a bit above their understanding, but you have to start somewhere.

Snack was an oh so cute bus idea with crackers and mini Oreos. Thanks to one of the other mom's for providing :)

Tots together day wasn't packed full of learning activities this week because we took a field trip on the same day. I have a friend who owns a bus company, so we went to have a bus tour!!

Let me just say that Love Bug was in HEAVEN! She watches her brother Jedi get on the bus every day and wants so bad to get on with him. We couldn't go for a ride (insurance reasons) but that didn't bother the tots one bit!

It was such a fun time! Thanks to Barb for indulging us!