Tot-School-Back to Business

We have had quite a productive week here at Tot-School after a very unstructured Thanksgiving week.

All Thanksgiving week I wanted to make up a batch of playdoh for the kids to use feathers in, to make turkeys, but, I never got to it. So this week I commissioned Becky to make up a batch using our favorite recipe, which I posted here.

Everyone got into the fun with this activity.
We enjoyed our homemade dice.

I posted about these earlier in the week.

Kim and Luke made a beautiful Christmas star, and we read a lot of Christmas books.

We simply made two triangles out of crafts sticks and then glued these triangles into a star.

A little glitter glue for sparkle,

and this makes a perfect addition to our "fancy" manger scene.
Our "non-fancy" manger scene has started taking shape. The animals have arrived and our favorite book is here, and some cards with the Christmas story for sequencing practice are here.

St. Nicholas visited last week. So in honor of him, I printed out, and the kids put together, some puzzles of St. Nicholas himself. I found these cute printables here.

These were great fun, and both kids could do them.

Scissor practice isn't going very well for Kimberly, but she does it for 10 or 15 minutes at a time. This means that it is definitely a great activity.

Carisa, at 1+1+1=1, has made another great Tot-Book. This Tot-Book's theme is Christmas. I didn't make this book, but used the shape element to make a memory game for the kids. Above, Luke is using the paper cutter to help me cut out two copies of this page.
I love the little envelope that these can be stored in.

When I introduce a memory game to the kids, we first make matches while looking at all the pictures. We match them up, discuss what the pictures are, and with these, we talk about the shape that is outlining the picture.

Luke, at 43 months, is very good at playing memory. I generally put down 8 cards at a time, and he matches them up pretty quickly.

Success is a wonderful thing.

Kimberly, at 31 months, has a much harder time with this. I lay down 4 cards, face up at first, turn them over in the same spots and she tries to make matches. Sometimes she can do it, and sometimes she just up and cheats.

She is always very happy to make a match, no matter how she does it.

I don't remember every doing sequencing with either of the kids. For this activity I cut out a Christmas tree shape and then the kids glued a star on top. They also colored the trunk brown.
I drew lines on the tree to provide a place to glue red and yellow squares in ABAB order. I put a line of glue down and then Luke did pretty well with this.
After two rows of proper squencing, (with help), Luke wanted to do his own thing.
He loved dotting on glue and sticking on the squares.
He had a lot of patience and filled in the whole tree.

I didn't get a picture of Kim's tree, but she filled in every line with ABAB sequencing. For her, I laid the squares out in the proper order and then she added them to the tree. She also surprised me with amount of time she spent working on this.

We also had a very special visit with Santa this past week. Luke loved him and Kimberly wouldn't get anywhere near him, except to grab a piece of candy from him.

Make sure to visit Carisa, and all the great posts you are sure to find at this weeks Tot-School.