Saturday, February 28, 2009

Tot School

Luke is now 46 months old
Kimberly is 34 months old
We had a good week at Tot School this week.
The sun was shining for most of the week, which brought us little closer to spring and farther away for the mid-winter doldrums.
Yes, in our neck of the woods, it is still snowing and the temps this weeks are not supposed to get out of the twenties. But at least the snow has melted a little this past week and now the tots can actually walk around outside without getting their boots stuck down in two feet of snow.

We made lovely paper "people" this week.
Big sister Becky cut out the paper dolls and their clothes and Kim and Luke glued on the clothing and drew nice happy faces onto the dolls.
We didn't leave them attached to each other. They seemed to me more fun to play with when they weren't in groups of three.
We have begun a couple weeks of fun involving rainbows, so I have tried to incorporate the colors of the rainbow into a lot of this weeks learning. I found this very cute printable number recognition "umbrella and raindrops" from one of my favorite sites for printables, Childcareland. I think I could do all of my "tot schooling" from this site alone.
The proper use of this activity is too put the numbers in proper order under the umbrella. Luke and Kim also discovered another way to use these. Kimmy held the umbrella as Luke tossed the raindrops into the air. This produced a lot of giggling and running around.
Gracie shows us the proper way to use this-you may notice Luke on his head as he is learning this.
We got out the Do a Dot markers to make a rainbow. I got them started with the proper rainbow color order and then they both did a good job finishing their rainbows.
I drew a line in each arch of the rainbow with the correct color to help them keep their dots in the right place.
Where did Kimmy put the marker?
Luke was quite excited about his accomplishment.
I also started to search the internet for real easy mazes. I want to make a new "Tool for Tots". Luke has been enjoying simple mazes a lot lately, but he finishes one in a few minutes and to me it seems like it is wasting my printer ink to continue printing him new copies. So, I am printing out the mazes and laminating them. After I get about 10 printed and laminated I am going to put rings into the top to make this an activity to be used over and over again. The laminate makes a perfect maze that can be written on with a dry erase marker, erased and used over and over again.
I love how much Luke concentrates while he works on his mazes.
We had a lot of fun with spaghetti this week. You can see our post about this here.
We also made an ocean wave bottle that I posted about here.
Luke has been hard at work with his numbers 1-5 and I can say that he officially has these numbers completely mastered. Way to go, Luke!

We worked on the letter M this week in honor of our Goodnight Moon Lapbook, which is now complete, and being enjoyed every day. Mitten starts with the letter M. I think Kimberly is ready for a nap in this picture.
Here is Luke enjoying the new lapbook.
Make sure you go to 1+1+1=1 and check out all of this weeks great Tot School posts.

1 comment:

Lisa said...

I have told you, haven't I, that you have the best tot school in blogdom? You shame me with all your wonderful, creative ideas! I get so much from you! I'm so glad you share what you do.