Ten kids and a Dog: Tot School

Kimberly is now 41 months old

This week's Tot-school was very productive--without even realizing it.

Lisa asked me last week to post about how I organize activities our Tot-school, but I have to admit, I have NO organization. I have plenty of "things" around to use for Tot school and if that is what we do I take pictures--I keep my camera handy (always). I, myself, seem to lean toward the ADD spectrum, so the printables and activities you see are just things I come across on the internet (usually late at night) that I get together for the next day.

This week I found a great site to purchase pdf. files for different activities.
This is the Same of Different workbook. I just slipped the printed pages into page protectors and then into a binder and we have a reusable workbook.

Kimmy uses a dry erase marker. She loves "real schoolwork" and this type of thing keeps her busy for a long time.

Another new addition to Tot-school is our weather chart. I simply printed this and laminated it with tiny magnets attached to the back. It is on our fridge and the weather is now checked many times a day!
Of course, I found this printable late at night and can no longer find the link, but it gives an idea about how easy a "weather center" can be for our littlest kiddos. ( If you recognize it let me know and I will put up the link). UPDATE: Thanks, Nicole for providing this great activity!! Make sure to check out her blog for plenty of inspiration.
(I promise I will try to keep better track of my printables from now on---but of course, anything after midnight is up in the air)

Now this printable is from childcareland.com. (It's easy if I print the name of the link of the printable) These are the same as my magnet shapes, but for this I covered the front with clear contact paper to make it more durable.

I had Kimberly make little playdough balls (of red and orange) and she simply put them onto the circles on the leaf.

I was very proud of how well she stuck to this activity, and so was she. After this she had a great time squishing all the balls onto the leaf to make one colorful leaf. Luke, my preschooler, on the other hand, never did finish his leaf, his playdough turned into bombs which continually attacked his leaf and all the little people he made for his playdough.

Our Weekly Reader this week was all about apples.

Kimmy did an excellent job making an apple snack. She made apples with peanut butter, and was very surprised when I let her use a butter knife all by herself.

You can check out our book of the week: Ten Apples Up On Top here at this previous post.

We made paper jack-0-lanterns for First-School.

Don't worry, her pumpkin is not sad, that is his mustache!

I added a new file folder game to our activities this week. We spent last week learning about our five senses, so this was a great addition to add to our games.

This simply consists of pockets with pictures on them, into which Kim's put a picture of which one of her senses is used to learn more about the picture.

This one must have been tricky!

Most of the pictures could be matched with more than one of the sense cards--this was great to do together and we had a great discussion about the different pictures and how we can experience them.

We all made egg shell mosaics. You can see the complete post here.

We added a new game to our Tot-School rotation.

Farm Counting Fun

It is a counting game, so it is perfect for Kim and Luke to play together (with Mommy help)

They were so funny when Luke started to oink. I posted a video of them playing, it is cute, but also sideways, but it is worth watching just to hear the giggles.