Tot School

All the Tot School tools are linked to in a carousel at the bottom of this post.

Kimberly is currently 41 months old
If Tot School with Kimberly has any challenges it is trying to keep up with the amount of "school" she wants to do. She wants to "do school" all day, everyday, and that is becoming a big challenge around here. With 10 other kids, 9 at home--it is becoming tricky to keep her occupied, but I will continue to try!
Her most "schooly" work is her weekly reader type pages.
This week we used the Scholastic Clifford pumpkin activity sheets. Check out this site and you can preview the activity pages for free.
She is getting very good at cutting.

I cut the strip out in one line, and then Kim cut out the individual pumpkins and letter p's.

We did the patterns together and then she colored her paper.

We explored fall colors with cookie cutters and paint.

Kimmy loves this type of painting.

We also had a few beautiful autumn days to play in the leaves.

We came inside and investigated the leaves...

and then made leaf rubbings. She was amazed when the leaves magically appeared on the paper.

A surprising activity that has kept her busy is Gracie's fraction board.

She used it as a puzzle, matching up the colors.

We also had fun using homemade stamps to make orange on black painting.

I made a felt board for the kids last week and the first felt set I made was 5 Little Pumpkins.
I found the printable for this on the DLTK website.

Kim loves this and has learned the whole rhyme by heart.

You can see her sing it here.

We also explored real pumpkins this week.

Above she is washing her hands in the pumpkin pulp.

We counted pumpkin seeds.

Kimmy helped her partner, Grace, put the seeds in groups of ten so Gracie could count them.
We also made pumpkin pie from our pumpkins.

You can check that out here.

Dora Chutes and Ladders was a big hit this week,

as were Lauri pegs. This is the number train.

I also took the My First Leadpad off the shelf this week.

She has been playing with this a lot.

She finally has gotten the hang of this and can use it all on her own.

Kim loves to scoop and pour.

This week she used our dried pumpkin seeds and indian corn.

Check out all the Tot School posts at 1+1+1=1.

Open Ended Art--Fall Colors

This weeks Open Ended Art theme was: fall colors.

I got out orange, red and yellow paint and autumn cookie cutters.
I put a little of each color paint onto a plate (our usual palette) and let the kids have at it.
Gracie was very careful with the colors and kept them slightly seperate. I just love the look of her pumpkins.

Kimmy was quite "stamp happy" and had a great time layering her cats.

I also was happy with the affect of painting on the green and black paper.

Working hard....

Our final works of art.

Check out other Open ended art-here.

Next week's theme is orange and black

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.

Is Luke trying to peak at Kimmy's card?

I has also rained ALL WEEK-so this is what big sister Amy brought in this afternoon!

I hope everyone had a great Tot-School week.

Make sure to check out all the Tot School posts at 1+1+1=1.