Green and St. Patrick’s Day Walls and Collage

 

With St. Patrick’s Day approaching, I decided this would be a good time to start teaching Alligator his colors. Obviously, we will start with green.

Me and Marie has some wonderful printable learning aids, and they aren’t that expensive. I purchased the St. Patrick’s Day bundle and the green bundle.

I have placed our Green wall dislpay in the kitchen. I put it there, because we spend a lot of time in there through out the day, so I thought it would give us lots of chances to mention the colors, and the items.

Here is what the display looks like. I cut out a big swatch of green construction paper, then put the green words underneath (after laminating), I also hung up the green song.

I also have a similar display in the play room. But this display is our St. Patrick’s Day display. I have the song in the middle, along with our vocabulary cards. As well as the shamrocks on our magnetic board, so that we can act out the song.

We also worked on a green collage. Alligator seemed to enjoy this, but it took a lot of coaxing at first. Monkey really wasn’t interested, but he did make me a nice bracelet.

   

While working on it Alligator kept sticking the happy face stickers on his nose. Too Cute!

Here is Alligator’s final product! To make it simpler for him, I pulled out things that were green. So he didn’t have to sort through to find green stuff. We used wrapping paper, ribbon, stickers, tissue paper, and a do a dotter.

I just have to share

I was searching online for some St. Patrick’s day activities to do with my boys.

I found this blog called Chalk Talk.

CHeck out this really cool Shamrock measuring activity.

I am thinking you could do something similar for any theme.

I will be sharing our take on it soon!

Tot School Feb. 20, 2011

Alligator is 24 months!
To see what others are doing for Tot School please check out the link above.
We have really been enjoying the new lay out of our playroom this week.
We put pompoms into a ice cube tray.

Played with our farm magnets, while working on animal sounds.

Colored a snowman picture.

Played with our new sensory tub. It is a St. Patrick’s day theme.

Alex chose his tag junior, and his puzzle from his trays.

We also made a dirty pig.

Alligator’s favorite place to be these days when I am in the kitchen is on the counter. Not the safest place in the world, but it is the only way I get anything done.

We had some unseasonable weather this week, and we were able to spend some time out doors.
  

Preschool Corner Feb 19, 2011

Monkey has been busy this week.
We made cars from a kit from Family Fun magazine.

This is how it turned out!

Monkey spent a couple of afternoons playing outside with his brother. They really are sweet together, most of the time.

He worked on a couple of mazes.

They made “dirty pigs”


Check out what others are doing for Preschool Corner.

St Patrick's Day Sensory Tub

I bought the materials for this sensory bin from oriental trading.

It includes these coins:

These shamrock foam shapes.I like these because they are varied sizes and shades, but you do have to punch them out. If you get them here is a hint, stack all the ones of the same size and punch them out together, much quicker.

These foam beads

 

I some of these pots

Here he is playing with the sensory tub.

Closet Clean Out….number 3

Here are links to my first 2 posts. First and Second

I am so excited….I know have a craft/learning closet. Which houses all my materials!!!!!

These are my before pictures….

Here it is after 3 days of work!

Here is the closet~

 

A place for everything and everything in its place.

I repurposed the shelves from our playroom. The top shelf has all of our art supplies.

 

The second shelf has my laminator and pouches, and a tub for things I want to laminate next time I decide to laminate. It takes a bit of time to get the laminator warmed up, so when ever I have spare time, I will laminate the things in my bin.

The Middle shelf has a big bin that houses all my paper, and folders. So they are ready to go. I do have a bag that has a car craft in it, a big dice, and 2 tot activities also on that shelf right now. But I think I am going to move them downstairs.

The bottom shelf has a box with stickers, one with stamps, and our pompoms, recyclables (things like jars, clean plates), and then a tub with pipe cleaners, string and popsicle sticks. I got the green shoe boxes at Target in there dollar isle. Oddly enough they were $2.50 each (not a dollar, as I am learning not everything there is a dollar) but they were 50% off. They are awesome. I am going to buy more if they are there next time.

I bought this giant shoe organizer and the boxes from them at Amazon. Each drawer has a holiday listed on it. And inside will go all materials related to that holiday. I am also going to make a list of the activities we do that are related to that theme, so I can do them again next year. Most of the stuff in these drawers I can use years down the road with my own boys, or when I go back to teaching.

I have room for another in the closet. I might use it, for separating out activities. For instance, have a drawer for Color activities, or shape activities…I am just not sure yet if that is what I want to do. We’ll see!

 

The first closet shelf has all my kits that I have gotten from Time for Tots, of that I have made up myself. They are all labeled individually, but I also made a sign that is hanging, to let me know what kits we have. That way when I am trying to find things for the boys to do, that will jog my memory.

     

And FInally my top shelf has a box of playdough, activity bags that I made a while ago, some books, and a tub of our sensory bin materials.

I am really thrilled. It is so much easier to find things.

Possible Solution—part 2

Here is the original post.

I didn’t realize when I posted the original that this would be a 2 parter, however now that I am into it, it may be even more.

I am trying to organize for Tot School, in order to better utilize the items we have. You see, I am a bit of a shopaholic. I don’t obsessively buy anything for myself per-say, but I buy crazy amounts of stuff for the kids. I did the same when I was teaching, and now that I am home I have accumulated tons of stuff for activities with the boys.

Our formal living room is now our playroom/totschool room. I have tried and tried to come up with a workable solution and so far I am getting there.

I have pretty much reorganized the playroom. I am trying to reorder it into centers or areas.

I removed the shelves from this area, now this is our song/magnet area.

 

Because I took away the shelves (to be used in organizing a closet, you’ll see pictures of that in a post soon. I needed a place to put just 4 toys for Alligator. I cleared out 4 spaces in our existing shelving unit for these trays. These are toys that he can play with independently. They will be rotated at least weekly, if not sooner. I have 4 Tot trays on them. As you can see, he jumped right into these toys. You can’t see it, but he is playing with his Tag Junior.

As I said in my previous post. I can’t have out activities that I want to supervise Alligator with. So those activities that I want to work with him on in the coming days will be in the green drawers  you can see in this picture. This is our Art area. You can also see our Karaoke machine. It was a gift to me a few years before we had kids, I love it. But it is also great for the kids to try to sing along with music (we have a wiggles karaoke that is a huge hit), or to just vocalize.

Just to the right of this picture is a couch, but under it is a storage bin (the bottom of the couch is open and I found bins that fit under it perfectly, almost like a giant drawer). It houses our musical instruments, which is a huge hit.

I cleared out another area for our Little people sets.

This is the most comfortable chair we have in the house. I put a little bin of books. Alligator loves to sit on my lap and read books. He will say “mama” and point to the chair so I’ll sit with him. It is so wonderful to snuggle with him!

     

As another part of the organization I am working on setting up a closet in our guest room to house all of my learning materials. I am going to organize them so they are easy to use.

Here is the closet before I pulled everything out:

I already have everything out, and the new shelving unit placed in it. Now I just need to organize.

I took a trunk full of clothes and stuff from this closet to the goodwill this morning, I am sure there is more to go!

I also plan on making a list of activities for his trays and activities for his and Monkey’s drawer so that I can remember what we have, and remember to use it. Those will be in posts to come.

Linked to totschool….