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Tot School March 27, 2011 “Aa, fruit”

Letter Learning

Alligator is loving the Tot School Printables from 1+1+1=1. We started with them on Thursday and he is really enjoying them. He requests the power point presentation multiple times a day. I really hope Carissa creates more!

He really enjoyed using the dotter.    

 

I printed the puzzle and matching cards on card stock and laminated them.

I showed him how to do each set first, then he was able to copy me.

He still loves his magnet letters

Here, he is matching his Mother Goose Time letters to the letter cards.

Sensory Tub

I made this sensory tub to go along with the theme of A and fruit. You can read more about it here.

On this day, I set out some buckets for him to sort through the items. He enjoyed practicing throwing the items in the buckets. He also practiced saying the word “throw”.

He discovered that one of the letters from the tub was from his magnet set, and said “go there” then went and put it on the board.

Art

I made the boys made some bird feet. They were willing to put them on just long enough for this picture.

   

Alligator’s newest favorite activity it taking the markers out of the box, opening them, trying it out then putting it back in the box. We did this several times.

  

Outside Fun

It snowed last night so we had one last fling in the snow.

       

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Tot School Aa and Fruit Sensory Tub

As I have stated before I love Carissa’s Tot School printables, and so does Alligator. I have come up with a couple of ideas to add to this theme.

I came up with this sensory tub for Alligator. I couldn’t even get it made before he wanted to play in it. Love the little smile that is on his face as he explores!

Since the theme is Aa and fruit, the tub has the same theme.

I gathered every A I could find in our house, as well as a bunch of plastic fruit, and small erasers that are fruit (I bought the erasers month age, figuring I would find something to do with them. I put them all in the bin.

The bin also has blue rice for a filler.

I also took each A and outlined it on a piece of construction paper.

That way as Alligator finds the A in the bin, he can try to match them to the sheet, sort of like a puzzle. Once I showed him the first one, he totally got the idea.

As you can tell, he is really thinking and studying to find the correct places.

 

    

So FUN!

Preschool Corner----Monkey Turns 5!

Monkey is officially 5. We had a wonderful weekend, with both sets of grandparents visiting, and a 5th birthday celebration.

Here are some pictures.

Let me explain, for Alligator’s birthday, their god-father gave Monkey a present too. It was a new train from Thomas and Friends. Inside the box with the train was an advertisement for this train set up.

Now, we have a bagillion Thomas trains, the wooden ones and some of the plastic ones. But Monkey could not stop talking about this train set up. He even slept with the brochure! He carried it everywhere. So of course….

 

We had to get it! Those expressions are priceless!!!!

We set it up on our dining table (it is too big for our train table).

He loves it. It has a working logging factory, as well as a zip-line bridge.Lets just say it was a great birthday!

I have a couple of other pictures for this week…mostly of him playing with his new toys!

Here is Monkey playing with 2 new toys. One is a hot wheels car that has different pieces so you can customize it. The other is a hot wheels track.

 

This is one of our Mother Goose Time activities. The boys made bird feet. They literally wore them long enough for me to get this picture. Hence, I am rethinking our plans for the future. MGT is on hold for a bit, I might bring it back out this summer.

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Plans for the future

First off…my computer is now fixed. Thank goodness. I am so happy to be blogging from my computer, rather than my ipod touch. That is a bit hard to do!

Second, I have decided on my plans for the boys “school”. As you know they both attend preschool Alligator 2 mornings a week, and Monkey 3 full days, and 2 half days. So really, Monkey is covered, school wise. He has chosen this schedule, and loves school. Alligator still needs some Tot School though.

Monkey plans:

I will play toys with Monkey. He has lots of them and I just need to spend our time playing. I am still on the lookout for activities to do with him, but mostly our time will involve playing with our toys, his Kumon craft book, his Kumon maze book and then some Time for Tots activities. Nothing too structured as his whole day is very structured. The poor kid needs some down time.

Alligator plans:

I am totally loving the tot school printables from 1+1+1=1. Most of you probably follow her already, but if you don’t you should. Alligator loves what we have done so far, and the Power Point slide show for letter A is a huge hit. I really hope she makes more! It is so developmentally appropriate for my Alligator! Just totally in love!

Going along with the letter and theme from above, I will also plan some gross motor activities to go along with the them. As well as a sensory bin. Alligator loves the alphabet and anything with letters, so we will continue to play with all things letters!

We will also do some Time for Tots activities. If you haven’t already you need to check them out!

As the weather gets better, we will be spending more and more time at various parks, in our own backyard, and eventually in the pool.

I have decided to put on hold the Mother Goose time activities. The boys have been sort of crazy lately and I find myself more interested then they are. So I have packed it away for now, and might bring it out again in the summer.

Goals

I was sitting down today planning activities for the boys. I wrote out plans for the next 2.5 weeks. Afterwards I was stressing about all the things I wanted to do, because it seems like so much. I realized I need to figure out what my goals are, and then plan.
So this post is more for me than anything.

General goals:
1. To have fun activities to do with the boys.
That really is my main goal. I enjoy structured activities, and they seem to too. Both boys attend preschool, so mainly I just want to have fun with them.

Alligator:
2. To work on his speech, and gross motor.
3. He loves letters, so an emHasidic on letters is good.

Monkey:
4. Quality time. Monkey and I have about 4 hours per week that is just him and I. That isn't much time so I want to make the most of it.
5. Science is a great interest to monkey, and early reading skills. I also want to work on gross motor skills with him, especially ball skills.
I think having a goal will really help in making sure I am planning appropriately.

Out of touch

Just as I was really getting back to blogging, my computer broke!
Just about a week ago, a opossum got into an electrical transformer, and our entire neighborhood lost power. Even though I had my computer on a surge protector my CPU fried it's power source. I'm not so good with the technical aspect, but the gist is that it needed a new part, which is on order.
Luckily we have some great friends, and I should be up and running by tomorrow night???

I have a bunch of great things to share, as I begin our planning for the spring and summer!
See you all soon!

Tot School March 13th

Sunday night we decided to go out to dinner. We get there, and Alligator throws up on the table…. That was the start to our week. From there things got worse. On Wednesday, Monkey starting throwing up, and Alligator’s temperature was near 103. Alligator was tested for flu (yes he was vaccinated) and it came back positive. By Saturday things were pretty much back to normal, but it was a sick week for us all, as we were all sick!

However, with all this time at home we did get quite a few things done (when we weren’t laying in bed).

We are still learning about birds and eggs, with Mother Goose Time (MGT).

ART

We did a lot of art this week, but with Alligator being so sick he either sat on my lap, or only slightly participated. So here is what I captured.

Rubbings of ovals. (MGT)

Making a beak. (MGT)

Showing off his painting to Daddy.

This is a prewriting activity. He is supposed to trace the dotted lines. He wasn’t feeling that great when we originally did it, so later he decided to come back to it.

Letters and Number Work

He loves these alphabet flashcards. In fact, anything with letters on it is a huge hit. He can actually name 8 letters and identify them. That is pretty great for a little guy with a speech delay.

Working with our hands-on number 7. (MGT)

I placed the hands on number 7 on his shelf after I introduced it, and he chose it on another day as well!

Hands on letter B (MGT). He loves these. He chose them several times, even when he was sick.

I have 3 magnetic boards in our playroom. One of them has magnetic letters all over it. Alligator loves pulling them off and walking to the other board and putting them on it.  So this is the sequence… (he is actually saying the name of the letter, hence the weird face.

This was prior to him getting really sick. We went outside because the weather was so nice. He loves letters so much, that he refused to come out with out his bag of foam letters.

BIRD and EGG FUN

Our themed sensory tub.

 

I finally thought of something for him to do with the strings that are on our eggs.

 

Finding Food for his bird. (MGT)

    

Giving the owl his flying feathers (MGT)

The Owl kept tipping over, so I finally taped him to the wall. I am going to keep him out for a while.

Choice Time

Alligator got this for Christmas. It is a Noah’s Arc from Fisher Price. I love to hear his little sound effects as the animals “walk” up and into the arc.

 

Alligator loves puzzles

 

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