Tot School: Winter theme week 4

Luv Bug is 34 months old

This ended up being an off week for Tot School. Daddy was home at the beginning of the week, so we just enjoyed family time together. Toward the end of the week, Luv Bug pulled a muscle in her neck while sleeping. Poor baby woke up crying and holding her neck. I called her doctor and got her an appointment, though we had to wait over an hour and a half in the waiting room. She was in so much pain, she just layed on my lap and fell asleep. Unfortunately, that nap made her neck stiffen more, so she was screaming when the doctor tried to check her.

The good news was that it was nothing serious, just a tight, pulled muscle. It was terrifying though, seeing my baby in such pain. She's pretty active too, so seeing her just lay in bed for 36 hours before trying to get up was scary. She's doing much better and is able to move well. She's still guarding her neck and favoring it on the right.

Is there anything more heartbreaking than seeing your baby hurt, asking you to make it better, and NOT being able to? :( 

I had prepared several trays but she did not do them all. The ones we didn't get around to, I'll save for next week.

 I bought this game at a local discount store. The little things at the bottom left are catapults (sp?). You try to launch the monkeys onto the tree. Lots of fun.

 Luv Bug only needed a little help loading the monkeys. She was pretty good at aiming and figuring out how much pressure she needed to launch it just right.

Luv Bug is very compassionate. This was so sweet. I launched a monkey a bit too high and he landed on the floor. Luv Bug ran over, picked him up and put all the other monkeys around him to make sure he was ok:)

 I bought these unit cubes at the dollar tree a few months ago, but this is the first time I put them out. I didn't give Luv Bug any direction, I wanted to see how she chose to play with these. She thought up so many ways to use them and played with these several times this week.

 She stacked them,

 and finished patterns I had made while she was playing with toys. (this was the only time I

'intitiated' anything with these. I just made patterns, she glanced over to see what I was doing and came over and finished on her own.)

 This was taken about an hour before the first time she got up since she hurt herself.  She was playing with the blocks and asked for her cars. In this picture, Holly Shiftwell was trapped and needed the other cars to rescue her.

The rescue cars got trapped too, so Luv Bug rescued them herself.

 Her magnetic pom poms. These are so much fun. I saw the idea first in this post over at 1+1+1=1.

 I added this 1-10 sticker sheet which I found over at Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Carissa over at 1+1+1=1 put together this awesome Tot Time Notebook. Luv Bug loves this, but where it is kept, there are so many arts and crafts materials, that it gets overlooked. I put it on a tray and she went through the whole thing.

 Right now, she likes to trace and color each page as fast as she can so that she can wipe it off with a baby wipe. She did this a lot!

 She's been asking to glue things lately, so I gathered some items (2 of each in different sizes) so she could make a BIG/little collage. She did really well.

After she finished gluing everything on, she went back and put a drop of glue on each item.

 --------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here are a few other winter activities we were able to get to.

  

This handprint polar bear we did 2 weeks ago and I realized that I forgot to take a picture of it. I found the idea on pinterest and I thought it was too cute.

 Another craft I forgot to take pictures of. This was done last week. I had made these with the preschool class I used to have. Mine is the boring one on the bottom. I love how cute Luv Bug's turned out. We glued magnetic strips to the bottoms and they are now hanging on our fridge.

 She was playing with her Arctic Tube from her winter sensory bin. We put the pipe cleaner into the igloo and she had her animals follow the 'path' home.

 Snowflake matching from Confession of a Homeschooler's letter s pre-k unit.

 I set out 3 winter mini books. Luv Bug ran to get her crayons so she could color them. The first one is called, What Can We Do In The Snow, found here at Hubbard's Cupboard.

 This next one is called Snowflakes. I found it here years ago, but am having trouble finding it now.

 This is called Fun in the Snow, I found free at TPT.

This patterning activity I found over at Musings of Me. Unfortunatly, it is no longer available.

 I downloaded this igloo alphabet matching file folder game here.

 I didn't think when I assembled this that she would need the igloos side by side, so I had to cut the file folder apart.

 We played this Winter Bingo (from TPT) game again, big hit with Luv Bug.

 We watched The Snowy Day from Scholastic.

 We had planned a playdate for the end of the week (we cancelled when Luv Bug hurt herself), so one night after Daddy came home, I went upstairs to vacuum and put some things in the attic. I set out these snowmen alphabet cards from this unit I purchased at TPT. I set out the capital ones in a row (we somehow lost E before we even had a chance to play. Then I hid the lowercase cards around the room. While Daddy watched her, Luv Bug ran around to find the hidden lowercase cards and match them to the capital ones. I asked him to take pictures for me.

 (I absolutely love this pic)

She called up to me when she'd finished. This is what I saw when I came downstairs. Excuse the mess. I was getting ready to vacuum downstairs next, so everything was put on furniture.

 --------------------------------------------------------------------

A few random things we did this week. (Not neccesarily taken during tot school time)

 She loves playing with her magnetic doll. (Thanks Aunt S. and Uncle J.)

 This was one of her infant toys. I forgot about it until I was cleaning. She still loves it, so we may keep it out awhile.

 I've been seeing these water beads on a lot of blogs, so I finally ordered some. They are awesome. Luv Bug has been asking every day for them. (Little ones need careful supervision while playing with these. If swallowed, they can cause intestinal blockage).

 I love how different they look in different containers.

Just a cute outdoor shot, looking at a worm.

All in all a fun week, minus Luv Bug's injury, of course. Looking Forward to Daddy having another long weekend!

--------------------------------------------------------

Some of the books we enjoyed this week:

Tot School: Winter Theme week 3

Luv Bug is 34 months old! (and growing too fast!!)

We are having so much fun with our winter theme and we have so many fun activites left! I wish I were more creative with trays. I love how some moms tie every tray to their theme. I did a few, but some are just random things for Luv Bug to do. We had 5 trays this week:

 I picked this puzzle up at the Dollar Store. Luv Bug saw it when I was setting up other trays and asked for it. I let her play with it, then threw it on a tray. She played with this quite a few times.

 One day, I asked if she would help me put them in order. She said, "you do it, Mama." I put out the first one then I acted like I couldn't find number 2. She ran over and stepped on it. Then I acted like I didn't know which number came next. I counted, "1,2,3...ummm 7". Luv Bug cracked up, said I was a silly Mama, then finished the puzzle.

Then we had to walk along the puzzle:)

 I put out her polar bear game again. She still likes it but it didn't get as much play. I didn't get any pics of her playing with it this week.

I think I bought these spools from Discount School Supply. I have been teaching myself to sew and plan on sewing being a part of our homeschool curriculum when she's older. She's never really taken to lacing trays but I set them out every once in awhile. I was surprised when she chose this first.

 She placed 2 or 3 beads onto the lace.

 Then, she decided they were a family and named all of them:)

I took some of her winter table scatter (from Dollar Tree), out of her sensory bin to make patterns.

 First, she lined them up.

Then made a pattern for me to finish.

Then, she sorted them. So simple, yet she had alot of fun with this tray.

 At the beginning of the year, I  purchased an Education Cubes membership. I love this and I'm finding more uses for them as Luv Bug gets older. There is set of blank cards you can print to make your own games. I labeled 6 cards with a different positional word (on, in, under, beside, behind, in front of) and placed them in the photo cubes (you need to buy these separately). These are the ones we have.

We took turns rolling the dice, then placing our animal in the corresponding spot using the tupperware container.

We've done this before and we always end up laughing, trying to find the silliest way to roll the cube.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I froze some water in a bowl, then set it out with some of Luv Bug's polar animals. She touched it, said it was too cold and didn't want anything to do with it.

This was in a packet I printed from the  TPT store.

Luv Bug would place the lowercase snowflake onto the corresponding capital letter.

She didn't get much further than this before deciding to move on to something else. The target age on the packet is pre-k, so we'll just hang onto these and try next year.

This was another TPT purchase. Winter Bingo. Luv Bug really likes this. She would call out BINGO every time she had a match.

Out of all our trays and activities, she played this the most. She grabbed it and started playing a matching game. I love it when she yells BINGO in her cute little voice.

We always have a 'letter of the week'. Sometimes we use the letter as the theme, but on weeks when we are doing a different theme, I usually set out 1 or 2 activities for our letter. We love these do-a-dot letters from Confessions of a Homeschooler printables. She has one for each letter along with several other printables. She also offers a Letter of the Week curriculum that includes even more for a very reasonable price. I may purchase it when Luv Bug is a bit older. For now, I just choose 2 or 3 things for each letter. 

A tracing page from the Frosty Days TPT packet I mentioned above.

This is a FREE download from TPT. It is the cutest little winter memory game.

I couldn't get a good picture, but the animals are too cute.

Still loving her sensory bin.

I love her budding imagination. Here, her animals were in the Emergency Room after being burned by the fire. Sadly, this recently happened to a friend of ours, it was interesting that she incorporated this into her play.

I can't remember where I first saw this idea, but one blogger had the idea of using the bottom of a 20 oz soda bottle to make snowflake prints. Luv Bug loved this, so I grabbed a few more things that I thought would make interesting prints. She used my potato masher, a pot scrubber that is only used for painting and a clear plastic snowflake from her sensory bin.

Everything worked well except the snowflake. We'll probably be doing this again soon.

More from the Frosty Days TPT packet.

I found this alphabet assessment at Making Learning Fun. I'd show her a letter and she's stamp it with her Do a Dot Markers.

Another printable from the Frosty Days TPT packet.

I've seen this idea pinned quite a bit on pinterest, but I added a little twist. You make a snowman for each person using their name. Each letter is it's own snowball. I cut out the pieces the night before, enough for a Daddy, Mama, and 'Luv Bug' snowman. I used big circles for Daddy's, medium for Mama's and little circles for Luv Bug's. I also made a hat for each size and a scarf of bow tie.

Then we read The Tallest Snowman by Marcie Aboff. (in this book, the children use different measuring tools to measure snow, snowman, trees...).  Here are the pieces I made:

I hid them around the room, then asked Luv Bug to find them and sort them into big, medium, and little piles. She knows how to spell our names so she didn't need much help gluing them in order. Then she found each snowman's accessories and drew on faces.

I think they turned out too cute.

After they dried we measured each one with Daddy's tape measure. (Luv Bug loves getting her hands on this and was so pleased when she was allowed to use it herself).

After measuring them with the tape measure, we held them up to her growth chart.

She had a great time doing this. I'm going to have to buy her her own tape measure.
-------------------------------------------------------------------

We played alot this week. This week she initiated so many ideas. I just enjoy watching her so much.

 Luv Bug is really into cars. I think these may be her favorite toys. She lined them facing each other.

 Mega Blocks. Her building is getting much more elaborate.

 We played a little with the homemade playdough I mentioned in last weeks post, but she asked for her Cookie Monster play dough set. This was such a great buy. It usually keeps her engaged for about 30 minutes.

 This Fisher Price farm was given to Luv Bug from some dear friends. She's been getting this out quite a bit lately.

 This was too cute. poor Maggie was stuck up on the toy shelf.

 Love Bug grabbed this from her tool box and helped Maggie slide to safety.

 One rainy day, Luv Bug just needed to RUN. I set out these shapes I  made and we played several games with them.

 Afterward, Luv Bug grabbed her instruments and asked to dance to her Elmocize video.

 Cute thank you cards Luv Bug made for some family who had given her gifts a few weeks ago.

 Lots and lots of puzzles. I wish I could figure out how to group similar photos together instead of giving people capal tunnel from having to scroll down. I'd love any suggestions.

 And of course, tons of reading.

I think that I'm going to have to extend our winter theme by at least another week. We're both having such a good time and I keep finding more ideas on pinterest. The only thing that would make this theme better was a bit of snow (just enough to play in). It will probably come right after we finish our winter theme.