Tot School: Mitten theme

Luv Bug is 34 months old

 I love the book , The Mitten by Jan Brett and I knew I wanted to read it during our winter theme, but, because I found so many cute ideas (Thank you Pinterest), I decided to do a Mitten theme. We had so much fun, we're definitely doing this again next year.

Luv Bug had 5 trays this week:

 I don't usually like flash cards for Luv Bug, but she loves Winnie-the-Pooh, and asked for these. We found them at Dollar Tree.

 As the name implies, you match up the pairs that go together.

They are self-correcting. If matched correctly, they make a scene on the backs.

 I had these out last week and kept them out since Luv Bug enjoyed them so much. Another Dollar Tree find.

 She measured how tall her animals were,

 built them houses,

and made paths for them to follow. So simple, but such fun.

I had these foam handprints that we used as 'gloves' for making patterns.

 I made alphabet cards by tracing Luv Bug's bath letters and we used them to play a matching game.

 I love how cute she is when she's thinking.

 I took the tree from one of Luv Bug's games and placed pairs of mittens I had made from construction paper on it. We read The Mitten Tree, then she matched up the pairs.

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We also did some fun mitten related activities:

I set aside a few pairs of the mittens I had made and hung 1 from each pair on this 'clothesline'. Luv Bug would find the match and (with Mama's help), hang it next to the other one.

She can manipulate the clothespins, but needed help holding the mitten in place and keeping the line steady. She really liked this, so it stayed up all week.

Another mitten matching game.

We did this years ago with the pre-k class I worked with. I went right out and bought The Mitten so that I could one day do this with my own children.  You can find the printables here.

Luv Bug did very well. First we laced the mitten up, then she listened as I read the story and added each animal as it came along. 

We had 2 sets of the animals, so we flipped one set over and matched them to the first set by their shape.

I always prefer real pictures of animals, so I was SO excited a few weeks back, when I was searching for Mitten activities, to see these ones that Carissa over at 1+1+1=1 created. (I love how she had the animals all on one page, because it saves on ink and paper. I did print an addtioional badger that I found on google images, just because I wanted on that showed his 'diggers'. I made these into felt board pieces and we acted the story out as I read it.

Luv Bug's favorite part, flinging the mitten into the air after the bear sneezes.  We read the book every day this week and did several activities, but this was definitely her favorite. (mine too)

Mitten sequence cards that I found here. Click on free printables, then click on flash and sequence cards. Scroll down and click on "The Mitten" sequence cards.

Again, we read the story and Luv Bug would put the animals in order.

I made some mitten cutting practice strips for Luv Bug.

She's really improving in her cutting skills.

Mitten mini books I found online.  The first I found here, scroll down until you get to Previous Thematic Booklets, the link is about 5 down on the right. The second one (top right), I found here. The third (bottom left) found here and the fourth I found here.

As soon as I saw this idea, I knew I wanted to do it with Luv Bug.  I love any craft that involves her hand or footprints.

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A few other pics of our week:

Luv Bug loves puzzles. She just kept pulling out more and more. By the time she was finished, she had probably put together ten.

Before naptime, I always ask Luv Bug to get a small stack of books to read together. This is her idea of a small stack:)

 

Our local grocery store had these on holiday clearance. Originally priced $19.99, marked down to $2. We've been having a lot of fun with these.

We baked cookies together for Daddy.

Waiting patiently:)

Sensory bin fun.

Starfall. We love this site!

We made cloud dough. I had made it once before after reading about it here. It is such a nice sensory experience. Luv Bug will play with it for at least 30 minutes. I can't resist joining in. It is so soft and smells so good. I learned though, that it's something we need to do before bath ;) I don't know how it ended up in her hair, but she smelled wonderful.

We both really enjoyed this week. Next week we'll be doing one of my favorite themes- penguins. Gotta go check out ideas on pinterest.

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.

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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.

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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!

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Some of the books we enjoyed this week: