Tot School: Penguin Theme

Luv Bug is 35 months old

 

This was our 6th and final week of winter related themes and we have yet to see snow.

We had a fun week learning about penguins.

Luv Bug had 6 trays:

 I found this penguin letter assessment page at Making Learning Fun. I set out some alphabet stickers for Luv Bug to match.

 She only got this far, then lost interest.

Luv Bug loved this tray. I bought the foam block and pegs separately, but they are part of this set from Discount School Supply.

 After awhile, she added her Littlest Pet Shop animals. (They were playing Ring Around The Rosey)

 Her Button Art set.

 Pattern Blocks

 It took her awhile, I was amazed at her concentration and determination.

Sesame Street outline matching. I made this a few months ago. I printed and laminated several characters and traced their outlines on paper. She loves the characters and after completing the tray, she wanted to play with them. I love when she has them talk to one another.  Here is an example of her dialogue: " Big Bird, where are you?, said Cookie Monster. Here I am, said Big Bird...." It's so cute!

I found this Penguin game online. It's meant to be an addition game, but I just added Luv Bug's whale erasers. (After I posted the pictures I went back to put in the text and I couldn't find the links to 3 of the printables. This is one of them. If it's yours or you know where it or the others can be found, please leave the link in the messages. I'd hate for someone to go to all that work and not get the credit they deserve.)

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This mini book was part of a unit I purchased at Teachers Pay Teachers.

This adorable mini book was free at TPT.

We read a few other mini books this week too, but I forgot to take pictures of them. I'll include the links here: another TPT freebie,  Four Little Penguins from carlscorner (you'll need to scroll down to find it.

This was another printable that I can't find the link to. I'm still looking. It was so cute and we had a fun time playing it.

This puzzle was part of an awesome set I bought for Luv Bug.  I posted about the set here.

The puzzle is double sided, the back shows a map of where each penguin is from.

Cloud dough with arctic animals. We used an empty dole fruit cup to make an igloo.

These you can find here at LAWTEEDAH

I saw these and thought they were adorable, so I made Luv Bug a set. I made 3 since there are 3 in our family. Luv Bug named them after the penguins in Mr. Popper's Penguins. The mama one was Stinky:)

These penguin cards were copied a few years ago out of a Mailbox magazine. We used them to measure different things.

Penguin Bowling.

This is the 3rd printable whose link I can no longer find. I KNOW that it was a freebie at TPT, but I couldn't find it this time. It's supposed to be a roll the dice game but I cut out the strips and drew a line between each penguin  for cutting practice.

We did a penguin family craft and watched Mr. Popper's Penguins one evening. Luv Bug's is on the left. She gave them all names. The mama was named Bossy. Starting to get a complex here.

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Random Fun

Window crayons.

We had a tea party with my old tea set.

Feeding her piggy.

She put all the tea set pieces in with her pattern blocks and said that was her sink to wash the dishes in.

One day, Luv Bug was not in the mood for anything tot-school related. ( I rarely ask her to do any tray or activity. I just set a few out each day. She usually loves them and as soon as she wakes up, asks what I set out for her. ) She was just bouncing from one thing to another. She sat to play with her babies and it reminded me of this post from Teach Preschool. I set out some bath items for her to give her baby a bath. Luv Bug had so much fun with this and played happily for a long time.

"Mama, I need to squirt soap in my baby's eyes". ????

I LOVE this pic

Wedgits are a big hit around here (we all love them)

We had So much fun these past 6 weeks working on winter related things, but we're ready for something new. Looking forward to our M is for Music week next.

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.