Tot School: Winter Theme part 2

Luv Bug is 34 months old

We had another fun, busy week working on our winter theme. We focused on polar bears this week. Luv Bug's 2 year molars have been giving her alot of trouble lately, so I saved some of the activities for another time, but we still had an awesome week.


Luv Bug had 6 trays again this week:

 Bottle top names (totally copied this idea from Carisa at 1+1+1=1.) Luv Bug knows all her capital and lowercase letters as well as how to spell her name, but she always enjoys this tray. I asked if she could spell it out herself without the 'guide' and she had no problem, so this is probably the last time we'll do this one unless she asks for it.

We made these last year. She had a lot of fun matching up the pairs.

She wanted to play a matching game with them (she takes my turn too)

Transferring "snowballs" (white stones).

Polar bear tangram, I found at Making Learning Fun.

Sorting Bears.

This was by far Luv Bug's favorite tray. She did this so many times. I cut a 'mouth' into an old Gerber snack container, added eyes and a nose and ears on top. I gave her some whale erasers and had her feed the polar bear.

One day, I added an Education Cube with numbers 1-6. We'd roll it and feed him the corresponding number.

This polar bear ate alot more than whales. He ate bears and the rocks from other trays.

And cotton balls too.

Personally, I don't think it looks much like a polar bear. It reminds me of Beeker from the Muppets, but Luv Bug LOVES him. We may keep him out for the rest of the winter theme or until she tires of feeding him.
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We did quite a few other polar bear activities this week.

 I realized that Luv Bug has not had much cutting practice. I've set out scrap paper with her scissors before, but she never really showed much interest.  I made these polar bear cutting strips and she was all set to try.

 She still needs some more practice, but she did pretty well.

I'm going to have to do this more often. I bought the Kumon cutting book but I don't think she's quite ready for it yet.

 I cut out some shapes out of cardstock for her to make a polar bear. I gave her buttons for eyes and let her know what each piece was. I decided to just sit back and let her put it together.

Her finished polar bear. I love how she did this and I'm glad that I let her do it her way.

 More sensory bin play. We found an arctic toob at Hobby Lobby and added it to her bin. I love watching her play this. She makes her animals talk to each other. I just sit back and listen.

Here, her beluga whale was kissing her wolf after it fell over.

 Completing an arctic puzzle.

I covered her beach tent with a white sheet to make an 'igloo'.

 My little polar bear.

 I made blue and white glitter play dough. I usually use this recipe, but I was out of cream of tartar. I found a cooking website that said to use vinegar instead. As you can imagine it smelled awful and it was much more crumbly, but Luv Bug played happily with it.

We read The Three Snowbears by Jan Brett and played with these paper dolls that I printed from her website. She had a lot of fun with these.

 I found this polar bear activity at Making Learning Fun. It's actually a count the days of January activity, so it's numbered from 1-31. I got out our calendar numbers. She would take a number, find the corresponding number on her polar bear, then glue on a cotton ball.

It turned out so cute. Luv Bug was so proud to show Daddy when he came home.

We read Nanuq and watched the video that came with it. It wasn't very long but super cute with lots of fun facts and a song. It also comes with a password to a website to learn more, but we didn't get a chance to look at it yet.


Since Luv Bug wasn't quite herself and Daddy was tired from a busy week, we decided to have a movie night. We've only done this a few times, since we didn't allow Luv Bug any tv until she turned 2.
Earlie in the week we read, Knut. A cute story about a polar bear "raised" by a man at the Berlin Zoo.
So, for movie night, I made a fun dinner and we just snuggled up together and watched the Knut and Friends movie. I decided not to bother with the camera, but just enjoy some snuggle time with my awesome family.
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We also played alot. Since Luv Bug has been having a hard time teething, she's been wanting to snuggle alot. She hasn't done much playing on her own so I would set out a different toy each day and we'd play that together as long as she wanted. Mostly though, she just read and even declined a trip to the park. My poor baby needs some relief since these have been taking SO LONG to come in. Here are a few random pics of the rest of our week:

Wedgits

 A big favorite around here. Luv Bug amazes me with her designs.

She loves her litttle 'mouse house'. She's engaging in more imaginative play lately. So fun to watch.

We love to cook together. She helped me make dessert for her Daddy. While it was cooking, she asked to dance.

Dancing to Laurie Berkner Band. This is probably her favorite DVD, the songs are really cute. We're taking her to see them in concert soon. I thought it was cute that she kept on her apron and hat.

I have to thank Carissa at 1+1+1=1. She recommended this in a post over a year ago. I love dancing to it almost as much as Luv Bug does.

We read this book about winter and Luv Bug got really excited and said, "Mama, it matches my other book." We found the set and she put all the matching pages together. She was so proud!

Of course, tons of reading.

We bought her this puzzle and she didn't want any help.

When finished, we measured to see which was taller.

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We read about 80 books this week.  I had found some cute polar bear books at the library.

 Here are a few we enjoyed:

I had such a fun week with my little Bug. I'm excited about some of the other fun activities we have coming up.