Tot School: M is for Mighty Math Power

Luv Bug is 35 months old

We had a Team Umizoomi week! We didn't introduce television to Luv Bug until she was 2. One of the first shows she watched was Team Umizoomi, and she's been hooked since. She usually gets one tv show mid morning and one in the late afternoon unless we play innotab instead. This week, we'd watch an episode of the show, then do some activities based on the show.

We had purchased the Team Umizoomi math kits awhile back. While Luv Bug is ready for these cognitively, she's not ready for the fine motor skills it requires to do some of the activities...(draw a diamond, finish drawing the picture, draw pictures to complete pattern), so we decided to wait to do these. I found A LOT of great printables at Nick Jr. com and I made a few myself. I've been sick most of the week and especially today, so I'm not going to link each individual activity.  So unless I specify, all the printables are from Nick Jr. If you like a specific activity and cannot find it there, add a comment and I'll direct you to the exact link.

I didn't set out many trays this week. Here are the few I did set out: 

 I made this number printable for Luv Bug and set out her magnetic pom poms. We put the correctg number of pom poms on each square. I first saw the idea for these pom poms here.

 Milli paper dolls.

I set out some seashells and her magnifying glass. (this tied in with the Favorite Things episode).

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

I printed some fun Team umizoomi decorations and set them out for Luv Bug to find. 

 This match the chicks game was one of the things I found at Nick Jr.com. They tie in with the Chicks in the City episode. I made her some chicks out of pom poms and we took turns hiding some. We'd count to see how many were missing and then find them.

 This was my favorite activity this week. We watched the Favorite Things episode, then painted sparkle shells. (the girl in the show lost her favorite sparkle shells). Luv Bug painted them with tempera paint, then sprinkled glitter on them.

 I love how they turned out. When dry, I added them to her seashell tray.

 Completing a Bot puzzle.

 Sea Friends matching game.

 These blueprints are so cute and they tied in with some of the episodes we watched. Luv Bug especially liked these.

 Milli's favorite things bingo. Lot's of fun.

 Putting back the shapes that the Shape Bandit stole.

 Pattern Power.

Geo's Line of Symmetry Matching game

 I did use a few of the Math Mission Cards from the math kits. This one has you making a parfait pattern. I'm thinking about adding the mission cards to calendar time whrn Luv Bug is a bit older.

I made a Milli measuring stick. ( I wanted to add red ribbon for Milli's ponytails, but I couldn't find where I put it)

 She used it to measure her baby, then measured her against her growth chart.

Since I was getting sick, I didn't get  too many more pictures. Luv Bug really enjoyed this week so we may do this again.

Tot School: M is for Music

Luv Bug is 35 months old

I usually try to have a theme for Luv Bug, but we always make sure we keep up with our letters. We do each letter for 2 weeks. I've been wanting to do a music theme for awhile and it happened to fall on an M week.

I set out 5 trays this week:

 Luv Bug taught herself to count to 100 a few weeks ago, so I wanted her to see what 100 looked like. I first saw these magnetic pom poms here.

 This was great for her little finger muscles. She wanted to send this to work with Daddy and have him hang it on the wall in his office:)

These awesome cards I found at Counting Coconuts. Their meant to be 3 part or nomenclature cards but we used them as a matching game.

There are a LOT in this set. Luv Bug loves matching games but this seemed overwhelming so I just set out a few and she matched her instruments to them.

After she matxhed them all, we played a game where one of us would close our eyes while the other would play one of the instruments. The one closing their eyes had to guess which instrument the other played. Luv Bug was really good at this and we both had a lot of fun with it.

I've been trying to do a bit of cutting practice each week with Luv Bug. She's been doing well, so I thought she'd enjoy making a collage after cutting her picture strips.

She really enjoyed this and asked for more scraps of paper. She spent quite awhile at this.

I love this alphabet train I found at Kidsparkz. The link is to their alphabet printables page, you just need to scroll down to find the alphabet train.

I saw this idea over at The Princess and the Tot a few weeks ago and I just had to do this with Luv Bug.

Since we'd never done this before, I had her look over the items and feel them before I put them in the bag.  I let her put her hand in and asked if she could tell me what she had. She amazed me with this. I'm going to have to add more items because she had no problem guessing what she grabbed.

Another time I asked if she could find a specific item. This was her favorite tray this week. She would fill the bag with toys, peek in, tell me what she was going to grab, then scrunch her little eyes shut and pull it out. It was SO cute.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Some of our music activities:

This puzzle is part of a set I posted about here. It's double sided, the back had several instruments on it:

I had saved rainbow colored rice from an old sensory bin. I added these little snack containers from the Dollar Tree to make rice shakers. Luv Bug loved this bin. It took about 2 minutes to set up, but she played with it for a long time. (it seems she prefers the simpler bins).

She even got in some pouring practice.

Since we were learning about music, I printed a few printables from 1+1+1=1's letter x Tot School printables.

I set out all her little instruments and we had fun just exploring them.

It's upside down, but my mom had given Luv Bug a Little Einstein music learning book. We used the directions in the book to make our own horn.

It didn't work too well, but Luv Bug really liked painting the cardboard tube.

I put Luv Bug in our shower stall and let her use her cymbals to paint. She had so much fun doing this.

Carisa at 1+1+1=1 made this wonderful Little Einstein Tot Book. You can find it in this post.

Lining up the alphabet cards.

She LOVED the character do a dot pages. (Luv Bug had never watched Little Einsteins until this day...she's a fan)

Since we were learning letter M, I printed this do a dot sheet from Confessions of a Homeschooler's letter M preschool page. Luv Bug usually loves the do a dots, but asked for a crayon to connect the dots instead.

Another printable from 1+1+1=1's letter x printables.

We used baby food jars to make a xylophone. I used only 4 instead of 8. We used different implements to strike the jars to see which made the best sound.

We both really enjoyed this week. I definitely want to incorporate more music activities into her play.