Tot School: Spring Theme

Luv Bug is 39 months old

Luv Bug and I learned about spring the last 2 weeks. Luv Bug wasn't really into doing many activities the first week, so we didn't switch out the trays.

We love her How To Build an A book.

Usually I set out these magnetic pom poms with a do a dot sheet, but I just wanted to leet her free play with them.  ( I fisrt saw the idea for these pom-poms here.

She didn't use them with the tray, but LOVED stuffing them in this container from a diffferent tray.

Sorting seashells on her science tray

Even though she is 3, Luv Bug still loves trays wher she can put things in containers, especially if they have small holes cut in them. This was her most played with tray.

Transferring bees to flowers with tweezers. She can easily manipulate these plastic tweezers (in a bug kit from Dollar Tree), but still prefers using her fingers.

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Last year, I printed out this adorable April Showers preschool pack from Our Little Monkeys. We used a few and saved the rest for next year. Luv Bug did very well with the shadow matching game.

She loves puzzles, so these 4 part puzzles were a big hit.

The bottom set of pattern sets was from Confessions of a Homeschoolers letter R pack.

 Every season we make a handprint tree. I painted her hand and arm brown, then gave her a cork cut into the shape of a flower (below). I set out pink paint for cherry blossoms.

After making a few flowers, she decided she needed to blend the colors.

I think this was from Musings of Me blogspot before she had to remove her printables:(

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Random fun

Tons of puzzles. Most come from Target or the Dollar Tree

She like so teach me how to put together her Melissa and Doug shape sequencing puzzle.

I found this awesome puzzle for $3 at a thrift store. I realized she did a lot of USA and World map puzzles, just a coincidence.

A little shaving cream fun.

We love our Melissa and Doug blocks!

We bought Luv Bug a little inflatable pool and some ball pit balls for the days that we can't make it to the town pool. She loved this, but we needed more balls to fill it. We have 200 2.5 inch balls and 200 3.25 inch balls. We will be outside a lot this summer, so Luv Bug will get a lot of use out of it.

Our letter this week was V. Here, Luv Bug is coloring in her Tot Time Notebook created by Carisa at 1+1+1=1.

Button art fun.

Letter V playdough mat from Homeschool Creations.

Starting in August, we're going to be doing adding some preschool activities. Still unstructured. So, I am in planning mode, the next few weeks will be mostly tot/preschool packs or no theme weeks. Summer is usually pretty crazy around here too, but we'll still be laerning and having fun together every day.

Tot School: Farm Theme

Luv Bug is 38 months old

I finally figured out the problem with my camera. Just in time because Luv Bug and I just finished up a 2 week farm theme. It's one of my favorite themes, but because of sickness and a few other things that came up, we didn't get to everything. We still did quite a bit though.

 I kept the trays mostly the same for both weeks with only a few changes:

Balancing marbles on a duck shaped bath mat. 

She prefers using her fingers.

I took the animals out of her Farm Busy Book (best price for these are Barnes and Nobles) and added her mystery bag (idea from here). We took turns reaching into it and guessing which animal we had grabbed. We did so many things with these animals.

I set out these farm stickers that my mom bought for Luv Bug. She was into them before I could take a picture:)

For her science tray, I set out these random items. I let Luv Bug explore them for a few days, then we did a sink/ float expirement with them. I didn't my camera when we did this though.

We've been reviewing shapes. Luv Bug loved these shape tracers from 1+1+1=1.

 I forgot to take pictures of the other two trays.

I also set our her Melissa and Doug Farm Lacing Beads and her Melissa and Doug Lace and Trace Farm set.

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Other farm related activities:

 I had this farm animal shadow matching sheet in my file from when I worked in pre-k. Luv Bug matched the animals her Busy Book Farm animals before she completed the page.

 She also matched them to this Farm coloring page from this Farm Fun Printable Pack. 

These cute farm animal clip cards were part of a free Farm Center printable pack at Teachers pay Teachers.

This mini book from Alphabet Soup was my favorite thing we did. The left of each page has a mama animal and the right has a blank spot for you to put a picture or sticker of their babies.

I found some adorable baby animal pics on Google Images and Luv Bug chose the correct one and glued it to the page. I went back and made a dotted outline of the baby animal's name for her to trace over.

The last page has a spot for a pic of you and your little one.

I found this cute cut and paste page here. I let Luv bug cut the back half of each animal out, then she glued it to it's matching half.

I'm having trouble finding the link to this. I apologize if this is your creation. If it is yours or you know where to find it, please leave a comment so I can give proper credit to it's creator. I set out this capital letter farm printable with a set of lowercase alphabet cards. Luv Bug would choose a card, then stamp the match on jer paper with her do-a-dot markers.

These pig number cards were also part of the Farm Center printable pack I mentioned above. I set the odd numbered cards in a line with a space in between and gave Luv Bug the even numbered cards. She has been practicing counting by twos and did very well with this activity.

These adorable adult/ baby animal nomenclature cards are from Counting Coconuts.

After she had matched the mamas to their babies, she matched her Farm Busy Book animals to the cards.

I found this cute farm animal graphing game free at Teachers Pay Teachers. The cards fit prefedtly in our photo cubes.

I let her use her do-a-dot markers to fill in each square.

These matching cards were part of 1+1+1=1's Farm Fun Printable Pack .

Another printable from 1+1=1=1. You can find these Farm Memory and Match printables here.

I found these cute pre-writing traceables here. Just scroll to the bottom of the page.

We used her photo cubes along with some blank squares from our Education Cubes memebership to make this postional words game. She's roll the cube and place the animal to the bowl correspondingly.

Sorry for the upside down photo.

As always, Luv Bug completed several puzzles. I love this Farm Puzzle Cube by Melissa and Doug.

This double sided puzzle is part of this set. We LOVE this puzzle set.

The reverse side.

I picked this puzzle up at Target's dollar spot last year. One of Luv Bug's favorites.

I made a simple sensory bin with rolled oats and her farm animlas. I've noticed she plays with the simple bins so much more than more elaborate ones I've put together.

I made these pom-pom chicks last year for Luv Bug and she is always excited when we get them out. Our favorite game is to hide a few. Count how many are in their "nest", and find the ones that are missing.
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Other fun things we did:

 We pulled out her Giraffalaf Limbo one rainy day.

Homemade playdough and straws = lots of fun.

We have been working on reviewing shapes. I have several that I've cut out and laminated. I hid them around our yard and Luv Bug would run to find the shape I called out. She enjoyed this A LOT.

Then, we placed them in a huge circle. We'd march around while singing. When our song ended, Luv Bug would call out the shape she was standing on and place it on the step.

She loves sending things down her slide. I set up a mini planter at the base of her smaller slide and gave her our water beads to send down. This was fun, but the planter didn't catch them all, so I spent awhile on my hands and knees picking each one out of the grass so the birds wouldn't eat them.
Water beads are fun but need careful supervision as they can cause severe intestinal issues if swallowed.

She has always loved her Fisher Price farm.

We spend a lot of time outdoors between our yard and the local parks. She has been asking to play basketball like Daddy. She was so cute trying to make baskets:)

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We read several farm themed books the past 2 weeks.

Here are some links to books I found online that I printed out:

http://www.kidzone.ws/kindergarten/learning-letters/ib-book-farm.htm

http://www.dltk-teach.com/minibooks/farm/index.htm

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/The-Farm-Emergent-Reader

http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Barnyard-Friends-Easy-Reader-I-see-a

Other farm books we read:

I always enjoy doing a farm theme. We even took Luv Bug to a farm's sheep shearing demonstration.
We had so much fun and look forward to expanding on this theme as she homeschools.