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: 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: