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.
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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.

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.