Tot School: Celebrating Dr. Seuss

We spent the first two weeks of March celebrating Dr. Seuss’ birthday.  I took a book a day and we read the book and did activities based on that book.  Here's a little of what we’ve been doing:

Cat in the Hat:

Decorated a hat for the cat to wear

Saw how many books we could balance:

 

 

 

 

We were almost as good as the cat!  "Sunshine" decided she wanted in on this one too:

Horton Hears a Who:

We mixed black and white paint to make gray.  Then finger-painted white paper gray and used it to create giant ears and a trunk to wear.  I found this activitiy here and just slightly adapted it for our book.

After putting on their ears and trunks,  they acted out Horton Hatches the Egg by seeing who could sit he longest on the egg. 

 

Any guesses who won? :)

Then because “Miss Priss” is ALL into Doc McStuffins right now, Horton also needed a check-up.

 

 

Daisy Head Mayzie:

Daisy Color By Number.  This was our first color-by-number and was very simple.  I just drew it out; however, she loved it and we'll definitely be doing more of these!

 

Role played Daisy with hats and fake daisies

The Lorax:

And my favorite Seuss activitiy this year-making Truffula trees!  I found it here.  First of all we went outside and collected some small sticks. Next, we dipped cotton balls into water with food coloring.

 

 

Then, we painted our sticks different colors. 

 

 

After letting them dry all night we gently fluffed out our cotton balls and attached them to the sticks.  Here's our finished product:

 

 

We also watched The Lorax movie.

Tot Trays: 

This month I’m splitting our Tot Trays into 3 Dr. Suess related trays and 3 Easter trays.  Here are the 3 we’ve been using so far this month:

 

1. Based on There's a Wocket in my Pocket. Grab a handful of letters and/or numbers and place them in the pocket.  Then you pull them out one at a time identifying them.  We also placed letters/numbers in the pocket by color.  One activity I saw used a small and large pocket and you could sort upper/lower case letters.

 

 

      2.   Based on Green Eggs and Ham.  I took several of our green Easter eggs and wrote or used stickers to put different items on the egg pieces.  I used upper/lower case letters, color dots, and shapes. She then matched them up.  This probably would have been much more challenging if our green eggs hadn't been so different!

 

 

       

 

           3.   Based on the book One Fish, Two Fish.   She sorted colored goldfish and placed them on a chart.  Then counted how many of each color.  We also talked about which color in which she had the most and least.  There's also another mat with numbers inside goldfish bowls.  We haven't done this one yet but will by the end of the month.

 

 

 

 

Tot Notebooks:

 

To be honest, I never got around to printing out our Dr. Suess pages.  However, I did find a Seuss Preschool Pack here.
 "Miss Priss" still had several pages she hadn't done from last month so our Tot Notebook hasn't changed.

 

 

If you'd like to see what we did last year for Dr. Seuss' birthday check out this. You can also check out my March Tot School Pinterest Board for more Seuss ideas and for some Easter ideas.  We're going to start doing Easter on Monday!

Tot School: Catch up

 

Wow! I just realized that this is the first time I’ve even blogged this year! There have been so many times I’ve had an idea or even started an entry but just haven’t quite gotten it posted.  Just to be honest, blogging hasn’t been a priority.  However, as I started to look back through last years’ posts I realized how much I enjoyed reflecting and having these memories recorded.  Also, while we've still been doing Tot School it has been a little more sporadic without blogging to hold me accountable. So...here a quick "catch up" on what we've been doing the last couple weeks and I'll try to be a little more consistent with these posts :)

First of all, I’ve redone our Tot School area and added some shelves so that we have more room for Tot Trays, Tot Notebooks, and buckets with our blocks and other manipulatives.  Hopefully, soon I’ll do an entry just on our area setup.  But in the meantime, here’s a picture:

 We’re still following basically the same schedule as before.  February has been all about holidays!  Groundhog Day, Mardi Gras, Valentine’s Day, and this upcoming week President’s Day!  Here ‘s  a little summary of what we’ve done the last couple of weeks:

Table and Floor Time:

• We talked about what a groundhog is and a little about Groundhog Day.
• We discussed shadows. Then turned out the lights and used our flashlights to make shadows and fun shapes!  They LOVED this and everyday since we've still had to turn out the lights and make alligators and bunnies on the wall!
• 
  We made Groundhog Day puppets
• Coloring Sheet in which you had to find the shadows and color them black. 
• Shadow Match from our Valentine Tot Pack
• Discussed the meaning of a King Cake.  Colored a King Cake, cut out and hid baby.
• Listened to Zydeco music

• Made Valentine's

We've also done Tot Trays and Tot Notebooks nearly everyday. 

Tot Trays:

I started with three Tot Trays and I'm adding one each week so that by the end of February we will have six. 
I started out with a Winter Clothes Sort which was an activity we did last year with The Mitten: 

Cutting Hearts Tray:

One-to-One correspondence/Sorting Tray using a heart icecube tray and some valentine erasers I purchased at Target's dollar section:

Then I added a candy heart color sort:

This week we are adding a Size Sequencing using heart stickers. Then the last week I plan on doing one with red rice.

Tot Notebooks:

The kids especially "Miss Priss" also love working in their Tot Notebooks.  In the front of both notebooks I put A-Z pages and Colors and Shapes pages.  Then I added the Valentine Tot Pack from Over the Big Moon.  "Miss Priss" is ALL into Doc McStuffin right now so I also added a Doc McStuffin pack from 1+1+1=1.

Snacks:

• Groundhog Pudding Cup
• King Cake
• Valentine Cookies

Books:

We ended our week with some visits to family members delivering our Valentines and homemade cookies!

 

 



 

 

For easy access to links and more February ideas check out my February Tot School Board! 

Tot School: Thanksgiving

I know I’m WAY behind on my Tot School posts (and Tot School in general for that matter).  We’ve really just been enjoying fall and doing several fall activities.  I thought I’d share a few with you:

We’ve made cinnamon play-dough using this recipe.  I added some popsicle sticks with turkey faces and we’ve been making turkeys.  We’ve had a play-dough Thanksgiving feast.  And even a birthday party in expectation of “Miss Priss’” birthday coming up soon.

I made a giant book “Turkey, Turkey What Do You See” book and a Pilgrim Turkey color matching flip book from patterns at Childcare Land.  I couldn't find it anymore under the free patterns but they do have lots of other cute stuff like a turkey playdough mat.

 

We’ve had picnics:

 

We’ve made huge leaf piles and spent literally hours jumping in them:

 

 

As a family we’ve been working on our chain of thankfulness.  This idea came from here.  Just as she did we started off at the beginning of the month reading “Let’s Be Thankful” by PK Hallinan and talking about all the things – big and small- he was thankful for in the book.  Then we (my husband, Miss Priss and I) all wrote down something we were thankful for on a strip of paper.  Now each night after supper we read a verse(s) from the Bible using this calendar and then we each add a strip.  At the end of the month we’re going to use our chain to decorate the Christmas tree in the basement along with ornaments from Truth in The Tinsel.  It was such a blessing as we sat down to do it night before last and “Miss Priss” already had her Bible and was sitting at the table.  She opened it as though she were reading and said “Chapter 21 – God’s been good to us today!” 

 

"Miss Priss" holding up our Chain of Thanks

 

I’ve also personally been doing the FB Days of Thankfulness.  I didn’t do it last year because I thought, "You’re supposed to be thankful everyday not just everyday in November!"  However, I must say I’ve really enjoyed doing it. It’s made me even more intentional about being thankful.  It's also been uplifting to read everyone else's blessings!  And it really is true:  

“For when I am thankful it’s easy to see, I tend to spend life living more joyfully.” 

PK Hallinan, Let’s Be Thankful

 

Letter D and a Mini-Vacation

Tot School was cut a little short this week as we were able to spend the last part of the week in the Smoky Mountains. Looks like we'll be picking up a lot of this week on our review week! Here's some of what we did accomplish:

Bible Story: Moses

We read the story of Moses from our Bible storybook and did the coloring sheet and Moses craft. "Sour Patch" joined us on our second day of Moses and did the craft with us.

 

Letter D-used a Q-tip to paint dots on letter "D"
Fingerpainted the letter "d"

Nursery Rhyme-Hey Diddle Diddle

We also played in our fall sensory bin some more:  Sorting leaves by kind and color and having a little fun with disguises!

And some highlights from our vacation:

We spent one day shopping but had to take a couple breaks: 



To Ride Carousel



To Make "Sunshine" Laugh


 

Then we spent one day with the whole family in Cade's Cove. We took a little hike through the woods looking (and finding) a couple bear! 

So we didn't get a lot of Tot School done last week but we did have a great week and still learned a lot!

Resources and Additional Activities:

ABC Jesus Loves Me
Confessions of a Homeschooler Letter D
Tot School Letter D

Tot School: C is for Colorful Coat

 

Here are some highlights from what we did and learned last week in Tot School using our ABCJLM curriculum:

Bible Story:  Joseph and His Coat of Many Colors

Day 1 -Read story from our Bible Story Book and Coloring Sheet

Day 2 - Reread the story and talked about

Day 3- Using the pictures and story book “Miss Priss” told me the story.  Then she created a coat of many colors using the coat printable and tissue paper.

 

 

Memory Verse- Romans 12:21

Song/Poem- Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

Letter C:

-Put cotton on letter “C”

 

-Made “C”s with play-doh

-Did a crayon rubbing of the letter “C”

-Made a letter “C” with masking tape and used it as a road for our cars

-Used our dot markers for letter “C”

 

Science Color Experiment:  We talked about how you could use certain colors to make other colors.   I got out our red, yellow, and blue food coloring.  I told her I needed orange food coloring but didn’t have any orange.  Then asked her if she thought we could make orange.  We put some cool whip (you could also use shaving cream or white icing) in a bag and I tried to get her to predict which two colors we could add to make orange. At first she didn’t get it but by the time we did the last one. She even guessed that blue and yellow would make green.  After making our prediction (one at a time) we added our food coloring and then I let her smash the bag and mix up the colors.   We then recorded our results.  She LOVED this!  She was so excited when it first made orange!  We also made purple (red + blue) and green (blue + yellow).  She was so into this the first couple times I decided to do a video.  Excuse the poor quality!

 

 

 

 

Number 3:

-Counted out groups of 3

She really started recognizing groups of 3 without even actually counting them out.  For example, when we were cooking I had three measuring cups out and she looked at them and said, “You need 3 of those?” 

Fine Motor:

Made “Snakes” with play-doh

Snacks: cupcakes and carrots

 

She tried helping with the icing then said "Mommy I think I'm better at the sprinkles!"

 

Planned on doing candy corn cookies but didn’t get it in!  Maybe during our review week J



Reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar on our Camo sleeping bag

Books: 

Books we read this week

 

 

B is for Big Boat (aka Ark)

This week we went full force with Tot School.  We actually did it four days this week and “Miss Priss” cried because we weren’t doing in on Friday so we ended up having a little “mini” Tot School then!  I still don’t have our area exactly like I want it but I did finish and put up her learning board.  I love having this to go over each morning when we first get started.  I found this idea from here.

 

 

 

Here are some highlights from what we did and learned last week in Tot School:

Bible Story:  Noah’s Ark

Day 1 -Read story from our Bible Story Book and Colored theArk

Day 2 - Reread the story and talked about the rain. Did a little Science Experiment I found on Pinterest on clouds and rain.  
 

Put together our Noah’s Ark puzzle.

 

Day 3- Using the pictures and story book “Miss Priss” told me the story.  Then We counted out two of each animal cracker and placed them on the ark.

 

 

Day 4 – Retold Noah’s Ark focusing on the rainbow and then she painted a rainbow

Memory Verse- John 14:15

Song – Arky, Arky

Letter B:

-Put buttons on letter “B”

 

 

-Used our dot markers for letter “B”

-Played in our “B Bin” which included beans, a bottle, banana, ball, brush, block, buttons, and bells.  She sorted buttons, counted beans, and put them in the bottle.

 

 

-Sorted buttons by color talked about which color we had the least and most.

-Created a butterfly with our feet prints.  I painted “Miss Priss’” feet.  Then she painted “Sunshine’s”.

 

 

 

-Played with blocks

Number 3:

-Read Three Little Bears

-Counted out groups of 3 buttons

 

 

Fine Motor:

Introduced scissors and practiced cutting paper

Laced a bear

 

Gross Motor:  Rolled and threw a ball.

Field Trip: We went to Nocolulla Falls this week and visited the barn where they keep the bunnies.

Books We Read This Week: 

 

 

 

Resources:

ABC Jesus Loves Me

This week is Letter C and Joseph's Colorful Coat!