Valentine's Fun!

The week leading up to Valentine's Day - Daphne's Tot School theme was love and hearts. We read Guess How Much I Love You, You're Lovable to Me, and Roses are Pink Your Feet Really Stink. Much of our activities came from Over the Big Moon.

Working on one-to-one correspondance - putting one heart eraser into each heart cube.

Spooning the hearts into the ice cube tray

Working on Valentine's number puzzle

Daphne loves to do "which is different?" pages - I think she actually likes using the dry erase marker.

Valentine's Day sensory box - rice was the base and then we filled it with Valentine's goodies as well as some things for scooping.

Matching shapes puzzles

We ended our Valentine's theme with a little Valentine's party. The girls were excited to have some friends over for food, games, and goodies!!

Ducks, Dora, and More

36 months

Our focus last week was the /d/ sound. While I am not actually teaching Daphne letter names, I am introducing sounds. I know they basically go hand in hand, but I don't think that it is necessary to teach her the letters as a young 3. Gotta save something for later, right? When we talked about snowmen, we talked about the /s/ sound. I teach the sound while she traces a textured letter - I just rarely mention the name of the letter. Ever since - whenever Daphne sees an 's' she says, "Mom, look! Sssssss like snowman!"

I want her to learn the first letter of her name so we spent last week on D!! I didn't take very many pictures this week but here are a couple.

Playing with her water tub and ducks! She loves this activity!!

Painting with some feathers. I wasn't sure if she would be very interested in this activity, but she stuck with it for a long time!! She spent most of her time swirling the colors together.

We also read Make Way for Ducklings and Duck on a Bike (the girls LOVED this book - they thought it was hilarious!!) We sang "5 Little Ducks" and "6 Little Ducks That I Once Knew." Daphne counted little duck beads and practiced 1-to-1 correspondence by putting one duck in each cube of an ice cube tray. She has been doing some pre-writing practice mainly because she wants to. If Lucy is writing - Daphne wants to write. I am using these books (she just uses book 1) plus a few printables from here (which is why we did some Dora stuff).

We will probably spend another week on the /d/ sound after Valentine's Day. I am planning on spend 2 weeks on each sound but using 2 different themes to teach it. That is about it for Daphne this week. I am sure I am missing something, though, because we were super busy all week!

Go here for more Tot School ideas!

Snow Stuff

Norah's writing curriculum is similar to Writer's Workshop. Here she is "publishing" one of her stories.

When we finished our gingerbread man theme, we jumped right into a snow theme. I thought this would be perfect planning - January in Missouri - surely we will have snow. Umm, no. Actually, it has been 60 degrees instead. Ha!

The girls had fun anyway! We read The Snowy Day, The Jacket I Wear in the Snow, and The Mitten.

The girls played with play dough. This is the recipe I use. I love it! It doesn't dry out - it lasts forever! This time I didn't add any color - but I added sprinkles. Daphne thought it was fun!

Lucy was helping Daphne with "The Jacket I Wear in the Snow" activity. Ahh - it makes me crazy that both the girls sit in the "w" position. I correct it EVERYDAY but they still do it!

Daphne is so serious when she "writes" - I love it! Look at that perfect grip - even as a leftie! I really hope she doesn't lose it because I am now trying to fix Lucy's crazy grip. Ahh!

Daphne loves her Montessori activities that are available everyday (I change them every week). She is putting "scrunchies" on a thick dowel rod. She eventually sorted them by color, too.

Daphne also loves stringing beads right now. I love the chunky beads because she can easily grip them and the shoe strings work well too.

Lucy - working on sight word puzzles from here.

And here she is working very hard to maintain a proper grip. She is holding a quarter under her ring and pinkie fingers. If she doesn't let the quarter drop - she gets to keep it. She is doing really well - I also have her use some pencil grippers, too.

Run, Run, as Fast as You Can!

One of my goals for this half of the school year is to be better about my intentional 'totschool' activities with Daphne. Our first theme of the year is one of my favorites. . .Gingerbread Men. We read several versions of the Gingerbread Man, including this one, this one, this one, and this one.

The girls enjoyed a variety of activities related to gingerbread men. The crafts had to be Daphne's favorite. She was so serious as she worked. Cracked me up!!

We actually did a lot more than just crafts but for some reason I didn't get many pictures of anything else!! Whoops!!

Some of our other activities for the 2 weeks include:

playing with the snow. . . inside. Way too cold for this mamma to go out.

Playing with magnetic dolls. Daphne spent hours during the week playing with these. She loves them!!!

and painting! Look at that serious face!! Love it!

Tot School - Red

Our intentional Tot School time has been few and far between. We play, read and color a lot, but I haven't spent a lot of time preparing any specific activities for Tot School.

This week has been different (so far).

coloring a Kangaroo with a red crayon (Lucy's letter this week is 'K'

this week so Daphne wanted in on the action)

building with Lucy

throwing red balls into a bucket

sorting red objects - sparkly hearts, red counting bears, red unifix cubes

Daphne's first collage - attaching red items to contact paper! She worked and worked on this!!

Daphne is constantly trying to name colors but can't identify any yet (totally normal, I know) so I thought doing a week of a specific color would give her an introduction to each color. Right now, almost everything is pink - imagine that! This week is RED! She still called everything pink - but I overemphasized that the objects were all red!

Tot School

(19 months)

Last week Daphne just did some really random things for Tot School. This is one of her favorite books right now. We also read this one alot.

Daphne enjoyed using this Shape and Color Sorter. She took the shapes on and off and on and off. Lucy also joined in on the fun - but was a little stressed that Daphne was not actually sorting by shape or color.

Daphne continues to LOVE coloring. She is always so focused and she BEGS to color every day - especially if Norah or Lucy is writing/drawing/coloring.

Lucy was working patterns for school last week and Daphne thought she needed to join in on the action. She worked really hard taking the unifix cubes apart and putting them back together.

For more Tot School Ideas go to 1+1+1=1.

Tot School

19 months old

As a former preschool teacher, my mind tends to plan in themes so Daphne's first theme is All About Me. We sang the songs Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes and If You're Happy and You Know It. We read The Foot Book and Hand, Hand, Fingers, Thumb.

This week she played with the Linking People. She basically dumped them out and then put them in and out of the bowl.

Daphne tried spooning the pom pom balls from one bowl to the next. She was really concentrating on this one.

We played with Mr. Potato Head. Daphne could play with this forever! She takes the pieces out and puts them back in - over and over. She is getting pretty good at identifying her body parts - so we practiced with Mr. Potato Head (ears, eyes, mouth, arms, nose).

Check out more Tot School ideas at 1+1+1=1.

Check This Out!

Check out this website called Teaching Mommies for mom's of tots!! I totally love it and can't wait to use some of the lessons and printables with Daphne and Baby C! I love it!!

Tot School Planning

Tot School will look a little different for us this year because we are babysitting a little boy 3 days a week. Using the planning sheets from here, I have started putting together some ideas for our Tot School "adventures." Since Daphne is only 18 months and Baby C is only 1 - we won't be working on letters or numbers. I will just be introducing them to a variety of themes: farm animals, ocean animals, body parts, transportation, etc.

I love how little ones learn so much through play and I am excited to see both Daphne and Baby C. learning together. I know Norah and Lucy will be big helpers and will probably enjoy Tot School as much as the little ones!!

One thing I am working of putting together is theme boxes. I have a body parts theme box almost finished. I created this as my planning sheet so I don't forget anything. A couple of friends are also putting together some theme boxes so we will be able to share our boxes!! I am hoping having these boxes to work with will make it easier to have more intentional playtime with Daphne.

I am also making a list of all the things in the house that can be used for Tot School. I will just run down the list each week as I am prepping for Daphne and Baby C. Once I get through the list, we will go back and repeat.

I just have to figure out how to display our tot school activities. We do most of our school stuff in the basement where our playroom is. This has worked well because the little ones can play while we are doing school. I am just not sure how to make Tot school stuff separate from our normal - everyday toys.

Tot School

Here is my first official blog post of our Tot School. I don't know if it is because she is the third, but Daphne doesn't get a lot of playtime just for her. We play, of course, but Daphne usually joins in on what the big girls are doing. I am trying to make our playtime more intentional so I am hoping that posting weekly Tot School pictures will help.

I haven't given Daphne any crayons yet so I thought this week would be a good week to start. On Thursday, Norah and Lucy broke up some of our old crayons and sorted them by color. We lined a muffin tin with cupcake liners and added the old crayons. I melted the crayons in the oven at 350 degrees for about 5-7 minutes. Once cool we peeled off the cupcake liner, and Voila! We had chunky crayons for Daphne.

I put Daphne in her booster seat and gave her a couple of crayons and paper. Of course, Daphne first tried to eat the crayon. Then she basically banged the crayons on the tray. It was a fun first try!!

We read/sang the Wheels on the Bus.

This week we played with blocks. The girls dumped the wooden blocks out for Daphne and did a great job of letting her explore the blocks before they started building. Daphne basically just turned them in her hands, banged them together, licked them, chewed on them and dropped them back in the bucket. Once Norah, Lucy and I started building, Daphne squealed with delight as she knocked over our towers.

I am trying to figure out how to fit this "intentional" playtime that is totally focused on Daphne into our normal day. Obviously, Daphne gets lots of attention and playtime during the day, but like I said before I want some time that is focused on her.

If you are interested in learning more about Tot School check out this blog. You will find TONS of really great ideas for toddlers of all ages.