Tot School: Week 2

Izzie is currently 36 months old.

We continued our On The Farm theme, completed Creation Days 3-7, and had a lot of fun this week.

Izzie received the LeapFrog Zippity Interactive Learning System for her birthday from her grandparents. We finally got it hooked up and I am disappointed. After seeing the box, we were all very excited, but the excitement quickly wore off. It's not very user friendly, games are not truly interactive, and it did not hold Izzie's attention. Looks like we'll be taking it back.

Izzie and Mac both enjoyed playing with the muscial eggs. Click here for more details.

Izzie is able to work this entire puzzle by herself...well, Mac helps too!

I found this great workbook at Walmart. Izzie has really enjoyed working with it independently. I took Shannon's advice at Growing and Learning By Leaps and Bounds and put each page in a sheet protector and let her use a washable marker...instant RESUABLE workbook!

Izzie working with her On The Farm Magnetic Play Set.

For open ended art this week, Izzie created farm animals with Play-doh.

Her newest favorite activity is working with the "How To Build An A" book, which was a birthday gift. This is a great pre-writing skill activity and Izzie really enjoys it!

I found this Heads and Tails activity at 1+1+1=1. I attached magnets to the back, which worked well with the white board.

Izzie played with the Counting Chicks game. For more details click here.

For our weekly stART project, we read Mrs. Wishy Washy's Farm, created a Mrs. Wishy Washy paperplate, made and played in mud pudding, and enjoyed eating mud pudding with animals crackers. For more pictures and details of this activity, click here.

In addition, we completed Creation Days 3-7. Click here to see Izzie's acitivities for each day.

We had a great week finishing up our On The Farm activities!

To see our On The Farm activities from last week, click here.

To see a HUGE list of inspiring weeks of Tot School from other Mommies and Tots, click here!

stART: Mrs Wishy Washy

I recently found a fabulous blog, A Mommy's Adventure. Each week, she is hosting stART, where you read a book and do a related craft with your child.

This week, we read Mrs. Wishy Washy's Farm.

Izzie created a paper plate version of Mrs. Wishy Washy. For instructions, click here.

We made chocolate mud pudding for the farm animals to get dirty in.

Wishy, washy...wishy, washy...wishy, washy...all clean!

For our morning snack...chocolate mud pudding and animal crackers.

For more inspiring books and fun creative crafts, click here.

Counting Chicks

Izzie has been using this activity for counting practice. She rolls the dice, counts the dots on the dice, then counts the correct number of chicks to put into the tray. I've been encouraging her to use the tweezers to pick up each chick and then place it in the tray, but she prefers to use her fingers.

I found the Dice (2 pack) at Dollar Tree, the tweezers (2 pack for $1) and the chicks (after Easter sale) at Michael's, and the tray (around Easter for $1) at Target.

Heads and Tails: Farm Animals

I saw this activity at 1+1+1=1. I laminated and attached a magnet to each piece. The white board works great with this activity.

Izzie is enjoying matching up the heads and tails and thinks it's quite funny to mix and match the animals too!

Reusable Workbook

I bought this great Farm Theme workbook at Wal-mart for $3.27. It has mazes, color and number skills, patterns, and more!

I took the advice of Shannon at Growing and Learning By Leaps and Bounds. I removed all the pages from the workbook and placed each in a page protector, then in a binder. Now, the workbook pages can be used over and over again!

Musical Eggs

I made these musical eggs at Easter, but decided to bring them back out to play with during our Farm Theme week. There are a total of 12 eggs or 6 matching pairs. The object of the game is to pair up the matching sound eggs. Izzie is doing very well matching up the eggs by the different sounds.

Mac is having a blast with the musical eggs too!

Tot School: Week 1

Izzie is currently 36 months old.

We're back to our schedule and participating in Tot School each week. This week's theme was "On The Farm".

Here are our tot trays, well without the trays! For a description of each cube, click here.

Izzie and Mac playing with the barn.

Working with the Bottle Caps. More information about them here.

This week's color was Green. We did a lot of fun green activities, click here to see them all!

Izzie just received the Melissa and Doug Magnetic Pattern set for her birthday and it has become a favorite! It's great for fine motor skills.

For Bible Study this week, Izzie learned about Creation Days 1 and 2. To see more activities from Days 1 and 2, click here.

Life Skill: Learning to share.

For more Tot School fun and ideas, be sure to check out 1+1+1=1.

Farm Animal Bottle Caps

I first saw this activity at 1+1+1=1 being used as a way to learn how to recognize and spell one's name. I thought it would be good practice for Izzie to identify letters. Since, this week's preschool theme is "On The Farm", I created several spelling cards with farm animals (Microsoft Word clipart).

Izzie really enjoyed "spelling" the names of each animal and it was great letter identification practice. She placed the bottle cap letters over the correct letter, just out of sequence. We encouraged her to place the letters down left to right, but she insisited that random was best!

Preschool Environment Set-Up

I've been planning for weeks now on the best way to home preschool Izzie. Last year we loosely did Tot School, but not every day. I've been so inspired by the numerous amount of planning being done on the many blogs that I follow. I finally sat up a preschool environment for Izzie, found several curriculum guides to follow, and have an idea of what we'll be doing each day. The schedule will differ each day because Izzie has speech therapy 3 times a week at different times.

We will start our day after breakfast in the dining room with Bible Study. I will loosely use the 3 year old curriculum from ABC Jesus Loves Me. I added a homemade felt board for the weekly Bible verse and other Bible activities. We will be using the Read and Share Bible.

Afterward, we will have Circle Time. During this time, we'll complete the calendar and weather board (picture to be posted soon, still a work in progress), sing songs, and either complete a felt board activity or pocket chart activity.

I received my inspiration for the Seasonal Tree from Miller Moments. I added two pocket charts (Target $1 each). This week's pocket chart activities are for the color green. The seasonal tree is located in our almost completed garage converted playroom.

I really like the Montessori/Tot School style environment. I created a little area for Tot School in the corner of our living room. Each week, I will add a new assortment of items.

I like the idea of having "theme" weeks. It seems so much easier to plan for, so our first week is "On The Farm."

Top Shelf: Old MacDonald Had A Farm book and Fisher Price Barn Set

Second Shelf: Library books (see below for list of books), bottle tops spelling cards, On The Farm Magnetic Play Set, and How To Build An A

Third Shelf: See n' Say Farm, muscial eggs, color green activity, Preschool Scholar workbook

Top Shelf: Melissa and Doug Farm Lacing Beads, Mrs. Potato Head, Melissa and Doug Magnetic Pattern Set

Second Shelf: My One Book with container of sand, number egg carton activity, counting chicks activity

Third Shelf: Farm Animal Domino Game, bowling game, and 2 farm puzzles

Library Books:
Barnyard Banter
Click, Clack, Moo Cows That Type
Rise and Shine
Over On The Farm
Wake Up, Big Barn
If You Give A Pig A Pancake
Barnyard Lullaby
Mrs. Wishy-Washy's Farm
The Cow Who Clucked
Farm Alphabet Book
Cock-A-Doodle-Moo
Does A Cow Say Boo?
Big Red Barn
Barnyard Dance
Farmyard Animals
Animal Babies On The Farm