Tot School

Here begins my second week of dedicated Tot School. I am trying to organize my thoughts and Homeschool Creations’ great Preschool Schedule really helps me stay sane.  I’m using her adaptable schedule and make my own type-written notes and handwritten notes too.  I have decided to have six tot trays out for the week and I try to be intentional with activities  that correlate with each of these four categories: Language, Sensory, Mathematics, Practical Life.  We also have a Craft of the Week every Friday!

Our Tot Schedule:

Trays:

This week, our trays: Melissa & Doug pattern puzzles, a slotting game, pom pom magnets, a green sensory bowl, caterpillar size sort, and bowls and funnels for rice sensory time.

Our Activities:

Language

Our book for the week has been Tomie dePaola’s Merry Christmas Strega Nona. John loves saying “Strega Nona” and “Bambolona” and loves all the characters from the book. It has been nice to read it every day, as he notices something new from the book with every new reading! (This is Mainly, we have been one book per week focus. (I have Before Five in a Row, and have been working through it with the books we already own in our very extensive children’s home library.) We also make sure to read many other books throughout the day.

And here is John with his mini book of the week: Animals with Baby Jesus from 1plus1plus1equals1. We are keeping this in a cute little red Christmas box that his friend brought over for him this week.

We have several (second-hand) LeapFrog games. We took out these magnetic letters for the first time and he was so happy! He can name about seven letters and was so happy to hear them!

Sensory

• Here he is with his green sensory bowl (I don’t have a picture?!). We played a guessing game and I placed a green dish towel on the bowl so he could feel and guess the objects. He really loved it and smiled so big.
• John loves these pom pom magnets and has begun matching one with each circle on the page.  I lost a lot of pictures, I think, we used Confession of a Homeschooler’s C is for Christmas page.
• I left this simple slot game on the trays to see if he would figure it out on his own. He brought it to me, looking puzzled, but when I showed him what to do, he got right to work!

Mathematics

These pattern puzzles from Melissa & Doug were a hit when my Grandmother bought them for John for his second birthday. Now, he can do these without help and even knows the names of all of the shapes provided (oval, rectangle, square, triangle, circle). Strange that he knows these and not his colors yet!

We also got out our Shape Silouhette Match-Up! game from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Practical Life

John loves tongs, so after he climbed on his stool and grabbed our tongs from the kitchen counter, I thought that he could “tong” his animals from one bucket to the other.  He loved it and was so proud of himself.

We did both a rice sensory bin with funnels and bowls.

And another water play day (he wants to do this every day).

Craft of the Week:

We colored and painted with green this week.  We chose to make a handprint wreath to focus on the color green.  John loved getting his hand dirty in the paint (which he didn’t like a couple of months ago), but his favorite part was making the red berries with a Q-tip!

**I plan on beginning 1plus1plus1equals1’s Tot School ABC’s at the start of the new year.  My son already knows some of his capital letters and gets excited when he sees them in books, so I think he’ll be ready!  I’m going to couple this with Songs for Saplings cd and Carisa’s coordinating ABC Bible Verses.  We (okay, I) are [am] so excited!