Sunday, October 25, 2009

Tot School – Oct. 25, 2009

image M is 37 months old

We continued with a few apple-themed activities this week that we weren’t able to get to last week…

First Two Little Apples in an Apple Tree poem and mini-flannel board:blog pics 024 M has always loved this poem! :)

We read 10 Apples Up on Top by Dr. Seuss (such a great book!!), and did a cute flannel board activity putting apples on a picture of M!blog pics 003 They are numbered 1 to 10 and size sequenced too. I have seen this in a few blogs lately, but I can’t honestly say where I saw it first. It was before I started keeping better track of that sort of thing!

We also read The Seasons of Arnold’s Apple Tree, by Gail Gibbons. With this book we used these apple life-cycle cards from Montessori for Everyone. I made them into a little flip book so there would be no end or beginning to the cycle as we went through them a few times.blog pics 001

We also did a fun activity matching apple patterns on a boy’s head. The cards and patterns are from Making Learning Fun. We made them into magnets and did them on a small pan. I saw this at Izzie, Mac & Me.blog pics 047

Notice that green visor? It was in our “pay it forward” gift package from whisperingwhispers at Children Grow, Children Explore, Children Learn. I put it in one of M’s activity containers this week and he had a lot of fun putting race car stickers on it. He wore it for a long time afterwards too! :)blog pics 038 blog pics 040

He did his first dot-to-dot page:blog pics 011 an apple! I think he did pretty well! It’s in a page protector and he used a dry-erase marker and a piece of felt for an eraser.

We did an A activity for his new ABC book too! Check it out in this post.

M also used his dry-erase marker on a zoo page from a workbook and tried drawing straight lines.blog pics 009

He got in some more fine-motor-skill practice putting this button board together:blog pics 030

And the big hit of the week was this:blog pics 052 I made some 3”x3” cards from construction paper, used a black marker to write a letter on each one, and put it in a box with some toothpicks. M picked a letter and a toothpick and, working on the carpet, poked holes along the letter. This was a lot of fun for him and was good for letter identification, letter formation, and fine motor skills (again!). We held them up to the window and saw the light shine through the little holes. I got this great idea from prekinders – that site is full of good ideas! And so many of them are super simple like this!

We learned a fun new song (tune of “The Itsy Bitsy Spider”) from preschooleducation.com:

Once a little appleseed

was planted in the ground.

Down came the raindrops

falling all around.

Out came the bright sun

as bright as bright could be

and the little appleseed

grew up to be an apple tree!

We added motions to it and M wanted to sing it several times. Preschooleducation.com is a great place to find poems and songs!

That’s it for us this week! Next week we will be having some pumpkin fun!! :)

Check here for more tot school posts.

Have a beautiful week! :)

18 comments:

  1. The toothpick letter activity looks like it would be a winner over here!

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  2. Great week! D loves dot-to-dot. We are going to try the toothpick letter TODAY. He usually is not allowed to touch toothpicks which means this would be a big hit!

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  3. I like that cute apple song. And he did great with that dot to dot!

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  4. Another fabulous week! Love, love, love the toothpick and letter idea! I will definitely have to try that out, as it sounds like something Maddie would really enjoy.

    And, he is SUCH a doll!! Love that smiley picture of him. :)

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  5. I also love the toothpick letter. Great week!

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  6. M did a GREAT job on the dot to dot!! The toothpick activity is great - I'll add it to my list, thanks for sharing. :)

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  7. I love the apple pattern game! I needed a good pattern idea for this week so I just went and printed it out. Thanks so much!!!

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  8. I love your whole week! I know we'll try the toothpick/letter activity...that IS a great idea!

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  9. You always have such great ideas!! Looks like M did great with the dot to dot!!

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  10. You guys had such a great week. I went back and read your button board post. I think I will make one this week. I have never sewed button holes before and I didn't read close enough before to realize you just used felt. So easy.

    And I too love the toothpick idea.

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  11. Hi Nicole

    Another week jam packed full of fun and creative ideas. I like your flannel board activities especailly the way you incorporated counting and size sequencing into one of the tasks.

    I had not yet discovered the Making Learning Fun site. I have already had a quick squizz around there and can see lots of fun activities that we will try. Thank you for sharing this great resource.

    We have recently started doing some thinking skill activities from workbooks. Savanna really enjoys doing them.

    It was great to see M working on his fantastic button board.

    The toothpicks and letter activity is something we will certainly be doing. What a fantastic find and thank you for sharing this.

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  12. Looks like you had a fun week :) I also really like the toothpick idea!!!

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  13. Love the poem you found about an apple tree. So many very fun activities.

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  14. impressive dot-to-dot! I love all the apple-themed stuff. And who would've thought the toothpick letter thing would be such a hit - I need to try it...

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  15. What a great week! I am printing the apple cards right now! Thanks! I'll let you know if I run out of colored ink!

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  16. I had the toothpick pricking activity scheduled for my Pincer Grasp Workout Series. I got the idea from a Montessori blog but don't remember which. I'll go and edit it and link you though.

    I love the appleseed song. I love learning songs that piggyback on nursery rhymes!

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  17. This is a great week. Apple activities look like fun. I liked the picture of Matthew smiling and showing off his visor. Toothpick idea sounds intriguing. I have to try it and see if Anna is interested. I am curious how you made your magnets - I keep wanting to do some too.

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  18. Hey Nicole,

    I wanted to feature your button board for Simply Made on Totally Tots. I would like to use the photo of the actual board, but I thought it would be helpful to see it in action. So, I wanted to use the photo of M using it in this post, but I wanted to see how you felt about us using a photo with him in it. Let me know your thoughts.

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