Leaf ID sheet and a little Art Time

We are fortunate to have a yard full of trees, and lots of different ones to choose from.  A couple of days ago I went out and grabbed some leaves to make a leaf identification sheet for M. 
I simply arranged them on the scanner and copied them onto a piece of cardstock:Then I labeled them (I only picked leaves that I was sure of, but I clearly need to learn a bit more about the trees we have.  There are several I can’t identify). 
I gave the sheet and the leaves to M to match them up as I told him their names: I hope to have him gather some leaves on his own and use this sheet to identify them some time soon (he’s been sick all week, and stuck inside, poor guy!).
Then we did some rubbings of the leaves:We’ve never done rubbings of any sort, although it is something I’ve wanted to do for quite a while.  M enjoyed seeing the magic picture show up. ;)  I hid the leaves under the paper while he was out of the room.  When he started the rubbing he said, “I’m making a tree!!”.
Finished products (top pic is chalk, bottom pic is crayons): 

Have a beautiful day! :)

Tot School – Oct. 4, 2009

 M is 37 months old

We had a very laid back week.  I am working on getting some tot trays / workbox-type things set up that M can work on independently throughout the week, but they are a work in process and nothing is where I want it to be yet. 
M surprised me by finding things to do on his own this week anyway – most of which were never captured on camera.  He strung beads and pasta, played with his Lite Brite, laced up some lacing cards, and played with some of his favorite flannel board sets.  My husband had Monday off, and they played Bingo, tried playing checkers, and read a lot of books together.  They also got out their binoculars and did a little out-the-window bird watching.  Here they are mommy-watching :)
Tuesday was an absolutely glorious fall day and we ventured outside (with the binoculars of course).  M grabbed his “nature basket” and trotted off:
You can see our yard is still mostly green.  There is one tiny patch of leaves turning colors in an oak tree: I’ve been hoping to gather up some beautiful leaves for an autumn leaf identification project, but Mother Nature is not cooperating with me.  Actually I should be happy that the leaves aren’t turning yet, it means winter is still a little ways off.  M grabbed a branch blown down by the wind gusts we’ve been having and tried his best to knock some leaves down for me.
No luck, so he started building with some logs -
Another look around with the binoculars(by the way, I got these at Target for $1.00 – awesome deal!) :
We did do some fun school stuff inside too, continuing with the autumn theme…
We learned a new poem and a new song.  I found both at preschooleducation.com.  The song (to the tune of “The Farmer in the Dell”):

The leaves are falling down,
The leaves are falling down,
Red, yellow, orange and brown,
The leaves are falling down.

And the poem, which M absolutely LOVED and did over and over again…

5 little leaves so bright and gay
Were dancing about on a tree one day.
The wind came blowing through the town,
And one little leaf came tumbling down.
(Continue with the remaining 4 leaves)

We did this with 5 silk craft leaves (Dollar Tree!).  I held them up, made them dance around, then M was the wind and blew and I would let one fall.  This was a huge hit!  He then held the leaves and I blew them, then he asked for all the craft leaves, and his silly mama gave them to him and eventually this happened:
Look closely and you can see a couple of them still in mid-air. :)
We also tried  doing these harvest pattern strips from filefolderfun.com:
He is just not *getting* patterns at all.  So I gave up and made it into a quick file folder matching game to put on a tot tray for him.  There are several more pattern strips, these two are just the ones we tried doing.
We did a fun autumn matching game – played concentration style.  He did great with this.  I can tell he is really starting to get better at the memory games.  The cards were printed from DLTK.
We also did a flannel board story about the Little Red Hen (I associate it with harvest time).  This set was found here:

And we made a cute autumn wreath:

That’s it for us for this week!  I so enjoyed taking it easy and not trying to fit too much in.  We both had more fun just being together. :) 

Check out what other moms are doing with their tots here!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Tot School – Sept. 27, 2009

M is 37 Months old

This week we began our autumn theme! I’m very excited about all the great activities and learning tools available with this theme.

We did a little normal school stuff too – that first…

We did our ABC train in the pocket chart again. Right away, when M saw me setting it up, he said, “I don’t want to do that, I didn’t do so good with it”. :( I told him that we were going to do it a different way this time and that he would do great. I sorted the train cars out on the floor by color, and then told M which letter we needed and which color group it was with. Each color had only 4 to 5 cards, so it was really simple for him to find the one we needed. He did great! His favorite part was after the train was put together. He grabbed two pencils and we pointed to each letter while we sang the ABC song. I’ve got to remember to always set him up for success while still challenging him. It went so much better this week and he felt much better about his abilities than he did last week.

I made some dots on colored paper for him and he drew lines to connect them and make simple shapes. The inspiration for this activity was this post. He did well with this and was excited to draw shapes, but we sure need to work on that tripod grasp a lot! Later in the day he cut his shapes out. :)

We did our weather chart, which has been sorely neglected the past few months:

M practiced his sawing. :) He lined up his blocks and sawed them apart, one by one (making all the appropriate chainsaw noises – you did know that’s a chainsaw, right?) : You can see we aren’t getting very far on the road to cleaning one thing up before starting another. Sigh.

For our autumn theme, we did a sort of circle time activity a few days this week. First, we talked about all four seasons, and what changes take place during each one. I found these great seasonal clothing cards at Montessori for Everyone, and we set them up on the pocket chart and talked about them. I plan to use these at some point for sorting too. I put different colored star stickers on the backs of these so when we sort them M will be able to tell if he sorted them all correctly on his own (blue star for summer, purple for winter, green for spring, orange for fall).

I found some fun seasonal clipart at Kizclub and we sorted them out onto colored paper. Green for spring, blue for summer, orange for fall, and red for winter. M did pretty well with this. He had a little trouble with summer and spring items, but in my opinion some of them were a little confusing.

M hung up fall window clings in his room:

We played our autumn tic tac toe game:

And we read some library books about autumn (see reviews here and here):

We learned this fun seasons song (click on image to go to web page):

And I taught M this little poem…

Two little eyes to look at God,

Two little ears to hear His word,

Two little lips to sing His praise,

Two little feet to walk His ways.

Two little hands to do His will,

and one little heart to love Him still.

I’m not sure who wrote this, it is in one of M’s baby books. I’m trying to bring something more about faith/religion into our time together on a more daily basis. We pray at mealtimes and bedtime, read Bible stories, and do our (somewhat sporadic) Sunday School lessons, but I feel he’s ready for more than that.

I hope you all had wonderful weeks with your tots! Check here for more tot school ideas.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Books of the Week {#4} – More of Autumn

More books about autumn this week!

First – Red Leaf, Yellow Leaf by Lois Ehlert. In my opinion, pretty much any book by Lois Ehlert is a winner. :) This one is no exception. The book describes the leaves and seeds of a maple tree, as well as what the tree looks like in each season, and describes how seedling trees are gathered, brought to nurseries and sold so people can plant a tree of their own at home. The pictures are lovely works of art, textural collages using fabric, ribbon, and a variety of other materials. We have a sugar maple tree in our front yard, so I was super excited about this book! I’ve read it once with M, and he was interested, but some of the information may have been a little over his head.

Next – Up, Up, Up! It’s Apple-picking Time, by Jody Fickes Shapiro.This is a sweet, warm story about a family who goes apple picking together. It describes the sounds and scents of the orchard and the feel of partaking in a family ritual. We are lucky to have our own apple orchard (it feels bizarre to even type that) on my husband’s family farm, and I want M to have all the wonderful experiences the boy in this book has. This is a very feel-good cozy book and I love it. I haven’t read it to M yet… I’m waiting for our apples to be ready for picking sometime in October before we start too many apple activities. I’m sure he will love it.

Lastly – The Apple Pie Tree, by Zoe Hall. Zoe Hall’s books are all highly recommended! I had never read this one before, but I really like it. Two young girls have an apple tree in their yard and they watch it through all the seasons, until time for apple picking and making pies. It’s a great story and a very cute part is the family of robins that live in the tree, going through their own stages of growth as the tree goes through the seasons. I think this book does a great job of describing the life-cycle of apples and I will be using this with our apple life-cycle cards.

I hope you are all enjoying some good books with your little ones! Go here for more reviews.

Have a beautiful day! :)

Autumn Tic Tac Toe

I’ve been doing a lot of online searching, printing, cutting and laminating the last few weeks, getting ready for autumn activities with M.  Fall is my very, very favorite season (like the new look of the blog?) and we are going to be having a lot of fun learning over the coming weeks.

I ran across a great online Autumn Tic Tac Toe game at DLTK, and fell in love with the cute graphics of the pumpkin and leaf.  I wanted to turn it into a hands-on game to play with M, and  I was graciously given permission to publish it on here for you to download and print too!  (Thank you to Darren at DLTK!) It’s very simple, but I think it appeals to small children.

The download for the printable game is here.  The online game, for those of you whose children are already using the computer, is here.

Enjoy!  And have a beautiful first day of fall! :)

Books of the Week {#3} – Autumn

I’ve been preparing an Autumn theme of learning activities recently, and so I thought I’d share three of the books we are going to read to get us started!

1. Mouse’s First Fall by Lauren Thompson, Illustrated by Buket Erdogan:

We love all of Lauren Thompson’s books and this one is no exception. I believe there is a “Mouse” book for every season, and I plan to check the others out too at some point. In this book, Mouse discovers all the beautiful colors of leaves, their textures and shapes. He has fun running, skipping and kicking his way through them, piles them up and then… well you can guess what happens with a happy little mouse and a big pile of leaves. :) It’s the same thing that happens with a happy small child and a big pile of leaves. ;) This is just a really delightful book to read and I am so glad we found it.

2. Fall Leaves Fall! by Zoe Hall, Illustrated by Shari Halpern:

This is written in the voice of two children who watch autumn arrive as the leaves begin to change colors. They talk about all the beautiful colors, the shapes and sizes of the leaves, try to catch them, stomp and crunch them, and watch them fly through the air. They collect some leaves (an idea I love) and examine them. They rake them into a pile and jump in. This book has great illustrations of leaves, which are labeled with the type of tree they came from. We will be learning about just this thing and this book will be a great addition to our leaf identification project. This book also has a cute idea for making pictures with the leaves. You have to check this one out – it’s definitely a favorite!

3. It’s Pumpkin Time! by Zoe Hall, Illustrated by Shari Halpern:

This is essentially a Halloween book – the favorite holiday of the two characters - and it has a great lesson about the life-cycle of pumpkins. The children plant the seeds, water them, watch them grow into vines with flowers, and then green pumpkins which slowly turn to orange and are ready to be picked, carved, and have more seeds inside to plant next year! Halloween is mentioned, but thankfully, nothing scary or spooky is in this book. We try to stay away from that kind of thing because I have no desire to be up at all hours of the night with a little boy whose imagination is working over time… but I digress; the book is great and I plan to use it along with some pumpkin life-cycle cards. And if you have a small child who isn’t sure what Halloween is exactly, this is a good introduction – it talks about costumes and trick-or-treating and is a fun book to read!

Go to the MckLinky at Mouse Grows, Mouse Learns to see what other kids are reading!

Have a beautiful day! :)