Sunday School on Friday – The Tower of Babel

Last summer we were doing Bible story activities somewhat sporadically and in no particular order.  However, now we’ve started with creation and we are going through our children’s Bible chronologically.  This means we are reviewing some of the same stories we talked about last year (which is important to do!).  We recently read about Noah and the ark again, and it is such a good story that I was tempted to make this the focus of our next set of activities.  However, M was really interested in the tower of Babel story, so that won out.  You can see what we did last year for Noah’s Ark here.

We began by talking about how the people were building a tower intended to reach all the way to heaven and why this displeased God.  God does not want us to attempt to gain heaven by our own efforts, but wants us to have a relationship with him, and trust in his care for us.

First, we discussed how we are able to work together because we can talk to each other and understand each other.  We discussed foreign languages and M really took interest in this.  It’s not the first time he’s been exposed to the idea of a language other than English (really, living near a large city, that would be pretty impossible), but it was the first time he really showed an interest.

M learned to say “hello” and “goodbye” in Spanish, German, and French.  We listened to some part-English / part-German children’s songs on Youtube and he was able to tell me when they were singing in German.
I found a tower picture here, and printed it in a few different sizes.   M size sequenced them out and we talked about small and large, and smallest and largest.  He already knows this, but it’s always fun to review.

I gave him a coloring page of the tower and had printed some numbers on it, hoping to introduce him to the idea of coloring by number.  He only colored the numbers. :)I told him he did a great job and he said, “but it was pretty hard to do, Mommy, because the numbers are so small!”  Hee hee. 

We also played a tower-building game with his mega-blocks and a number cube.  We took turns rolling the die, and then adding that many blocks to our towers.Whoever’s tower fell first lost.  It was fun to see M learn after a couple of times that he needed a “turdy” (lol, that means “sturdy”) foundation to keep his tower from falling.

All in all it was fun and we both learned a little bit.   M is still in a no-photos phase, so that makes for some pretty boring posts.  I’m thinking about having him take the pics while I pose; that should liven things up a bit! :)

Have a beautiful day! :)

Tot School – Feb. 7, 2010

M is 41 months old. 

We have been taking turns sharing the flu the past couple of weeks and so what you see below is a hodgepodge of activities we did in the last half of this week (when we were finally starting to feel better), and things we’ve done over the past several weeks that have just not made their way into a post yet.

First, the fun stuff – Valentine Activities. :)

M used tongs to transfer red and clear plastic crystals into an ice cube tray.  He, on his own, made a “red, white, red, white” pattern as he did this.  I actually squealed when I saw it. :) The boring ice cube tray was exchanged for a cute heart tray soon after this, but no pics.

I set up a heart cutting activity for M and before I could walk to the kitchen, find my camera and get back, he had them all done. These were pretty scrapbooking papers I picked up at Target.  I folded a piece in half and drew half a heart on it and M was so surprised and excited when he cut it and opened it up to see a heart!  He loved this and did more of them the next day, and even showed Daddy his “trick” later. :)  I saw this on Chasing Cheerios.

I put together a quick sensory bin for M, using our red crystals, pom-poms, red and silver foam snowflakes (Valentine’s Day is associated with winter in my mind, although I know it isn’t for everyone).  There are foam heart beads and foam heart stickers in there, and little pipecleaner hearts too:This was a phenomenal dud with M.  He lasted 5 minutes looking at the items.  However, I’m sharing it because he loved the “snow” I filled it up with.  This is fiberfill stuffing, and it is called Cluster Stuff.  I get it at Walmart and since discovering it, I do not use anything for stuffing (when I’m sewing or whatever) except this.  It never gets matted down.  It’s washable and, in fact, gets softer and fluffier when it is washed.  Oh, I could sing it’s praises for a long time.  However, what you really want to know is that M thought it was wonderful and played with it by itself for quite a while.It’s soft, warm, and cozy as you just dig your hands in.  Mm.  Don’t you want to go buy some now? :)

Back to activities… a little Sucrets can (M loves this little can, what can I say?) with pony beads in Valentine colors and red pipecleaners.  After he strings on the beads we’ll shape them into hearts for the Grandmothers.  Blue was added to make it a bit more masculine. :)  It worked, right?He hasn’t actually done this yet, but I wanted to include it in a post before Valentine’s Day is actually here.

Also, for a fun activity on his shelves, I put a container full of our Valentine window clings.  He does these seasonally, but for some reason theses Valentine ones were a huge hit.  He loved running back and forth and putting them up on windows.  Most of them found their way onto our kitchen door:

 

More Sensory Activities:

We made Gak using liquid starch, white glue, and blue food coloring.

After this picture, the battery in my camera died and I didn’t get any pictures of the actual process of making it or M playing with it.  It was a lot of fun.  It’s a slippery, stretchy putty.  It’s pretty cool stuff.  Here’s a picture of it after my battery was charged, ha.

 

M asked for his Floam one day; it’s been forever since he’s played with that.  He sat in the living room for a good 45 minutes “snowplowing” the floam.  We are still finding it everywhere despite the huge towel he was sitting on.

 

Math Skills:

I wrote numbers 0 through 10 on some paper doilies and M put them in order on the floor (he pretended he was a train as he moved down the line).  Then, using tongs, he counted “snowballs” (cotton balls) onto them.  He enjoyed this much more than I expected and did a great job. This is him telling me he doesn’t want me to take a picture just as the camera is flashing.  Sigh.  I thought this was a super idea, and then I saw that Katie at Katie’s Nesting Spot had done the exact same thing, except hers are much nicer looking (of course, everything she does looks amazing), and obviously weren’t just thrown together like ours were. ;)

M has been loving his pattern blocks and mats lately.  He has been doing them every. single. day.

 

Literacy:

M got this new ABC puzzle from the Target dollar spot and did it with only a tiny bit of help:

He did a J cut and paste page:(he just loves that purple glue stick).

And we did the activities in our new J lapbook:

 

Visual Discrimination:

I bought a cheap small calendar and M matched up the small pictures on the back to the large pictures:

As you can see, he’s been opting out of some of the photos lately.  It’s his choice and one I’m really trying to respect although I would prefer to see more of that cute face. :)

 

Fine Motor Skills:

M played with his Lite Brite:

Sorted erasers into an ice cube tray with tweezers:

And played with a wooden dress-the-bear puzzle:

For more Tot School posts, go here! 

Have a beautiful day! :)

Letter J j Lapbook Printables

Well.  I’ve finally gotten another letter lapbook finished up.  As much as M enjoys his cut and paste ABC pages and his ABC book, I really felt he was getting a better grasp of phonics and letter formation (etc.) from the lapbooks we had done.  He really enjoys these and they are fun for me to put together too.  They take some time, but we are in no hurry. :)

I have to admit the J lapbook was a difficult one for me… I had the toughest time coming up with good ideas.  Ah well, D is next (for dinosaurs, yay!) and I’ve already got a good hundred ideas floating around in my head.

So, here we go… our J j Lapbook: That’s the inside.  No craft on the front as of yet.

First, Things that Begin with J:This is a standard for all our letter lapbooks.  We go through the pictures and reinforce the beginning sound.  M enjoys this very much for some reason.  It kind of ends up as a chant… j-j-j-jellybeans, j-j-j-jackhammer, j-j-j-jumprope.

Next, Color Sequencing with Jellybeans:
Now, admittedly these jellybeans are a bit larger than regular jellybeans, and M did call them eggs as they were printing out, but he believed me when I told him they were jellybeans. :)  There are 5 colors and 3 jellybeans for each color.  M will sequence them from darkest to lightest or vice versa.

Number Sequencing with Jars:Pretty simple here – just sequencing the jars from 1 to 5. 

Then we’ll count our jellybeans from above onto the jars:

Jack and Jill Poem Sequencing Cards:The sequencing cards are from here.  And there are 4 of them; I was missing one when I took the picture.  I added a little card that has the poem on it too.  I printed the sequencing cards much smaller than the originals, making them each 3”x2” so they will fit into the lapbook pocket.

Big J and Little j Sorting:This is simple and pretty self-explanatory.  M loves jackhammers (and all things destructive), so I’m sure he’ll enjoy this.  In the future I may print the letters in various fonts too, but for now a simple sort seems best.

The back of the lapbook has one last pocket, Dot-to-dot J and j Letter Tracing:These are laminated so M can practice on them with a dry-erase or window marker over and over again.

All of these activities are available for downloading and  printing here.  Like I always say, you don’t have to make  lapbook!  Just use them for activity packs or whatever! ;)

Have a beautiful day! :)

Valentine Count and Clip Cards

I get so much enjoyment from making little activities for M and other kids his age… I know it probably seems crazy to a lot of people, but this kind of thing is really fun! :)

So, the latest is this set of count and clip cards.  The child counts the hearts on each card then clips (using a clothespin clip or anything similar) the correct number along the side.  These go from 1 to 12.

My little sweetheart and I will be using these during the week before Valentine’s Day. :) 

I printed my set on cardstock and laminated them in order to make them a bit sturdier for the clothespins.  You can print them by clicking on the thumbnail below.  Let me know if you use them!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Tot School – Jan. 24, 2010

M is 40 months old.

This was a pretty light week for Tot School. I had quite a bit planned and ready to go, but M spent a large amount of time each day in pretend play and was so happily amusing himself, I just let him do his own thing. I expected him to ask to “do school”, but this really only happened on Monday while I was busy (of course!) with housework.

So… perhaps we are entering into a more involved creative play phase? I eavesdropped as much as I could and heard some pretty interesting and exciting things going on. :) It’s always a little stunning to me to realize that my little baby is a real boy and can think on his own and make up stories and well, who knows what else! Am I the only one feeling a bit of bewilderment at this sort of thing??

Anyway, enough rambling. M did his (independent) shelf activities while I cleaned Monday afternoon, and there are almost no action shots of these. Sorry, I know those are always more fun!

Math Skills:

M practiced his size sequencing skills with Scrambler (from Bob the Builder):

And with baseballs too:

Visual Discrimination:

I never know if this sort of thing is a math activity or what… anyway, I’ll just put it in it’s own little category for now. M did these Curious George Shadow Match cards:There’s more than just these, but for simplicity’s sake I only photographed a few. I thought these would be fun, but M was not interested. I will bring them back out some time soon because *I* think they are fun! Maybe he’ll change his mind next time around. :)

Literacy Skills:

M did two “cutting pages”, as he calls them, of the letters M and K. I can’t stress how much he LOVES to do these; they are always the very first thing he heads for. (See the gross brown stuff? That’s what happens when you leave your kid alone with a purple glue stick and he uses the entire thing on one page.)

Music:

We have been singing and playing our instruments a lot and listening to some cds. If anyone has any children’s music recommendations, I’d love to hear them! We learned a fabulous and cute new robot song. Listen to it here!

Fine Motor Skills:

M pulled out all of these puzzles on his own one day and did every single one of them. There were 12 little wooden puzzles in all:

On one of his shelves I put out a foam tray (this was originally a mushroom container at the grocery store), and a plastic needle with yarn. He poked the needle through the foam wherever he wanted and then pulled the long length of yarn through. He had so much fun with this and came to show me his “design” several times: I have to say this was definitely one of the hits of the week!

I also set out a new Dollar Tree 25 piece puzzle for him. He did this completely on his own the first time with no help. :) He’s definitely a puzzle boy. He was so proud of himself and said, “I just kept looking at the picture to see what piece I needed!”

His marble track came out and he put it together with only a little mama-direction. He loves this and it’s always fun.

A wonderful friend sent M this fantastic little peg board: Can you believe how cute it is?!? I was so excited when I saw it and so was M when he saw it waiting for him the next day. He made designs and rows of patterns, and ran to show me each one. :) This is a sign that he really, really likes something. And, I just realized that marbles sit perfectly on top of these little pegs, so I will be heading to the dollar store very, very soon. ;)

Creative Play / Large Motor Activities:

M was finally able to go outside and PLAY! Yay!

Early in the week we had some beautiful weather – it felt like a little bit of spring. :) In Minnesota that means it hit 32 degrees. ;) It lifted everyone’s spirits a little bit! M bundled up and went out… I wish I could’ve captured more of this on my camera, but I wasn’t able to get many good pictures. Ah well. Here you can see he is trying desperately to ride his bike on the small portion of our patio that has been shoveled: It didn’t quite work, but then he found a little ride on toy and “snowplowed” for a while. He then proceeded to lie on his tummy on the deep snow farther back in our yard, and play with his little cars and trucks for close to an hour. I even had our windows open to let in a little fresh air. :)

We made Monkey Bread on Wednesday. Yum, yum!

He really loves to bake with me and I need to do more of this kind of thing with him.

Life School:

We have had a challenging couple of weeks lately with M’s behavior. However, things are looking up and he has acquired some new freedoms and been given some new responsibilities. After I-don’t-know-how-many-months of trying to teach him to put one thing away before getting something new out it seems to have really sunk in! He has been so great about this and usually puts toys and activities away on his own without being asked. It’s absolutely heavenly! :) Of course there are always a few exceptions because he will need more than one thing in his play quite often… but I’m telling you, the bedtime clean up has gotten so much easier and quicker. Normally we only have 3 or 4 things to put away! Whoo-hoo! Because it used to be 20!

He’s also started making his own peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, and he’s allowed to use the microwave to cook his own chicken nuggets. :) This is all under very close supervision you understand. But still, he’s doing great and the more we work at making it fun for him to be a big boy, the better his behavior has gotten.

For more Tot School posts, check it out here!

Have a beautiful day! :)