Tot School – March 14, 2010

M is 41 months old.

I’ve been giving this some thought, and in the ongoing struggle to find balance, I’ve decided to limit my tot school posts to every other week, or two per month. We’ll see how it goes… bear with me!
We’ve been taking it very easy on “school” stuff lately. We’ve had beautiful weather and have just been enjoying the magic of being 3 years old. :) Here’s a bit of what we have done…
FINE MOTOR SKILLS:
M just loves cutting pages, so I created some quick shape ones for him. He cuts out the shapes then finds the same sized “blank” spot on the second page. To add a bit of excitement this time I had him use tape instead of a glue stick. He LOVED it! He definitely needs more practice with the tape, so we’ll be doing more of these!
A backpack of lacing buttons, animal shapes, spools, and little discs, from our toy lending library (still loving that we have one of these!).

Placing marbles on the suction cups of the back of a dinosaur-shaped bath-gripper-thingy.
LARGE MOTOR SKILLS:
Playing in the jump-o-lene with cousin S. Do you like his cheesy smile?
A great find at Dollar Tree – a target game with sticky balls so we can work on our aim.
A huge foam USA map mat (the kind that has foam squares that lock together). He stands on Minnesota and jumps to Florida a lot because that’s where Grandma and Grandpa currently are. :)
LITERACY SKILLS:
I set up M’s ABC train cards in the pocket chart, leaving a few out. We went through the ABCs until we came to a blank spot. Then he decided which letter was missing and found it in the pile on the floor. He did great with this, and it was fun to switch the game up a little bit from what we normally do!
SENSORY: The sensory bin has been full of very hard and very soft things. You can mainly see the soft things in the picture – cotton balls and pom poms. There are also small and large glass pebbles, glass marbles, and some plastic crystals, along with a scoop and a couple of small containers.
SCIENCE:
We found this cute book at the library:
Bird Talk, by Ann Jonas. Basically it tells a little bird story using only “memory phrases”. These phrases are what people who study birds use to remember the various sounds that birds make. For example, a chickadee says “chick a dee dee dee”. A robin says, “cheerily cheer-up, cheerily cheer-up”, etc. It’s a cute book and we have a lot of birds around, so we’ve really enjoyed it. I found this fantastic website, enature.com, and we were able to look up and listen to the actual bird sounds… it was a lot of fun and we were surprised at how accurate some of the memory phrases were, and a little bewildered about how they came up with some others. ;) I really need to spend some time exploring that site, it looks like a great resource!!
Go here to see more Tot School posts!
Have a beautiful day! :)

Tot School – Feb. 28, 2010

We took it very easy with school this past week.  I just brought out some random things that were easy for me to put together for M.  He is very into elaborate pretend play now and I’m trying to give him plenty of time for that.  If he’s involved in something like that during the only time I have free for a little school, well then no school.  I’m totally ok with that, although I have to work hard not to compare myself with other mommies out there.

So, in no particular order this week, here’s what we did (no action shots)…

A corkboard and push pins to outline the little pictures with.  I had several of these left over from the last time this activity was out.  He really enjoys this one!

 

Our newest puzzle from our toy lending libary:

 

Pegboard game with shapes, also from the toy library:

 

A new puzzle from mama (I’ve got scads of these stashed around the house; he just loves a new puzzle challenge).

 

The good old Lite Brite, which is always fun.  He likes to pull the shades in his room, close the door and get it as dark as possible when he plays with this:

 

Our foam puzzles – numbers and ABCs.  He still likes to hammer these guys in with his little wooden hammer!

 

The first thing he goes for every week is his letter cutting/collage page.  He did S this week:

 

The sand tray and his soft pipecleaner letters. 

 

And, he checks his little sprouts every single morning.  It’s looking like we are going to have lots of shamrocks and forget-me-nots.  We’ve been counting them and he’s so good about taking care of them.  I really need to thin them out, but they are like his babies, so I’m not sure exactly how to go about doing that. :)

 

I know we’ve done a lot more than this, but if I don’t take a picture of it I just can’t remember anything.   Actually, that’s true about a lot of things, not just tot school! :)

Go here to see other tot-schooling mamas.

Have a beautiful day! )

Science Time… Color Changing Paper

Well, I can’t remember what number science experiment we are on, but this one also came from our Mind Blowing Science kit.

First, we filled two cups with a little water.  M added baking soda to one and citric acid to the other.  We labeled them A for acid, and B for base.  We also marked two q-tips so we wouldn’t accidentally put one of them in both the base and the acid.

Then we took out some “goldenrod” paper that came in the kit.  M dipped one q-tip into the acid cup and drew a little on the paper.  At first it simply looked like a darker shade of orange, but as we watched it turned into a deep red.

When M dipped the other q-tip into the base solution and drew over the red, it erased the red and the paper was goldenrod again (really, why can’t they say dark yellow or light orange?).

And then we had fun drawing invisible pictures with the base solution and making them appear with the acid solution.  M expected more of a “wow” with this experiment and was a little disappointed that it was only changing to one color.  However, he still had enough fun with this that he played around with it for quite a while.

So, here’s the deal… goldenrod paper has a chemical in it that is an acid indicator, and it turns red when it comes in contact with acid.  The base solution of baking soda neutralizes the acid and erases the red marks.  Apparently you can do this experiment with cranberry juice too!  Hopefully we’ll get around to trying that one sometime soon.

And then, of course, came the dumping everything in the tray and watching it foam up.  And then a half hour of playing with more baking soda and a little vinegar.  It really never gets old does it? :)

Well, it doesn’t if you are three years old. :)

Check out more science at Ticia’s Science Sunday post!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Tot School – Feb. 14, 2010

M is 41 months old.

Well, M is still feeling camera shy.  For this reason, I took a lot of pics of the activities as they were set up.  I love action shots more, but I’ve realized he really needs my attention to be on him when we are spending this precious time together.  I hope you all don’t mind the boring pictures!!

 

FINE MOTOR SKILLS:

This was a quick, simple activity to put together – I just punched some holes around a heart cut from fun foam and set it out with a lace from some lacing beads.

 

For this activity I set out a jar (filled with glass pebbles to keep it from falling over while M worked with it) and some elastic ponytail holders.  He stretched each one out with his hands, then manipulated it over the top of the jar and slid it down.  He really, really, really enjoyed this and it was definitely a challenge for him.  I got this idea here.

M made these sweet little beaded hearts for the grandmas.  Each one was made with a 3” length of pipecleaner and pony beads.  Once the beads were strung on we formed them into tiny hearts. 

 

This was a great idea found here.  I cut slits in some red and white felt hearts, sewed a button onto a length of ribbon and M made a button snake.  He really enjoyed this once he started it.  Sorry there’s no “after” picture!

 

MATH SKILLS:

 M enjoyed doing his Bob the Builder truck size sorting activity. 

 I turned these little valentines from our most recent  High-Five issue into pom pom counting cards.   M used the tweezers to put the correct number of pom poms on each card.

 

We played a memory game with our shape sorting cards.  This was a little more difficult than a regular game of memory because we weren’t matching pictures, but shapes of items.  M did very well with this and really enjoyed it much more than simply sorting the cards into shape categories.

 

SCIENCE:

We bought some tiny seed starter kits at Target and planted some forget-me-nots and a shamrock plant. :)  M has been checking them every day to see if anything is growing yet.

SENSORY:

 We made a batch of valentine playdough – pretty red with glitter in it and a dash of cinnamon too – yum!  M wanted to make a snowman like we did with our white playdough in December… so that’s what we did!  I called them *Valentine Guys*.  M just called them red snowmen, heh. 

Then he made me the sweetest little playdough valentines (“These are just for you, Mommy!”):

And here was the big hit of the week… a tissue paper sensory bin.We actually used our old baby bathtub for this because our regular bin was being used for something else.   We had fun tearing it up, feeling it, and hearing how crinkly it is.  Then we tossed the pieces in the air and watched them float down.  M thought they float “probably because they aren’t very heavy”.  :) Then we had the best time blowing them up into the air and across the room.  Finally we just took handfuls and threw them at each other.  We both had a LOT of fun with this!  Thank you so much to April, who gave us this idea with her great post.  Visit her blog if you haven’t already, she is full of good ideas and has the sweetest little girl! :)     

CREATIVE PLAY:

Well, there were actually 2 big hits this week and this is part of the second one:Our lovely friend Elise sent us these tumbling goannas in a little package.  They stick to the fridge or window or wall and flip flop their way down, sometimes tangling each other up.  We’ve been having a lot of goanna races lately, they are so much fun!   Thank you, Elise, Savvy, and Blake!!  This was such a treat!  More about what else was in their package in a little while.

We also found out this week that our town has a toy lending library.  What?!?!  This is something I’ve read about on other blogs and I’ve been soooo jealous!  Well, it turns out we have one too and I’ve lived here for 10 years without knowing about it.  Not that I would’ve cared more than 3 years ago, but still.  So of course we went the very day we first heard about it.  M brought home this cool building toy set.  It’s mainly wheels, bolts, nuts, and some yellow connecting pieces.  We’ve made a cart for his pretend grocery shopping and a truck!  It’s really cool and I’ll hate taking it back. 

He also picked out this fun bulldozer floor puzzle.  I’m really looking forward to making the toy library part of our weekly or bi-weekly routine!

MUSIC:

Ok, here’s the other part of what we got in Elise’s package.  Really, she was so generous and she is truly one of the people I’m most thankful for having “met” via blogging… she’s a great mom, full of energy and fun ideas, and just has such a cheerful outlook.  I’m always inspired by her.  I want to move to Australia and be her next door neighbor. :)   Oh wait, would that be weird at all? ;)

She and her sweet children sent M these great Australian animal flashcards and the BEST cd of music.  This is such a good cd; we’ve been listening to it pretty much non-stop since receiving it and, honestly, I’m not tired of it yet.  I’m actually really enjoying it and that says a lot!  It’s fun to dance to and we are just having a great time with it!

 

Speaking of music, here’s what I videotaped one day this week.  Check out M’s bedhead. :)  (But please don’t look at the messy background.)   This cracked me up and I thought you might get a kick out of it too.  I apologize in advance for my obnoxious laugh (sorry!)…  the reason I thought it was so funny is because M normally does not have such a serious frown on his face when he’s singing, and his sweet little voice is not at all like this.  I don’t know what he was thinking, but he was adamant about making a video. :)  Enjoy…

 

For more Tot School posts go here!

Have a beautiful day! :)

Science Experiment #3 – Expanding Color Crystals

We are still loving our Mind Blowing Science kit!  It continues to engage and fascinate M.  

Experiment #3 (this is actually #4 on the list that came with the kit.  We skipped #3 on the list because someone was not prepared with all the household liquids required for testing.  We’ll get to that one some other time.)…

First, we had two cups of water.  We added a couple of scoops of baking soda (our base) to one cup and a couple of scoops of citric acid (our acid) to the other.   Then we added some red cabbage powder and watched as one cup turned red (acid) and one turned blue  (base).  So far this was stuff we had already learned, but it was still fun for Mad Scientist M.  

Next, we filled a third cup with a little of the blue water and a little of the red water, and watched it turn purple and foam up.    Apparently there’s no picture of this,  and you’ll have to use your imagination. :)

Then we got out these tiny little polyacrylamide crystals:  This photo is enlarged… in reality these crystals look a lot like sea salt, but are maybe a tiny bit smaller.

We added 2 scoops of crystals to each cup of colored water.  We couldn’t see them any longer and M thought they had disappeared or dissolved.  We set the timer and waited about 30 minutes.  Here you can see they are starting to gel up:  The instructions say to wait 2 hours.   So we kept on waiting….

In the meantime, I gave M a little colored water (green – his choice), baking soda, and some vinegar to play with.    Seriously,  bursts of green fizzing foam are a great way to spend your time if you’re stuck waiting for something, in case you don’t already know this. ;)

2 hours later, here’s what we had: Pretty purple, pink, and blue crystals.   Really, the picture above looks very greenish, but they were actually a pretty blue (grrr… stupid old camera).   AND they were no longer hard, but squishy and soft.  The polyacrylamide crystals are a special plastic that will slowly soak up liquid and become soft.  We are going to let them dry out and then we’ll have pretty, sparkly, tiny little colored crystals. 

M spent quite a long time looking at these and feeling them in his hands.  Mommy and Daddy got in on the fun too.  :) 

For more science with kids, go see Adventures in Mommyhood!

Have a beautiful day! :)