Our New Morning Routine

http://tiredneedsleep.blogspot.com/2009/12/our-calendar-free-printables.htmlWe’ve got a great new 20 minute routine in the mornings that is getting our days off to a great start, so of course I have to share!

I recently read this very interesting article about helping children develop literacy skills, in particular doing away with “letter of the week” type activities and helping them learn their letters in context. Now, I can’t say I’m ready to do away with learning individual letters… M loves the letter lapbooks I’ve made for him (and I really do intend to make more!), as well as the letter collage pages he gets every week. But, I loved the idea of the “morning message” on the blackboard. I don’t know… call me crazy… but I love using M’s chalkboard – it’s just so teacherish. ;)

So, we start off by putting the current date on our magnetic calendar, and we talk about what day “today” is, what “yesterday” was, and what “tomorrow” will be. (Naptime is making a comeback, thank you dear God, and occurs on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays – so we discuss whether today is a nap day or not first thing in the morning so there are no surprises later on!)

We sometimes do the weather chart too, but really there’s only so much you can say about winter in Minnesota. Is it cold today? Yes. Is there snow? Yes.
Then we head over to the blackboard side of M’s easel. I write something along the lines of “Happy New Year!” or M gives me something to write, or some days it’s something like this:I say each letter as I draw it, then we go over them together with a cute little pointer (a pencil with an apple topper – also very teacherish, don’t you think?). I do it, then M does it, then I pick a “mystery letter” for him to find. Then he has to find all the “s”s, or whatever, on the board. This is a lot of fun and he always looks forward to it.

Soon thereafter we read a Bible story from this children’s Bible. We started at the beginning and read one short story a day. He is really enjoying this too, and I give a one or two sentence recap of the story from the previous day. We are covering them fairly quickly, but I intend to pick one or two stories every couple of weeks and start doing our “Sunday School on Fridays” again (which I will be posting) with crafts and activities to help reinforce some of the stories we’ve read.

Then we read this rather long prayer that we used to say every morning at breakfast, but somehow had gotten out of the habit. This is also when we pray things like “help us remember to pick up our toys and not argue with Mommy today”. Believe me, I’ll take all the help I can get!

Here’s the prayer, if any of you are interested… it’s pretty sweet:

“Jesus, I thank you for each new day.
I offer myself to you,
and all the things I shall do –
my work, my study, my play.
I thank you for the many good things you give me
and for all the kind people who take care of me.
Bless me as I begin this day,
be with me at home, at school, and at play.

May all I do honor you.
May your dear mother Mary
and my guardian angel protect and help me.
I believe in you.
I hope in you.

I love you,

Jesus, my friend and my God!”

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! :)

Tools for Tots - Weather Chart!

Update: I found some free weather clip art, added it to the chart the I made, and created a .pdf file that you can download here to make your own weather chart!



We've been learning about the different seasons a lot in the past few months. It naturally leads to talking about weather.

I found these little weather cards at Science A to Z under the weather unit link:
If you are interested in making these, they do have a free sample that you can sign up for. Otherwise they cost a little bit.

I simply laminated all the pieces and added magnets to the back of the small cards. We keep the chart taped to the fridge, and check to see what it looks like outside, then M picks the correct magnet to put on the chart. Very simple, easy to understand, and quick! And it makes him feel so proud! I'm not sure why exactly, but the why doesn't matter, does it? ;) (The masking tape is not the prettiest touch, I know. I don't know why I don't *see* these things until the picture is already taken.)
Enjoy! And have a beautiful (sunny!) day!