Tot School – Oct. 25, 2009

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: 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! 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.

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.

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! :)

He did his first dot-to-dot page: 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.

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

And the big hit of the week was this: 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! :)

Books of the Week – Oct. 24, 2009

We have found so many good books lately, I honestly don’t know where to begin.  I try to keep these posts short so they’ll actually get read, but this one may be a tad bit longer. :)

My favorites this week:

In the Woods: Who’s Been Here? and Around the Pond: Who’s Been Here?, both by Lindsay Barrett George, who is also the illustrator.  These are both fabulous books if you have a nature-lover in your home.  They feature a brother and sister who take a walk in the woods and around a pond (which is also quite woodsy), and find different signs of wildlife.  Each page has a beautiful picture, (for example, of a white feather floating) and the question “Who’s been here?”.  The following page shows the answer (a great blue heron).  They are just beautifully done and hold M’s attention very well.  They appeal to us grown ups quite a bit too! :)

M’s favorite this week:
Bumpa Rumpus and the Rainy Day by Joanne Reay and Adriano Gon.  This is a book for when you are in a silly mood; it’s a lot of fun!  Bumpa Rumpus wakes up on a very, very, extremely, rainy day and listens to all the sounds the rain makes – plup-plup from the gutter, tik-tik from the glass, tom-tom on the roof, and ta-toosh on the grass.  Every page is filled with fun sounds and it has an overall great rhyming rhythm.  It’s pretty fun to read out loud!  I have to admit I’m happy when M picks this one. :)  There is a fun *sorta-surprise* ending too!!

And one more!  This is the one I’m most excited about because I bought it from the sale cart at our library for 50 cents!!!We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and illustrated by Helen Oxenbury.  I should mention, anything by illustrated by Helen Oxenbury is sure to be a good book.  I haven’t found one yet that we didn’t absolutely love.  This is a classic, and I’m sure many of you have read it.  If you haven’t, read it as soon as you can!  This adorable family goes on a bear hunt through tall, wavy grass, a deep, cold river, some swampy mud, and on and on.  Each part of their trek has a great sound effect that goes along with it - “squelch squerch” through the mud.   And of course, they are not afraid, not one tiny bit… until they actually see a bear. :)  The ending is just terribly exciting if you are a 3 year old boy!  This is on our top ten list and I’m so happy to have found it at such a bargain!
Go here for more book reviews!
Have a beautiful day! :)