Catching up on Tot School

It's been a while since I've written an update on Tot School, but we have been doing it! Here's a very quick run down.  (If I could figure out how to get my pictures from my phone onto iPhoto efficiently I would do more..) 

 Easter week was super fun, we played with Easter eggs pretty much every day, and added various things to them.  We had an Easter Egg sticky wall also, she really enjoys sticky walls! I don't have a picture but she added some Bunny stickers to the wall too. I also found the word Easter in a gel cling pack, and she played with those gel letters for weeks.  I will have to keep an eye out for more gel clings, obviously these are a thing she likes!

Bugs and birds week was also super fun....Sky enjoyed saving the birds and bugs (and other objects) from the spider web laundry basket. (This would have been cooler if I had the patience to tie up more string but even this was a lot of work.)








The letter that week was I (for Insect) and we finally had a nice weather day so we had an ice sensory bin.  She loved this and played with it for a long time.  She liked to say "ooo" when she pulled the ice out.

I made what turned into dirt dessert for a fun insect sensory bin...it was supposed to be rubber worms and mud...but any sensory bin we do has to be edible, or at least not toxic, (have I mentioned we still put everything in our mouth?)...so I used chocolate pudding and gummy worms. I went a little crazy and added some crushed up oreos and graham crackers as well, to make it look more like dirt.  This girl loves sensory bins, and this one was especially tasty! In fact, we do a sensory bin of some sort pretty much every week...and if it's not toys, it turns into snack time, every time.  Which is fine, taste is a sense too right? :)

 During All About Me week, we "painted" with "toothpaste"(plain yogurt swirled with blue food coloring) and a toothbrush. A very fun but very messy activity.  Dada wanted to know why Sky's hair was blue and crusty that evening. The letter that week was C so we colored with chalk. Well, I colored, Sky liked to erase.

During gardening week, we played with toy fruits and veggies quite a bit...in the top picture we had a "garden" of crushed chocolate graham crackers.  The bottom pic was just fruits and veggies and water.  We talked a lot about how vegetables and fruits grow, and how we have to water them.  We planted a real garden too, but, like I mentioned, I have picture transfer problems.  We planted strawberries, cucumbers, (both already planted in biodegradable pots), carrots, and zucchini, (by planting seeds in soil).  We are looking forward to trying our foods when it's time to harvest!

This week we're taking a break from Tot School, as life is too crazy. (Honestly, I didn't have much time for planning/preparing this week's lesson, and I didn't have very many activities planned, so I decided to just skip it.) I'm excited for the weeks to come though...we have some fun themes planned! Stay tuned for Things That Go, Music and Art, and a Summer/Camping week! 

Tot School: Colors Week!

Our theme in tot school last week was colors, and I chose to focus on the primary colors- red, yellow, and blue-to keep it simple.  I have to say...it was a bit of a struggle. The activities were maybe too simple for her, or at least they didn't keep her attention all that well.  

On Monday, we colored with red, blue, and yellow Color Wonder markers. We colored a letter B because that was the letter of the week! Sky definitely favored the red marker, that Cardinal girl that she is. ;) During this activity she started to pick up on the fact that markers are much easier to color with...when the crayons that we had pulled out wouldn't work, (because she wasn't pushing hard enough), she mostly just threw them out of the way and went back to the markers.  I kept showing her though, and we'll keep working on it.

On this day she also pulled out the stackers on her own, (mostly primary colors!),  which was good.

Tuesday we had a tube drop. Skylar liked this, but it didn't keep her attention for very long.  Mostly she enjoyed shaking the bag of pom poms and making them go everywhere. SO fun. 

Why these pictures are blurry, I may never know. They looked fine on my phone. Sigh.

We also played with a red sensory box that I put together from every smallish red toy I could find.  

 Her favorite part about the box was the red bottle, which was no surprise. She carried it around for a long time, and tried putting lots of different things in the bottle, the pom poms, the balls, some stackers. I expected this, and it was pretty cute.  She liked throwing the red toys all over as well!

 On Wednesday, we explored a yellow sensory box. This kept her occupied for all of 2 minutes. We also practiced putting the primary colored pit balls in the muffin tin. She enjoyed dumping the tin more than anything.  We played with the pit balls for quite a while, throwing them around, putting them in buckets and dumping them, and shaking them off the parachute.  We also colored a Bird picture, (bird starts with B!). I may have mentioned my sweet baby has a phobia of birds, so we are working on that. :) (PS this picture came from a coloring book I found at Home Goods of all places. I seriously hit the motherload there last week, and found a TON of stuff for school time at really good prices. Puzzles, coloring books, a neat chalkboard/dry erase board, all kinds of things. It was awesome.  

Mom. I like this red crayon, but this bird is still a little...freaky.  

Our 4th and final day of Tot School last week, (and honestly, I can't remember if it was Thursday or Friday..I blame pregnancy brain.), was probably the least successful day of the week.  Whatever we had going on that day had us doing school at a different time than normal, and this girl is a creature of habit. (Hey, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree..).  She was tired, and by the end she was in a very ornery mood..so school time did not last very long.  We were successful with the lacing beads however, she really enjoyed trying to get the string through the beads, stacking the beads, and just general play with the string.  Her fine motor skills seem pretty decent, here's hoping she got those from her Dad...cuz this Momma is not skilled in that department..

Overall, even though the week was a little difficult and our school times were a bit short, I would call colors week a success! Skylar is absolutely loving school time...when I tell her it's time for school she goes right to the stairs, ready to go! I hope this love of learning stays with her forever!  

The first few weeks of Tot School

Last week I blogged about starting tot school, how we would do it, what the plans were, etc.  So this week I am going to share all about the activities we have done so far!!

The first week we were still at my parents house, and it was really a trial week.  I did a lot of nap-time planning, and a little shopping.  I wanted to test out what all I could get and use at the Dollar Tree, (my parents have a great one in their town), and I wanted to stock up at their store because the DT closest to me is not a place I will go by myself.  Sketch-city.  Now that we are in Indy I will still go to DT, it'll just have to be a bigger trip bc the one I will go to is on the complete opposite side of town.

During this first week, I really just wanted to test out the waters, and learn if Skylar would even sit down and do activities with me.  Good news: she did great! She loved playing with new things she hadn't seen, and she really enjoyed the one on one attention. We didn't have a theme the first week, it was really just a collection of random stuff that I found/came up with.

One activity we did, (on a particularly cold day), was an ice sensory bin.  I gathered up random plastic toys and put them in a bin with a few ice cubes and water.  I had a towel and a plastic tablecloth under her to minimize mess. Overall it was pretty successful, she liked to say "oo, oo" when she felt the cold ice. This activity did not keep her attention for very long though!

During the week at my parents we also did sticker play, (she is still too young to peel them off the page but she enjoyed sticking them, or at least pressing them down after I did the initial stick).  

This week was St. Patrick's Day, so I brought out gold coins that we played with along with some play-doh.  At first, Sky was very  unsure about the texture of play-doh, and really just liked playing with the spoon and cup.  Eventually she did get used to it, and now LOVES play-doh time.  As far as the gold coins, they basically failed bc she wanted to eat them.  Put those with the "maybe another time" pile!

Kato really enjoyed getting in on the play-doh action each day.

Puzzles at Grandmas! She enjoyed putting the pieces back in the box and then dumping them out. Very age appropriate! 

We took a week off from school time the week we moved, ain't nobody got time for that! That week was serious chaos.  That brings us to last week...our first full week in the house, our first full week of school with an actual theme. (Okay so honestly, we only had actual school time 3 days out of 5. But, I consider that a success. We had a lot of other things going on, appointments, meetings, I had a wedding, etc. But, that's the beauty of this whole thing...no big deal to miss a few days. We accomplished 95% of things I had planned!) The theme was Spring/Rainbows, and the letter was S. (Looking back, not sure we actually did my S activity.)  

We started pretty early the first day, I was having trouble keeping my eyes open while we were eating breakfast, so we decided to get to work.  I had laundry and a few afternoon things to prepare, so Skylar played with play food while I did what I needed to do.  We talked about the foods she was playing with, and their colors.  She also wanted to play with the pit balls, (rainbow colors), and being that this is play-based/self exploration learning, and it was our first real day, I let her take the lead with what she wanted to do. I pulled out some stuffed toys in rainbow colors as well. She did lots of exploring of the school shelf too.  (Picture of this coming soon, when I get it organized the way I want!)

She liked dropping the food through the rails. Sigh.

Who knew, plastic spoons are one of her favorite things to play with.  Spoon starts with S right? Letter of the week activity..check.

On another day, we played with this spring squishy bag.  I used fake flowers, (I cut the petals from the stem), and hair gel, (both from the ole DT), and put them in a ziploc bag. I taped the bag closed to keep little missy from opening it, cuz this girl LOVES to open ziplocs.  She really liked this bag, she squished it some, and carried it around a LOT.  

This might have been the most successful activity of the entire week.  I made a sticky wall, (thank you pinterest) from contact paper.  I drew a rainbow on the non-sticky side, (to go with the theme), and attached it to the wall with painters tape.  The sticky side is out, and I cut up rainbow construction paper to stick on. Skylar absolutely loved this activity, and was very proud of her work! 

We went outside on this day to play with a rainbow sensory bin, (DT Fruit Loops!).  She liked eating these, but was mostly distracted by scary flying things, like birds and leaves.  (We are learning that Skylar is NOT a nature lover).

Rainbow ziploc painting. 5 seconds and she was done. Fail.

Magnetic letters (rainbow colors!), fun until she eats them.  

My 1 year old is a little obsessed with coloring, which is awesome!

More fun with play-doh, and by play-doh I mean the cup and spoon. She really likes cups and spoons.

Rainbow pom poms! We practiced sorting these into ice cube trays.  Well, I sorted and talked to her about the colors, she mostly just dumped.  

Our first weeks of tot school were really successful in my opinion, and I am really looking forward to the themes we have coming up. I am also looking forward to warmer weather, (someday), so we can do more activities outside!! This week our theme is colors, specifically red, yellow, and blue. Next week I will share how it goes!