Tot School Time!

Oh, before we begin, I have to share a picture of our Tot Tray area. I was SO excited when our shipment of more trays came in because now everything has a tray (plus, I have a couple extra that can be reserved for crafts and such).

So, we had a busy week, both with Tot School and with life in general. We managed to get Tot School time in every week, which was a little amazing! I'm not sure how we'll do next week, since Daddy is off and we have some playdates and a toddler Christmas party, but we'll see (I'm thinking out loud here... Ha!).

Also, I tried so very hard to organize this post by type of learning, such as "Language and Literacy," "Math," or "Fine Motor Skills." I've seen so many great examples of it, such as my friends over at The Adventures of Bear and Counting Coconuts.

All I can say is... I don't have it in me. Yet. It is no easy task to organize and I got incredibly flustered (but girls that do, know that I am very impressed and envious!).

As for now, here's what we accomplished this past week...

This was a little guy I printed off (can not remember from where...) and instead of doing dot stampers, I thought I'd fuel her love of using glue. She squeezed the glue into each circle and then put a pompom on top (I had some crusty, older pompoms that were ready to be used for a project just like this).

You can see some renegade glue drops, but for the most part, she did really well.

I can always tell the mark of a good project by what she immediately wants to show Daddy when he gets home from work.

This was one of those, "Look Daddy! Look what I did all by myself!" projects.

This was really cute and easy to put together. When we made our ornaments from Model Magic (an Advent activity), I cut some extra tiny Christmas lights out. I later colored them with marker and wrote each letter of her name on them. I then made a control sheet and she set off to work.

Here it is, completed. For some reason, this tray stayed out in the family room all week (not sure why). But, it did mean that she'd wander over to it throughout the day, randomly spelling her name or telling me facts about her name (how many Ds, what sound it starts with, ect). Very fun and cute!

We are going today to see the Nutcracker Ballet and so we spent last week reading about the Nutcracker and doing crafts to match. This particular one was a toilet paper tube guy. We'd never done one of these before but he was SO easy and she loves him. He "watches" us do all of our crafts now, constantly sitting on her little table.

Maddie loved doing a similar project to this and when I found the Merry Christmas version, I had to print it out. Again, she worked so diligently and completed the entire thing with little help from me.

Look at the concentration when working with glue!

She is still crazy about the story, The Twelve Days of Christmas, and so I'm always on the hunt for anything related. When I found this page about the number twelve, I thought it'd work. She colored in the wreath and then dot stamped twelve berries.

She's getting much better with her precision in stamping in the circle.

Oh my goodness, this one came from Bear and her mommy and all I can do is thank them! This turned out to be Maddie's very favorite game this week and I loved it, too.

I used an ornament container (we use the top for painting palates, so this bottom one was just waiting to be used) and put out a bowl of colored pompoms and another bowl of number cards (made from stickers I have).

First, she sat and sorted the pompoms by color. Then, she matched the number card to the correct color of pompoms. Seriously, we did this everyday and everyday she didn't want to put it away.

Halfway through the week, I did swap out pompoms for new colors because I was pretty sure she was just memorizing the color with the number card. Although, even when changing out the colors, she did just fine.

This was another math game that we had a lot of fun playing. I printed and laminated one game board, as well as number cards (we focused on zero through three). I also put out a bowl of buttons because, you know, the snowman was missing his buttons!

She pulled a card, read the number and then counted out the correct number of buttons to put on the circles at the bottom of the game card. I learned that she wasn't sure what "zero" was when we first started and I also learned that she doesn't like it when I play silly, acting like I don't know how many, say, three buttons is. Ha! She got frustrated and said, "Mama, just count them right!"

We played over and over again.

This was another snowman activity, but honestly, it wasn't a big hit. This guy is also "missing his buttons." I put out three cups of buttons. In each cup, there are three buttons that match and three that are totally random. She had to dump the cup, find the matching ones and put them on Frosty.

She lost interest after one cup and never went back to it.

I caught her, on camera, playing it the one and only time.

So, one of our Advent activities was to tackle homemade Play-doh. I don't know why, but this activity has always seemed like an enormous feat to me, and one that I'd never even attempted. But, when Amanda blogged about their recipe (and made it sound easy and fun), Maddie and I set out to try it for ourselves.

And, Amanda was right: It was super easy and super fun. Like them, we scented it with vanilla (a tad too much, in my opinion!) and Maddie added gobs of glitter.

I put out a bowl of pebbles, buttons, jewels and bells and she happily played for almost an hour. We also made up a small package (both of dough and "sparkly objects") to leave in the car. It's already come in handy when we all went out to eat after her ballet recital.

There's also been renewed interest in her blocks. She built many "towers for the princesses."

This was a quick and easy activity, both to put together and to play. I used a Dollar Tree ice cube mold in the shape of Santa (although, there was some debate with a particular two year old because someone insists that they're snowmen). Regardless, I put out a bowl of white pompoms (Santa's beard or Frosty's tummy, depending which of us you talk to) and some tweezers.

She worked hard to tweeze each piece into the mold.

Dollar Tree ornaments were an easy activity...

And, they turned out great!

She stamped out Santa...

And Frosty (where did Frosty come from?! Maybe HERE).

The peg board saw lots of play, as always. I think that this is probably one of the most loved (and played with) toys.

I liked how she matched colors on this one, stacking them high. We also sat and talked about which one was the tallest or the shortest and which one had the most and the least.

I know I've shown this before, but I never showed you how I covered the printed pictures with word cards. She transfers the tiny drums (Dollar Store) into the tray (also Dollar Store) using the tongs from my ice bucket.

It's a big hit and has been out for a while because she chooses it almost everyday.

Ugh, I had a picture to show how this was all laid out on her tray, but Blogger just deleted it.

{Sigh}

Anyway, she made a snowman, after reading the book, That's Not My Snowman (thank you Kelly!). First, she stamped some snow...

And then we talked about the different shapes and glued them down. She loved this guy and had it been up to her, we would've made about twenty more. Ha!

When I saw how Emily and her art group made angels, I knew we had to try it. Maddie is fascinated by the angel that came to Mary and was so excited to make her own. I think it turned out great. Thanks Michelle for the idea!

Oh and finally, we made a big nutcracker. Maddie loved this one (probably because I busted out the glitter glue for her) but personally, this was a big hassle. Cutting all those pieces was... annoying. But, she liked it and immediately named him Cowboy Rider. Yes, we've graduated from naming everything just Cowboy. It's now Cowboy Rider. Good grief!

Check out what other tots have been up to by clicking over to Carisa's blog!