Tot School: Pond

What a fun week Miss Maddie and I had, learning all about ponds. She loves visiting the nature center and her favorite thing is to sit and watch the turtles and ducks enjoy the pond. So, I knew she'd be interested and she was! Let's review the week, shall we? :)

Art and Music

I printed some frogs, laminated them and taped them on popsicle sticks that I'd broken in half. Then, I made a log by cutting slits in a toilet paper tube (a paper towel roll would be much roomier but we don't buy paper towels, therefore our froggies were a little smooshed).

I taught Maddie the song about the green little speckled frogs and how they were sitting on a speckled log (I'm sure there's a title for it!). She loved it and when we got to the part where one would jump in the water (where it was nice and cool, aka: the bowl), she gleefully pulled the froggy off the log.

We also had to make our own froggy...

Who is, by the way, sitting on a lily pad (though she thought it looked like a green diaper and found it to be pretty silly).

Literature Connection

After reading the book, In the Small, Small Pond, we created our own pond.

Using my roll of Ikea paper (best buy ever), I outlined a pond. I also printed off some pictures of pond animals (from HERE) and set out blue paint and various painting tools (brushes, sponge, roller).

Maddie happily painted the pond blue...

Colored her pond animals and then glued them on.

And you know, this was one of those moments where I felt so lucky to be working and playing with her. She's getting so grown up (at the ripe old age of 2) and I often notice that we'll slip into quite the conversation.

On this day, she was coloring the alligator when she asked me if I'd ever seen a real alligator. I told her that I had and she asked me if they looked like armadillos. I know you're probably thinking, "So...?" But, it was just one of those moments where I was reminded of what a gift she is, this inquisitive little person of ours. And, how mighty the blessing it is to be able to learn with her and watch her grow.

Okay.

Back to Tot School. :)

We also had to reread Little Quack (nine bajillion times; I swear I'm going to have to throw her a Little Quack birthday party since she loves the duck so much).

I set up a tray with labeled construction paper and a bowl of her Little People animals (we have the alphabet zoo set and I find them to be very handy for work and play!).

She loved sorting (or, in my teacher speak, classifying and categorizing) the animals and it was a great vocabulary exercise, too!

Fine Motor Skills

She did a dot stamping page from HERE.

Side note: She was about to color the flies when she asked what color she should make them. I shrugged and said, "Try the bright green." She answered that no, she would do brown. Fine. When she was done, she said, "Look, I did the flies brown. You said green, but I did brown. It looks good. I have big ideas." Ha! You certainly do, dear.

And see, she does have big ideas.

I've wanted to try this for a while, and since ducks live in a pond (and I have a ton of feathers), I thought this would be the perfect week to do so.

Her task was to transfer the feathers from bowl to bowl, using the mini clothespin (I colored dots where her fingers should go) as tweezers.

I'm not sure what it is, but she's just always hated clothespins. I thought the mini one might help her, but she just didn't like it. She tried a few times and then asked for tweezers.

And so, she completed the tray using the metal tweezers instead.

Reading

I should've taken a better picture of this, but you may have seen it floating around in the blogosphere lately (Ha! Blogosphere is actually a real word! Who knew?!).

Anyway, I labeled some eggs with capital and lowercase letters. Inside each one was a pond animal (alligator, snake, lizard, fish, ect).

Honestly, she wasn't a fan of matching the lowercase letter with the uppercase letter because the eggs made a high-pitched squeaky noise when turned. But, she loved finding the animal inside and telling me what letter it starts with!

Again, another poor picture, but I printed out THIS page and put out a dish of sparkly letters (purchased from a really random little store; I'm not sure what their original intention is, but they work great for a toddler who likes her letters and her sparkle). Oh, I also added some letter stickers to the page.

We did a couple of things with this one. First, she went through and matched up the letter with the correct square. Then, we pulled the letters out and did it by sounds. Finally, she'd pull a letter, keep her eyes closed, and use her fingers to try and guess which letter it was.

It is very hard for a two year old to keep her eyes closed and guess.

Pretty sure she cheated peeked.

A lot.

Math

I printed THIS page and thought they were frogs. Therefore, I wrote numbers on foam flower stickers, which we were using as lily pads.

See, the whole frog and lily pad thing makes sense, right?

Turtles and lily pads?

Not as much.

As she was working on matching the sticker and counting, she decided that the turtles just liked flowers and had "picked them from the garden. Like at Vons."

I put some foam fishy stickers in a bowl and divided a piece of paper into three sections.

She sorted the fish by size, something that she's getting really good at doing!

Sensory Activities

Ahh, one of the highlights of the week.

The pond.

In the kitchen.

I dragged in her sand and water table and together, we worked hard to clean it up.

She was so excited and gave this thing a good ol' cleaning!

Then, we sorted and sifted through my box of millions of small animals (saved from my days of teaching first grade, however the Dollar Tree is awesome for picking some up). We pulled out any and all animals that could be considered pond life.

She also grabbed handful after handful of pond pebbles (known to most as the ever-versatile floral rocks from the dollar store).

She tonged and tweezed and scooped and measured to her little heart's delight.

We played a game, initiated by her, to see which objects would sink and which would float.

She kept certain animals in "Pond One" and certain animals in "Pond Two" because we all know that "Lizards are not friends with crocodiles. They only want to fight and eat each other."

And yes, she is wearing Minnie Mouse ears. Very odd, but she insisted.

We played with the pond many days this week. Each day, we filled it with fresh water (I'd fill the pitcher and she'd pour). It was sad to move it out but one can only side-step a pond and bang my shins on it for so many days.

Field Trip!

She was quite the lucky duck this week because Daddy took her to visit a real pond, full of terrifyingly aggressive geese!

I love this picture. Mike said that he snapped it just moments before the gray guy next to her decided to nibble her fingers.

Suddenly, she's not so into visiting ponds anymore... Poor girl!

And so, there's our week! We also worked in some physical activity by moving around the house like turtles, ducks and alligators. She loved it all (and I did, too).

Hop over to Carisa's blog to see what other Tot Schoolers were up to this week!

Tot School Time: Olympics!

What a week! Maddie and I had so much fun with our Olympic-themed activities and games. In fact, I think it's been one of the best weeks we've had in a while!

I was totally inspired by Susan and Sophie's Olympic week and set to work on making a unit for Maddie.

DISCLAIMER: Halfway through this post, all my words were attacked by the strike-through feature. I do not know why, nor do I know how to fix it! I'm super frustrated by it though!! Sorry if it's hard to read!

Language Arts

Maddie painted a book about the winter games, found HERE.

She diligently illustrated each page with watercolors...

and finished it up by writing her name on the cover!

She loves this book and I think we've read it a hundred times.

Critical Thinking

This little plate was ninety-something cents at Wal-Mart and when I picked it up, I just knew we could use it for something. This was the perfect activity for it!

After talking about the colors of medals, I made a tray where Maddie could sort out the silver objects and the bronze objects. I gathered up things from around the house, including paper clips, hair goodies, pipe cleaners, my bronzing compact (her favorite, of course!) and coins.

We discussed each color and object. She placed the paper labels into the two trays and then sorted. This was a very popular activity and she returned to it several times during the week.

Art

She used her watercolor crayons to illustrate THIS. We talked about who we're rooting for and then, obviously, cheered on the American curling team (it was all that was being played when I turned on the television! Ha!).

We also talked about Olympic mascots and she painted these three little guys (she actually has a shirt with Miga on it, so that was her favorite).

I found the mascots HERE.

Then, we turned it into a memory, reading game of sorts. I cut the three mascots out, as well as their names. She glued the three animals (animals? Are they animals? Not sure what they are, to be honest) and then I laid out the names. She knew Miga, so she had to find the name that started with an /m/ sound. Miga and Sumi were easy, but Quatchi was a little trickier.

It was a great phonics and early reading activity!

And of course, we had to make our own Olympic torch!

She finger-painted the toilet paper roll torch and then we "lit" it by stuffing red tissue paper inside.

This torch has been the center of most of the imaginative play this week. She'll run around and "light" our lamps, she used it to lead us through a cave (aka: the hallway) and then she removed the tissue paper, making it a "spy glass for pirates."

This was a total copycat activity from Susan and I thought it was just too cute!

I printed the Vancouver logo off Google images and then wrote USA on the bottom.

I cut shapes from construction paper that matched the logo and set out foam U, S, A sticker letters, too.

Independently, she matched and glued down the shapes and letters (well, first she had to trace the letters in pink marker because "that's what you do, Mommy!" In fact, if you ever see pink writing, it's Maddie, writing her name.).

She really liked doing this, as was marked by her insisting that it be the first thing she showed Daddy when he got home from work!

Math

THIS was a fun color by number that helped her strengthen (literally, as it's a weight lifter! Ha!) her number recognition.

She did a great job! As always, I sat with her as she worked, but I didn't say much this time. Obviously, it helps that I color code the bottom of the paper, but I was still impressed with how hard she worked!

We also talked about winning first, second or third place. She matched the foam numbers as I called out either first, second or third (this is just a foam, Dollar Tree puzzle that I cut apart so that we could focus just on the first three numbers).

I also made gold, silver and bronze medals out of pipe cleaners and we took turns wearing each one.

Pattern work and learning about other countries!

We looked at pictures of the American flag online and then headed to the kitchen floor to make our own American flag.

I had free-handed this flag (free-handed, meaning that we're missing a couple stripes in there!) on our big roll of Ikea paper (best buy ever).

I laid out all sorts of color options, such as markers, paint and even stamp pads that she could use her fingers with!

The two of us worked hard on this and we both loved it. Thank goodness for a forgiving kitchen floor and a little girl who just loves to paint!

As we went along, we talked about the red and white pattern (even though adding the stars was her favorite part).

And the next morning, she woke up to find another flag! This time, we talked about Canada, since that is where the Olympics are happening. But, most importantly, that's where her Poppa was born!

I was inspired by Allie's post HERE about making this flag.

I hung both the American and the Canadian flag in Maddie's room and she loves them!

Before we end each week, I always ask Maddie what her favorite thing was. 99% of the time, she'll immediately say, "You! You're my favorite thing!" Ha! Sweet, huh?

Anyway, when I asked her this week, she didn't hesitate at all and answered, "Play dough medals!"

I printed and laminated some medals from HERE and laid out some yellow and gold Play-doh, a rolling pin and differently sized cups.

She rolled the dough flat and then used a cup to cut a circle. She would make as many circles as possible and then I showed her how to line them up from largest to smallest or smallest to largest.

She also, on her own, showed me how to stack them from largest to smallest!

Fine Motor Skills

I printed out a blank template of the Olympic rings and filled a paint pallet with the five signature colors. She used Q-tips to paint them in.

Can you guess which rings she did and which ones I did?! Ha!

This was supposed to be a fun activity where she matched the floral rock to the correct color circle on the FLAG.

She never touched the tray. On Friday, I asked her if she wanted to try it with me. She looked at it, very thoughtfully, and said, "No, those are weird." Umm... Okay!

I printed the Olympic rings, found HERE and set out a bowl of M&Ms (with the correct amount of candies for each colored ring).

Looking guilty?

Yeah, it's because she is.

As I turned to get something, the little monkey shoved a few dozen candies in her mouth.

Silly girl!

After she'd eaten/sorted all the candies, she asked for her dot stampers. I gave her the basket and she set to work!

Physical Activities

Maddie started out the week not feeling so hot, so we had to lay low. I dug into my stash of random treasures and pulled out all the Play-doh lids I've saved. They became our medals and an empty Kandoo box became the medal box. I hid the medals throughout the family room and she had to find the medals and stash them in the box. She loves opening the little box and it was played many, many times!

And of course, after watching both speed skating and ice skating on television, we had to break out our own skates and take them for a spin.

I could only get a picture once she was on the grass because when she's skating, it's a two-person effort!

Whew! That was lengthy! Thanks so much for reading and joining us in our Olympic week!

Check out the activities by clicking over to Tot School!

Tot School Time: Pizza

Hi there! It's time for another edition of Tot School, though this may be a quick post. The sickies are making their way through our little family and I'm the latest to be hit. And, as our week was all about pizza, it's making me feel a little woozy!

Language Arts

This was originally supposed to be posted as our stART project, but it didn't happen since Maddie got sick. Anyway, we read the book, Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza, which Maddie loved.

Then, we had to make our own pizza.

She painted the sauce, cut the strips for cheese and glued on pepperonis and peppers. It was quite the fun process.

Doesn't it look scrumptious? According to Maddie, it does (and that's also her new favorite word).

We made a mini book about the steps it takes to make a pizza.

We also did some story sequencing cards, which aligned identically with the book (perfect so that we could self-check). I can't find a picture of them, but they're both from HERE.

Math

I set up a muffin tin to be our pizza parlor. Each tin got a crust (a scrapbook paper circle with some red sauce on top) and I set out toppings (pompoms) and pizza tool (tweezers). She counted the toppings, sorted the toppings and served me up some delicious blueberry pizza.

I made these felt pizza slices and some toppings, too.

Again, she counted and sorted and filled pizza orders from her dollies and figures.

Then, she asked for her felt board and called it her "menu." She was a very strict pizza manager and you could only order what she'd already made.

No substitutions.

It's never too early to plant seeds in little minds and this was a great way to demonstrate fractions.

I made this little felt pizza set and we talked a lot about numbers and what a whole looks like. We moved around the parts and even talked about shapes as we did it.

Critical Thinking

I got this from the Family Fun website and what a great activity it was! Maddie asked to do a new one every single day.

I'd precut the pieces out and then she used the glue stick (all by herself, too!) to decide if it was a topping or was not a topping.

She really liked doing this, since it was new and I could definitely see her little mind making decisions and thinking hard (and yes, she decided that the picture of the cake did belong on a pizza because, "Wouldn't that taste so good?!").

Physical Activity

Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of this one (since I was busy playing too and my camera card was filled at this point! Ha!) but we made a fun pizza game. I set a hula hoop at one end of the room and gave Maddie a basket of red poker chips (pepperonis, of course) and a spatula. She had to run/walk across the room, balancing the pepperoni on the spatula and then drop it in the hula hoop (the pizza). We played this many, many times, always adding new toppings (I think her princess figures even got added to the mix!).

And, that's our pizza-themed week! Check out Carisa's blog for other Tot School ideas!