This is our first week back to school after a six week break and my first blog in a year! This year I am starting some more formal curriculum with Eric who is his Pre-K year. Luke will be tagging along as he is interested. Our time will still consist of mostly "tot trays" and free art activities.
We are kicking off with a month long theme of bears and the forest. We started our first "row" of the Before Five in a Row curriculum with the book Blueberries for Sal by Robert McCloskey. Both boys really enjoyed the story and looked forward to reading it every day.
On our 1st day of school, we went blueberry picking on a beautiful and thankfully not too hot day. We ended up with 6 pounds of berries (even after Luke dumped my mostly full pail on the ground.) It was funny to hear the boys saying kerplink, kerplank, kerplunk like Little Sal in the book. Unfortunately, that lasted a little longer than 5 minutes then it was playing hide and seek in the bushes. Eric did notice that the bushes we were picking we're different than those in the book. I tried to explain that the blueberries that Little Sal picked were wild Maine blueberries and these were planted by a farmer. I think he was disappointed he could not sit in the middle of them as ours were 6 feet tall.
The boys enjoyed helping make blueberry muffins and canning them. They practiced measuring and dumping. Luke especially enjoys this activity. (and continued measuring and dumping flour long after Eric and I moved on to something else - then he loved making handprints in the flour mess). We went over the concepts of less than, more than and equal to with the canning jars and rings, eventually ending up with just the right number of rings to fit on the jars.
We also used counting bears to work on sorting, more number comparisons, and making patterns. To round out math we played counting number recognition games by counting berries into a pail.
We read books about bears and talked about what they eat, where they live, and how they hibernate. We also watched a Curious George episode where George tries to hibernate for the winter so he wouldn't have to wear a winter coat. Eric worked on the Blueberries for Sal printables from Homeschool Creations, Luke had no interest in doing any.
Eric also started doing All About Reading Pre-level one. So far he is loving the lessons and having fun with Ziggy the Zebra. Both boys have letter recognition and letter sounds down pat. However, I wanted to use this Pre-reading curriculum for its activities such as rhyming, isolating beginning and ending sounds, segmenting words and syllabication to help us with phonics coming up. B/c he doesn't need to learn letters and sounds, we're cruising along at a lesson a day. After a week he is really starting to get the hang of rhyming. Luke has been sticking around with us during the lessons (I think it's Ziggy love) and so far hasn't been a distraction. Eric has started doing some beginning "handwriting" by trying to make A's by air writing, on the chalkboard and on paint bags.
The boys have mostly been playing with their "educational toys", doing lots of painting and play-doh creations. In the next couple of weeks, I'll be slowly adding on Rightstart Math and piano lessons for Eric and Science activities for both.
The boys were ready for us to get into the tot school swing again. We've been mostly playing outside a!nd have not done much else the past couple of months. T-Rex and Munchky have been asking to go downstairs (the school room is in our basement). I knew we hadn't been using it much b/c the spiders have taken over downstairs! Now that I got our room cleaned up and our plans made, we were all set.
So here's what we've done this week:
TOT TRAYS
(Thanks to all the moms out there who put out such a great ideas on their blogs. I got a virus on my computer and could not access the file with my links to tot tray ideas...so I have no idea where I got what idea from where)
Munchky really loved this tray. I made a box w/ holes for him to stick dowels in and then gave him our M&D lacing beads to thread on them. When he saw this tray he immediately went to work.
He was a bit upset that no more beads would fit on the dowel. I told him he had to put them on a different dowel. Well he showed me, he picked up a dowel and put it in the hole of the top bead and started stacking on that dowel.
T-Rex also loved this tray. He got the dowels no problem, he had a bit more trouble putting the beads on. But he didn't mind help from Mom.
Munchky was proud of himself after he finished this 24 pc. zoo puzzle from Michaels' Creatology brand. He needed a bit of help from Mom, but he did not get frustrated with it. A big +
Both boys liked the tray with animals from around the house and cards (from Target $ spot) to match them to. T-Rex didn't quite understand that he was supposed to line up the animal with the picture, but he had fun telling me the ones he knew along with animal sounds, including a made up sound for a giraffe.
I put out this tray mostly for Munchky but he was not interested. I put the black and white poms poms in a pattern in the ice cube tray hoping that he would match the pattern on the opposite side. He didn't even look at it. However, T-Rex dumped the pom poms on the floor and then had fun putting them in the tray. (And of course tossing them back out again).
Munchky really enjoyed working on his pre-writing pages this week. We haven't done this much lately and he was eager to get back at it. His level of care in this has really increased. He didn't even want to do cutting on the cutting practice sheet - just wanted to trace.
T-Rex liked working on the E do-a-dot sheet - and trying to screw on caps; but Munchky was completely uninterested in doing a do-a-dot sheet.
Muncky was also not interested in the elephant color puzzles, even though the second time I brought them out, I put them in our brand new pocket chart. He was happy to tell me where to put the yellow match. "On the top, Mommy - in the middle", but wouldn't even point to it. (I'll chalk this up to his developing skills on giving directions and location ). T-Rex was interested in taking them out of the pocket and sliding the cards behind the pocket chart and watch them slide out at the bottom. I tried to help with his color recognition by naming the color on each card he did. He would repeat the color after me but I don't think he noticed what it was on the card. He was to intent in getting it slide behind the chart. (Fine Motor Skills- check)
Muchky also did not want to do Upper and Lower Case Sort - as the mat got jammed while laminating and had a bubble. He handed it back to me saying it was broken.
We used real peanuts as counters with the number cards and also for a pouring activity. Munchky even became a pro at shelling (and eating) them. Again Munchky didn't stay with this too long, he did three and moved on to shelling. T-Rex and I went through the cards working on number recognition and he even managed to put peanuts on one (3) by himself and was right. I'm thinking that was just coincidence.
Both boys enjoyed scribbling coloring on their color by number sheets. Munchky is not ready yet to be told what colors he should use and to limit them to certain areas. I was able to point out to T-Rex colors and numbers while he colored.
Munchky did his first "Poke" page. He really liked it and did a great job poking on just the black lines. I see how this is great for developing a good pencil grip.
Munchky had fun playing hopscotch with the elephant floor numbers. At first I had the numbers scattered around the room, so he had to find them. But he didn't like that, so we had to put them in order. We were also able to practice skip counting by 2's while doing this by lining them odds and evens up in columns. (I had to jump too, so no pics of that.)
MUSICAL MONDAYS
This year we are going to be learning about a different music composer/composition each month. No memorization or anything like that - just simple music concepts.
This month we are focusing on Carnival of the Animals by Camille Saint-Saens. I got this great illustrated book with the music CD from Amazon. Munchky has really enjoyed it. The book is written to tell about the different themes (animals) happening in each piece and has a couple pages introducing the instruments.
This week as we listened to it, we focused on the rhythm and style of the music. Fast/Slow, Graceful/Rambunctious, Light/airy versus heavy, etc. The boys had a great time conducting!
Munchky insisted that they needed their doctor "tools" to do this. I'm wondering if he thinks a conductor is also a doctor.
TASTY TUESDAY
We were going to make elephant ears this week, but didn't get around to it. Munchky and I have been going to a local VBS at night this past week. I think we still will have to make them this week.
WINING WEDNESDAYS
This year we are also focusing on a Caldecott Winning Book each month. Our first one is the Lion and The Mouse by Jerry Pinkney. (Which is a gorgeous book by the way). After reading the book, we made these "water-color" lions. We talked about how Pinkney used paints and colored pencils to swirl the colors all around to make the animals.
We made the manes from large coffee pot filters, colored them with washable markers and sprayed with water. Then we glued googly eyes, ears, nose and a tongue on (Cut out by me ahead of time). After our manes dried we glued the faces on, and colored with color pencils.
THEME THURSDAYS
We started this Zoo Tot Pack from 2 Teaching Mommies this week. We will be working on it throughout the month as well as other activities from 2 Teaching Mommies.
Here's a matching activity from the pack. T-Rex didn't match too much...he just wanted to name the animals and make sounds!
Munchky fingerprinting a herd of elephants.
FAMILY FUN FRIDAYS
The VBS Munchky was going to had a racing theme, so they worked on making a pine box derby cars during Arts and Crafts. Friday night was race night. We had lots of fun watching the cars race and eating goodies. Munchky's came in 1st in his division!. He was so excited to get a trophy! Unfortunately, Mom forgot the camera.
LET'S GET REAL
Things are not always rosy in tot school. In fact there were many times this week I wanted to throw in the towel. Fights, disinterest, messes, rebellion. The key is to remember that skills and learning do not happen in one sitting, a week, or even a month...but over time and are ingrained over a greater length of time. In addition a lot of what happens in tot school is not learning the alphabet or the correct pencil grip...but life lessons such as self-control, respect, following instructions, sharing and such. Those can be hard lessons (on Mom and kids) while you are trying to have FUN at tot school. So in reality, especially for us Moms of the 3 and younger set, Tot School's real importance is trying to develop these lessons and spending real time engaging and playing with your children.
To see what other moms are doing this week, go to 1+1+1=1.
