Turtles

They boys have been interested in Turtles over the past few days, so I decided to make them a turtle sensory tub. This was similar to the dinosaur tub we did a  few weeks ago, because they enjoyed it so much.

The contents of the tub include:

• blue aquarium rocks
• glass pebbles
• green grass filler (the type you get to fill Easter baskets with)
• plastic rocks 
• small turtle figurines
• a few plastic trees

We also did some counting and fine motor work with some turtle number cards printed from Confessions of a Homeschooler. 

 R really liked this, but M struggled with the learning links. 

Dinosaur Sensory Tub

The boys have been all about dinosaurs of late. I made them a dinosaur sensory tub to play with the little dinosaur figurines that we have accumulated.

The contents of the tub are:

• Green aquarium rocks
• Assorted trees
• A volcano
• Mini dinosaur figurines
• Dinosaur skeletons

They made a huge mess with the little stones, but the fun they had was well worth it!

Cooking with a Sensory Tub

This photo was take a while ago, after R was finished playing with a sensory tub.

The sensory medium is a soup mix, containing yellow and green split peas and barley. His interest in the tub was coming to an end, so I added measuring cups and spoons, a muffin tray, a cookie tray, some items from out kitchen play toy box and his little kitchen. In the interest of reducing mess, I lay a blanket on the floor.

R loved this activity. He scooped and mixed the mix and cooked it in thew oven. He made me a cake (yum!). R easily spent an hour with this set-up. Surprisingly, he made very little mess!

This was a great way to allow a bit of creative and imaginary play combined with sensory play.

Letter Gg and Grey

R is 35 months old.

We had a really fun week this week.

Craft
R made a giraffe from his footprint. He finger painted the dots onto the pieces when I cut them out. This idea came from Busy Bee Kids Crafts. This turned out unbelievably cute! R also snipped at the green paper on the bottom.

R did an easel painting with grey paint. To make grey paint we mixed a drop of black paint into the white paint.

R also did some drawing with all our grey pencils, markers and crayons.

R collaged a goldfish with gold circles. I used a circle punch to make the circles and R simply stick them on the fish along with a googly eye. Sorry, but the picture is not very clear.

R worked on a water colour picture of a goat from a purchased book. He really enjoyed this!


Letters and Language
I cut out a letter G and R added some glue and glitter. Another bad picture, sorry.

R sorted out the capital G’s and the lowercase g’s on the sorting mat from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

He also loves the Gg tracing. Anything that involves markers is much loved!

At his request, R also traced on the main letter page from Tot School Printables. He did really well at this activity.

R stamped with Gg stamps on a goat, from Tot School Printables.


Colours and Shapes
I sent R on a grey colour hut. This is what he found:

R sorted out pom poms, placing all the grey pom poms into a bowl.

I cut some shapes from alfoil for R to explore. He was not really interested in this activity.

Fine Motor and Sensory Skills
R explored some golf balls, rolling then and feeling the dimples in them.

R did a few of the Tot School Printables. He did the lacing card.

R played for quite a while, making sausages to cover the letter Gg and using the G cookie cutter.

R easily did the 3 piece puzzle.

R put some M&M’s on the Gg magnet page from Confessions of a Homeschooler. The M&M’s were a real motivator for this activity.

I made a simple sensory tub with green split peas, some measuring cups, spoons and a plastic muffin tray. R played with this for a long time.


Maths
More Tot School Printables. R did the goat ordering.

R sorted some cutlery that I set out for him. He also explored some coins, before posting them into a money box.

Science
I put some shaving cream and a blob of black paint into a zip-loc bag. R manipulated the bag until the shaving cream hat turned grey.

He then did finger painting with the grey shaving cream. We have done this many times and R never gets tired of it!!


Gross Motor Skills
We did the Gorilla Dance from an old CD from when I was working.

R got out his mini golf set and we hit the ball around the backyard.

I showed R how to gallop and we pretended to be galloping horses.

Cooking
We made our own garlic bread with home made garlic butter and a French Stick. It was yummy!

Next Program: Hh and Heart.
Thanks for reading!

Mrs Wishy Washy

We borrowed Mrs Wishy Washy from the library this week. I had ordered it and had to wait for it to come in from another library. When we went to collect it, I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was a "big book". We had loads of fun reading it, and the size of it was a bit of a novelty for R. The book inspired some of our activities this week.

I put out some dark brown playdough (for mud) and the animals from the book; a pig, a duck and a cow. R loved putting them into the playdough. We talked about the animals 'getting dirty' like in the story.

After playing with the animals in the playdough, I suggested to R that we give them a bath. He was all for this, because he absolutely loves water play. I set out a tub of water with bubbles in it. I also gave him a nail brush and a pig, cow and duck.

He scrubbed the animals clean with the nail brush.

We also did a craft for each of the animals in the book. R collaged splotches onto the cow.

He fingerpainted pink paint onto a pig.

Finally, he collaged feathers onto a duck after decorating it with a yellow Do-A-Dot marker.

We really had a lot of learning opportunities this week from one simple book. 

Mini Sensory Tub with Dried Beans

R most favourite manipulative medium is pom poms, but is very closely followed by dried beans. I made a mini-sensory tub for him with a couple of aims. Firstly, I gave R a choice of items to hide in the beans...he chose the rockets that we used in our outer space unit. Secondly, I wanted to give R a small container for him to practice keeping the beans in the container. Thridly, he loves playing with the dried beans!

R did such a great job of keeping the beans in the container, despite it being so small!

He stayed with this activity for just under 1/2 an hour. He found all the rockets several times, then he started pushing the beans into the holes in the bottom of the rockets (they are meant to be used as pencil toppers). I didn't mind because I thought it was a great fine motor development activity, that was until I went to pack them away and spend nearly 1/2 an hour getting the beans out of the rockets! :)

Transport

R is 27 months old.

I compiled this program because R loves anything with wheels...cars, trains, trucks, bobcats, bikes... He will spend hours pushing his little cars around, pushing them along train tracks, and filling the trucks with pom poms, pebbles or anything else that fits.

Crafts

R made a cardboard roll airplane. I saw this idea on No Time For Flashcards. First, R painted a paper towel roll, wings and tail with brown paint. When they were dry, I glued the wings on the top and stuck the tail piece into a slit cut in the end of the roll. R zoomed it around for a while before pulling the wings off the top. :)

R made a train from different shapes. I cut all the pieces out, then R glued them together, following my instructions. This idea came from No Time For Flashcards.

Another similar craft which I saw on No Time For Flashcards was a shape boat. R finger painted on a sheet of paper with blue paint. When this dried, R stuck the shapes on to form a boat. I offered some verbal instruction.

R did a painting with a little trailer (his choice) from our farm set. He enjoyed it so much that he made 3 paintings!

Maths

When I was still working I made a transport sorting game from Kizclub. R had to put the mode of transport in the correct area. He needed some verbal help with this the first time he did it, but after that he did it on his own.

I made a simple sorting game from vehicle pictures. This was too simple for R. He completed it and packed it away quickly.

We looked at the wheels on R's vehicles. We counted the wheels and discussed the circle shape of them.

Colours and Shapes

I got out our pattern blocks to make a sail boat. This was really hard for R, the pattern blocks kept moving all over the laminated sheet, so he lost interest quite quickly, preferring to explore the pattern blocks instead.

I printed off some shape vehicles from 2 Teaching Mommies. I laminated all the pieces and we sat together to make some vehicles.

Fine Motor and Sensory

This sensory tub was unplanned and came together by accident. I was cutting out some items to laminate. I used the sensory tub to put the off cuts into. R started playing with the strips of paper. I cut some up into small squares and put some plastic transport toys in there. R had a great time with it. I ended up cutting all the paper that I was going to throw out into squares for this tub.

R loves water play, so we got the boats out of the bath and played with them in the sensory tub. I also put in a little bit of soap.

I put some little plastic transport manipulatives out to use with the playdough. Now this was pure gold, combining 2 things R loves. He spent ages with this, pressing the manipulatives into the dough, making tracks, and stacking the cars up. He returned to this activity so many times this week that I lost count!

For a bit of variety in the sandpit, I added in some vehicles. This was also very popular, although it was quite cold, so we didn't get outside as much as we both would have liked.

I set out some blocks and cars to see how R would use the two together.

I made some tiny transport cards with pictures from Google. I laminated them and hid them in a bowl of dried beans for R to find. When he finds the cards, he puts them in the little box. I made an activity sheet to go with this, listing the name of the vehicle and a picture for R to match the cards to when he found them, but he wasn't interested in that at all, so out came the box! The cards are approx. 2-3cm, but each is slightly different, due to the orientation of the vehicle pictures. We have done this a few times before, and I keep coming back to it, because R enjoys it and will repeat it many times.

Music and Movement/Gross Motor

We sung loads of songs this week, including "Up in the Air I Fly," "The Wheels on the Bus," and "Row Row Your Boat."

We pretended to be lots of different types of vehicles, making their noises and moving around our car mat.

R and I played a little game where he would push a truck around the room and I would say "stop." He would stop and wait for me to say "go again."

Snack

I made a couple of little sailboats for R for a snack. He loved this and kept saying "I eat boat, Mummy." This idea was inspired by Mama Jenn. I used pears for the base of the boats, cheese for the masts and fruit toast for the sails.

Language and Letters

You can see the books we read here.

Our alphabet craft this week was "C is for Car". I cut a 'C' from black paper and drew in road markings with a white crayon. R then stuck on some car stickers. For each car he stuck down, he kept saying "that daddy's car."

I made a set of Transport Spelling Cards from Dinosaurs and Trains. R used these on a cookie sheet with magnetic letters. He did so well at it, matching all the letters, only getting 1 'u' upside down. I was so proud of him, especially as this was the first time we have done letter matching in this form.

I printed out an Itsy Bitsy Book called Zoom from Kidzone. We have not done anything like this before, but R drew on it, then I cut it out and folded it up. R read it, and was so excited to show Daddy when he came home from work.

Science
We rolled vehicles off a ramp. This was the activity of the week. R kept saying "Fun, Mummy!" :)

Next Program: Polar Animals