Shape Snowman Scene

M and I made a shape snowman, inspired by DLTK. I chose the star paper to glue the snow man on, because we thought it looked like snow in the background! I cut all the shapes out using my scrapbook tools and M glued it together, following my instructions.

Letter Ff and Square

R is 27 months old.

We had a great week last week. We had a bit of sunshine, and although it was still cold, we managed to get outside almost everyday. R has been recognising letters when we read books. So excitied by that.

Craft

R did a foot painting. I saved the paper that my deli goods were wrapped in when I last went shopping. The paper is large and quite thick. I just drizzled some paint on the paper and R walked on it. I had to hold his hands so he didnt slip, but he loved it. He did 2 paintings.

R printed with our square stacking cups. He wasn't so keen on this, doing it for a short time only.

 

Fine Motor and Sensory

Many years ago, I made a face where you can velcro the pieces in place. I got it out for R because he loves velcro, and he loved it. He did it so many times, first it was Daddy, then Grandad. Before we did it we looked in the mirror to see where all the parts of our face are located, then R began to stick the parts on. As he did, I talked about where parts are located on the face, and he got everything in place. I am not sure where I got the face from.

R did the Square Magnet Page from Home Grown Hearts and the F is for Fish magnet page from Confessions Of A Homeschooler. We tried with marbles, but they kept rolling off the page, so I got out the sparkly pom poms.

I got out the felt food that I made a few weeks ago. I made a sandwich with fillings and a pizza with toppings. Both ideas were seen at Serving Pink Lemonade. R had a great time, especially making a sandwich and pretending to eat it!

I gave R some feathers to explore. He enjoyed this, and kept trying to tickle me and M with the feathers.

I put some flour into a tub for R to explore. He absolutely loved it and spend over 1/2 a hour playing with the flour. He moved it around, drew in it and sprinkled onto his and my hands.

We used the Main Letter Page from Tot School Printables again as a playdough mat. I also put out the F and fish cookie cutters.

We also used the Ff lacing card and puzzle from Tot School Printables. R is getting good at putting the puzzles together, but still only laces the card a few times.  

I got out our magnetic fishing game to play with R. He did not like this last time I got it out, but this time he loved it. He played with it so much that it is still out on our shelves now. He gets this look of intent concentration on his face when he is trying to 'catch' the fish with the fishing rod.

Language and Letters

You can see the books we read here.

R is still right into drawing and tracing at the moment. I gave him the Ff tracing from Confessions Of A Homeschooler. He is getting so good at this now.

R did a finger painting on a letter F.

R stamped with Ff stamps on the foot from Tot School Printables. He really got into this more so than usual.

R did some Ff Sorting from Confessions Of A Homeschooler.

Shapes and Colours

R traced a square from the shape tracers that I printed from Home Grown Hearts.

We got out our wooden blocks to sort the squares. We also looked at squares and rectangles to see the differences. I showed R the longer sides on the rectangles.

I had intended to make squares out of straws with R, but when I went to get out the straws, I discovered that we only had 3 straws left, so I got out the craft sticks instead. I quickly made some little mats to help R with the constuction of the squares. He really like this activity and made the shapes several times. I saw this idea at Shannons Tot School. Once R had made the squares, we counted the sides.

R did Do-A-Dot Painting on a square, from Childcareland. He did this quickly, and is getting much more accurate each time he does this.

When R was about 18 months old, I made some squares from sandpaper. I got these out and R matched the differet grits of sandpaper. I also got R to trace the edges to feel the shape of the square.

R made a little shape man from squares, and of course, had to put some wiggly eyes on it! I cut out the squares and a mouth for R and then he completed the rest on his own. The final product is kinda cute!

Music and Movement/Gross Motor

We sang "Five Speckled Frogs" this week.

We kicked a football around when we were outside.

I used masking tape to make a square on the floor. R walked around the lines and jumped in and out of the square.

Cooking

We made fairy bread this week. It was simple thing that R could complete on his own with little help from me. He spread the butter on his bread, then sprinkled the 100's and 1000's over. He loved this.

Maths

I got out our small plastic fruits and coloured bowls for R to do some sorting. R was so excited when he saw these. He loves these sets, we have transport, bears, fruit, farm animals and dinosaurs.

Next Week Program: Winter.

Thanks for reading.

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

Letter Ee and Oval

R is 27 Months Old

This week saw a little less happening during school time after last week's amazing Outer Space week. Lately, R hasn't been so into crafts, but more into fine motor and sensory activities. Last week we did heaps of fine motor and sensory stuff and R showed a real preference for it, whereas only a few weeks ago, he would ask to do painting all day long, and would always choose it first.

Fine Motor and Sensory

I put out a shape puzzle for R and asked him to find the oval. He really amazed me with how many shapes he can recognise and name, especially because we haven't spent a lot of time working on shapes. :)

I put some lentils, peppercorns, rice and sand into our plastic eggs. R had a fantastic time with these. He shook them to hear the sounds, then when he was done, I opened them up to show him what was inside.

R spread butter on bread this week, and then I used an oval cutter to make an oval from it. He had trouble laying the knife flat to spread the butter. I have made a mental note to give him more tasks like this. I am making Pizza this week, so I will get him to spread the pizza sauce onto the pizza's to practice these skills.

I took out the tongs, plastic eggs and the plastic egg carton for some transferring work. He did this many times.

Playdough: We had our homemade blue playdough with the main letter page from Tot School Printables. We also had elephants, an oval/egg and a letter E. R is making snakes to make the letter Ee's in the picture.

Together, R and I did the egg lacing card from Tot School Printables. He never spends a lot of time on this, usually only laces it 2-3 times before he's finished. We also used the Ee egg puzzle.

I put out some small glass pebbles with the E is for Elephant magnet page from Confessions Of A Homeschooler and the oval magnet page from Home Grown Hearts. The pebbles renewed interest in the magnet pages. They were also used as cargo in R's trucks! R used the spoon I had put out for the egg and spoon race to put the pebbles on the oval magnet page.

R played with some smooth oval rocks that we have in our garden.

Craft

I cut a potato in half and gave it to R to paint with. He though it was great, and ended up doing 3 paintings. This was the fist thing he told Daddy about when Daddy got home from work. I cut some little notches in the top of the potato to give R something to hold onto.

When R did so many potato prints, I wasn't sure what to do with them. I don't like to throw R's paintings away, but I only needed one to add to his scrapbook, so I went in search of something to use them for. I was inspired by a very cute shape elephant on First School. I used my scrapbook tools to cut out the pieces, and R pieced them together using my verbal cues.

R painted some eggs with glitter paint. When they were dry, I was cutting them out when R asked to cut one too. I was amazed at how well he did. I have included a close-up picture of his cutting skills.  He drew with brown pencils, oil pastels and crayons on the nest, then glued the eggs on.

Language/Letters

You can see the books we read here.

We traced the letter E from Confessions Of A Homeschooler. R quite enjoys this, but he is right into drawing at the moment, especially if I give him markers.

I put out a multi-coloured stamp pad for R to do his letter stamping this week, and he showed a lot more interest than he usually does. He has got the hang of the stamping now. The sheet came from Tot School Printables.

R made an E for Elephant, seen on No Time For Flashcards. This was a low-key activity because R didn't want to draw or paint, so I cut the parts out of grey paper and he simply glued them together. He loves the little wiggly eyes.

We talked about Capital E's and lowercase e's, then did the Ee sorting from Confessions Of A Homeschooler. R completed this three times, usually he does it once, then packs away. He made me laugh the third time he completed it, he would put the card on the wrong side, laugh then say NOOOO! and put it on the correct side.

Shapes/Colours

We did the oval tracing card from Home Grown Hearts. We also used these tracing cards to compare ovals and circles.

Another favourite activity of the week was the shape eggs. We last used these during our Easter program. I had them out for 3 days this week as R spent so much time playing with them.

R did a Do-A-Dot painting on an oval. The printable came from Childcareland.



Music and Movement/Gross Motor

This week our song was 5 Grey Elephants. We used felt pieces that I made years ago to compliment this song.

We used our skittles with a hard boiled egg to knock them down. This was really hard, because you just could not predict the way the egg would roll. We both had fun playing this game!

We had another egg and spoon race using the plastic eggs. When we did this during our Easter program, I gave R a big spoon from the kitchen, but this time I gave him a smaller spoon from his toy kitchen set. He still loved this, and laughed his way through it. :)

 

Maths

Together, we did the Egg sequencing cards from Tot School Printables. R and I generally talk our way through this, discussing the numbers, and what is happening in the pictures. This week, he recognised the number 1 when I asked him where it was!

Science

We cracked an egg and looked at it, naming the parts. I then cooked the egg in a fry pan, and we watched the change.

Next Program: Transport.