Tot School: Color red

Emma has been going through a lot of transitions and milestones since she turned two in August. We've moved on from binkies (which was way easier than we thought it would be) and have upgraded to a toddler bed (which she likes to hang out in, but not necessarily sleep on). She started to get bored of our usual daily routine, so I thought I would implement tot school as a change of pace.

I did a lot of research and I decided to follow Simply Learning's tot school themes. I like how it's flexible enough that you can really pick it up whenever or jump around lessons. And, I love how she has a ton of suggestions to go along with each lesson! At first, I was overwhelmed at the idea of buying so many arts and crafts supplies that she suggests, but I decided that I didn't need to follow every single activity (yay flexibility). So, I did my own thing! Michael's had an AWESOME Labor Day sale, so I picked up these items for just $20 (which is super exciting as the dot markers are typically $16 by themselves).

The first week of lessons is on colors. We start the day off by dressing in the color that we're going to be discussing. We're using these books from our own collection to be read every day we have a lesson. I also grabbed a bunch of books from the library to highlight a specific color during each lesson.

As today's lesson was on red, I introduced Emma to The Little Red Hen. See, tot school does not have to cost you a pretty penny! If you're in the market for books on colors, though, I highly suggest these from Usborne Books & More. (If you want to order one - let me know! I can help you out!)

I started the lesson off by singing Our Primary Colors. This is going to be our Song of the Week. We then read through all of our books on colors. Emma was most interested in Very First Colors, especially the black and white pages. She kept asking was certain objects and animals were. We then read through The Little Red Hen, followed by our first craft. It was very simple and to the point. I had a paper bag, cut up red construction paper, and a glue stick. I slathered glue all over the bag and encouraged Emma to put the construction paper on it - "feathers" for the chicken. Unfortunately, she was more interested in the glue stick, but after I hid it from view and a small tantrum, I got her focused on the task at hand. Here's the result.

Her favorite part of the lesson was probably coloring on her little white board with a red marker. I just kept repeating the word "red" and asking her what color she was using. It took a bit, but finally she got the hint and kept saying, "Red, red, red."

To go along with the tot school theme, we're going to have our Family Home Evening lesson on Joseph's Coat of Many Colors. All in all, the first lesson (which only took about 30 minutes) didn't quite keep Emma's attention as well as I hoped it would, so instead of having a lesson every weekday, I think I'm going to split the theme up into two weeks (I want to make sure to cover all the colors in the rainbow) and only do 2-3 lessons each week.

Questions? Comments? Let me know below! Thanks for reading!