Tot School: Patterns

Yesterday we had a tot school lesson on patterns. For our song, I showed Emma this YouTube video that talks about different kinds of patterns we see everywhere.  It was very informative, but kind of annoying, haha. Emma wasn't into it either. Oh well.

After the song, I read her three books on patterns we checked out from the library. I completely spaced taking a picture of them before returning them, whoops, but the titles were: Spotty, Stripy, Swirly: What Are Patterns? by Jane Brocket, I See A Pattern Here by Bruce Goldstone, and Look! Look! Look! by Nancy Elizabeth Wallace. While Usborne Books & More doesn't necessarily have books specifically about patterns, there are a variety of adult coloring books that showcase them!

For our first activity, we just went around the house and talked about the different patterns we could find. Again, Emma was just not into it, so I didn't bother taking pictures and moved on to the next activity quickly.

I got out some skittles, lined them up into patterns (AB, ABC, AAB, etc.) and had Emma try to figure out what came next in the pattern. Unfortunately, I think this was too complicated for her as it went right over her head. I think we'll try to review this when she's a bit older.

Not my favorite week of tot school, but I believe textures and patterns are important to go over. I'm more excited about next week - we're going to be talking about animals! So many possibilities for this one!

Tot School: Textures

Today, we had a lesson on textures! We started our lesson with this cute When I Touch song (and there are other song options on that website too), followed by our books. I didn't have to go to the library for this because we have TONS of touch-and-feel type books (from Usborne Books & More and other places). I didn't read all of the texture books we have, but here is what we did read.

Emma was not in the mood for tot school today, and she kept running off while I tried to read and have her touch all of the different textures. Which was weird because these are her favorite kind of books. But, I read aloud anyway and after I was finished, we went to the table to our first activity, which was making imprints of various objects in PlayDoh, which Emma loved!

I found the idea from this website. Items we used included a canning lid, a pipe cleaner, a fork, a rock, and a building block. We would press the object into the PlayDoh, then feel the imprint it made. It kept Emma's attention until Daddy came home.

I quickly got her dressed for the day (it was a lazy one), then the three of us went on a nature walk around the apartment complex to find different types of textures, such as rough, smooth, moist, dry, delicate, and rubbery. Emma always enjoys getting out of the house, so she kept getting distracted by one thing or another, so it was a bit difficult for her to stop and touch something.

Since there's only so much you can talk about with textures, I just limited it to one lesson rather than cover it over the week. On Friday, we plan to talk about patterns.

Tot school: Halloween Day

It's Halloween! We had such a fun day. I planned a special tot school lesson for Emma to celebrate today. First, we sang a Halloween song found here. We only own one Halloween book (Where Is Baby's Pumpkin?), so we checked out a few from the library and read those. Usborne Books & More has a few cool options, too!

For our first activity, we made monsters (a ghost and a spider to be exact) out of PlayDoh. This was our first time using googly eyes, and Emma LOVED playing (and chewing) on them.

Afterwards, we played Pumpkin Says (aka Simon Says, Halloween style). I didn't get a good picture while we did it, but some of the commands used were:

•  Howl like a werewolf
• Grin like a jack-o-lantern
• Boo like a ghost
• Cackle like a witch
• Hobble like a zombie
• Show me your scariest face

Emma only did some of the moves, but it was something fun to try anyhow. To celebrate Halloween with Daddy, we went trick-or-treating at the mall in the evening (it was so-so), then in the neighborhood of Phil's co-worker (much better - they gave out full-sized candy bars)! After we got home, Phil made a cute (and delicious) jack-o-lantern pizza and we watched Hocus Pocus.

 Definitely stayed up past bedtime, but fun memories were made today!

Tot School: Body Parts, What's Inside

Awk, I'm still a blog post behind! On Friday, we had our last body parts lesson, which was on what is inside - bones, muscles, and organs. We started our lesson with Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes and read all of our body books.

None of the books really covered what's inside the body, so I brought out my laptop and pulled up (appropriate) pictures of what we look like on the inside and briefly explained to Emma the importance and functions of everything inside. She's now obsessed with skeletons because she thought the bones were so cool, haha.

For our first activity, we made a skeleton out of q-tips (though I made the skull way too small). I pointed to Emma's body and told her where all the bones can be found inside and how they hold us up, help us move around, and get things done.

After we were done talking about the skeleton, we moved on to our next activity, which was an organ dot marker printable. I love how this website made one for the brain, heart, lungs, stomach, and intestines. I showed Emma all of them and explained what they do, but we choose the stomach to work on.  She's getting better with dotting the circles!

This section was so much fun to talk about. It's definitely something we haven't brought up before! This afternoon we're going to have a special Halloween lesson, so I will try to post that in a timely manner, though we have a busy day ahead of us. On Wednesday, we're going to be talking about textures and on Friday we're going to discuss patterns.

Tot School: Body Parts, The Body

On Wednesday, we talked about all the body parts of a person. We started our lesson by singing Head, Shoulders, Knees, and Toes again, then read all of our body books.  Head, Body, Legs: A Story From Liberia was especially good for today because it talked about how all the body parts work together as a team to get things done.

For our first activity, I brought our Mr. Potato Head. Emma has never played with this toy before, so I wasn't sure how she would react to it, but she loved it! This was a great way to review the parts on the face, as well as other body parts, such as the arms and legs. Emma did not want her picture taken today, so I took pictures of her creations instead. These were her favorites.

I had only borrowed Mr. Potato Head, but since Emma enjoyed it so much (and didn't want to stop) I think I'll get her own for Christmas. Our next activity was supposed to be all about dancing with our different body parts, but Emma didn't want to participate at all, so I just danced by myself, haha. While I didn't show her these videos, this is what I had in mind for our activity, which I think is a great way to teach your child about the various body parts we have.

Tot School: Body Parts, The Face

I am so excited for this week because I think it's going to be so much fun and Emma should learn a lot from it. We're talking about body parts all week, but I've broken it up into three sections: the face, the rest of the body, and the insides.

Usborne Books & More offers a lot of amazing books about the body. Here is just a few of the more popular options!

We started off the lesson by singing Head, Shoulder, Knees, and Toes (a toddler classic), followed by reading these wonderful library books. I loved reading these because they really encourage your child to move certain body parts to along with the story. Emma especially loved wiggling her toes.

I, personally, liked I Love You, Nose! I Love You, Toes! the most because it was the most comprehensive. It seriously covered ALL the body parts in such a cute way (even the private parts that you don't show your friends), which I thought was awesome.

After we read all the books, we went to the table for our activity. Day 1 is all about the face, so we made PlayDoh faces with this printable. Emma has known about eyes, ears, mouths, and noses for forever, so she knew exactly where to put them, which made me proud.

After that, we just sat down and reviewed what's on our face. I briefly explained what each part does (we'll do a more in-depth week on the five senses later), as well as covered new parts of the face, such as the forehead and cheeks. Then I asked her where certain parts were. As I said above, she's known about the face forever, so she nailed it.

 
We'll talk about the rest of the body parts on Wednesday! It should be a good lesson!

Tot School: Star Shape

Woohoo, today was the last day of our shape lessons. It has been super fun, and Emma has picked up on them so well, but I'm ready to move on! Our last lesson was on the star shape.

We started our lesson by singing Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star (an obvious, but classic choice), followed by reading our shapes books. Our Book of the Day was Touch the Brightest Star by Christie Matheson. It was a cute one!

After our books, we went to the table for our first activity. I printed out this star dot marker sheet (there are others on the website, as well) for Emma to complete, though I couldn't find the yellow dot marker! I'll have to clean out the pantry (it's probably time to do so anyway). But, I improvised and brought out the yellow PlayDoh that we hadn't opened yet. I tried to get Emma to rip it up into little pieces and put the in the circles. Eh, she wasn't feeling it and only put in a 50/50 effort. She just wanted to rip up the PlayDoh.

After we completed the sheet, I brought out big shapes I had cut out earlier and put them on the kitchen floor. I would call out a shape, and Emma would run and grab it. Easy peasy, she knew every shape! So proud. Then I took the shapes from her, laid them out again, and then said to jump on certain shapes. She really enjoyed that! She wouldn't STOP jumping on them, ha!

I'm confident that Emma knows her shapes pretty well at this point, though she hasn't really said any of the words (except oval - random). We'll have to keep working on that. For next week, we'll be talking about body parts! It's going to be divided into three sections: the face, the body, and the innards.We'll see how well this goes.

Tot School: Heart Shape

Today we talked about the heart shape. We went over a heart song found here and read most of our books on shapes. We actually had a featured book of the day too - The Shape of My Heart by Mark Sperring. It was absolutely adorable and talked about how you can find shapes everywhere you look, including the shape you love with. Precious!

I tried to make sure not to make the activity too similar to one you'd do on Valentine's Day (as I want to do a special lesson when that holiday comes around), but I figured Emma might as well wear her one shirt that has hearts on it and at the same time I thought it would be fun to do a special craft for Phil that shows him how much we both love him. I found this cute printable that I thought worked very well for it!

All Emma cared about was the glue stick, as usual, so she wasn't very happy when I took it away and tried to encourage her to actually work on the craft. She's kind of pouting in the picture, but at least she did a bit of it. I'm excited for Phil to see it when he comes home today!

For the shape activity review, I thought since we're talking about the heart shape (and kind of love while we're at it), that we should review shapes with something Emma LOVES. Which is Minnie Mouse all the way. And, you know what? I actually found something that does that! This blog has a post where you match shape hair bows to the shape that's on Minnie's head. (Or you could use them as bow ties for Mickey.) Emma immediately recognized it as Minnie and was SO excited. I explained what I wanted her to do, and she picked it up so quickly! I was so proud. She matched the correct shapes 100% of the time! We did this three times, she was enjoying herself so much. Though she needs to work on how to put on a hair bow, ha!

    
While I try to avoid bringing in electronics during our tot school lessons, I thought it would help Emma learn about shapes a bit more as it's been a more complicated subject. So, I let her watch LeapFrog: Adventures in Shapeville Park on Netflix. She was very attentive the whole time, so I hope she grasps the shapes better from here on out! We only have one more shape to cover tomorrow and then we're moving on to the next topic!

Tot school: Diamond Shape

Woohoo, we're into our second week of shapes! I know there are SO many shapes one can learn and it was hard to choose which ones to introduce to Emma, but I decided that I wanted to go over the ones that are considered more fun - the diamond, heart, and star.

The nice thing about the books we've been reading (and the shape review activities I have planned for this week) is that they also mention other important shapes, such as the rectangle and oval. So, we have talked about more, just haven't put any emphasis in them.

Anyway, today we talked about the diamond. Since we had a full schedule today (since I didn't get around to the lesson yesterday as originally planned), we had the lesson right after breakfast. Hence why Emma is still in her pajamas!

We sang a special diamond song that is found on the same page as the shapes song we sang last week, then read our shapes books. After that, I had Emma decorate a kite. She was more interested in just gluing everything for me to put on (which I don't blame her for - I cut up everything way too small). But, it was still fun to do.

Instead of doing two activities on a certain shape this week, I'm only doing one on the shape of the day, then doing a shape review activity. For today's review, I got out her shape sorter toys (not sure what the official name is for that) for her to... well, sort.

She has had these toys forever (you can't see the other one, but it's a cute turtle), but always struggled putting the shapes in. But, today she did so well! I asked her where a certain shape was, she would pick it up, and (most of the time) slid it in without any issues. This was also a great time to review the colors too! As usual, the lesson took around a half hour to complete.

Tot School: Triangle Shape

I think it's safe to say that Fall is officially here in Northern California. It's dreary, cold, and rainy outside. Then again, the weather may be the aftermath of the storm that just hit the Washington area. I don't know about you, but while I love rain, it makes me feel very sluggish. I almost didn't get around to the tot school lesson today.

Our topic today was on triangles. I was very surprised at how little I found while I was researching triangle activities. I believe the triangle to be one of the primary shapes! But, I was able to throw a couple of things together. Take a look!

To get into the theme, Emma had a quesadilla that was cut into little triangles. We sang our shape song, but only read half of the books on shapes (since I was feeling sluggish, I pushed the lesson off to the very last minute, so had to skip a few books to make sure we finished before Phil got home from work).

Afterwards, I brought Emma to the table to work on a triangle collage. I cut different sizes of triangles from different colored construction paper, then drew a big triangle on a white sheet of paper, and had Emma glue the triangles on.

I actually gave her the responsibility to glue, which she loved! She was so excited that she would glue the paper, stick a triangle on it, then glue some more on top of the shape. But, she does so well with the glue stick now. I had no worries about her handling it. The collage turned out super cute too!

When we were out of triangles, we moved on to the next activity. I introduced her to a new craft material - pipe cleaners. I wanted her to try to shape them into triangles. While she was fascinated by them, she had no idea what I wanted her to do, so she kept giving them to me to shape. Then she wanted me to put them on her arms to use as bracelets, ha!

Since it didn't go as planned this time around, I think I'll wait a while before trying the pipe cleaners again - unless I find a craft that would be great for them. We're officially done with our first week of shapes. We'll be doing one more week of shapes that will cover hearts, diamonds, and stars, as well as throw a bit of review in. It should be fun!

Tot School: Square Shape

Since we're behind on tot school this week, I decided to slip in another lesson today to help us catch up. We talked about squares!

For lunch, Emma had spinach lasagna that was cut into a square, yum. Today was so hectic around the house, I forgot to get her dressed (whoops), and I didn't realize it until AFTER I had taken the tot school pictures. You have been warned, haha!

We started off we our shapes song, then we read all of our shapes books. Emma is particularly drawn to the Batman book - that's my girl! Got to teach them to be nerdy while they're young! After the books, I got out the blocks and we formed squares out of them.

Then we decided to stack the blocks as high as we could. I tried to keep it as square as possible, but Emma had other ideas. She kept saying how pretty it was, which I thought was adorable! This is how high we got it before it toppled over and exploded everywhere. We had fun while it lasted!

After Emma got bored with the blocks, we went on to our next activity. I know how Emma LOVES the dot markers, so I found this printable (which has a bunch of other dot marker shapes too) and had her work on the square. While she doesn't have in down perfectly, she's getting much better with dotting in the circles.

Then she decided to go all out and dot EVERYWHERE. She's definitely perfected how to get the paint out because it ended up bleeding through the page and onto the table.

As soon as that happened, I quickly took the marker away, which didn't make her happy. But, Phil was just about to get home, so it really was perfect timing.Overall, it was a good lesson. I hope she's picking up on the concept of shapes. We'll be doing one more lesson this week and then we have three more shapes to cover next week!

Tot School: Circle Shape

This week has started out pretty rough. I've been struggling with handling Emma's terrible twos stage, and I got rear-ended by someone who immediately drove off after doing it (thankfully, no damage was done to the car), so I'm a bit behind on tot school this week. But, we finally got the first one done! For the next two weeks, we're going to be talking about shapes. This week is on the primary shapes: circle, square, and triangle. Today, specifically, we went over the circle.

We don't really have any books about shapes in our collection, though Usborne Books & More has a couple of cute ones I need to pick up!

 Thankfully, the library had PLENTY available, unlike the Fall books for last week. I may have gone a bit overboard with the books, to be honest, but you can never have too many! (This is a picture of just the books I read with Emma today - I have a few more on shapes that I plan to use later!)

This week, instead of choosing outfits that go along with the theme, I'm focusing on feeding Emma foods that are in the shape we're going to cover. For this lesson, Emma has had sliced bananas and a hamburger, to throw out some examples. Easy peasy.

After lunch, we started our tot school lesson with a shape song, then read the above shapes books. Once we were finished with those, we collected a few of Emma's balls and her round laundry basically to "shoot hoops". Emma didn't quite grasp the concept, but she enjoyed throwing ALL sorts of toys into the basket. Aw well, at least she's had fun with it!

When Emma was ready to move on, I drew a big circle on a piece of paper and tried to get her to do the same - still in the scribbling stage, so that didn't work. Then I brought out some Play-Doh for her to "trace" the circle. Again, didn't grasp the concept, so I improvised by making bracelets for her while talking about how they're in the shape of circles.

Then we just spent the rest of the time having fun with the Play-Doh. There's no need to push a concept while they're this young, so instead of stressing about her not picking up on anything, I just focused on us having a nice, quality time together! 

Tot School: Fall Theme - Day 3

Today was our last day of the Fall theme. I had so much fun sharing these lessons with Emma! She was in a much better mood today, so that made things so much easier and enjoyable.

We started the lesson as we usually do: dressed up in Fall colors, sang our Fall song, read our Fall books (which she paid a lot more attention to today). And, then we moved on to the activities! Today I focused our activities on apples (as Emma loves them and as they are a staple in Fall goodies).

While my mother-in-law was visiting, she bought Emma her first set of Play-Doh. Emma has dealt with Play-Doh before during nursery at church, but she was never into playing with it - she always just tried to eat it. It's been a while since she's come across Play-Doh, so I figured I would implement it in today's lesson and gauge how well she does with it. We made six "apples" by rolling the red Play-Doh into tiny balls (a talent Emma still needs to work on - the best she could do was a flat oval). Then I brought out a die and this printable counting mat that's shaped as a tree.

The point of the activity is to roll the die (which Emma got the hang of quickly) and then put that many apples on the tree. I'd have Emma roll the die again and we'd "pick" that number of apples off the tree. I'd clear the printable off and we'd repeat. This was the first time that I tried to have a structured counting lesson with Emma (she already knows how to count to two - sometimes three when she feels like it), but I feel like it was a bit too advanced for her. We'll try this again in a few months from now. But, she did have fun rolling the die and playing with the Play-Doh!

After she lost interest, we moved on to the next activity, which was "bobbing" for apples. Similar to washing the pumpkin earlier this week, I filled up the kitchen sink with water and threw in four apples to wash, but then I gave Emma a serving spoon to scoop them out and deposit it into a colander. Once I showed Emma what I wanted her to try, she took over and nailed it!

She had SO much fun doing this. About 80% of the time she scooped the apple up perfectly and put it in the colander. She enjoyed it so much, we did this for a few rounds. She dropped the apples a few times, so hopefully they don't end up too bruised!

We finished up right as Phil was getting home, so we surprised Emma with a field trip to Dave's Pumpkin Patch. We've never been before, so it was really a treat for everyone. Emma especially enjoyed playing in the corn box. I thought it was the perfect ending to our Fall-themed tot school week! 

So proud of how quickly my baby girl is picking up on things! Next week we'll start the first of two weeks on shapes! I have some pretty fun things planned for it!

Tot School: Fall Theme - Day 2

We went to the library to see if we could pick up some more Fall-themed books, but alas, our attempt failed. All of them were still checked out! So, we'll have to settle for the three that we have - but, they are so cute, it's okay. And, since they're a bit more advanced than what we usually read, it's a little tougher keeping Emma's attention.

Especially today. She was not feeling tot school at all! She didn't want to listen to the Fall song, she didn't want to sit still for the three books, and wanted to play with her toys instead. I read the books aloud anyway while she played, so I hope that she was secretly listening and got something out of the stories. Then we moved on to the first activity, which was giving the pumpkin we picked recently at Apple Hill (a local apple orchard that also has a pumpkin patch) a bath. I saw this activity everywhere on the tot school blogs I research, so I figured why not?

Well, she really liked the bubbles and splashing the water in the sink, but it was really difficult getting her to focus on actually washing the pumpkin, even when I showed her how to do it. At least I got one good picture from it!

Afterwards, we went outside and went for a nature walk, where I explained what happens to the leaves during autumn; how they turn red, yellow, and orange, fall to the ground, then dry up and turn crunchy. We had a really fun time collecting pretty leaves that I didn't take very vivid pictures of our walk, but I got a couple!

And, for the leaves that were dry and crunchy, I put them in a little pile for Emma to step on and crunch. She really enjoyed doing that.

After our walk, we went back inside and glued all of our leaves that we collected (well, most of them) to a bare tree printable. Again, Emma was feeling the activity. She wanted to just play with the glue stick again. I distracted her by giving her sliced apples (which is really a perfect snack to go along with this theme) and put the glue stick safely away while she wasn't looking.

So, while Emma's attitude and attention span weren't on point today, I still think she learned a lot (I hope so, anyway). I thought the lesson, in general, was interesting and enjoyable! One more lesson left for our Fall tot school week!

Tot School: Fall Theme - Day 1

I am so excited for Fall this year. Honestly, I'm usually not, but this season has already been so festive - I love it! And, I'm so excited to what Fall is all about with Emma. And, Usborne Books offers a variety of book that goes along great with the theme!

You can order these fantastic books and more here. Surprisingly, I don't have any in my collection yet, so I hit up the library for some. Apparently, a lot of people are talking to their kids about Fall because most of the books were checked out, but I did snag these three. I'm going back tomorrow to see if I can pick up a few more.

I started off the day by dressing Emma in "autumn colors" to the best of my ability. We started off the lesson by singing a cute fall song "All the Leaves are Falling Down" I found on this website - there are a lot of other fun options there too! Then we read the above books. I loved reading these books with Emma. They were all so adorable. (I especially enjoyed Amelia Bedelia because I read all those chapter books as a child - I didn't know there were books for younger kids too!)

After the books, I presented Emma with a Fall dress-up activity. Eventually, I will get these laminated and magnetized, but until then we just had fun mixing and matching without being all fancy. This was a great opportunity to talk about the different colors and what kind of clothes we wear when the weather cools down. Emma seemed to enjoy herself!

Afterwards, I gave her this pumpkin dot marker printable (you can find lots of awesome Fall-themed ones here). She is obsessed with these markers, though she still hasn't grasped the concept of dotting the circles completely. She was even more thrilled when I gave her TWO to fill out the pumpkin.

I thought it turned out really well, and I can't wait to show Emma what else I have in store for this week. As usual, this lesson took about 30 minutes. I think this is a perfect time frame for Emma, but don't worry if it doesn't for your child. Everyone is different! It's all about trial and error!