Tot School Show & Tell: S is for SNOW

~ Chunky Monkey is 23 months ~

It's January, no better time in Michigan than to cover "snow"

and we didn't get as much as the Northeast, but we've had some inches.

We did our posterboard daily which covered the following:

Letter: S (worked on it's sound)

Color: White (means "righteous")

Shape: Circle and a poem about a snowball

Number: 15 (means "free")

Verse: Psalm 51:7

Vocabulary Word: Snowflakes

Sound: -ow (row, tow, mow, blow, throw, snow, grow, show, bow)

And I pulled out our mailbox that I put a magnetic letter "S" in

and the "S" word cards that I printed out from the S Packet at 1+1+1=1.

I sing the following little diddy:

I've got a letter, I've got a letter

Let's look and see, Let's look and see

What letter do we have today?

What letter do we have today?

(open box)

It's the Letter S, It's the Letter S!

Then we review each of the "S" words in the box.

Then we did activities each day, here are some of the ones we did:

Skinny Minnie and Chunky Monkey both played a math game together.

Chunky Monkey rolled the die and Skinny Minnie graphed what was rolled.

This was a great game for not only math, but for team work!

I pulled out the lacing card that I got from Oriental Trading.

He surprised me because he really liked doing this!

He sat and did this activity for about 30 minutes on his own.

He kept trying to figure out how to get it into the holes.

After a couple days of practice and he had it down.

Will be adding more of these type activities in the future.

We worked on name recognition by making a snowman

out of the letters of his name.  He drew the face all by himself.

We reviewed the letters in his name each day after making this.

I printed out the floor numbers from Confessions of a Homeschooler

preschool "S is for Snowman" post, but only did numbers 1 - 5.

I gave him white pony beads for "snow balls" and had him

put that many beads on the numbered cards.

We practiced this every other day.

So it's too cold to go outside here in Michigan, with temps below zero.

So, I went outside and filled a bin with snow and brought it INSIDE.

Gave him a watercolor pallette, brush and cup of water and let him

have at it! He painted the snow and then decided he wanted

to touch it.  At first, it was too cold, then he got used to it.

Then he made me build snowmen and snowballs that he could throw.

Painting a melted a snowman!

I gave him blue construction paper and silver paint glob with a brush.

He had fun smearing it everywhere... thus a melted snowman!

And of course, we made snowman lanterns (got the idea from Pinterest).

I velcroed the little battery operated tea lights to the bottom of the jug,

only because these two are pretty rough with everything!

When I turned on the lights, Chunky Monkey thought it was a real

candle and tried to blow it out and brother followed suit!

Then they had an adventure in the dark with their lanterns.

Big Brother wasn't too keen on no lights, but Chunky Monkey

was in heaven! He was running everywhere with that light and watching

it shine on the ceiling or the wall or light his path - so much fun to watch!

That was a highlight of our Snow Tot School.

What did you do for January?

Have Fun and Be a Blessing!

~Bekah

Z is for Zebra

I used Grammarly to grammar check this post, because the sleepless nights have given this mom brain farts! 

Rainbow of Promise

This week our theme is Rainbows.  We will be reading Noah's Ark and different rainbow theme books.  To learn the colors of the rainbow, we watched the Cat in the Hat episode on rainbows to learn the rainbow color song - it's really cute.  Here is our poster board for this week:

This is a math activity, I made the arks by drawing them

on construction paper and putting the even numbers on them.

The animals I printed from HERE, I had him match the boy and girl

animals together then place the correct number of animals on the ark.

This sorting activity, I found clipart off of Microsoft Online

and looked for animals that were facing left and right.

I created columns in MS Word and labeled them left and right.

My son sorted the animals by the direction they were facing.

Sidewalk Chalk Art

I helped him make the rainbow, and he colored it in.

Then we wrote "God's Promise" on it.

This was daddy's surprise when he came home.

I put a rainbow coloring page underneath a white sheet of paper

and had my little guy trace the rainbow.  He decided to use

the colors of the rainbow to make it and colored in the clouds.

Have more to come...

I have a rainbow size sorting activity.

Rainbow tic tac toe game.

Rainbow science activities.

And some rainbow crafts still to complete.

I'll also take pictures of our Noah's Ark story boards

from Oriental Trading (I'm very impressed with it!).

Have fun and Be a Blessing!

~Bekah

Week 1: Hearts and Love Review

The month of February will be focused on hearts and love for us.  I chose 1 Corinthians 13 as our basis for "what is love?" and hoping he'll have the 4 verses memorized about what love is and what love is not by the end of the month.  With week 1 down, he has memorized one full verse, and I truly believe it's because I put the verses to song, it made it easier for him! :)


Here is our poster board for week 1 of our month:

Working on the letter "H", I again used our little mailbox to house a magnetic letter "H" and all our "H" vocabulary cards (which are hippo, house, horse, hammock, hammer, heart, hexagon, hotel).  My son looks forward to this every day now, that he sings with me and wants to pull the letter out, so he can stick it on the outside of the mailbox.

Here are the pictures of our week in review (I apologize if there are a lot, but we covered a lot -  I was amazed myself and 2 days were non school days):

He is getting REALLY good at writing at his name.  Although on this one, he wanted my help for the last 3 letters, that's why they look they neater.

This was one of our math activities to work numbers 1, 2, and 3.

I got these cute number printables from Erica @ 1+1+1=1 in the Members Only section.

Our color this week to work on is RED.

I found this cute puzzle printable from Erica @ 1+1+1=1 in the Members Only section.

My son did the puzzle in a snap, so I had sound out the word "red" and read it to me.

He also named each of the things on the puzzle.

This is from Our Little Monkeys blog: I love trucks Valentine PreK pack.

This really helped my son with learning left and right.  He was so proud when he was done.

This is another worksheet from I Love Trucks PreK Pack (Our Little Monkeys Blog).

My son would zoom his car along each row stating each number, then would stop when there was a blank and fill in the correct number.  Car totally fit the theme of the pack!

Patterning Worksheet from I Love Trucks PreK Pack (Our Little Monkeys Blog)

Prewriting Worksheet for the Letter "H" from Erica @ 1+1+1=1 (Freebie)

As you can see we are still working on stopping at the "dead end".

Find the Letter "H" and Stamp It!

My son LOVED this, but the stamps are new to him.

This is our second activity using stamps. :)

Heart Color Book from 2 Teaching Mommies

My son is getting better at making sure there is no "white" left, but we are

still working on being careful not to color outside the lines.

And I LOVE his tracing! He is getting so good at his writing skills.

Number Valentine Book from 2 Teaching Mommies

He colored the "1" heart, I tried to have him color the number 1, but he wanted to make his own "1" inside the number - I think he did awesome! And his tracing skills for writing are good.

Prewriting worksheet from I Love Trucks PreK Pack.

My son LOVES these prewrite sheets!

I Love Trucks PreK Pack

Identify which is the biggest.  Of course my son noticed it had a train on it, 

so right away he was ready to go for this activity.

 Scissor Cutting Practice

I've had to look hard for "easy" scissors for him to use.

He has a real hard time with regular scissors with the "lifting".

I found these "easy-lift" scissors at the Dollar Store and have placed

an order at Timber Doodle for "My First Scissors" as I think those will be

better for him right now.  But he did really good with these "easy-lift" scissors.

All I did was take a sheet of cardstock and draw boxes, and put stickers in each box.

LOVE Bento Lunch

Envelope cheese sandwich sealed with a heart.

LOVE - ham cut outs

XO - cheese cut outs

Hearts - ham cut outs

Cone - ice cream cone filled with apple dices and strawberry slices

Number Counting Book from 2 Teaching Mommies

Colored the hearts, wrote the number within the number and traced the words.

Ladder Building Practice

We used the car and it got to move to the next "bar" of the ladder

after he sounded out and read the letters.  Then we did it REALLY

fast and the car zoomed along! FUN and funny! :)

Find the letter "H" in the short story.

He stuck stickers on the "H"s.

Science Lesson (my favorite)

I LOVE science, so this was fun for me too. :)

I drew a body on a sheet of paper and then told my son

that everyone has a heart within them.  I had him hold his hand

over his heart to feel his heart beat.  I told him the beating is the heart

pumping blood throughout the body.  So, I drew the lungs and the heart

in the body.  Then showed him how the blood pumps out of the 

heart into the lung and told him it does this because it needs air (but

it was more like QUICK I NEED AIR HELP!).  Then the blood with the "air"

in it flows to the parts of the body where it's needed, like if we run, then our (my son guessed "feet")

need the blood.  After the air is gone, I told him the blood flows back to heart

through a tube called a vein to get pumped back out of the heart for more "air".

To help the heart pumping sink in more.  I filled a balloon up with a little

bit of water, tied it off and had him squeeze it.  Told him that our hearts

pump fast and slow.  I squeezed the balloon to see it pump out and then I told

him, the heart ALWAYS goes back to its normal shape.  Let go, and the balloon is

back to normal shape too.  We jumped up and down to get our heart rates going

fast, felt each other's heart beats then tried to squeeze the balloon real fast

to show how fast it was going.  Then we laid down for a few minutes and 

then listened to each other's heart beats and then mimicked it with the balloon.

This is a GREAT book for little ones to learn about

the heart and how the blood flows.  Good pictures

and EASY explanations.  I picked it up at our library today.

Our train method is working out great - look at that "H"!!! I'm SO proud of him!!!

1 Corinthians 13:4-8

Our memory verse, we will be turning these into a flower arrangement tomorrow.

For now we've been reading it off the poster board chart, then singing it and laying

these down on the floor.

Our Circle Time Story

It's funny but definitely teaches if others are rude to you,

it doesn't mean you have to be.  The boy in this book learned the hard way.

This perked many questions out my son, which was good, it helped

to teach a lot about being gentle and nice.

"Hearts and Hands" Book

The first day we did this, I read it to him, but stopped to let him read the "picture".

The next day, I gave him the book and let him read it to me - he did great!

Today, I covered up the pictures and let him try to read it on his own, he did REALLY good,

he only got stuck on the last page.

Lacing Caterpillars

This is such a fun way to do fine motor skills.  You can get this from Timber Doodle HERE.

You roll the dice and it tells you what color and shape to put on your caterpillar.

We made it a game, he NEVER wanted to stop, even after 20 minutes of playing. :)

Valentine Box

We used an empty cereal box and glued construction paper to each side

then decorated with hearts and wrote his name on it.

He told his daddy it was a "surprise" for him. :)  Well, it is a suitcase! lol

Valentine Butterfly

Use toilet paper roll, cover with construction paper.  Fold a sheet of construction

paper in half, cut out a heart shape, tape to the back of the paper covered toiler

paper roll for the wings.  Decorate the wings - we used glitter of course.  My son is

ALL about glitter (me too!).  Then pipe cleaner for the antennae.  Voila! Cute butterfly.

I punched a hole in ours and hung it from the ceiling. :)

We still have one more day this week for school and some FUN stuff planned, especially to enhance the science we've already learned.  We'll be making homemade stethoscopes, graphing our pulse rate, a bloody print that disappears (what?!).  Then I've got more valentine crafts, just still trying to find the book "Clifford's First Valentine's Day" our library was out of stock, so will be checking local area libraries.

Have fun and be a blessing!

~Bekah

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