Tot School - Scarecrows and Thanksgiving

Because of how the weeks fall this month we were able to do our Scarecrows theme and Thanksgiving theme together this week.  We started the day off by decorating our scarecrow hats and saying "Boo" to the stuffed animal crow.  They thought that was a hilarious game.  We also made handprint turkeys - be sure to check the binders for those gems!

 One of the favorite activities was making dancing scarecrows.  They were pre-cut and assembled with mini brads to make the head, arms, and legs wiggle like they are dancing.  I thought they turned out delightfully adorable!  Have a great Thanksgiving, no tot school next week!

Scarecrows on Wednesday

This morning we had such a blast with the Scarecrows theme.  We started the day with decorating our own flippy floppy scarecrow hats.  Then we read and sang songs about scarecrows.  We practiced reading with the letter L and had so much fun making dancing scarecrows.

 They each dictated a sentence to me about their scarecrow, they were awesome!  "My scarecrow dances." "My scarecrow is all fabulous!" "My scarecrow lost his head!"  "My scarecrow is black and pink."  "My scarecrow is colorful!" "My scarecrow dances everywhere."

 This afternoon we had a fantastic reading lesson about blending the first consonant and vowel. We've focused on 2 vowels so far 'a' and 'i' and have 9 consonants as well.  We made a list of all the consonants in front of the letter a and all the consonants in front of the letter i.  We simply left off the third letter of our three letter words and worked solely on blending the consonant and vowel.  After a day of work many kids were able to blend the two letters quite easily!  I was so proud of their work!

After reading we took a vote and decided to do art next.  Each child got to cut out their own scarecrow and color him.  It was a bit challenging to do the cutting and everyone was in their own place but all the kids were successful at cutting out at least most of the pieces themselves.

 We practiced AAB patterns in math and also had a blast playing with the musical instruments for music.

Scarecrows

We had a fantastic day talking all about scarecrows.  We read stories and non fiction books about scarecrows and then got busy making our own scarecrows.  I love this activity because the scarecrows are completely adorable and the kids work really hard on their coloring and cutting to put it together.  They are so proud of their work when they were done.  Plus, along the way they get to enjoy conversation.  The conversation at the all girls table was about whether or not they each had cup holders in their cars.  It was a very memorable conversation. 

 We continued working on identifying which objects fit into a group and which don't.  Part of that is being able to verbalize "Why".  We've got a handle on the game when there is only one variable changed (all circles, 3 are yellow and 1 is red).  It gets much trickier when more than one variable is different (a triangle, a square, a circle, a rectangle - 3 are blue and one is yellow.  In this case they often say the circle doesn't fit because it's not a square... etc. Where the shape doesn't actually matter but the color is the common denominator).  I'd encourage you to play this game at home with your silverware drawer or your chest of toys, even with your shoes.  Remember there are always 4 objects, 3 of them have the same characteristic and 1 has a different characteristic.

We continued working on our L book by building the pages from it.  We talked about how it was like a puzzle and we had to match the words to the picture.  They got a kick out of fixing incorrect sentences.

Toddler Scarecrows

We had so much fun today learning all about the letter L and scarecrows.  We made a few really cute crafts (a scarecrow hat to wear and a scarecrow face out of Popsicle sticks).  For all our lessons and fun printables be sure to check out the Scarecrows Tot Pack.  Everyone loved the letter L game on Starfall.com and playing with the dry corn was a whole lot of fun.  I was very proud of everyone for helping to clean it all up when we were done. 

 We also had a fun story time where we learned about scarecrows and acted out scaring the crows away from the corn.  It was such a lovely day that we enjoyed the sunshine for the last 10 minutes of class as well.

It was such a delightful day of learning!

November Tot Packs Are Up!

NovemberTot Packs

Find the year long theme calendar {here} and follow along with us!

This post gives details and pictures of all November Toddler Packs. Be sure to scroll down to see all of them.

Tot Packs 12-15

Tot packs are about 20 pages in length. They each have 2 pages of activity ideas, book suggestions, and links to the materials I use. You can certainly use all or part of the lesson plans.

The printable pages include songs, matching games, drawing games and other activities.

Tot packs are designed to be a first introduction to math concepts, letters, shapes and colors. They are not meant to obtain mastery in any subject. Let them be a guide for educational play between you and your child.

12. Indians and Pilgrims {Download Here}

NOTE: This pack is meant as an introduction to Native Americans and Pilgrims. I have intentionally used the word Indian to introduce the letter I. Indian, however, is not an accurate description of Native Americans. For more information please see this link. There are also many different tribes of Native Americans that have very different traditions. Though the Pilgrims were in contact with the Wampanoag, this pack introduces ideas from many different tribes.

Printables in this pack:

· Two Piece Puzzles

· Indian Feather Headbands

· Native American Teepee Paper and Straw Craft

· Dream Catcher Lacing

· Letter I

· Songs

13. Scarecrows {Download Here}

Printables in this pack:

• Color Matching Scarecrows


• Scarecrow Body Parts


• Location Word Book


• Shadow Matching


• Size Sequencing


• Letter L


• Spin a Scarecrow


• Cornmeal Play-dough


• Scarecrow Songs

14. Thanksgiving {Download Here}

Printables in this pack:

Handprint Turkey

• Thanksgiving Dinner Plate - Trying New Foods


• 3 Piece Puzzles


• Letter L


• Turkey Grid Game


• Thanksgiving Songs and Poems

15. Animals in Winter {Download Here}

Printables in this pack:

Animals in Winter Songs

Tracing Winter Animals

Animals in Winter

Letter P

Cave Size Sequencing

Animals in Winter, a Short Path Game