Tot School - Sept 26 - Nursery Rhymes

We talked about nursery rhymes today in tot school.  I would love for the kids to start learning them, so I sing them over and over whenever I can.  Today, one of my kiddos told me, "Miss Amanda, you already sang that one." in a very exasperated voice.  Hahaha!  It was quite funny to me.  We started the day with a little crayon drawing and water color resist painting.  Eeks - which reminds me that their art is still hanging on the fence to dry.  I best scamper back there and gather their books before they get ruined.

 We also played with bubbles and the knock over the cans game from back to school night.  We went inside for a little bit today and mostly played with the musical instruments (as loudly as possible it seemed), Duplos, and wooden Pattern Blocks.  Then we headed back outside to enjoy the sunshine. 

Nursery Rhymes in Tot School

We had such a fantastic first day of tot school's summer session!  We sang nursery rhymes all day (I may dream in nursery rhymes because we sang them over and over). 

 We had a lot of fun learning the Humpty Dumpty nursery rhyme.  Here's how I do it with toddlers:

We played play dough and blocks.  We learned to sort the dog pictures from biggest to smallest and we played a lot with the water table, sand table, and toy kitchens.

 The kids loved the bunny and learned to pick clover from the grass to feed to him.  We also worked on climbing and played in the playhouse.  We had a fantastic time singing and playing together!

Nursery Rhymes and Elephants!

This morning in preschool we talked, actually sang, all about Nursery Rhymes.  When CJ was a newborn, I learned from a dear coworker that teaching children nursery rhymes before kindergarten was of the greatest importance to her.  She was the most fantastic kindergarten teacher I'd ever met and I want to make sure that these kids know their nursery rhymes.  That's why we sing them every week and have a few days each year dedicated to only doing nursery rhymes.  Sing and say them at home with your little ones to reinforce language skills that will help them as they grow and develop.  

In math today we went back to the unifix cubes to attempt to make AAB patterns. It's amazing how complex this idea is to preschoolers.  Please be patient with them at home as they clarify the information about the difference between ABAB and AABAAB.  Practice, practice, practice to make it easier!

 This afternoon our letter focus was letter E and boy did we have fun with it.  We had the blow up elephants and the circus tent out.  We played with all the animal masks and puppets and read "Hiccups for Elephant".  We had a fantastic time.  We moved forward with the Ready2Read program, drew pictures and wrote words in our journals and learned about pennies and nickels. 

Nursery Rhymes and Lots of Reading!

What a great day of learning!  Preschool A spent the day learning and playing with Nursery Rhymes.  We learned a few more nursery rhymes from our song that we'll perform at our year end celebration.  We made sparkling stars for Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, mittens for 3 Little Kittens, played with blocks, farm animals and practiced reading letters m, t and a!

 Preschool B had a great letter review lesson and then set to work reading and finding letters in their encyclopedia.  Find the page that is marked with a tab and read it with your child before class on Monday.  We also spent time reading one-on-one, coloring and drawing in our journals, playing music, dancing and practicing counting flip chips!

Preschool Nursery Rhymes 1-28 and 1-30

We had so much fun reviewing the letters we've already learned (MTASBHCILPFJOND) during Nursery Rhyme week.  We stamped and colored, played with magnets, sandpaper letters, Starfall.com and Starfall Speedway.  We started practicing singing the song "Hot Cross Buns" so that we'd be familiar with it while learning to play it on the piano.  

We had such a great week!

Tot School Nursery Rhymes

We had a great time learning all about Nursery Rhymes in tot school.  They loved playing with all the blocks and the stamp pads.  For art we glued cotton balls onto sheep shapes.  We played "Ring-Around-The-Rosies" about a zillion times, no kidding.  It was such a fun day in school!

Preschool Nursery Rhymes

Learning Nursery Rhymes with preschoolers is so much fun.  I know my little one and at least one other little one has randomly broke out in nursery rhyme song since our class on Thursday.  Nursery Rhymes are very important for children to develop listening skills, sequencing skills, sound differentiation, and rhyming. We act out nursery rhymes all day long.  Mary Had a Little Lamb:

 Little Bo Peep has lost her sheep:

 Along came a spider.... (Little Miss Muffet)

 Our Nursery Rhymes theme coincides with a letter review. We've already learned letters MTA and are working on committing them to memory.  One of the printables in the Nursery Rhymes lesson plans includes a beginning sound sort.

 We also cut out stars and added glue and glitter for Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.  Please continue working with your preschooler on using scissors correctly.  The more they play with scissors and junk mail or magazines the better.  Please always keep a close eye on them for safety reasons.

 What's preschool without a little (or a lot) of glitter?

 We've made our way to a quantity of 5 in our math lesson plans.  Today we pulled out the animals again and had everyone pick 5 animals to play with.

Nursery Rhymes

We learned all about Nursery Rhymes in tot school today.  Nursery Rhymes are important to introduce to toddlers and preschoolers for a variety of reasons.  Listening to and learning nursery rhymes aids in understanding of the sounds that make up language.  Children are able to play with the language as they learn to rhyme words. They are also a fantastic way to introduce new and less used vocabulary.  Nursery rhymes use patterns and teach sequencing.  Children act out the stories and exercise their speech muscles while singing/chanting along.  I could go on forever, but instead I'll just share a link with you to a well written article about how awesome they are for children's development: Rhymers are Readers.

 We started the day playing with mittens and books, exploring hole punches and learning to glue little shapes onto our Old King Cole crowns.

 When we headed outside the kids were immediately drawn to the buckets of water and acting out Jack and Jill.  They also just love to play in the sandbox and playhouse!

 This series of pictures just makes me giggle :).  We were playing Jack be Nimble and practicing jumping over a candlestick.  The kids LOVED this activity!

 It was also exciting to play with the Nursery Rhymes tot pack.  I love how the girls were engaged in it and the other children came over one by one to join in on the excitement.  And they all played the game (shadow matching) together.  It was so fun!

Nursery Rhymes - Tot School Thursday

We love tot school on Thursday.  Were so active with more boys than our Tuesday class. 

 We loved playing the Baa, Baa Purple Sheep game from the Nursery Rhymes tot pack.

 CJ has been working on some "homework" in the office during parts of tot school.  This is mostly for my sanity since we have a small space inside to play and it can get wild.

 We played "This Little Piggy" using our fingers instead of toes since we were all wearing shoes.  They thought it was funny that the last little piggy tickled them.

 We played a game based off of Little Bo Peep and hid little sheep all around the room and then had to search all over to find them.

Playing with the ink pads for art time.

Making the sheep from our nursery rhymes.  Today we used batting in stead of cotton balls.  Mostly because I was out of cotton balls, but it turns out that I liked it much better.  We ripped it into pieces and made our sheep very fuzzy.

Tot School Tuesday - Nursery Rhymes

VB was the first to jump into the "Little Bo Peep" game and hide the sheep all around the room this morning in tot school.  Just look at that grin!  She's off to hiding them!

 We went around the circle two times playing "Baa, Baa Purple Sheep" from the Nursery Rhymes II Tot Pack.

 "Hickory, Dickory Dock"

 We painted glue on our sheep and then put cotton balls on them.  Some decided to "paint" their hands too.  It became a very sticky mess :)

  We also did some water color painting in our notebooks.

 At the end of the day we played "Musical Hearts".  It's like musical chairs, but there are always enough hearts for everyone to stand on one when the music stops.  It's a great game that the kids love and it takes them a few runs to get the idea of dancing and then jumping onto a heart when the music stops, but they loved it!

January Tot Packs

Find the year long theme calendar {here} and follow along with us! This post gives details and pictures of all 5 January Toddler Packs. Be sure to scroll down to see all of them. 

Tot Packs 20-24
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.

January
{Download all 5 January Tot Packs}

20. Snowmen {Download}

 Printables in this pack:

Snowman Letter Review

Graphing Snowmen

Snowman Bowling

Build a Snowman

 Snowman Grid Game

Snowman Short Path Game

21. Moms {Download}
(Pictures Coming Soon)

Printables in this pack:

Writing the word “Mom”

Sorting Moms and Dads

Everyday Chores - Graphing Moms

Letter O

Shadow Matching Moms

Every Day Puzzles

Flowers for Mom

22. Manners II {Download}

Printables in this Pack:

Kid AB Patterns

Pre-Reading Book

Letter N

Shape Matching

Manners Songs

23. Nursery Rhymes {Download}

Printables in this Pack:

Size Sequencing

Hickory Dickory Dock - Interactive Clock

The Missing Sheep

Letter Review (M T A S B H C I L P F J O N)

This Little Piggy Sequencing

Patterning

Baa, Baa Purple Sheep

Nursery Rhymes

4 and 20 Blackbirds Baked in a Pie

Musical Hearts

24. Dancing Dinosaurs {Download}

Printables in this Pack:

Dinosaur Colors Pre-Reading Book

 Letter D

3 Piece Dinosaur Puzzles

 Hop Along the Dino Path

 Dinosaur Size Sequencing

Dinosaur Patterns