School Tools, Tot School - A fine motor and introductory day

Do you have a toddler at home?  I consider toddlers around 15 months and up to 3 years old.  I love doing tot school and have found some great ways to do it.  I think toddlers benefit from some time during the day that provides them with multiple experiences that broaden their horizon.  I like to do theme based days so that the vocabulary I use is consistent from one activity to the next.  I also like to do tot school with a number of toddlers so they can learn to explore with other kids and watch how another child similar in age might do something.  This also encourages them to try something they haven't done before.

Today was the first day of our 10 month school year at Little Adventures Tot School and boy did we have fun!  Our theme for the day was School Tools and you can find all the lesson plans, ideas and printables here.  All activities are geared toward toddler aged children.  Last year I had 15 months and up kiddos and this year I have 24 months and up, so the days are looking different already.  We will be focusing on certain fine motor skills throughout the year and my favorite skill to start with is ripping tissue paper.  Being able to rip paper is a great start to being able to hold a pencil, crayon or a pair of scissors.

 There was quite a bit of free exploration of materials today.  We were building farms and barns (the kids idea) as well as towers with the blocks.

 Around 10 am we were able to head outside and enjoy snack time.  It's great to do snack time outside and give your toddler an open cup.  If they happen to spill the grass gets a little drink.  Thinking through different opportunities like this provides toddlers with the chance to practice harder skills but gives you the piece of mind that you don't have to clean up their mess after.

 Today we colored our names with colored pencils.  I specifically used colored pencils to start showing kids how to hold a pencil.  I put triangle pencil grips on a few different colors and let them at it. The older kids that will be turning 3 soon practiced holding the grip pinched in two fingers with three fingers under.  The younger toddlers were shown that they can hold onto the triangle but there wasn't too much instruction involved.  Mostly just coloring on their name that was printed in bubble letters in their art notebooks.

 We continued our fine motor practice with g/f play dough and scissors.  I love letting kids play with play dough!  When you add scissors to it the fun really gets going as they snip, smoosh, and create new masterpieces.

 Reading is another important thing to do every day with your toddlers (and your younger and older kids as well).  We read oodles of books today about school tools and going to school and how our mommies love us even when we are in different places.  We started pointing out colors in the different books and practiced pointing at the picture on the page and the words on the page.  These are fun games that are essentially the first reading lessons for toddlers.  When you're reading at home start encouraging your child to show you where the picture is, where the word is, or where a certain color appears.

Encouraging a Love of Reading

My philosophy on teaching reading is far different from many homeschoolers I’ve met.  I believe that children can learn to read at a very young age.  Children younger than 3 are introduced to letter names and sounds though aren’t expected to retain the information.

            Once children are 3 years old they have the ability to learn letter sounds and how to use them at the same time.  We focus on one letter per week.  We do not learn the letters in alphabetical order.  We learn them in an order that presents the highest number of CVC words for them to sound out.  As we focus on a new letter each week we add it to the letters we've already learned to successfully read decodable texts. 

            When you give young children this power to successfully read they are so proud of themselves.  They look forward to utilizing their new found skills in increasingly difficult books.

            We can encourage a love of reading by providing children the opportunity to be successful readers.  Giving them the opportunity to be surrounded by books encourages them to pick up a book, even if it just means looking at the pictures.

            We also encourage a love of reading by demonstrating a love of reading.  We can take the opportunity to read for ourselves as well as read to our children.

            I love using a child’s interests to encourage them to read more.  My oldest (a kinder) has a set of picture encyclopedias.  His reading lessons go as follows:

·         *He gets to browse through all the encyclopedias any time he is interested.

·         *If he’s interested in something specifically we read the encyclopedia page about the topic.  He reads the words he can read and I read the rest.

·         *If that satisfies his thirst for knowledge on the topic we move on and browse again.

·         *If he’s still interested in a topic after we read the encyclopedia we find other sources of information.  Sometimes this means visiting the library, finding books around our home, or utilizing an online leveled book library.  We find a text on his reading level about the topic of interest.  We also find a text that is much harder that we can read together.  He takes both books and highlights the words he can read (either with a highlighter or highlighter tape).  This empowers him by giving him the responsibility to discover what he can do.

·         *Lastly, we read the books together, over and over.

As we read together children are improving their reading skills and learning about ideas or reading stories on a topic of interest.

            We read things according to our interest in the topic.  We love reading because it satisfies something within us.  The stories captivate us.  The non-fiction texts empower us with knowledge.  It’s crucial to give children the same satisfaction with appropriately leveled texts and support for their current skills. 

PreReading Books {FREE Download} for Toddlers-Kindergartners

Dearest Friends,

It was with such delight that I woke up this morning to discover that Little Adventures Preschool had reached 500 votes on Circle of Moms Top 25 Homeschooling Blogs.  I am so amazed at the positive influence I'm having on so many wonderful homeschooling families.  When our Summer Tot Pack giveaway ended and I read through all of the entries you all sounded so lovely with such wonderful children that you're trying to spend intentional time with.  Thank you for your support and helping raise a wonderful generation of life long learners.

For the handfuls of new readers to my blog, please feel free to check out my philosophy on education and field trips.  In short, I believe that we can teach children while still young the basic building blocks of reading and math and then move into a more child/youth led educational environment with more success.

I run a formal Tot School (2 year olds) and Preschool (3-5 year olds) out of my home through the school year.  My oldest son CJ will be starting kindergarten this fall (homeschooling of course).  I will also be participating in a homeschooling cooperative learning experience.  Through the next year on my blog you'll be able to follow the homeschooling ideas that I've found successful for 2 year olds, 3-5 year olds (who end the year reading) and kindergartners.  There will be free resources throughout the year and updated curriculum that I've created for you to download at TeachersNotebook.com.  As a full curriculum you will need to look no further to supplement anything, and if your teaching philosophy falls in line with mine you will have a successful learning experience through this year and years to come.

As a GREAT BIG THANK YOU to all of my readers who've swung by and clicked on the heart next to Little Adventures Preschool I've created some pre-reading books that are a fantastic tool for toddlers-kindergartners who aren't reading quite yet.  There are details and instructions so you know exactly what to do with them to improve your child's understanding of text and reading. Play with them all summer and gear up to be reading in a year!

To download your free copy of the first 5 pre-reader summer books just head to TeachersNotebook or click on the images above.  If you use them with your little one I'd love to hear how they're received and utilized, just leave a comment here or on our Facebook page! 

And, don't forget to head on over and click the heart by the Little Adventures Preschool Monkey, we're #6 today!

 Enjoy, and happy learning!

-Miss Amanda

Summer Plans

What are your summer plans?  I intend to work hard with my play group (LEARN= Life Explored and Responsibility Nurtured) to set up education based intentional meetups.  I love being in a group that I consider my homeschooling group even though many of them aren't officially "homeschoolers".  We all have the same goals and values for our children and that is a powerful thing.  We're working on setting up a School Co-Op Day for the next school year that will engage all children from toddlers through Kindergartners (more on that Monday or Tuesday after we meet as a group).  In the mean time I'm hosting a variety of play dates known as "Little Learners" for the group to demonstrate to other moms how to lesson plan and intentionally spend time with their children.  We will be using the Little Adventures Tot Camp Printables as the lesson plans for these get togethers.  They are great packs you can use at home with your child(ren) or you can get together your playgroup and make it a fun meetup.

Tot packs are about 20 pages in length.  They each have a page of activities ideas and oodles of printables.  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.

There are 6 packs for the summer time curriculum and as we have each activity day I'll post pictures and share how it went.  If you are interested in getting in on the fun you can buy the packs from Teacher's Notebook or enter the raffle below to win your own downloadable set.

Tot Summer Camp -Download all 6 Summer Tot Packs-

click on the picture to link to the printable.

  

  

Little Adventures Preschool is holding spot #6 over at Circle of Moms Top 25 Homeschooling Moms for 2013.  Please show your support by stopping by and clicking the heart next to our logo.  Thank you! 

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Tot School Thursday - Pets (and bugs!)

We had such a lovely last day of Tot School Thursday today.  We got to talk all about pets.  First thing this morning we started coloring and putting together our TP roll pets.  Everyone made a dog today.  Some of them ended up as striped dogs and some were left more white because other fun things were happening :)

 We practiced sitting on our green mats and listening to stories.  We read all about pets and practiced petting and gently scratching our stuffed animal pets.

 Then we headed outside for snack time of pretzels and applesauce.

 We learned how to sit on the bug bouncers even though we have little bodies.  It was so fun to watch them play with these!

 Still working on snack...

 We also played with the play-dough and scissors.  Keep practicing those scissor skills at home!

 We learned how to play the bug spray game for the bug party tonight.  We needed to fill up the bugs with water and spray off the bugs on the chalkboard.

 We also got out our sensory activity.  Today we played with water beads.  They are really fun to explore.  They're all squishy and wet yet feel a little like marbles.  I think everyone liked them.

 Ye-ha!

 I tried to get a class picture toward the end of the day but it didn't go so well.  I should have done this first thing before we were tired from the day.  They still are so super cute!  "Cute as a bug" you might say.  I'm so glad I get to have so many of them join me again in the fall.  Have a great summer little ones!

Tuesday Preschool - Pets (and Bugs!)

It was such a delightful last day of Tot School Tuesday. We learned all about pets (and then threw in some bug activities at the end of the day to be ready for our bug party). 

 We started the day inside making TP roll pets.  They are so cute!  We made dogs and bunnies.

 Everyone colored their own parts and then I assembled them.

 We read a few books about pets, pet needs, and how to show a pet you love them.  We did the ASL for all the pets as we came across them in our books.

 We headed outside for snack time.  Today we had g/f pretzels (circle shapes), apples and cucumbers.  Yum!

Next I got out the "Bug Spray" game to teach them how to play before the bug party.

 There are little bug sprayers and we had to fill them up in the bucket of water and then spray off the pictures of bugs on the chalk board.  They had so much fun and played this game for quite a long time. At this point all the stuffed animal pets had been forgotten :)

 Our sensory activity for Pets was a bowl of water beads.  They're basically the same type of little beads that absorb moisture in a diaper, but are sold as decorative vase fillers.  They absorb water and have a very squishy feel to them.  The kids LOVED sticking their hands in this bowl.  In fact, I thought it was cool and interesting feeling enough to stick my hands in a few times :)

 Trying on our antenna headbands for our bug party :)  I was going to get a class picture but VB was out sick today :(.  Hopefully we'll get one at the bug party!

 Back inside playing with the pets tot pack while I gathered all of their artwork and items from the school year to send home.  It was such a delightful year.  I'm so happy to have so many of these kids coming back next year!