Tot School Feelings

Yesterday I gained possession of a toddler lawn mower that blows bubbles.  After tot school today I joked with a mom that maybe next week I'll have 7 of them - one per kiddo.  They loved that thing, and would you believe that I REALLY want to take it apart and see how its designed?  For real.  All bubble blowers die really fast at my house, they get left out in the rain and are used so excessively that they are sticky and ruin the motor because they are unclean-able.  This lawn mower comes with instructions to clean it out with the hose, so I have high hopes that it will live forever.  I'd bet the kids have the same high hopes. I was a broken record today in regards to sharing the the bubble blowing lawn mower.  "It's so-and-so's turn right now.  I see that you'd like another turn.  Wait just a minute and you can play again.  That's how we share." ...and repeat. 

 We also painted, practiced knocking down the monster cans, and practiced pouring our own water at snack time after all washing up in the sink first.  Everyone washing their hands is a parade of sorts.  They get so excited about it.  If you have a young child I highly suggest the hands-free foam soap dispensers.  They are a life saver and the kids love to use them.  After snack we played in the basement for about 30 minutes before heading outside again.  Since it was so wet from the rain outside there were certain toys and books I wanted to share with the group but not leave on the wet grass all morning.  We played puppets, read stories, explored the numbers 1-5, reviewed the letter M, and found extra toys to play with.

The mini Hungry Hungry Hippos game (bottom left picture) is my favorite picture from today.  Those two were having a blast playing the game together.  We're all in the stage of learning to share and take turns.  That picture is proof that we're headed in a good direction! Have a great week!  I look forward to talking about the Dentist next week!

Tot School Sharing and Manners

What an amazing day of tot school! Today we learned all about manners.  We talked about the letter M making the /m/ sound, we did handprint art, read an M book, and made placemats.

 We talked a lot about sharing and being soft with our hands and bodies.  We played with play dough and Duplos.  We also pulled out the number 1-5 mats and hopped on them the same number of times as the number that was printed on it.

Tot School Tools

We had a delightful first day of the Tot School year.  Our theme today was school tools and it was so fun to introduce a variety of items and start showing kids how to use the tools.  We had blocks and play dough and the water table to get us started.  I now have a class set of play dough scissors and I was able to work with multiple children today in showing them how to hold scissors.  Of course, it's a skill that has to be practiced and practiced - today was just an introduction.  

 One of the fun aspects of tot school is that it is totally individually led.  I set out a variety of activities and kids choose where they want to spend their time.  When an activity is looking like the kids are done with it I put it away and get out something new.

 We also all had help in pouring our water today for snack time.  As we practice more and more the kids will be able to do their own pouring.  It will be a wet experience at first, but we always get better with practice.  I love giving Cheerios for snack time accompanied with a pipe cleaner.  Toddlers have a great time threading the cereal onto their pipe cleaner and it's wonderful small motor skill practice.

 After snack and lots of block building we pulled out the paint. We learned about the dot painters first.  They are great because they have easy to open and close screw caps. Then we moved onto stamps and stamp pads.  I forgot how much training is required to teach kids the correct side of the stamp to push onto the stamp pad and then press onto the paper.  Next came the paint and paint brushes.

We got messy and really enjoyed our time together. We ended the day with story time. I pulled out a variety of board books for the kids to look at and made a class book with each person's picture and name from our class.  When I read our class book out loud kids came running to see themselves in our book. I made a copy for each child and sent it home in their folders to read all week long.  It was a great first day!

Tot School Summer Friends

We have had an amazing summer with our tot school friends.  Today we got to celebrate all the fun parts of being friends.  We started with a giant painting easel made from two 2x4 tables turned on their sides.   

 My youngest (whom we call Arrow) is exactly like her brother.  Man, I'm sure there is a blog post from 6 years ago where he has paint all over his leg as well.

Yep - Here is a picture of Arrow's big brother EMan, just about 5 years ago...

Back to today: We also drew with chalk on the fence and I loved when one of the little boys declared that he wrote his name, so cute and proof that he's ready for the fall where we ramp up our learning of letters and writing/drawing.

We also played with the parachute and a bunch of soft balls.  The kids had a complete blast with this activity!  Thank you for sharing your summer with me!

Gardens and Plants

What a lovely tot school we had this morning.  We talked all about gardens and plants, which is a wonderful topic at this time of year when our backyard garden is exploding with growth.  We "planted" flowers in play dough and took a tour of all the plants in the garden.

 We found tickly weeds and everyone got to have their very own - until they all fed them to the chickens :). There was a lot of bike riding, shopping cart pushing, watering can filling (though not watering, oddly enough), and plenty of play in the playhouse with the play kitchen.

Summer Bugs Tot School

Tot School this morning was so much fun.  We have a blast with the "Bugs" theme.  It makes me happy every time I pull out the bug box.  There were a handful of bug jars in our bug box that we put right to work.  In our time together we caught a cricket, an earwig, a wasp, a spider, and a fly.  This was amazing because we could look closely and safely at all the bugs and then eventually let them go (except for the wasp, the evil one we caught didn't survive and I'm okay with that).

 

The bugs theme lends itself to some exciting art opportunities.  We made bug "rings" out of chenille stems by twisting them around my finger and then bending the left overs like antenna.  They fit as an over-sized ring for the toddlers that way.  Our most time consuming art activity was a footprint butterfly.  I did this years ago when my older boys were young and I was excited to make a matching footprint art for my youngest.  They turned out super amazing.

We also painted plates red and turned them into ladybugs.  Painting with toddlers is always an adventure.  One child is grabbing the paint end of the brush and has completely red hands, the child across the table is asking for a baby wipe for every small paint on skin incident, and the child diagonally wants more paint every 3 seconds.  It's kind of like... well... painting with a group of very young children.  I'm pulled a thousand places at once wiping up as much paint as there is placed on the paper.  I guess it was worth it because after tot school was over my daughter carried her two art projects around the house for at least 20 minutes before I convinced her that they needed to be set in a safe place for lunch time.

We read The Very Hungry Caterpillar and talked about all the different foods that the caterpillar ate and how he turned into a butterfly in the end.  Of course there was a smattering of splashing in the water, playing in the sandbox and playhouse, and using squirting bug toys to water the tree and "paint" the fence.  

Summer Fun Tot School

We had a blast this morning in tot school.  Our theme was Summer Fun and we were able to play all the fun summer activities!  We splashed in the little splash pad and used it to scoop water to be delivered all the way across the yard to the sandbox.  We fed the bunny and played a lot of "pass".

 We took a short break for snack and went back to playing play dough and in the sandbox.  We pulled out the second water table and found a few boats in the toy box to play with. 

 All the toy kitchen tools came in handy while we played in the playhouse and used the water table and sandbox to do serious toddler "work".

 It was a fantastic day of tot school!  Thanks for sharing your children with me!