Tot School

 

Connor is 25 months old

 

We have had a super busy week. Connor completed many Christmas related activities. Firstly, so that he would continue doing the transfer work with the plastic tongs and tweezers, I changed the pom poms to gift bows. He pulled this activity out a few times. He also arranged the gift bows according to colour.   

 

On our Baking Day, we made Christmas tree cookies. This time we used an electric mixer to make the dough. Connor loved watching the mixing but was a little concerned when I put the mixer on full speed.

This week, one of the Christmas related books that we read was The Gingerbread Baby by Jan Brett. As a follow up activity, I downloaded a gingerbread house gluing activity from the Making Learning Fun website.

Other craft activities included gluing cotton balls on a Santa Claus face, making Gingerbread men from play dough and sticking Gingerbread men into his sticker book.

Finally, Connor sorted Gingerbread Men according to size, matched Christmas pictures, and rolled small balls for his Christmas tree play dough mat.

  

Some other activities which Connor did this week included playing with Mr. Potato Head, doing puzzles, and sorting through animal flash cards. Also, lots of time was spent swimming. Over the past couple of weeks, Connor has gained a lot of confidence in the pool. He now quite happily swims on his own when wearing a floating vest.

My favourite pictures this week are of Connor and Sarah playing together. Connor was really thoughtful handing Sarah a leaf that she was trying to reach. He also thought it was quite alright to rest his head on her when he was relaxing. She didn’t seem to mind him doing this.

 

 

Toddler Theme Kit - Christmas

Welcome to my first Toddler Theme Kit. Toddler Theme Kits are simply early learning printables specifically aimed at toddlers and preschoolers. I love planning with themes and I love creating my own lessons and materials. By sharing these printables, I hope to give back something to the other great parents and teachers in the blogging world that have inspired me and shared their resources.

Christmas Toddler Theme Kit

The Christmas Theme Kit contains the following printables:

11 Christmas Memory Cards

The Christmas Memory Cards can be used as a matching activity or to play Memory.

Christmas Patterning Activity

 

Christmas Tree Lacing Card 

Christmas Tree Counting Activity

Number cards for numbers 1 – 5 are provided. Attach the number cards to the front of five paper cups. Attach each Christmas tree to a paddle pop stick. Children place the correct number of Christmas trees in the numbered cups.

 

Christmas Tree Play Dough Mat

Play dough is used to create Christmas tree decorations. This Mat is designed for children which need practise in rolling play dough into small balls.

 

Gingerbread Man Sorting Sizes Activity

 

Tot School

Connor is 24 months old

We have had record breaking heat this past week in Sydney, so a lot of our time has been spent in the swimming pool. Tot School has continued but with only a few planned activities.

To continue with our Christmas activities, we painted Christmas trees. I cut out Christmas trees from green cardstock and provided Connor with sponges so he could stamp designs on to the trees.

The following day, Connor and I worked on our first paper chain. I prepared green and red strips of paper ahead of time, and Connor helped by handing me the strips in alternating colours while I stapled them together. This was a great introduction to patterning. We used the painted Christmas trees with the paper chain as Christmas decorations.

For our Modelling Day, I gave Connor Christmas cookie cutters. All that was missing was green and red play dough. I will have to make up some fresh play dough for next week.

Another thing I pulled out this week was some of our Christmas puzzles. He become really excited as he likes anything to do with Santa Claus. Last year, Connor was scared of Santa Claus and would cry when we approached him at the shopping centre. I’m hoping that this year will be different.

While I was doing some re-organizing, Connor spotted his old shape sorter. He sat down and did it once. He was more interested in the names of the shapes then locating the appropriate hole for the shape. In fact, he has been doing this quite often; sitting down with a group of objects and just asking the names for the items.

Other things Connor worked on was a large floor puzzle of a scene at the airport and sorting his blocks according to colour.

 

Our big discovery outside this week was a cacoon. Connor examined it and then gently placed it in a pot plant. After some research, we found out that this was a Case Moth.

        

Check out other blogs by visiting Carissa's blog.

Montessori Three Part Cards - Christmas

PDF Price: $3.95

The file includes:

• 14 christmas objects: 14 pictures with labels (control cards), 14 pictures without labels, and 14 labels.
• Control chart showing each labeled picture.
  

Christmas objects include: Christmas tree, gingerbread man, Santa Claus, Santa's sleigh, Christmas lights, Christmas wreath, poinsettia flower, nutcracker, gingerbread house, candy cane, crackers, stocking, baubles, gifts.

This item is a PDF file. The item will be emailed to you once payment is received.

Christmas Crayons

While packing for our move back in June, I got to sort through all our art supplies. One thing that we had a lot of was crayons, and they all ended up in one big container. As Connor likes his big fat Crayola crayons, this container has been untouched for the last few months. Not wanting to waste the crayons, I decided to recycle them by creating Christmas crayons.

To make Christmas crayons you only need two things – crayons and moulds for making chocolates. Start by peeling the label off each crayon and break it into small pieces. Then, sort the crayons into similar colours.

The next step is to melt the crayons. I melted our crayons in the microwave. It took about 6 minutes to melt 1/2 cup of broken crayons. Then, you carefully pour the melted mixture into the moulds.

When you have filled the moulds, place them into the freezer for about 15 minutes. The last step is to pop the crayons out of the moulds.

As soon as Connor received his container of Christmas crayons, he pulled them all out. He then proceeded to draw with them in his Christmas sticker book.

This is definitely something I will be making again for other holidays. These crayons would also make a cute handmade gift!

Tot School

Connor is 24 months old

This week, we officially began to do some basic Christmas activities. Even though Christmas is still about 6 weeks away, when we go out, Connor has started noticing all the Christmas decorations in the shops. I want him to begin gaining an understanding of Christmas and why it is celebrated.

 

For Craft Day, Connor created a Christmas Tree. This was a very simple craft. I provided him with a Christmas Tree outline, crayons, pom poms and glue. He really wasn’t interested in using the crayons and wanted to just glue the pom poms on the Christmas Tree.

 

 

He also decorated a Christmas Tree during his bath time. Using craft foam, I cut out another Christmas Tree outline and different shapes to represent the decorations. This was a great activity as we were able to review shape names at the same time.

 

 

He really wanted to continue playing with this tree after his bath, so for the following day, I prepared a Christmas Tree decorating station for him. All that was needed was one of those small Christmas Trees and some decorations. Now, he can go and decorate his own tree whenever he pleases.

 

 

The final Christmas related activity that I prepared for Connor this week was a Christmas sticker book. I love the fact that stickers are so inexpensive. I have a whole folder of stickers set aside for all different topics and seasons. They are a great quiet activity and we spend a fair bit of time talking about the images. Last week, I purchased a whole bunch of Christmas related stickers. Connor is quite happy doing this activity in the mornings before and after breakfast while I prepare for the day.

 

 

 

Another new activity that Connor did this week was transferring pom poms with large plastic tweezers. Initially he needed some assistance, but after trying it a few times, he began to do it on his own.

 

 

The next activity is one I have seen on other blogs and have been meaning to set up for quite some time. It’s the game Connect 4. Connor had fun with this, however, he was quite insistent that each row could only have one colour. So, towards the end, he was a bit confused when he realized that the number of rows was not even and the circles could not be distributed evenly.

 

 

And of course, there were puzzles completed and lots and lots of books read.

 

            

Check out other blogs by visiting Carissa's blog.