WEEK OF AUGUST 29 - NO THEME

~Punkin is 25 months old.~

We did a lot this week and had lots of fun, but there was no real theme or focus for our week. I am spending lots of time planning theme units for each letter of the alphabet for us to start in the next few weeks, so our last few weeks have been filled with easy and fun activities that don't take long to plan. I have been putting off starting our official start of our new units for a couple of reasons. We have been working all year on finishing off our basement, and the new play / school room is almost done. I have a few more pieces of furniture to paint and some things to organize, and then we can "move in." Second, I want to start a circle time with Punkin in the morning that will incorporate our letter and number of the week, but I am still working on getting that set up how I want it. So for the meantime, we are taking it easy around here.

TOT TRAYS

I found this idea in one of my old Mailbox teacher magazines for preschoolers. I glued some eyes, a mouth, and some "antennae" onto a 2 liter bottle to make an "alien" ...... well, sorta. Anyway, then Punkin took marbles and "fed" the alien by putting them in the top one by one. She thought this was so fun, especially when she heard the sound it made when she dropped them in. Then, she enjoyed shaking the bottle as well as dumping them out.

She only did this tray once. I had three different sized buttons on the bottom of the tray and I showed her how to sort them in the top by little, medium, and big. She did okay with big and little, but medium threw her a bit. I should have stuck with just the little and big.

I got this idea from The Activity Mom. I gave Punkin some birthday candles and helped her put them on the page to make shapes. She helped me do the page once, and then she decided she just wanted to play with the candles. She actually loved this tray and got it out every day, but just to play with the candles. She tried to use them as crayons to draw with, too, and she actually broke quite a few candles trying to make them draw. LOL!

This was some kind of little game I got at a garage sale. I think it's supposed to be like a little travel checkers or something, but I really have no idea. I just had Punkin take the tiny pieces and put them in the holes on the board. It was good fine motor practice, and she loved it and did it every day.

I got this little foam number / abc puzzle at a the Dollar Tree awhile back. She helped me line them up in order, and then she found the inside pieces and put them in herself.

And she also found that it was quite fun to put the little foam pieces on her fingers and fling them around until the pieces flew off. Silly girl!

I adapted this idea from My Tot Learning Time. It was a huge hit with Punkin. She wanted to do this first every day. Each time I helped her first line up the cups with numbers on them in order, then count the dots on the "flags." She could then match them to the right cup herself.

After doing that once each day, I let her just have fun playing with the cups and flags. The first day, she spent about 20 minutes just stacking and unstacking the cups.....

...and pretending she was drinking from them.

OUR "SCHOOL" ACTIVITIES

I printed this counting box sheet from Counting Coconuts and we used it with our snack one day to practice counting. She loved having an assortment of snacks to use and eat. I am going to use this sheet a lot with my upcoming units to practice counting, because you can adapt it to whatever theme you want. I love it!

We got out our bottle cap letter matching names again. Last time we tried this, she wasn't interested, but this time she did better and at least did two of her cousins' names before she got bored and started trying to stack the caps.

We also did our Melissa and Doug See and Spell again. This was another activity that I brought back out to see how she would do. She loved it this time and did great finding the letters all on her own.

This was such a fun activity! I printed out the body part pictures from 2 Teaching Mommies and laminated them. Then, we put tape on them and taped them to our matching body parts. Punkin wasn't so sure at first if she wanted to do this, so I put them on me first. She thought it was so funny that she said, "Put on me!" Again, she knows a LOT of body parts (even not so common ones like wrist) that she can point to on herself, but it was a bit harder for her to match the cards to herself. But we'll do this again for more practice, especially since it got us both laughing!

We printed out the pages to make a shape tractor from 2 Teaching Mommies because Punkin is so excited when we see tractors (which we see a lot of right now with farmers starting their harvesting). I wrote the color word in its color on the shapes, and she easily found which shapes to color with each crayon. She wanted "Mommy do it" for the first green ones we did, but then, she actually colored in all the others all by herself. I thought she did great!

I cut out the pieces (we still haven't gotten out her tot scissors yet), and then I showed her where to glue on the pieces. She was excited to show Daddy her green tractor.

We made this tambourine that I saw on Sippy Cup Central. I found that markers don't work so well on styrofoam bowls, though. I didn't have paper ones. But anyway, she still have fun decorating them.

She thought they were supposed to be drums at first, and began playing the drums for me.

Then, we filled the bowls with pennies.....

.....and stapled it shut. Then, we shook it as we sang this song from No Time for Flashcards. She still gets it out to "pay music" at least once a day.

I stole this idea, too! (I did that a lot this week, didn't I?) However, I can't remember for the life of me who I stole it from! So, if it is yours, please let me know, so I can give credit where credit is due. Punkin does well with file folder games, and she really did a great job matching up the shapes. We're working on recognizing the signs now when we are in the car.

We worked on our Mr. Potato Head body parts again this week from 2 Teaching Mommies. I didn't help her at all. She did much better!

We made another contact paper collage, only this time, I divided the contact paper into four boxes, and labeled each box with a different color. Punkin picked items out of a cup and put them on the collage where they belonged.

TOT ART

I put 3 colors of paint into the cups of an egg carton and gave Punkin Q-tips, cotton balls, and a regular paint brush and let her go at it. She actually only wanted to use the Q-tips. She worked on this for about 30 minutes. She kept asking for more paper. She is loving the paint, let me tell you!

TOT PLAY AND OTHER STUFF

We used our playdough again using our letter cookie cutters, and a plastic knife to "cut" the playdough. This is still one of her favorite activities each week!

This is the first time Punkin has worked on building a tower with her stacking blocks all by herself. Usually she wants me to make the tower, and she knocks it over.

This girl loves excercising! Instead of playing each day while I do my workout, she insists on having her own mat (her foam number puzzle), and trying to do the excercises with me. She does this EVERY DAY! It cracks me up. She will let me know, too, if we have't done them yet that day! She looks forward to it. I guess she is my own little accountability partner, making sure I do it every day.

I bought this ribbon wand at the Dollar Tree this week, and we had tons of fun dancing with it to music.

Punkin loves helping me in the kitchen, but I don't let her help as often as I should. So one day, we made muffins together. She got to dump in all the ingredients and help me stir. She even "banged" the spoon on the side of bowl like I do to get off the "extras."

To see what other tots did this week, visit 1+1+1=1.