O IS FOR OCTOPUS / OCEAN

~Punkin is 32 months old.~

Theme: Octopus / Ocean

Shape: Octagon

Number: 11

Color: Blue

New Sight Word: on

I am so late in getting this posted as life has just gotten crazy.....

I wasn't all that excited about doing the letter O because I felt I didn't have any really great themes to go along with it. But we did a few things with Octopus and Ocean this week. The week got away from me at the end with stuff going on, so we didn't do much towards the end of the week. This next week is going to be even crazier. I have had so many doctor appointments and other committments going on. In fact, this morning, Punkin woke up and asked, "Where are we going to go today, Mommy?" Yeah, I'm ready to stay home for a bit, but we still have a lot going on in the next few days. Good thing Punkin is so easy going ....

TOT TRAYS

Punkin really enjoyed our tot trays this week (the 2 days we got to do them). I still had out the St. Patrick's Day trays since we didn't get to them last week.

"Sweeping" up green split peas. She had to dump the peas into the rectangle and then sweep them up into the dust pan. This was harder than I had thought it would be because the dust pan and little broom were too big for the tray. So next time we do something like this, I'll have her dump it onto her work table and sweep up from there. I got this idea from The Preschool Experiment.

She enjoyed the green sensory bin with some gold coins hidden it.

Making a pot of gold rainbow using magnetic pom poms. I printed the sheet from 2 Teaching Mommies and made little colored dots in each circle to guide her as to what colors to put in each one. Punkin also used pom poms to match patterns in her egg carton trays. She'd match pom poms to stickers I had put in the top row to make a pattern, then have to replicate it in the bottom row. She really got into this tray.....Putting "spikey balls" into an empty baby wipes container, then using her tongs to transfer them back into her container. This was the first time she could really manipulate the tongs on her own without any prompts or quidance....and she loved it. She also spent quite a bit of time one day with this one..... I had cut up some green and gold bead necklaces (the ones you get at like the Dollar Tree), and put the beads into a little green St. Patrick's Day cup. I put that in her tray along with a small pitcher, a spoon, a little glass jar, and her tiny spaces ice cube tray. Then, I let her just do what she wanted with those items. She poured back and forth, she spooned them into the tray, she stirred, and she picked them up one by one with her fingers to put into the small spaces in the tray.

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Capital and lowercase Oo sorting with some octopus. I got this from Creative Learning Fun. We replicated the Oo ocean animal page that I saw over at The Preschool Experiment. I just printed out some ocean animal pictures I found on google images. Punkin still loves using her dot markers each week to make her letters. Working on writing the letter Oo using this sheet from COAH.

Building the letter Oo.

We tried using a push pin to do a letter poking page on the carpet, which I thought she'd love, but she really wasn't all that excited about it. Doing a letter O dot-to-dot page from Making Learning Fun. Punkin used her dot marker to hunt for the letter Oo on this page from COAH. I showed Punkin how to make round balls with playdough, and then we added toothpicks to make sea creatures according to the number on the page she picked. (I got this idea from 2 Teaching Mommies.) After she made all her creatures, we lined them up in number order. In preparation for our next art project, I had Punkin practice her cutting skills by cutting on the lines I had drawn on blue paper. I was really super impressed with how she did all on her own! (Although, I had to hold the paper for her at the end when it got down to the last few and she didn't have as much paper to hold onto.) Then, I folded the strips, and she glued them onto the bottom of an O (that she had added googly eyes to) to make octopus legs, and she then glued on cheerios to each section of each leg.

Thanks, 2 Teaching Mommies, for the cute idea!

Punkin has known her common shapes for a long time, so we often just review all of them or focus on the "lesser known" shapes like octagon, hexagon, trapezoid, etc. This week, I set a variety of these lesser known shapes around the living room, and then I'd tell Punkin so "swim like a fish" to a certain shape and bring it to me.

MISC. FUN

We attempted to make an ocean in a bottle as described HERE. I thought it was neat, but it didn't hold Punkin's interest for very long. I wish I had had some little plastic fish or something to put in there to make it more interesting.

Punkin once again asked to play with bubbles in the sink. I had just gotten some new tupperware that needed cleaning, so I put them in the sink with the bubbles, and she "washed" them for me! :)

It was Grandma's birthday, so when they came over for her birthday dinner, Punkin "persuaded" Grandma to play with her Melissa and Doug dress up dolls with her. She has really been into this activity lately. She plays with it at least once or twice a day.

I got this little lap desk at a garage sale this week, and Punkin has loved "writing" at her little desk with her new markers.

And since she has been so into drawing, coloring, writing, etc. lately, I set up a little "art" caddy for her, so she can have access on her own to all her favorite supplies. She brings it to the table and spends lots of time drawing and writing.

And finally, something a bit random..... I had a lot of Lucky Charms left over from St. Patrick's Day, so I decided to make "rice krispie treats" using them. Punkin sure enjoyed them! I was going to have her help me make them, but I decided it requires too much over the stove work for her to really be able to be involved.

To see what other Tots were up to this week, go visit 1+1+1=1.