J IS FOR JESUS

~Punkin is 32 months.~

We did a loose J is for Jesus theme with some more egg activities thrown in as well. We read the Easter story in her Children's Bible every day and even though it is a long book, Punkin asked to read Benjamin's Box quite a few times as well. (This is a book that goes along with the Resurrection Eggs.) Our Bible verse was, "Jesus is risen, just as he said." By the end of the week, she really seemed to understand the basics.

TOT TRAYS

Punkin had a lot of fun with our tot trays this week that we didn't have time to do last week. The first two pictures are ones I took last week. However, I included them again, because she did them a few times again this week, but I didn't take any new pictures.

Egg Tonging

Mixed up Egg Matching

I had put capital letter stickers on the top parts of eggs and matching lowercase stickers on the bottom parts. Then, I separated them all and had Punkin try to match them back up. She did a great job! She picked out an egg part and told me the letter and whether it was capital or lowercase. Then, I gave her some guidance (so as not to be so overwhelming with all those parts in there) and we determined what color to look for with that letter on it. She loved it!

Punkin used her bottle cap letters to spell the names of family members.

This activity was similar to our egg counting activity last week, so she understood how to do it without my help. And this was easily her favorite tot tray this week. She had to look at the number on the little "shot glass" and fill it with that many beads. Then, she put the filled cup into the matching numbered spot in the egg carton.

Punkin "laced" cut apart egg carton sections onto a piece of yarn to make a necklace.

And I had gotten some of this purple "stuff" (I don't even know what it is called) at Dollar Tree awhile back. It can be molded like playdough, but is not as messy, and it doesn't dry out. If you look closely, it is actually made up of tiny little "balls" that stick together. She loved playing with it every day during tot tray time.

LITERACY LEARNING ACTIVITIES

We worked some more with our vocabulary cards. This week, I set out 3-4 cards that could all be grouped in a certain category (like food or animals or people). Then, I would also set out one card with them that did not belong in that category and she had to figure out which one did not belong. We had never done anything like this, so I was super surprised when she didn't have any trouble at all figuring out which one didn't belong.She built the letter J and j with her letter puzzle pieces.

And she did a GREAT job tracing her letter Jj on this handwriting page from COAH.

Dot painting this letter Jj page also from COAH.

I got this idea from Fun Frugal Mommy. Punkin started out poking colored push pins into the matching colored circles I had drawn on the page (that was taped to the top of a shoe box lid). Then, she used these lacing beads from Dollar Tree (that actually have bigger than usual holes) to match and set on top of the push pins.

Then, we noticed the color pattern that we made along with what letter it turned out to be.

I cut out some letter j's from different colored construction paper and had her add the "dot" by using her magnetic pom poms.

Punkin used letter stickers to spell JESUS on her letter J, and then decorated it with her dot paints.

I had Punkin try a couple of these word family Easter Egg baskets from Making Learning Fun. I only had her do the -at basket and the -og basket since she knows the words "cat" and "dog." I guided her a lot, but she did pretty well.

MATH LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Once again, I printed out an egg page and this time added numbers 9-12 on the bottom of the eggs. Punkin picked which Easter foam sticker she wanted for each number. For instance, she put pink egg stickers on all the number 9's that she found and purple bunnies on all the number 12's she found.

We did this Roll and Cover egg page from 2 Teaching Mommies.

Punkin is getting very good at doing graphs. This week, I whipped up a quick egg graph and put some of her small plastic eggs in a bag for her to pick out and graph by color. She was getting frustrated, however, that the eggs kept rolling around, so I stuck a little roll of tape on each box, and on her own, she began setting the eggs up on end on top of the tape, so they looked like they were standing up! She even counted each "tower" and was able to tell me which had the most and which had the least.

We also did a little addition again this week. I had her roll a dice and count the dots and find an egg with that number on it to put first on her template card. Then, she did the same with the second dice. Finally, she counted all the dots together and found an egg with the answer on it to complete her math problem. I even went as far this week as to have her "read" the math problem back to me, including the "plus" and "equals."

ARTS / CRAFTS

Punkin kinda initiated this activity all by herself. My mom was over one day helping me with something, and Punkin found these Easter foam stickers on my desk and brought them to me to open for her while we were working. I quickly grabbed an egg template that I had printed out but we hadn't used and gave it to her to put her stickers on (thinking she'd just fill the egg with stickers). She sat and worked quietly, and when I went to check on her, she was working hard to pull the backing off and was putting the stickers around the outside edge of the egg. So, when she was done with that, I let her use her dot paints to fill in the middle of the egg.

We made this "He is Risen" project from Making Learning Fun. It actually turned into a math patterning activity, too, as Punkin had to find the next square in the pattern to glue on.

One day while Punkin was napping, I drew an egg and a cross on cardstock with a white crayon. Then, when she woke up, we got out the watercolor paints. She started painting, and suddenly exclaimed, "Mommy, look!" It was so fun to watch her try to figure out what the "surprise" was. When she finished the cross picture, she said, "Look. Jesus is risen!"

MISC. FUN

One day while I made lunch, I had Punkin sit and hunt for her small plastic eggs that I had "hidden" in Easter grass. Each one had a colored "rock" in it. She would open each egg, put the rock in the empty parmesan container, and close the egg back up and put it in the egg carton.(One of her J vocabulary picture cards this week was of a jewel. She didn't know what it was the first day, so I explained that it was like a pretty sparkling rock. So, when she opened the first egg and found the little "rock" inside, she declared, "Mommy! I found a jewel!" I love it when she makes connections from one thing to the next.)

We had a fun week with Daddy home as well, and Punkin spent a lot of time playing in her "new" playroom in the basement while I helped him with a few things he was working on in the basement bathroom that he is putting in. One day when I went to check on her, she was playing "store." (I REALLY wish I had had my camera handy to get a picture.....or even a video!) She pushed around her little toy grocery cart (with her baby in the front and a purse on her shoulder) and put different things in it. Then, she went to her little table, unloaded the things from her cart, and pretended to pay. Then, she said, "Okay. Thank you. Have nice day." She loaded the stuff in her cart again and pretended to go out to the "car". She didn't know I was watching, and it was so hard to keep from laughing. I guess the poor girl has made too many CVS and Walgreens runs with me! :)

To see what other tots were up to this past week, check out 1+1+1=1.