WEEK OF JULY 5 - THIS AND THAT

~Punkin is 23 months old.~

We took a very laid back and relaxed approach this week to Tot School, and took a break from our "i is for ice cream" unit (I still have tons of activities to do with it), and just had fun doing random things not related to anything. It was a much needed break for us both. I found out that even in our laid back activities that weren't necessarily "academic" in nature, Punkin actually was "learning" quite a bit! We still stuck with our Tot Tray time, but since the rest of the week wasn't focused on anything, I'm going to try posting pictures by day instead of topic this week.

TOT TRAYS

I had red, white, and blue pipe cleaners, as well as toothpicks in a tray for her to put into a sugar shaker from Dollar Tree. She loved this tray!

I filled a tray full of containers and lids and had her take them off, match them up, put them back on, etc. She did great at learning how to turn the lids to unscrew them on and off.

I also added my "beloved" letter rocks that I made last week (that she didn't want to play with) and had her see which rocks would fit into each container.

I put her new Melissa and Doug latch puzzle and matching blocks in a tray. She played quite a bit with the latch puzzle, but not so much with the matching blocks.

I would ask her to find certain things for me to see if she remembered with latch to open. She has a great memory! Then, I'd take out a few of the magnetic pieces from under the latches and give them to her and have her put them back in the right spot. She loved that.

I finally went through some of my tubs of materials from when I taught first grade, and I found quite a few things that I used in my first grade classroom, that I knew Punkin would actually be able to do. She liked these colored paintbrushes that she matched to the correct paint bucket.

Her favorite thing about it was putting the brushes in the slits. She matched them like a pro.

I was so excited about this tray, but Punkin was not. I used our magnetic pom poms and this flag page that I printed from Making Learning Fun. I did it a few times for her to try to entice her to do it with me. (Isn't it sad that I get excited about and have fun doing little activities like this?)

She humored me once and put about 4 pom poms on before going on to other things.

Again, another tray I thought she'd like, but she never touched this one. She loves animals, and she loves puzzles, so I thought she'd enjoy matching the baby animal with the mommy. Nope. Oh well. We'll try it again later.

A few times instead of doing her trays, she pulled down this photo album instead and spent a long time looking at the all the pictures. She has always loved looking at all the pictures of her and her family members.


MONDAY

My husband has been doing lots of sawing in the garage lately, and so lots of Punkin's toys got all covered in sawdust and were pretty dirty. So, on Monday I took out a bucket of soapy water and a rag, and told Punkin to wash her toys. Oh my, did she ever have a blast!

She washed her car, her "bike," her slide, and even the sidewalk and Mommy's face. :)

TUESDAY

We spend Tuesdays at Grandma's house. I didn't have my camera with me, but Grandma got out some file folder games that she has, and Punkin matched up colors with race cars. She also enjoys learing how to "play" the piano on Grandma's real piano!

WEDNESDAY

I took an empty spice container and filled it with crushed Fruit Loop "sand." Punkin had a ball just squeezing the glue bottle as much as she wanted. She finally mastered what "squeezing" means and is finally able to do it herself. (This activity therefore became good fine motor skill practice.) Then she shook out the "sand" all over her paper onto the glue and we dumped off the excess "sand" and had a colorful picture to hang up.

We ended up doing three different pages because she kept saying, "More pease!"

I had a glue bottle, too, and I made numbers, letters, and shapes on her page for her and she told me what they were as I made them.

We had to vacuum the floor when we were done, and Punkin thought she'd help. (She uses this toy as her pretend vacuum and typically follows me around when I vacuum.)

In continuing just a tad with our i unit, I cut out some pictures that start with i and had Punkin glue them onto her Ii paper. She loved using the glue, and I had her repeat each picture and the sound of i each time. When she was done, she took her page and said "I show Daddy." Then she ran over to Daddy and said, "Wook, Daddy! Pitty!" Daddy asked her what all her pictures were and she could name each one for him.

As we continue to work on drawing straight lines from top to bottom, I made some dotted lines with dots above them for lowercase i's, then I put it in a page protector and gave Punkin a dry erase marker for the first time. She loved it. I showed her how to make the straight line down and then make a dot. After a few tries she was doing them really well and remembering to start at the top! We have done this a few times each day since then, and she still enjoys it.

Last week I had mixed some food coloring into water and put them into plastic containers and stuck them in the freezer. I did yellow ones, red ones, and blue ones (primary colors). I filled the sink with water and added yellow food coloring to it. Then, I got out the big red ice and let Punkin play with it in the water. I asked her before we started what color the water was. Then, I asked her what color the ice was. After a little bit of her playing with the ice, she noticed it was "get small" (getting smaller) and at the end when I asked her what color the water was now, she noticed it had turned orange! Cool! We talked about how red and yellow together make orange. What a fun little science activity! We will definitely be doing this again soon with the other colors.

After her big red ice cube melted, I gave her some regular ice cubes. I told her to "catch" them before they melted. Without my prodding to do so, she began taking them one by one and throwing them into the other side of the sink as she counted each one. Now, though she can count easily, we have been working on one to one counting objects. She can do it easily with my help as I guide her hand to point to each object. But lately, I have been trying to get her to count by moving objects from one bowl to the next. She hasn't been interested. Then, here she goes and does it on her own! Just goes to show that sometimes I can't force something and that there really IS so much learning that takes place through play.

THURSDAY

I found this computer keyboard for 25 cents this week at a garage sale, and since Punkin has been enamored with wanting to use my "puter" I set up a little "play" computer for her at her table. She has played so much with it this week! She'll climb up onto her chair and tell me she's typing on her "puter." Sometimes I'll even hear her saying what letter or number she is "typing." Since we are working on lowercase letters right now, I think I will take little stickers with lowercase letters on them and cover the capital letters on the keyboard.

She wanted to do some more letter tracing. She did these in the picure all by herself!

And of course, she found out it was just as much fun to erase her lines.

FRIDAY

I used painters tape to tape ice cream numbers in order on the floor. Right now Punkin is into "jumping" so I helped her jump to the numbers in order as we said them. Then, she wanted to step on each one. Finally after a few times of that, she decided she was done and went in order and picked them up off the floor one by one. I had her tell me each number she picked up as she did it. (Sidenote: I have noticed lately that she is calling a 9 a 6. Guess we'll have to work more on that.)

We went outside and blew some bubbles. She can actually get a few bubbles out by herself now which makes her giggle.

I also brought out the sidewalk chalk for the first time this week. She loves it and calls them "dalk." She enjoyed drawing as well as lining them up in a row. Unfortunately, she also found it fun to throw them to see them break in pieces. :(

After playing chalk, she had it all over her. I had brought out a spray bottle (for another activity), so I sprayed her with it to wipe it down. She thought that was great. Then, I showed her how to do it, and she tried her best. She didn't get much out, but she had fun trying.

SATURDAY

I took those same ice cream numbers and taped them up around the kitchen for her to go find. She had fun at first, but then got freaked out when Daddy was using the nail gun ("Daddy's noise") in the kitchen, and that was the end of that.

Saturday was Daddy's birthday, so we made him a torn paper collage as a card. She really stayed focused on this better than I thought. The tearing was hard for her, so I had to help her by starting the tear for her to finish. In the end, I did most of the tearing for her, and she did the gluing and putting the pieces on.

I glued some pieces around the edges to finish it off, and then we wrote, "Happy Birthday, Daddy!" on it.

While I was making lunch, I gave Punkin her bean tub, a couple measuring cups, and some of her drinking cups. She had a blast pouring beans into the cups.

Of course, we also had a bit of mess to clean up, but that's part of the fun, right?

Since Punkin's birthday and Daddy's birthday are so close, and since we are going to be gone on her birthday, we had a party Saturday night for them both. She got a doll stroller, swing, and highchair, and a big kitchen which were both a big hit!

Eating cake.... :) Punkin is allergic to milk, and last year we were thinking maybe eggs, too, so last year I had to make her a special cake that was.....not so good. This year I could use Duncan Hines yellow cake mix because it doesn't have milk and Pillsbury frosting. She has never really had cake before (we are also picky about how much sugar we allow her to have), so she thoroughly enjoyed it and has been asking for "more cake pease" since then. :)

Another thing we did a lot this week was categories. She started this on her own one day by starting to name all the things she saw at the parade. One other day she saw the park and started naming all the things at the park. On another day, when she saw the airplane in the sky, she also started naming other things in the sky like clouds, moon, etc. Each time, I tried to expand on what she was saying and ask, "What else can you see at the park?" or "What else can you see in the sky?" It was kinda an impromptu activity that turned into quite a great Tot School lesson!

Next week I will try to get back to my "ice cream" activities, but we'll see. Visit 1+1+1=1 to see what other tots were up to this week.

WEEK OF JUNE 28 - ICE CREAM

~Punkin is 23 months old.~

We tried to focus on i is for ice cream this week. We didn't get everything done that I had planned (surprise, surprise), so we'll continue a few things next week. Daddy is on summer break (he's a high school administrator), so we have been doing lots of things with Daddy, and running lots of errands. (We .... or should I say Daddy.... is in the process of finishing our basement, so we spend a lot of time right now at Lowe's and Menards.)

TOT TRAYS

I decided to try the little shot glass cups (from Dollar Tree) and clips again. She still loved it, but once again, didn't do it the way I had intended. (Match the numbers on the cups to the number in the egg carton, then count that many clips into each little cup.) However, I loved to see her creative ways of using the materials. She would stack and unstack the cups, line up the paper clips, or pass out the cups to Mommy, herself, and Puppy. She'd say, "Here Mommy's. Here Puppy's. Here (Punkin's)."

Actually, one time she did humor me and did a pretty good job of at least matching up the numbers on the cups with the numbers in the bottom of the carton. But only once.

I had a tray of some of her new file folder games that I got at a garage sale. She enjoyed putting the letters on "tummies" for this game.

This file folder game was the only one she actually completed the whole thing before moving on to another one. I didn't have to help her at all.

I wanted her to do a sort and count activity this week. She did well with the sorting part, and adored the cute button shapes I scored at a garage sale as well.

However, she did NOT want to count them when she was done. I helped her do the five with much complaining in the process, and then decided not to push the others.


Punkin got more practice with her lacing beads. She is getting really good at it now, and really enjoys making necklaces. Maybe soon we'll start working on patterns....

ABC'S / LETTERS

I broke out the shaving cream for the first time. We used it all the time when I taught first grade, but I have always been a bit hesitant to let Punkin use it yet. However, I figured it was time. She LOVED it! I showed her how to make capital I and lowercase i. Then, she practiced making straight lines and dots (to make i). She still tends to start making her lines at the bottom, so we are working on learning to start at the top and draw the line DOWN. This will help with writing letters later on. (So many of my first graders still would make all their letters starting from the bottom, and we spent a LOT of time in first grade working on just starting letters at the top. So I am hoping to start teaching Punkin this concept early on.)

She showed me how she could make lots of circles and ovals.

She played with it until it was almost all gone....over a half hour!

I printed these captial / lowercase matching cones from Home Grown Hearts, then made them into a game for Punkin. Punkin was eager to do this activity when she noticed the velcro dots. She loves sticking things on with velcro. She told me the letters a few times when I'd ask, and she matched them up like a pro. On her own, she took the scoops off and did it over again 3 or 4 times. The last time she did it, she was being silly on purpose and putting the scoops on the wrong color, saying, "Silly (Punkin)," and then she'd move them to the right spot. I decided to keep a basket out on her little table each week to put activities like this that we do together for her to do on her own if she wants. She got this out almost every day to do by herself.

We watched Starfall.com again. She loves these little "movies."

She has been so interested in what I am doing on the computer lately, and she has been wanting to press the keys on the keyboard so badly. So instead of having her try to do it when I am working and messing up what I am working on, I let her one day sit in my chair and I brought up word, made the font big so she could see it, and let her type whatever she wanted. At first she'd tell me the letter she was making, and then I started telling her to find me a certain letter on the keyboard to type. She would say, "OOOOOHHH!" when the letters would show up on the screen. She had a great time on Mommy's "puter."

SHAPES

I cut out some colored shapes and had Punkin help me glue them on white paper to make two cones....one with a rectangle shape for the cone, and one with a triangle shape.

Then I had her draw lines on the cones with my pen.....she LOVES using "Mommy's pen." Again, we worked on making lines from top to bottom.

Displaying her "i keem cones."

I printed these shape matching cones from Home Grown Hearts as well. Punkin wasn't too interested at all in doing this activity until I told her she would get to use the glue stick.

She did them very easily without any help. I'd ask her to tell me each shape as she matched them, and the only one she didn't know herself was the hexagon....obviously.

On her own, she then began to put all the cones into a pile and take them back off the pile into a line, then back into a pile....

One time when she was lining them up, I helped her put them in rainbow order.

MATH ACTIVITIES

We did our intro patterning activity again that we've done with a lot of our units. I used our new buttons this time. She can do this very easily, so now we are starting to talk about the pattern.

Strangely enough, I started off with the yellow and purple pattern. She would NOT do those colors at all! She kept insisting "want pink one!" She did the rest without issues, but would never come back to do the yellow and purple for some reason.

I saw this idea for making letter rocks at Totally Tots, and thought it was a great idea since Punkin is so enamored with rocks lately. I made number ones as well as lowercase letters, and I was so excited with how they turned out! I had planned for her match these ice cream number cards with the rocks.....

.... and to match the rocks with the spot on her placemat. BUT, she wanted nothing to do with it. I mean, NOTHING, NADA, NO WAY. I was bummed. I spent all that time and was so excited, and I was sure she'd love it since they were ROCKS! :( Oh well. We'll bring them back out another time.

THEME ACTIVITIES

This flip book idea came from Making Learning Fun. She was to match the two sides of the ice cream cone so that theY matched. I had never done a flip book with her before, but she caught on quick.

We got out her playdough again, and she did used this sheet from Making Learning Fun. She can now play with playdough pretty independently, so it's nice to make lunch or clean up the kitchen while she works.

I printed this sheet from Lisa Baldwin on her site. Punkin still loves to color.

For one of her structured activities this week, I gave her two cones, a scoop, an "ice cream bowl" and some Kix. I loved seeing what she did with it all. She poured....

She scooped...

She dumped...

She stacked...

And she tried to eat two cones at a time. At one point, she was trying to eat one of the cones from the bottom instead, and she looked at me and said, "I eat uhside dow."

For another structured play activity, I added some ice cubes to her usual soapy water in the sink activity. She loved watching them melt and trying to pick them all out.

MISC. STUFF

Punkin gets all excited when she makes towers. She creates a lot of towers during her free play time.

She chose to play with this book again a lot this week. This time, she'd take the magnet off their spots and match them to that object on the story page.

I was beyond thrilled to find this big ABC floor puzzles (which I have been wanting to get for Punkin for a long time) at a friend's garage sale for a quarter! So far, we have hopped and jumped all the letters in order a thousand times, Punkin has used her hammer to "hammer" the letters in their spots, and she has also just enjoyed jumping all over the puzzle. She also has fun taking out the letters....but not as much fun putting them back.

Punkin continues to refine her drinking from a big girl cup skills. The other day the WHOLE cup of water ended up in her lap...but that's why we use water, and practice makes perfect, right?

Punkin has become infatuated with "airpanes in da sky" lately. She has been running to look out our second floor window every time she hears an "airpane."

She has also become much more purposeful in her drawing lately. She brought me this paper and said, "Wook, Mommy! M!" (And she has continue to make "M's" throughout the week.)

This one is hard to see, but she has also been drawing arcs on her paper and telling me she made a rainbow. I love to see her making these new connections.

In honor of July 4th, Punkin and I made this American Flag.

I had white strips cut that I had Punkin glue onto the red paper. Then, she glued on the blue square. Next, I have her a Q-tip and a small container of white paint, and she had a blast painting on the white "stars."

On Saturday, we went to a 4th of July parade. Punkin is still talking about it and how she saw her friend, Lydia, and her Uncle Brad (who was in the parade), and horsies, and doggies, and big trucks. Her favorite part, though, was getting her yellow "boon."

Then, on the 4th, we had a cookout with family, and Punkin had fun blowing bubbles with her cousins and Aunt Jamie.

We had a fun week! To see what other tots did this past week, go visit 1+1+1=1.