WEEK OF OCT. 11 - C IS FOR CATERPILLAR

~Punkin is 26 months old.~

Theme: Caterpillars (The Very Hungry Caterpillar)
Letter: Cc
Number: 3
Shape: Circle (again)
Color: Green
Verse: "I cast all my cares upon you."
Videos:

The Very Hungry Caterpillar (a very cute "movie" rendition of the story)

The Very Hungry Caterpillar (an animated version of the story)

Caterpillar Song

Starfall - C
Books:

CIRCLE / CALENDAR TIME ACTIVITIES

I realized in the middle of the week that the picture of the "caterpillar" is really an inchworm, I think. LOL! Oh well. She didn't notice.

The first day we read the story this week (though we have read it many, many times in the past), I gave Punkin a little pipe cleaner "caterpillar" to use as we read. She loved putting it through each hole as we counted the food on each page. She insisted on doing it this way every morning when we read the book. I got this idea from Delightful Learning.

I also printed out the story props from Kizclub, and she put the caterpillar through each food as I read the story.

We also put the foods in order on our chart. She then pretended to "eat" each one herself, saying, "Yum, Yum, I like it!" Silly girl!

TOT TRAYS

She was much more into Tot Trays this week than the last two weeks. In fact, she really seemed to enjoy them.

I cut apart egg cartons and glued on googly eyes and pipe cleaner "antennae." I then wrote a number on each section. The idea was for her to stick that many toothpicks into each section. She loved this and spent quite a long time doing it, though she didn't pay any attention to the numbers. Oh well. (I adapted the idea from HERE.)

This was a simple activity where I had caterpillar printouts for her to put magnetic colored pompoms on. She had to match the colors on the sheets. We've been working on patterns a lot this week, so we talked about the patterns as she did it. Then, after she did all four sheets, she decided to line them up and make her own caterpillar. Again, she really loved this.

She really enjoyed this mini green sensory tub that I put in her trays this week. It had all sorts of green things in it like green macaroni, green beads, green craft sticks, green buttons, green bears, green counters, green pom poms, etc. Her favorite part was putting the sticks down into the paper towel tube.

In keeping with the food that the Very Hungry Caterpillar ate, I put a variety of her play foods into a basket, then had her sort them by color into her "grocery" bags labeled with the colors. She played with this every day....and actually did the activity the way I intended it every time. (I thought she'd just want to take all the food and feed it to her stuffed animals like she always does.)

I got out her caterpillar and butterfly pattern block cards. She did great matching up the shapes to make the pictures. She even named the shapes for me. When she got to the semicircle, she asked, "What shape dat, Mommy?" I told her, and then she pointed them all out to me, saying, "Dat semicircle, dat semicircle, etc." The next night when we were outside, she spotted the moon and said, "Lookie dat! Moon is semicircle, Mommy!" (Which it indeed was that night.)

She also lined up all the shapes and told me, "Lookie my caterpillar, Mommy."

She made "caterpillars" by putting her round lacing beads onto pipe cleaners. I tried to have her copy a pattern card, but she wasn't into that, which was fine. I was just glad she was enjoying the lacing idea since it hasn't been a favorite in the past.

TOT LEARNING ACTIVITIES

She enjoyed her vocabulary cards again each day as we turned them over and hunted for a different one each day. This week we had all our A and B cards. I had her repeat the beginning sound of each one for me as she turned them over.

We built our letter Cc with our letter puzzle pieces to put in our ABC book. She didn't need my help at all this time because it was a bit more basic.

I filled a bucket with things from around the house that start with the hard c sound. (We're only focusing on the hard c sound and not the soft c sound at this point.) She had fun reaching in the bucket, telling me what it was and repeating the /c/ sound for me, then putting the item on a big c I drew on the back of a cereal box.

For this project, I realized she was having good practice at making a c as she traced it with glue, so I had her "trace the c with glue" a few times to get more practice.

Then we put light and dark green circles on it in a pattern. She really grasps AB patterns after this week. For this activity, I showed her the light green stack and the dark green stack. Then, she pretty much could put them on in the right order with only a tad bit of help at the beginning.

It turned out so cute!

We did a similar activity with pom poms this time. Although, I didn't have her do a pattern this time, I just had her put on the pom poms.

We did a capital / lowercase letter Cc sort. You can download it HERE. Instead of her picking a random circle and trying to decide where it went, I told her which one to look for each time, and she picked it out and glued it on the next circle in that row. She did great at this!

Then she decided to count the big C's and tell me all the colors.

I printed these capital and lowercase alphabet cards that have caterpillars and butterflies on them from 1+1+1=1. I simply cut apart the lowercase letters and put magnets on the back for her to match to the capital letters. She kept saying, "Lookie the cute caterpillars." She surprised me by doing them all (with help on the b and d) by herself, and having a great time doing it! She kept saying, "Lookie, dis ____ goes here" or "Where da _____? It goes here." We will definitely be doing this again as review every now and then (even when we aren't doing caterpillars and butterflies.)

We worked again on spelling Punkin's name. She put the sections of a caterpillar together in the right order. We did it a few times before we glued it all together the final time. It is now up on our refrigerator, and when she goes up to it to point and spell her name, she will always say, "Face, P, U, N, K, I, N." (Using the real letters in her name of course). Too funny!

I printed this number caterpillar from COAH. Once again, she surprised me with how well she was able to do this. We had to count from one each time to find out what came next, but the only ones she got mixed up on were the 6 and 9. After she put them in order, she went back and pointed to each one as she counted to 10.

We reinforced our number 3 by putting 3 dots on each color caterpillar and then counting each color. I had gotten out colored dot stickers to use with this, but when she saw the dots, she asked for her Do-a-Dots instead. So, that's what we did. You can find this worksheet HERE.

She really worked hard on unscrewing the cap on her markers. I got it started each time, but then she worked at it until it came off. Great fine motor work.

We did a color by number caterpillar that I made. She really finally understands this activity pretty well and can do it on her own. (Though she sometimes gets a bit crazy with the coloring.)

STRUCTURED TIME WITH MOMMY

We made colored caterpillars with pom poms. She had to match the color of the pom poms to the color of the craft stick we were gluing them on. Then, we added the eyes and pipe cleaners. When she was putting the dots of glue onto the green stick, she said, "Lookie, Mommy. Dare eggs on a weaf!" (Like in the story.)

We also painted a caterpillar picture. I had her paint the caterpillar yellow first, and then I mixed in some blue to her yellow paint and had her mix it up to make the green. (She kept saying, "Ooo, Geen!") Then, she painted the leaves. By the end, you couldn't really tell what her picture was of, but she had fun painting.

STRUCTURED PLAY ACTIVITIES

Playdough: Cutting out 3's and C's with cookie cutters and making caterpillars with Mommy's help.

Doing lots of Do-a-Dots.

More Do-a-Dots.

Coloring our big C with a green crayon.

MISC. STUFF

Lining up "caterpillars" with her Trix snacks.

We finally had another "Muffin Tin Meal." We ate the same foods as the Hungry Caterpillar: 1 apple, 2 pears, 3 plums, 4 strawberries, 5 oranges, and then 1 piece of salami, 1 sausage, and 1 cone. I didn't have any of the other stuff....and plus, it wouldn't have all fit in the last spot anyway. :)

We also had an olive caterpillar (which Mommy ended up eating) and a butterfly sandwich to go with it. I got this idea from Delightful Learning.

We had some fun with bubbles in a spontaneous mid morning bath one day when I needed something to get a grumpy Punkin out of her "funk." She has decided she doesn't want to nap anymore (AARRGGHH!) and therefore has been VERY grumpy lately because she is overtired.

On another note, I have finally figured out how to publish documents online to share. (Patricia has been asking for a few of my printouts, so I finally sat down to figure it out.) I have added the links to some of my printouts in past posts (like the number books, the bus and apple letter sorts, and the bear graph to name a few). So if you are interested in printing any of those out, you may want to go back and see those posts.

For more Tot School ideas, you may want to visit 1+1+1=1.

WEEK OF OCT.4 - B IS FOR BEAR

~Punkin is 26 months old.~

Theme: Bears (Brown Bear, Brown Bear)

Letter: B

Number: 2

Shape: Hexagon

Color: Brown

Verse: "Believe in the Lord Jesus Christ and thou shalt be saved."

Songs/Poems:

Teddy Bear, Teddy Bear

Hug Your Bear

Videos:

Bill Martin reading Brown Bear, Brown Bear

Panda Bear, Panda Bear

Video of real brown bears (Punkin LOVED, LOVED, LOVED this one!)

Goldilocks and the Three Bears

Books:

Calendar Board and Chart:

Our main book and focus this week as we studied B is for Bear was Brown Bear, Brown Bear. Punkin now can "read" this book to me, and she loves all the other companion books, too, like Panda Bear, Panda Bear and Polar Bear, Polar Bear ..... all of which we read over and over and over again! Every morning as we read Brown Bear, Brown Bear during our calendar/circle time, Punkin would put these character cards in order on our chart. She really enjoyed telling me the story this way.

This week, Punkin started really wanting to be "in charge" during calendar time. Before, she'd always be interested in what we were doing, but never wanted to "do" it herself. This week, SHE wanted to use the pointer and be the one to point to all the numbers on the calendar as we counted them. She also started singing the songs by herself without my help, and would go on to the next thing herself without me having to guide her. It is so fun to see her catching on to what we are doing!

I also was very excited that she was SOOOO into "school time" this week. She'd sit for 30 minutes or more and do "school" with me. I loved that! I started to plan about 5 or 6 short things to do (including Kumon, vocabulary cards, doing 1 or 2 activities from the day before as review, and 1 or 2 new activities). She just wanted to keep going and going! I've been very impressed this week, too, with her "writing" of capital letters and the numbers 1 and 2. It seems she has just "taken off" in so many areas suddenly. She also "read" me quite a few books this week which made me so proud! (The very predictable, repetitive ones like Brown Bear or I Went Walking, which is very similar to Brown Bear.)

TOT TRAYS

Punkin really enjoyed our "schooltime" this week, but at the same time, she was't into doing Tot Trays very much for some reason. This is the second week in a row that she hasn't been too interested.....

I never caught her doing these lacing cards long enough to capture a picture of it. LOL!

She did do this shadow matching file folder game (from Making Learning Fun) a couple times throughout the week.

I put some counting bears (from my teaching days), matching colored cups, a scoop, and an ice cube tray with matching colored dots in the bottom in one of her trays this week to explore and play with however she chose. She matched the bears to the ice cube tray, and enjoyed scooping the bears from one cup to another, as well as just dumping out the bears again and again.

She also LOVED lining up the bears in a great big long line. She used every single bear. (Though she did get a bit frustrated when some kept falling over due to the fact she was doing it on carpet.)

Putting stickers on the outline of a 2. I also had pages with the letter b on them in the tray, but I didn't get a picture of her doing that one.

I put her Melissa and Doug See and Spell puzzles that started with b in a tray. She only did this once for a very short amount of time. (Though she LOVES doing these with me during schooltime......Who knows....)

I wanted her to make a Button Leaf Garland like I saw on My Montessori Journey by "lacing" the leaves onto the ribbon. But it really was too hard for her little fingers. So, I would put the leaves on and had her "push" them down the ribbon. Her favorite part was wearing it around like a necklace.

And here it is finished on our fireplace mantel. I think it looks quite nice! (I just wish I had made it a tad longer. Oh well.)

TOT LEARNING ACTIVITIES

I got out our lowercase letter flashcards and we played a game where I'd show her a card and say, "Letter a, letter a, what do you see?" Then, she'd flip the card and say, "I see the letter b looking at me" and so on and so forth all the way until we got to z.

I printed out the Looking at Me book from 1+1+1=1. Punkin was able to pretty much "read" it herself the first time we looked at it. We read this every day during our schooltime, and she loved it.

We also did this Heads and Tails matching game quite a few times.

This was such a cute book from Making Learning Fun, and Punkin spent quite a while working on it.

She "read" each page and then colored the picture. This was a book she wanted to "read" every day during our calendar time after we made it .

We used our brown Do-a-Dot marker to make a lowercase b.

Then she used it to mark all the capital and lowercase b's that she found on this page (from HERE). She did GREAT at it! Then, instead of having her write the Bb's in the bottom boxes, I had her find letter B foam stickers to put there instead.

She "built" her capital and lowercase Bb with her Build a Letter pieces for her ABC binder book.

And we used this writing practice sheet for our letter Bb. (I can't remember where it is from.) Punkin did great with the straight lines, and she tried real hard on the curves. (In the picture, I helped her with the first three curves, and she was attempting the last two.) She ended up doing pretty good tracing the capital B's, but the lowercase are still a challenge, which is to be expected.

Punkin also outlined a lowercase b using her counting bears. This was a huge hit.

After she did that a few times, she decided to keep going and fill in the middle, too.

But that wasn't enough.....she just kept going until she used every last bear in the container.

And then, she decided it'd be fun to line them all up!

We also practiced spelling her name using bears. I had her look at the top row and match up her cards on the bottom. We did this a few times and then tried it without the top row to look at. We need to continue working on that part. She can verbally spell her name, but doing it this way is harder. (I didn't include a picture of her really working on it because it showed her real name.)

After reading about this idea HERE, I decided to try it with Punkin. I put some salt in a shallow container and let her draw. I helped her make her Bb's and number 2, but mostly I just let her "draw." She loved this, and sat and did it for about 20 minutes all on her own. These two pictures I took are of times when she "accidentally" made some letters (at least I don't think she knew she was making them intentionally), but then proclaimed, "Mommy, look! I made G (or u or h depending on which picture it was)!"

I had these "honeypots" from when I taught first grade, so I got them out and had Punkin count out the right number of bears for each pot.

We also did bear patterns using these pattern cards from Prekinders. She did amazingly well, although she didn't always put them on in order. She'd fill up all the colored dots in random order, then finish off the pattern at the end. We'll have to work on that technique a bit. :)

She had so much fun doing this! I hid her counting bears in her tub of rainbow rice and had her search for them. When she found one, she set it on her bear graph that I made. I have tried to have her do things like this before with no luck. Guess she just wasn't really ready for it until now. She even wanted to hide them again herself in the rice and do it over. Each time, we counted how many of each color she found and pointed to the line with the most bears.

Then, I helped her color in the boxes with marker. I really needed to help her a lot with this part. She wanted to just color the whole line of boxes, so I had to cover up the ones she shouldn't color with my hand.

We worked on her number 2 counting boxes using bears. She had to find two of each color bear and put one in each box in the row. (Does that make sense?) Then, we counted each color. Next, I gave her one Do-a-Dot marker at a time. She had to find the right spot to make 2 dots. She did great!

And we made our Number 2 Book. Once again, she loved it, and she even traced all the number 2's at the bottom with a brown marker all by herself. (The original idea came from Tots and Me, and you can see more details about our book HERE where we made our Number 1 Book.)

STRUCTURED TIME WITH MOMMY

We played "Pin the Ears on the Bear" ..... on our refrigerator with magnets.

I hid her counting bears all over the main level of our house for her to find.

We bowled in our hallway for quite a while one day...because bowling starts with b! When she got tired of trying to make the ball knock them over, she just got up and came over and knocked them down herself! LOL! But we had a lot of fun!

I found this toddler website (http://www.kneebouncers.com/) on another blog (I can't remember which one now), and all the tot has to do is push any key on the keyboard for it to "play." Punkin is always wanting to push the buttons when we are watching our videos or I am working on the computer, so I thought she'd love this. Boy was I right. She would have done this all day! We did the number game, the ABC game, the shape game, and the music game. Her favorite was the music because she got to "play" her favorite song on the "piano" (Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star).

For our Mommy time this week, we also went on a couple walks and went to the park since it got so warm outside.

STRUCTURED PLAY ACTIVITIES

Using her brown Do-a-Dot markers again to make her "B is for Brown Bear" page. She loves her Do-a-Dots these days and does a super job marking only in the circles.

Painting in her Care Bears paint with water book.

Using colored craft sticks to put in matching playdough balls. This lasted for a little while, and then she started using them as knives to cut the playdough balls into tiny pieces.

Working on some of her favorite puzzles.

Well, that was our week. We didn't get to do any craft projects, because we spent one afternoon at a friend's house, and Saturday we went to a cross country meet at the park and then to a band parade competition (which she LOVED). Also, if you notice her clothes....yes, this was all in the same week. It ran the gamut from needing longsleeves and even a sweatshirt to short sleeves and a tank top one day. What crazy weather, huh?

To see more Tots in action, go to 1+1+1=1!