S IS FOR SPIDER

~Punkin is 29 months old.~

Despite a few setbacks like me deciding to slice open my finger while cutting canteloupe and some unplanned errands, we still got a lot done thanks to Punkin's eagerness to do "schooltime." She is to the point now where she can sit and "do school" for up to 30 minutes at a time sometimes. I just watch and see when she is starting to get bored or distracted.

Theme: Spider

Letter: Ss

Number: 7

Shape: Octagon

Color: Black

Videos:
Animated Itsy Bitsy Spider Song
Itsy Bitsy Spider Song with book pictures
The Very Busy Spider (adapted)
The Letter S (Sesame Street)
The Letter S Song

TOT TRAYS

Sifting spiders out of rice. I got the idea from Counting Coconuts. However, the slots on my spoon weren't quite big enough, so it didn't quite work as I had planned. (I may try salt or sugar next time?) But it was still Punkin's favorite tot tray all week. She just ended up using her hands to get the spiders or using the spoon to scoop rice.

The next day, though, I got smart and put a red towel under her as she did it so it was easier to see and clean up the rice that ended up on the floor!

"Threading" spider rings onto a pipe cleaner to make a bracelet. This was another favorite.

Lacing to make a spider web. Not a big favorite. She only did it once. But I still throw lacing practice in every now and then, even though she's not a huge fan, and she IS getting pretty good at the skill.

Using tweezers to pick up spider rings and put them in her little tin. For the first time she seemed to grasp how to use the tweezers! Yea!

Magnet pages using magnetic pom poms. (I got this one from HERE.)

LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Hunting for all the Ss letters on the page. Then I wrote in some S letters in the boxes at the bottom for her to trace.

Our S letter building puzzles. This time she cracked me up because she decided that the top pieces of each letter were the "jammie tops" and the bottom pieces were the "jammie pants." LOL!

She amazed me with how well she wrote her letter Ss. (We practice it in the air and with our fingers tracing the letter every morning during our calendar time, and she is getting much better at transferring that now to actual writing. Also, I think the Kumon books are helping, too.)

Making our S collage page for our ABC binder.

We played "Smack the Spider." I saw the idea HERE at 2 Teaching Mommies, and knew Punkin would enjoy this. I laid out a few of the spider letters and told her a sound. She had to find the matching letter on a spider and "smack" it. She is getting so good at the sound / letter correlation!

Again, working on sounds, I gave Punkin THIS PAGE from Making Learning Fun and some black paint with an unsharpened pencil. I called out a sound and she used the eraser of the pencil dipped in paint to mark the letter that makes that sound.

We did this spelling puzzle / letter matching activity from 2 Teaching Mommies every day. She loved to see the picture come together as she matched the letters and spelled "spider."

We made this book together as we talked about position words. Each page tells where to glue the spider (i.e. above the bat, under the gate, etc.). Then, I had her go back and color each page. We read it together every day, and by the end of the week, she could "read" it herself.

Punkin sorted spider rings by color.

Then, we made patterns with them.

I had her draw a web with chalk onto paper, then we rolled the dice to see how many spiders to count onto the web. Since we do this type of activity almost every week with each new theme, she is getting much better at knowing when to stop adding more objects.

We attempted to play this "Get Me to My Web" dice game from 2 Teaching Mommies. She was NOT into it though, and about halfway through, she ended up just putting her spider on the web and exclaimed, "I done!"

And we made our Number 7 Book that you can download HERE.

CRAFTS / PROJECTS

We made a "Spotty Spider" inspired by No Time For Flashcards.

And we made THIS spider web art project from 2 Teaching Mommies. While Punkin "colored" the fence, I made a web out of hot glue on the paper and when it dried, Punkin painted over it. She kept saying, "It's bumpy." We didn't have finger paints, so I had to use tagboard and regular paint, and I had her just paint it with a brush.

The next day when the blue paint dried, we added the fence posts and the pom pom spider.

MISC. SPIDER ACTIVITIES

I hid her spider rings all over the living room and she had to go hunt for them. She LOVED this!

She stuck her spiders in her playdough.

And had fun hunting for them in soapy water and washing them off.

Coloring a spider page from HERE.

OTHER RANDOM STUFF

Punkin got this Dora water pen / coloring set for Christmas and asks to play with it every day. I love it because it seems like paint to her but is NO mess at all! It's a good thing to keep her occupied while I make lunch or when we are in the car.

She is REALLY into building "big houses" as she calls them.

She helped me bake a cake one day, and for the first time, I let her lick the beaters. (The whole raw egg thing scares me, but every kid has to experience licking the beaters at some point, right?)

Well, that was our week about spiders (even though we are no where near Halloween!) To see what other tots were up to this past week, check out 1+1+1=1.

S IS FOR SNOWMAN

~Punkin is 29 months.~

Well, we finally were able to get back into the swing of things and get back into our routine. We had such a productive and fun filled week. I love the holidays, but it sure is nice when things calm down again and life can get back to normal.

Theme: Snowman
Letter: Ss
Number: 7
Shape: Hexagon
Color: White
Videos:

Mr. Snowman Song

Funny snowman animation

Five Chilly Snowman poem

Five Little Snowmen song

Let's Build a Snowman

Build a Snowman song
Books:

TOT TRAYS

I made things easy on myself this first week back into things.... I used mostly new educational toys that Punkin got for Christmas as our tot trays.

Sort and Snap Color Match puzzles from Melissa and Doug.

Unsharpened pencils and pencil top erasers....great fine motor work. She liked to pretend they were "lollipops."

Apple Pie cutting set from Melissa and Doug.

Clock shape sorter by Melissa and Doug.

Magneatos....which she mostly used as "microphones" to sing with at the top of her lungs. (She LOVES music and LOVES to sing!)

TOT SCHOOL LEARNING ACTIVITIES

Reviewing some old Kumon tracing pages since it's been awhile...

Pulling things out of a bag that start with our letter of the week (s). She had to tell me what it was, the sound it started with, and then run and put it on her toybox before she could pull out another object. She enjoyed this a lot.

Using "snowballs" (marshmallows) to trace the letter s. (I got the printout from one of the winter fun packs on Itsy Bitsy Learners.)

Sorting capital and lowercase Ss. Typically, the letters that look the same but are just different sizes have been tricky for her, but she did a great job this time! You can download this printable that I made HERE.

I printed this cute snowman alphabet from Carisa's Winter Tot Pack. I said a sound and Punkin had to put a "snowball" (magnetic white pom pom) on the correct letter that makes that sound.

Again, to work a bit more on sounds, I printed a few of these sound matching cards from Making Learning Fun. She had to match the hats to the snowmen with the matching picture that made that sound. I only gave her three cards / hats at a time so she wouldn't be overwhelmed.

We used the snowman letter spelling page from COAH to practice spelling "snowman" everyday and matching capital to lowercase letters.

Punkin read this little "Snowflakes in Shapes" book everyday that I printed from Carisa's Winter Tot Pack as well.

Punkin worked on lining up these snowmen in number order. She is getting so much better at this skill and can do it mostly on her own without my help. She caught on herself that if she got the numbers in the right order, the mittens matched. This was also printed from Itsy Bitsy Learners.

Punkin had to pick a number, put it on the box on her page, and then count out that many "snowballs" (marshmallows) to put on her page. She was always careful each time to give some to the boy and some to the girl, so we talked each time about how 4 for the boy and 3 for the girl (or whatever combo she made for that number) made 7 snowballs in all (or whatever the number was.) I don't think she really got part, but I think it's still good to start introducing concepts like that early on and keep coming back to them. This page was also from the fun pack at Itsy Bitsy Learners.

I found this fun idea at Two Feet High and Rising. (Don't know how I actually forgot to take a picture of us doing it! GASP!) I put a small cup covered with brown paper inside our snowman mug to make it look like hot chocolate. Then, at first she rolled the dice and simply put in that many marshmallows. Then, after awhile, we took turns rolling and adding or taking away (eating) marshmallows to make the number on the dice. So fun! (Of course, she got to eat marshmallows, so of course she had fun!)

Doing a quick snow pattern page from COAH.

Using her new Melissa and Doug magnetic pattern block set to make snowmen (using a printable from Prekinders.)

Later in the week, she pulled out her pattern blocks on her own and declared she was making snowmen....

Finding matching buttons for the snowman....from Making Learning Fun.

ART / CRAFTS

Making a snowman out of hexagons and other shapes. I actually set out all the shape pieces and hold her which ones to find and glue on. She drew on the eyes and face all by herself with a marker, and then, she used a cotton ball dipped in white paint to add snow to the picture.

She was so proud of her snowman and couldn't wait to show her daddy when he came home that night.

And what is a snowman theme without making a snowman out of cotton balls? She LOVED this activity!

I let her tell me what the snowman needed (like in the Mr. Snowman Song video above) and then she picked what to use from materials I had set out.

Punkin painted a toilet paper tube white one day after her nap, and then a couple days later, we turned it into a snowman...

I got this idea from Making Learning Fun. She needed more help with this one, but didn't he turn out cute?

EXTRA FUN WITH MOMMY

Having a "snowball fight" with marshmallows. She loved throwing "snowballs" at me!

Then, she worked hard at throwing them into the bowl. We did this 2 or 3 days this week.

Making snowflake tortillas. YUM! (I got the idea from HERE.)

OTHER ACTIVITIES / MISC.

Using magnetic pom poms to make snow theme pictures.

Playing with bubbles (snow) in the sink.

I made this breakfast snowman one morning for her, thinking I'd help her eat it. Nope. She ate it ALL herself!

And this snowman sandwich was our lunch one day.

And in honor of our snowman week, she had to wear around these glasses one day that I found at Dollar Tree.

We had so much fun this week, and I hope next week can be just as productive. To see what other tots were up to, visit 1+1+1=1.