We have had a wonderful Tot School couple of Christmas weeks. John learned how to stamp and color with crayons without eating them! He is also really getting the hang of making creations with his Lego Duplos — thanks to his huge garage sale collections as well as some Christmas gifts from grandma! So proud of my boy.
We use this schedule – I love to add things as we go throughout the week, to prove to myself that we are learning through play! Homeschool Creations’ great Preschool Schedule. We also I have decided to have six tot trays out for the week and I try to be intentional with activities that correlate with each of these four categories: Language, Sensory, Mathematics, Practical Life. We also have a Craft of the Week every Friday!
Trays:
Our Tot Trays are out on our shelf all week. John can play with them at any time, but sometimes I’ll take one out intentionally for us to play together. A candy cane lacing card, tonging red and green legos into an ice cube tray, a red and green sensory bin pompom magnets with Nativity pages, stacking tower, and Lauri pegs and shapes sorter.
Our Activities:
Language
Our book for the week was Silent Night, a beautiful book based on the song; we sang this together and he fell asleep to it on Christmas Eve (= heaven). John loves reading about the Christmas story and we have many that we have read throughout this month (and the rest of the year!) We make sure to read this at least 3 times a day for Five Days in a Row.
The mini book of the week came from 1plus1plus1equals1 again. I eat my vegetables! (under Letter D). He really does love vegetables and we’ve never had a problem with him eating them, so this book has been fun.
We did more coloring this week. This week with crayons — especially since he is understanding (finally!) not to eat them.
And we also learned how to stamp. Here he is stamping some barn animals onto his Nativity page from Just Color! by Carisa.
Sensory
Our trays were pretty senory-oriented (above), along with daily fun in the snow!!!
We also made gluten-free play-dough and this boy played at the table for TWO HOURS!
Mathematics
Legos were the block of choice this week. I couldn’t believe how well he has learned to fit these together. He made towers, more skid loaders, and baked them in the oven (i.e. underneath the couch).
Here’s John with his Lauri shape and color sorter.
And here is John playing with some Discovery Toys that my aunt bought for her grandson. Here are Sam and John playing together.
Practical Life
We did some more cooking this week. Both with real and his fake food. He loves to wear his apron that his aunt bought for him.
And he loved helping to make our gluten-free Christmas pumpkin pie!
I have to remember that every moment is a teaching moment!
Craft of the Week:
We made this adorable popsicle stick, paper, and felt baby Jesus. We found this at Crafty Mama Blog.
**I plan on beginning 1plus1plus1equals1’s Tot School ABC’s at the start of the new year. My son already knows some of his capital letters and gets excited when he sees them in books, so I think he’ll be ready! I’m going to couple this with Songs for Saplings cd and Carisa’s coordinating ABC Bible Verses. We (okay, I) are [am] so excited!
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