Tot School – Letter P
This week was focused on P is for Pig! We had lots of “pig” exploration including going to the fair to see real pigs! As the days went by, we also realized that we encountered so many “P words!”
We did not do Tot Trays this week. They no longer work for my boy. I am in the process of re-vamping our Tot School time, both to meet his needs and also to adapt to our time and space constraints — having an active little one around is tough when it comes to hands-on learning activities! Also, I have been reading about classical education and am being drawn to many styles of teaching, so I want to define what I believe and I hope to write a post about it soon. Montessori, Classical, and Charlotte Mason.
Here is my post: What is Classical Education?
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Bible verse of the week:
Be patient with everyone. 1 Thessalonians 5:13
This verse was so important to learn! We talked about being patient and we also sang the song from my childhood, “Have patience, have patience, don’t be in such a hurry!” Remember that one!?
We use the ABC bible verse songs from Songs for Saplings. These songs are so catchy, beautiful, not “children’s music annoying,” and I find myself singing and learning and memorizing the bible verses along with John. Carisa at 1plus1plus1equals1 has made coordinating ABC Bible Verses posters which have really helped with his memorization as well.
Book of the week:
I can not say enough about these amazing little books. The photographs are lovely and the text is beautiful and eloquent and simple. My son loves them and I cannot recommend these more highly. We read these at least three times every day.
Little Book of the Week:
We made this adorable Farm book from This Reading Mama. He loved cutting and pasting his animals onto the pages with his spring scissors.
Letter of the week: Pp
We put up our bible verse, an Oo small poster from Tot School, a Oo sign from my Kindergarten teaching days, and these wonderful Montessori sandpaper letters. We put these up on the wall so he could feel the letter every morning and trace his fingers on the letter. He noticed that the little p goes below the big P, which was very exciting :)
We also collected different pigs from around the house and put them in our learning bin, along with our playdough mats and other materials. Including this pink piggy bank and some Little People pigs as well.
We focused on a lot of hands-on alphabet activities, but I got one of him working with a pig worksheet that I created for him. I just used a pig picture and simply added my own “P”s on it! Woh-lah! Do-A-Dot marker sheets :)
P is for Pig stamping with our cute farm animal stamps.
And here is all of his work on his clothesline in his room: He drew a circle around the P I wrote on the paper, and added stickers to a big P, and our P is for Pig craft is below.
Matching lowercase with uppercase letters.
We got these puzzles as a gift and John got the hang of putting them together.
I made this schedule to organize our Tot School time, according to the Montessori principles: Language, Mathematics, Sensory, and Practical Life.
You can read my post about it and download the free Tot School Planning Form here.
I made this adorable P is for Pig pancake and my son refused to eat it. So I ate it. :)
We had the opportunity to go to the fair and see some live pigs — smelly, but cute. This was also so exciting because we got to meet eight baby piglets that were just born that morning! So sweet! It was so amazing to watch this big mama’s little ones as they all fought to nurse ♥
We also worked with play dough with Carisa’s Animal ABC playdough mats. Some of our tools are Melissa & Doug and I loved Carisa’s post on her busy play dough box!
We also ate popsicles and popcorn, but no pics :)
And fun with Mr. Potato Head:
We played a fun Piggy Bank game with Pennies. I got my template from PreKinders. He tossed his little die and added 1, 2, or 3 more pennies. This was great number recognition practice, as he still is only working on perfecting knowing 1 through 5. He loved this and we will definitely do this again!
Cutting practice with his spring scissors:
We’ve done several practical life activities these last few weeks. Click on the below pictures to get to the post:
Check out my Tot School Posts:
Check out my posts on the Early Literacy Stages:
This post is linked up at the Tot School Gathering Place and check out my Link-Up page for the other wonderful places I may link this blog post!
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So many great ideas! Thanks for sharing!
Thanks Rachel!!
Am loving all the variety on learning P. Yum pancakes my favourite.
I think it is great that you are adapting the learning with the development.
Thanks, it has been so much better to not “fight” what he needs!
It looks like you have a fun week! I can’t wait to see what you do for tot school without the tot trays. My son loves tot trays, but new ideas are always helpful.
Thanks Kirstylee! They were beginning to just be “play toys” for both him and his sister. We still do some of the activities, but I am just presenting them one at a time — this is also less stressful for me — I don’t have to “do it all” :)
Wow, you got so many good activities into one week!
Thanks, Kaysha — we really spend about two weeks on each letter now :)