Tot School – Letter B

We are excited to complete our second week of alphabet Tot School!  Last week we worked on Bb!

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This schedule keeps things ordered.  I’ve type-written in what I want to do as far as language, and I make sure that I also fit in at least an additional sensory and practical life activity per week.  I use Homeschool Creations’ great Preschool Schedule. 

Every week, I put out six tot trays out for the week and I try to be intentional with activities  that correlate with each of the four Montessori learning categories: Language, Sensory, Mathematics, Practical Life.  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.  This week, we had a Lego Farm Match Up, a ball sensory bin, a bean bag toss game, letter B from the Lauri A-Z Pegboard Stacker set, cute new stacker I found at Ikea, and the Farm felt book from Betty Lukens.

Bible verse of the week:

Jesus says, “I am the bread of life.” John 6:48

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.  

Letter of the week: Bb

Our curriculum consists of 1plus1plus1equals1‘s Tot School ABC’s.  We don’t do everything that she includes in her packs, but we do most. We couple this with a couple of pages from Royal Baloo‘s Terrific Truck ABCs.  John loves everything truck, so these are perfect!

Using dry erase markers on heavy duty sheet protectors. We have these thin tipped markers.

Stamping the letter B into the Ball picture.

We hang our pictures up on a clothesline above his bed.  He loves looking at them and showing everyone who comes in, “I did that!”

Here is John with his magnet pages for the week from Making Learning Fun and Homeschool Creations.  We made these cute pom pom magnets.

And his playdough mat with his gluten-free play dough on 1plus1plus1equals1′s awesome Animal ABC Playdough Mats!

And our vocabulary from Carisa’s Tot School ABCs was outdoor fun.  John loved learning about the scooter and the trampoline.

I had a gift card to Toys R Us, and this week I bought a few more beloved Melissa & Doug learning activities.  He looooves this little puzzle.  I gave him Aa and Bb and after a few tries, he got the hang of it!  I’ll put this in his learning basket every week (with “this week’s” and “last week’s” letters).

Book of the week:

I love the Five in a Row curriculum, the premise is that you should read the same children’s book to your child for five days in a row, all week.  We have Before Five in a Row, and are reading through some of the books in there and also picking books according to our season, theme, or interest. Our book this week was a B book, Blueberries for Sal.  I will try to coordinate the book with our letter each week.  Homeschool Creations andHomeschool Share have many printable resources for the Five in a Row series.  Other wonderful moms have provided literature-based printables on their sites too.  I am taking full advantage.

We ate blueberries in honor of Blueberries for Sal.  (The frozen ones are just as good to little ones!  He loved them.)

Mini book of the week:

Our mini book this week was a wonderful printable book from Homeschool Creations.  It corresponds with our book of the week.  It focuses on directions.  “Little bear is next to the tree, on top of the rock”, etc.  I put velcro dots on the back of the cut out little bears and he loved putting them onto their corresponding page.

We worked with Lego Duplos and pattern blocks this week, but I didn’t get any pics — we were having too much fun!

Here he is with a sequence of balls, 1, 2, 3.  He is getting the hang of it.  This is mostly for recognition of 1, 2, 3 at this point.

Sorting his laminated bulldozer pictures. We also put magnets on the back and put them on the refrigerator.

Our Bb collection on our refrigerator.  I added the size sort bulldozers from Royal Baloo and the Bb puzzle from 1+1+1=1 and some butterflies too.  John loves this and was moving his letters and objects around all week.  We also heard, “B says bbb, B says bbb, every letter makes a sound, B says bbb,” about 200 times this week! (From his Leapfrog Magnetic letters — I found this at a garage sale, but I would have paid full price!)

I love that the Tot School ABCs curriculum already has a lot of sensory elements.  Pom pom magnets, play dough, using different writing materials.  We try to be intentional with at least one or two additional sensory activities per week as well.

Enjoying a ball sensory bin (laundry basket).  He threw them out, collected them, and threw them again.

Sensory snow time!  Thankfully, I thought to do this before all the snow melted the next day.  Unfortunately, when I went outside to grab some with a spoon, it was pretty icy from melting.  Next time, I’ll get some freshly fallen snow.

I don’t think John seemed to care that the snow wasn’t perfect.  He loved playing with snow in the middle of the kitchen floor.  I set him up with some bowls, funnels, empty spice jars, measuring spoons, and pots and pans.  He played for a good 30 minutes.  But then he started throwing, so it had to end.  I think that there were too many tools to work with and next time I’ll just put two tools out.  Maybe that will focus him a bit more.

Adding snow to his spice jar.

Measuring the snow with his little measuring spoons.

John has cut cucumbers before, but this is his first time with a banana!  He love love loved this.

Helping make gluten-free pumpkin bread. This was delicious! (right now, we buy the 1:1 gluten-free flour mix, but I want to make it myself because that is getting expensive.)

Sweet May getting some light reading in.

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