Farm

Yeah, so it looks like its been a month since I have updated this blog. Yikes. Honestly, we really haven't done a whole lot of "school" lately. Texas life is very different from Chicago life. And when we don't have to be cooped up inside hiding out from the snow, "school" gets put on hold. We still are enjoying park days, story times, and play dates out the wazoodle. But...I can't believe I am even typing this... its been a little chilly here. Ha! Chicago had snow this week, btw. So we have been indoors, at least in the mornings, and then after nap we head to the park once its warmed up some. But we have a great neighborhood and meet new friends every park visit. Love it. But Tot School has fallen on the wayside and I can't seem to get my groove back. So baby steps back into some sort of routine just in time for the holidays to come and mess up the new routine. Sound about right?!?!?

But in our efforts to get back going we started a farm unit! It has been FUN. The girls are enjoying all the projects and activities. And Hollis has picked up a few new words....cow, moo, oink! Marin has practiced letter recognition with all her farm animal words and color words and is learning the names of mommy animals and baby animals.

Here are a few of the activities we have done...

 Hollis has LOVED this farm puzzle. She does it every time we get together for school. We practice saying the names of each animal and their animal sound as she puts the puzzle piece in.

This was a idea I got online. I made a barn door and taped it to our magnetic board. I would hide one of  our farm animal magnets behind the door and sing..."Who is in the barn? Who is in the barn? Hi Ho the Dairy-O. Who is in the barn?" And then they opened the door to find the animal. So.Very. Simple. And they ask for it all the time. Think its hilarious.

Click here to see A little video of Hollis....


We made a little Farm Collage. Each farm has a barn and a pig with "mud", sheep with cotton ball wool, rooster with feathers, horse with a yarn tale, and a cow with black spots (he's not in the picture but we did a cow too).

 Painting their mud on the pigs...

Instead of a letter of the week, I decided to do a pocket chart word work type activity. I put different farm animal word cards up and gave Marin the letter tiles for each word. She said the letters and then put them in the right order to build a word. I got a cute video of this but, of course, I am having tech trouble and get it to upload. Argh.

This is a Montessori type activity. I found mother/baby farm animal cards online. I made two copies of them and cut one pair up so she could match mom to baby. She will say the correct name for the animals if I say it first but most of the time on her own she says "Momma pig and Baby pig", etc. But she does like the real pictures of the animals.

This one was really for Hollis to help her learn colors but she had ZERO interest in it. Marin, on the other hand, loved it. She matched the color barns to the correct color word.

We read lots of books about farms, farm animals....The Big Red Barn, Farm Life, Pink Wiggly Pig, Barnyard Dance, Bark, George, and more...

We will wrap this little unit up by making a turkey for a farm which will leads us right into Thanksgiving. :o)

Also, another thing that has been keeping me busy is my new little store on Teachers Pay Teachers! I started writing some lessons and units and have been selling them online. I am having a blast doing it all! But the store is called Giggles and Glue Sticks (like this blog...) and you can take a look HERE if you are interested.

Tot School: Week 4-ish

So....we have really been enjoying the weather and parks and play dates. Tot school has unfortunately fallen behind. But this week included some reorganization and a new set up and we did get a few projects in.

Letter of the Week: Dd

Color of the Week: Orange 

Number of the Week: 4

Shape of the Week: Diamond

I've changed things up a bit.
The baskets are gone and the bins are in. I changed it because the baskets were
just too cluttered for my brain. (But apparently all the other clutter doesn't bother me too much. Argh.)
But I had one bin already and found the other one at a yard sale. So it worked it out. I put there little activities in the drawers. The magazine holders hold books we read for the week. 

This week we did a lot of pumpkin activities. The pumpkin patch close to our house has story hour and sing along times and we just kept the pumpkin theme rolling. 

 Painting our pumpkins....

Marin did a pumpkin number puzzle. 

Hollis glued pumpkins on her paper. 

For the letter Dd, they put beads on the duck. 

Marin's pumpkin sort. She did such a great job sorting her pumpkins!

 I made a little Pumpkin Unit for Teachers Pay Teachers. Here is the pumpkin/candy corn measuring activity from the packet. 

Hollis really didn't do much measuring. 

 Marin, on the other hand, got the hang of it quickly and loved lining them up and counting them. 

And in case you are curious...you can click HERE to check out the unit. 

Tot School: Week 3

So we did a LOT of traveling in September. A LOT. So week 3 lasted about three weeks and was a bit sporadic. But we did get a little done.

Week Three:

Letter : Cc

Number: 3

Shape: Circle

Color: Yellow

 Our baskets:

1. Cloud Dough Cupcakes
2. Cat and Cupcakes Game
3. Color Cube Game
4. Tangram puzzles Cat and Cow

Our Board

Doing their yellow circle in their Handy Dandy Notebooks. :o)

A cute little cupcake poem and game. We read the book, they matched the cupcakes, then fed them to the cat.
Hollis loved this one.
I would find the cat and the cupcakes all around the house. :o)

Our color cube game was a Christmas present last year. They rolled the cube and did the activity on the correct colored card. There are several cards in each color but I chose a set few to make it a little less "chaotic".
This was a Marin favorite.
You can find the game here. 

Coud dough cupcakes.
This was by far the favorite activity of both girls.
So very messy but so very fun. 

4 cups flour
1 cup vegetable oil
1 crushed up leftover red piece of sidewalk chalk

It feels like sand but can be molded any way you want. 

We read My Car and used a car to paint over the letter Cc.
Loved this one. Turned out really cute. 

This was out for a while...but they played with corn in the table. 

We made cupcakes with sprinkles. 

Then we watched our caterpillars form a chrysalis....

 And then watched our new butterflies fly around!

Setting our butterflies free.
Hollis was real into it, can't you tell?? :o) 

Tot School: Week 2

Letter of the Week: Bb

Number: 2

Shape: Triangle

Color: Brown

Book: The Very Hungry Caterpillar

My mom came for a visit this week which kinda disrupted our little "school" routine. You see, Maye Maye, is one of their most favorite toys. So they played. And played, And played. 

But we did squeeze in some little activities as well....

Our baskets:

1. Stringing Beads
2. Playing alphabet Bingo
3. Letter Bb I Spy Game
4. Counting with Buttons

They LOVED the buttons and the Letter Bb game. 

But they had no interest in the beads or Bingo at all. 

She got a new backpack. Never takes it off.

 Our Board:

Our Activities:

This one was mainly for Hollis....Bb/Butterfly magnet pages.
But Marin loved them too. 

 Balloon painting on the Letter Bb. 

"I Spy With my Little Eyes" game with toilet paper roll binoculars and Bb toys. I would name an item and they had to find them.
This was another Hollis game but Marin loved the "binoculars". Hollis loved it too though.
She would say baby, bear, bus, and ball. Butterfly and block were a little tricky for her. 

 Painted wooden butterfly masks. This project took a total of 5 seconds it seemed. :o) 

A little cut and glue Butterfly Life Cycle project. 

Another cut and sort the Bb pictures...

The Very Hungry Caterpillar

 We retold the story with our little sock puppet and paper plates. 

I got a cute video of Marin retelling the story. 

And then we watch our caterpillar formed their chrysalis. One caterpillar didn't make it. 

 But the other three are now safely in the butterfly net!