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.