BIG Tot School: Transportation

This will be Sophie's last "BIG Tot School" post.  We are finishing up the Fruit of the Spirit Curriculum and will start our new curriculum next week.

Bible and Character

This week was all about self-control - a big one in this three year old's life right now (and her momma's for that matter!). Using a transportation theme we talked about having self control using a traffic light - STOP-THINK-OBEY. With Miles, we made traffic lights to remind ourselves.  She also made and ate a traffic light snack made with graham crackers, icing, and M&Ms.

We also read and played about Joshua and the Battle of Jericho.  This (oldie but a goodie) video is one of her favorites!  For our memory work, we continued working on Psalm 23.

Literacy Activities

Name Train. Sophie really enjoyed making this name train craft, and it turned out really cute! I wrote the letters in her name onto the cars with pencil, and she traced them and put them in order.

Uppercase/Lowercase Letter Sort. Using our letter cards, Sophie sorted uppercase and lowercase letters.

Do-a-Dot Activities. From Homeschool Creation's Transportation Preschool Pack.

Math Activities

Number Train. Putting the cars in numerical order.  From Homeschool Creation's Transportation Preschool Pack.

Three Piece Vehicle Puzzles. From Homeschool Creation's Transportation Preschool Pack.

Transportation Pattern Block Mats. Sophie is really enjoying these pattern block mats from PreKinders.

Dump Truck Counting Mat. From Measured Mom.

Other Activities

Will It Roll? I gathered a variety of small objects, and Sophie experimented to see what would roll down a ramp.  We got to talk about why some things roll and others don't.  She really enjoyed this, and it reminded me that I really need to add some more science things into our plans - she really loves when we do!  PreKinders had a printable recording sheet where Sophie drew one item that rolled and one that didn't.  

We also played with some transportation stamps and did some cutting practice. We had planned on doing some painting with toy car wheels followed by a "car wash" (with both kids!), but honestly, I chickened out of the mess. We had a rough week and I just wasn't up for it!  But we will try it again another week...I wish I hadn't bailed.

Linking up at 1+1+1=1 Tot School Gathering Place and Teaching Mama's Everything Early Childhood.

BIG Tot School: Farm Theme

This week in our Fruit of the Spirit Curriculum we were talking about Gentleness and learning Psalm 23.  This one will take us a few weeks to learn, but Sophie is already doing a great job.  We also played "Follow the Shepherd" and talked about how we follow God like sheep follow a shepherd.

Literacy Actvities

Emergent Reader.  We used this super simple emergent reader from Measured Mom and Sophie loved it!  Her face after she read it all by herself is priceless! She was so proud. (The text says, "A chicken." with a picture of a chicken, for example - obviously she was not reading the animal words but was using the picture, but it was a perfect first step for her!)

Initial Sounds Farm Fences.  This idea from Stir the Wonder was a hit!  I had put the popsicle sticks together ahead of time, but Sophie helped me "build" the fences by making playdoh balls and standing them up.  (Playdoh is the way to my child's heart...).  Then she put a letter in front of each fence, and matched up the farm animals to their correct "home" using the initial sounds in their names. She played this multiple times independently after our first time together.  

Farm Poem. We wrote a farm poem together using the "I am" model from PreKinders. To draw the pig, I drew one with simple shapes one step at a time, and she tried to mimic my drawing.  I thought her pig turned out great!

Rhyming Cards. From This Reading Mama's Farm Printable Pack

Spelling Animal Names. From This Reading Mama's Farm Printable Pack.  This was one of the first times I really encouraged Sophie to match the letters from left to right (rather than just matching up letters as she found them).  It took several gentle reminders, but I think it is important I start guiding her that way as we move past just letter matching into forming words!

Math Activities

Farm Animal Pattern Blocks.

Measuring Sensory Bin. This was the world's simplest sensory bin, but Sophie spent HOURS playing in it this week.  No exaggeration.  It started as a tin full of popcorn kernels and some measuring cups, and eventually some Toob farm animals made it in there.  We talked about how the bigger cups could hold more than the little cups and how it took multiple little cups to fill a big cup. Easy peasy, but the favorite activity by far.  I gotta do this more often!

Feed the Pig Counting Activity. Sophie was so meticulous to get the correct number of kernels right in the bucket "so they didn't get a tummy ache."

Roll and Count Farm. From 3 Dinosaurs Farm Printable Pack. 

Other Activities

Animal Matching. We matched our Toob animals with the pictures, and on another day matched the mother animal to the baby animals using these cards from This Reading Mama's Farm Printable Pack.

Shadow Matching. From Gift of Curiosity. This was the most challenging shadow match she had done, as some of the animals had similar shapes and were in similar positions. I was pleased that it actually stretched her a little bit and gave us a chance to describe what we saw in the pictures.

The week wouldn't have been complete without a visit from our neighborhood ducks. These little guys were born this Spring and have made themselves at home on our street. They have obviously been fed a lot, because they are not scared of people at all.  They followed us up to our porch!  It was actually a little bit eerie, to tell the truth! But of course the kids love it! 

Linking up at 1+1+1=1 Tot School Gathering Place and Teaching Mama's Everything Early Childhood.

BIG Tot School: Rainbows

We are still roughly following the themes of the Fruit of the Spirit Curriculum, but honestly, I am only doing a few of the activities.  The curriculum is fabulous, and I highly recommend it, but I wish I had started it with Sophie a bit earlier.  She's just ready for more! We'll finish out with a couple more of the themes I think she will enjoy and then we will move on.  I'll share more about our plans for the fall soon!

This week was all about Rainbows and God's Faithfulness.  Our story was Noah's Ark, and we basically just read it and talked about God's faithfulness to Noah and how the rainbow showed us his promise.

Memory Work
- Fruit of the Spirit, Galatians 5:22-23.  She has this one nailed and gets excited to say it each morning during our morning board time!
- Ps. 56:3 (portion) was our new verse for the week.  "...in God I trust; I shall not be afraid..."
- Colors of the Rainbow (ROYGBIV) - I found this great video and song to help teach the colors.  We've been singing it all night! (She even requests it as her bedtime song).

Literacy Activities

Watercolor Letters and Circles. I made a page with her name in rainbow bubble letters for her to paint as well as a page with circles in rainbow colors to match.  She loves tracing letters especially, so this was a hit.

Print Awareness Activity. I don't have any pictures of this great activity from This Reading Mama's Rainy Day PreK Pack, but it was really good (and simple!).  Basically, she painted a rainbow (pretty much her favorite thing ever) and cut apart the words "I see a beautiful rainbow".  Then I mixed them up and as I read them to her, she rearranged them back into the right sentence and glued it down as a caption for her picture.  This was a really great listening exercise for her, as well as starting to see how words go together to make sentences.

Rainbow Rice Name Hunt.  I shared about this great activity on Activity Mom.  This was one Sophie pulled out every single day! 

Syllable Count and Clip.  Also from the Rainy Day PreK Pack, this was Sophie's first attempt at breaking words into syllables.  I didn't know what to expect, but after a few examples she was doing well.  It is definitely a skill we need to keep working on in the future, but she seemed to enjoy clapping to count the syllables in each word and then meticulously placing the clip perfectly on top of the correct number.  This poor perfectionist comes by it honestly...

Initial Sound Matching. From the Rainy Day PreK Pack.

We also did several other printables from the Rainy Day PreK Pack, including rhyming, "spelling" words with do-a-dots, and pre-writing tracing sheets.  Sophie really loves her activities, and so do I! (Not paid to say that or anything...just seriously like them!)

Math Activities

Rainbow Pom Pom Sorting/Fine Motor.  Using a set of tweezers, she sorted the pom poms into the correct cup.  The tweezers were just the right challenge for her!

Graphing with Skittles. Even though she really had no concept of graphing, she enjoyed this sorting and counting activity mostly because she got to eat the Skittles at the end! Get the printable here from Mom on the Move.

How Many Raindrops? This counting activity was from the Rainy Day PreK Pack.  Sophie would choose a card and then place that many glass beads ("rain drops") onto the mat.  Then, she would trace the number with a dry erase marker.  She really enjoyed this one and wanted to play for a long time.

Other Activities

Fizzy Rainbows.  This was, without a doubt, the star of the show this week.  I gave her a pan of baking soda and cups with colored vinegar and she used an eye dropper to drop the vinegar on the baking soda, causing a fizzy reaction.  She sat for almost 45 minutes doing this!  This will definitely be a repeat activity! (And a great one to keep her occupied if I need to do something like make dinner!)

Rainbow Do-a-Dot. From Gift of Curiosity. 

Sophie is wanting to do Tot School all day long at this point.  This week, she worked through all of the activities I had for the week by Wednesday morning.  I'm going to have to figure out a system that gives her plenty to do, but also doesn't require me to plan 800 things for the course of a week!  I'm trying out something new this next week, so we'll see how it works!

Linking up at 1+1+1=1 Tot School Gathering Place and Teaching Mama's Everything Early Childhood.