Tot School Birthday Activities

Somehow this amazing, energetic, headstrong little boy I dreamed of for so long, is now two years old! I decided to take the week off from our Shape Themes and do a light birthday theme for the week.

I started with some birthday and party related books on his shelf. A couple are Meet the Sight Words readers, If you Give a Pig a Party, If You Give a Cat a Cupcake, a Non-Fiction Sight words reader, an Amazing Animals reader and Happy Pig Day.

He was thrilled to come down and see the Happy Birthday Sign (actually the day before his birthday, for Daddy's birthday).

I made a sensory bin with multicolored rice, flour filled balloons, prickly balls, bows, silicone cupcake liners and some candles. He ended up adding scoops and his rainbow wheel. This bin actually got a couple weeks of use (before I got tired of cleaning up rice, he would have happily kept it out longer). Both kids enjoyed the flour filled balloons.

We matched some birthday word vocabulary cards (Free here).

Helping make key lime pie for Daddy's birthday (hand squeezed key lime juice got spilled, sweetened condensed milk got spilled, the pie almost got cut prematurely, but happy memories were made).

Some candles and play dough kept him entertained for quite a while.

I got this size sorting activity from Homeschool Creations.

More size sorting and word puzzles from Miniature Masterminds

 

Shelves this week had lacing letters, two part puzzles, stacking domes, a shape/color gross motor game, shape sorting cupcakes, shape envelopes, Birthday Present Beginning Sound Cards, ice cream, a birthday cake set, some flexible road pieces and a bin of vehicles.

Lacing letters were the biggest hit of the week. He LOVED them. He laced them, carried them around, tried to put them on his train tracks. I have a feeling we will be getting these out pretty often in the coming weeks of Tot School.

I made this felt color/shapes gross motor game a while back, but added wooden dice (DIY template here). We only play with one die at a time. Now that he's older, we did things like tiptoeing or hopping to the next shape.

My little guy loves letters, so I made this beginning letter sound matching activity (Free here)

Loving his cupcakes!

I made this shape sorting mail set when Xander was little. I love that Archer gets to use it now.

Xander made some letters out of the flexible road pieces for Archer. He loved it! Maybe someday we will get enough to make even more letters at a time!

Tot School Hexagon Activities

Archer was 23 Months

We have been working on Shape Themes in Tot School. You can see the Shape Themes "Curriculum" post here.

This is what Archer's desk area looked like. The posters are from The Learning Effect. The shelf included a couple Non-Fiction Sight Words books, a Meet the Sight Words book, an alphabet book, a blend reader and a Animal Antics Reader. I also included a Mathstart Book and some books about bees. His artwork from the week is hanging as well.

This week included some fondant cutters, a hexagon stamp.

Coloring some hexagons. We started off with crayons but ended up swapping to markers (Free to print here). 

We used stickers to fill in his dot art (Free to print here).

Tracing hexagons. This is still done with Mommy (Free to print here).

Shape sorting on the ipad.

Matching vehicles and occupations (from Totschooling.net)

Playroom shelves include both theme related tot school activities and other toys, usually open ended. The goal is to work on things like fine motor skills, visual spacial skills, math and literacy (and keep him entertained). I have been trying to also include one of our toddler games, to get him more used to playing games with us.

The white board had some magna-tile hexagons (from this set) and some magnetic pattern blocks. The top also had some hexagon facts and the Honey Bee Tree game. Shelves on the left had some wooden beads and string, magnetic pattern blocks, honeycomb matching, a shape sorter, two part puzzles, magnetic gears, a chunky puzzle, a bee dot magnet page, safari bowling and cars with highway shape (from Making Learning Fun).

I used the beads from his sequencing set and some string. He was good at putting the string in the beads, but not pulling it through on his own.

I originally tried getting out regular pattern blocks, but he really wanted them to stick to the white board. Once I got out the magnetic ones, he played with them a lot.

Honeycome matching. Not one of his favorites. He did about three before moving on to more important things.

Shape sorting

Alphabet puzzles (this is about 1/3 of them)

Magnetic gears. Always more fun on the dishwasher when Mommy is trying to cook on the counter above him.

Bee dot magnet page with some pom poms glued to magnets. This was the first time I got out this kind of activity for him, but he liked it. He got it out on his own several times during the week.

Safari bowling. This was a huge hit this week (with both boys)! Archer is pretty bad at aiming with the elephant ramp, but excellent and running over and knocking down all the targets (and laughing hysterically afterwards).

Cars on the hexagon (from Making Learning Fun).

Tot School Triangle Activities

Archer was 23 Months

We have been working on Shape Themes in Tot School. You can see the Shape Themes "Curriculum" post here.

This is what Archer's desk area looked like. The posters are from The Learning Effect. The shelf included a couple Non-Fiction Sight Words books, a Meet the Sight Words book, an alphabet book, a digraph book and a couple Animal Antics Readers. I also included a Mathstart Book. His artwork from the week is hanging as well.

This week included some fondant cutters, a triangle stamp and a texture block from a dough set we have.

Coloring some triangles. Well, that was my plan. Archer had other plans, so we didn't. (Free to print here). 

We used stickers to fill in his dot art (Free to print here).

Tracing triangles. (Free to print here).

Coloring and painting triangles.

I made him a sensory bin with some black beans, the flower toob and watering can. He insisted I add letters to it.

Reading in the crib. Muddle and Match Books are current favorites.

Learning about different kinds of triangles on Your Child Can Discover.

Playroom shelves include both theme related tot school activities and other toys, usually open ended. The goal is to work on things like fine motor skills, visual spacial skills, math and literacy (and keep him entertained). I have been trying to also include one of our toddler games, to get him more used to playing games with us.

The white board had some magna-tile triangles. The top had some opaque and translucent triangle-related shapes.

Shelves on the left had alphabet matching puzzles, gardening vocabulary cards, a safari animal sorting truck and Whac-a-Mole game. Shelves on the right had toddler magnets, Duplos and pattern cards (from All Our Days), sequencing puzzle, a golf tee game with balls, sequencing beads and cars with highway shape (from Making Learning Fun).

Alphabet matching puzzles

Gardening vocabulary cards in a pocket chart.

Duplos and pattern cards (from All Our Days)

A golf tee game with some little wooden balls. He spent a lot of time putting the tees in and out of the board.

Playing with his sequencing beads. He does not actually follow the template cards yet, but he does like putting the beads on the posts.

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