Monday, April 30, 2012

Shapes: Circle


Xander is 17.5 Months
Theme:  Ball Theme
Shape: Circle



Horray!  Back to a more normal Tot School week!  We are currently working on shapes, devoting one week to each while also reviewing those already learned.    The themes just add a fun element to the shapes lessons.  For our overall Tot School goals for our shape units, see my Goals post.

Xander had an absolute blast with this week's Tot School!  Maybe because we did a ball theme and the kid is absolutely OBSESSED with any type of ball.  Just as with the Square and Heart, I used our Montessori style 3 part cards.  I mixed them in with the 3 part cards from our Ball Theme Tot Pack.  He had a great time point to each ball with me.


We also read some phrases I made for his pocket chart.  I uploaded these with his Circle Printables.  I run my finger under each word as I read them to him.

Also in the Circle Printables, I made a tracing page.  We use all of his tracing materials in either page protectors or his Crayola Dry Erase Activity Center.  He probably prefers the Crayola center, but I don't always like changing them out for him.  He is no where near ready to trace on his own, but I have him hold the marker and I hold his hand.  We trace together and I talk about what we're doing.  He really enjoys it.


Below is another page I made for him.  I actually made it in both English and Spanish, but only took a picture of this one.  Once again, Xander cannot do this activity without help.  He held the crayons and I helped him color in the correct area.  He is getting better at coloring in the area I point to by himself, although he is still a long way from doing this activity independently.


Just like with the last Tot Pack, Xander LOVED the minibook I made.  We read it pretty often.



Making Learning Fun has these great shape highway printables.  I laminated the circle for Xander and showed him how to drive the car on it.  I also broke out the play dough to make snakes for the circle.  I got out some circle and ball shaped cookie cutters, but he wasn't as interested in them this time.

While I was switching out his trays, Xander got his hands on the binder I made with his Ball Theme Tot Pack.  He was beyond excited and went through pointing at all the balls.  We used dry erase markers and I helped him do the activities, talking about what we were doing the whole time.




For our circle week I picked up a hula hoop at the dollar store.  What a great investment!  He loves the thing!  We practiced stepping into and out of it and throwing a ball into it.  I helped him spin it on his arm.  He also thought it great fun when I would toss it out while pulling back so it would return to me (sorry, I realize that isn't the greatest description, I hope you know what I am talking about).



Another great example of a circle was our tunnel.  I pointed out that the outline made a circle and the dots on the top are circles.

 Michael's had some glow in the dark bracelets in the dollar bin a while back.  Xander had never seen glow in the dark things before, so we had a good time playing.  I pointed out the little circles of the bracelets, then put a bunch together to make bigger circles.  He really enjoyed pulling them apart to have me put them back together.




One day Xander decided to dump out all of his figures from his Toobs.  Luckily we only have the Turtles and Frogs, Insects, and Space Toobs.


For the heck of it I had him put a turtle into each left over glow bracelet.  I chose the turtles just because the were small enough to fit.  He ended up wanting to do it a few times.


He also had fun putting the turtles through the bracelets.


This Week's Books:
We read other shape books too, but couldn't find the links on Amazon.


Continuous Tot School Activities:
We are using Little Reader to work on reading skills and Little Math for math skills.  My goal is two Little Reader lessons and one Little Math lesson daily.  Sometimes it happens, sometimes it doesn't.

These are the toys and activities I plan to use throughout our shapes units.  The toys are mostly available to him whenever he likes.







Since my Tot School posts have been getting so long, I decided to try splitting the Tot Tray portion off to its own post.  We will try it for a while and see how it goes.





Saturday, April 28, 2012

Best Books - Week 17


Best Books is my series of posts that highlights books we find during our book challenge!
These are our finds from week 17.


Xander's Favorite:

 Hop, Skip, and Jump by Nicola Tuxsworth

I usually don't grab books from the baby section of the library, but I grabbed this one on a whim.  Xander ended up LOVING it.  It had a bunch of photographs of kids doing all sorts of physical activities.  He thought it was particularly fun when I acted out the actions.


Mommy's Favorite:

Wash Up by Gwenyth Swain


This was a cute book about washing and cleaning.  It had nice big font and rhyming text.  To go with it were real photographs from all over the world.



Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...