The other day I had a day where I just wasn't feeling great. To keep Archer occupied, I got out this simple ball bin. It just has a bunch of ping pong balls and plastic golf balls. I threw in an empty tissue box, a silicone ice cube tray, a paper towel toob, a basket and a large plastic serving spoon. Since I took the picture, I also added a little metal container I found at Hobby Lobby.
This little box has gotten SO much play! He loves putting all the balls into the containers and then shaking them out (all over the room).
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. I added a page to gather all of the Shape Posts and Printables to make them easier to find. For our overall Tot School goals for our shape units, see my Goals post.
This is our second wee of our Ball Theme and Xander is still absolutely loving it! I think the themed activities overshadowed our oval activities this week, but I don't really mind since the oval is one of the shapes he already recognized. I used our Montessori style 3 part cards. I mixed them in with the 3 part cards from our Ball Theme Tot Pack. Just like last week, he had a great time point to each ball with me.
I made a tracing page (in the Oval Printables). 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.
He really enjoyed helping me trace the lines on the tracing page from his Ball Tot Pack. He can erase the pages on his own.
Below is a coloring page from our Oval Printables. 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. I love that he enjoys coloring!
I picked up some ball foam stickers for him and he had a lot of fun with them. He likes to have me say a ball for him to point to.
Making Learning Fun has these great shape highway printables. I laminated the oval he drove his train on it. We made some play dough snakes to go around it.
Playing with his laptop. He get's this thing out every day. Sometimes I find myself singing the songs randomly...
Xander has pointed out basketball hoops as we pass them on our walks and bike rides for a while now. Then one day he decided to try to throw a ball into our full sized basketball hoop. He tried so hard I decided I needed to find him his own mini hoop. I was so blessed to find one two days later at a consignment store. Here is a pic of him the night I brought it home. His face says it all!
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.
Xander thinks he is a big boy now, and insists on eating breakfast (and some other meals) by himself. He makes a huge mess, but I know that it is important for him to practice. My baby is growing up!
Check back on Wednesday to see this week's Tot Trays!
Ball Minibook
Let me know if there are any types of pages you would like me to add.
We used this tot pack for two weeks. Blog posts of when we used it can be found here and here.
I also made Tot Trays with some of the pages which you can find here and here.
We also did a toddler basketball craft you can see here.
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.
