Insect Matching

As I mentioned in yesterday's Tot Tray post, one of last week's trays involved matching insects form his toob with flash cards.  Xander loved the activity so much I decided to shoot a video.  I really love hearing him "talk" about the different insects.  He struggles a bit with the grasshopper and praying mantis, partially because the flash card doesn't have the greatest picture of the grasshopper.  As soon as I turned off the camera, he asked to do it again.

Pear Beehive Treat

I normally don't post about food, but when I saw this recipe for wrapped pears on Pinterest I couldn't resist making it.  The original recipe I found was from Sprinkle Bakes and she has some really amazing photographs and tips on wrapping the pears.  However, I did change the recipe a bit.  Here is what I did:

Pear Beehives

4 small pears

1 sheet puff pastry dough, thawed

4 cups water

1 cup of sugar
1 cup of brown sugar

1 cup honey

2 teaspoons vanilla

3 sticks of cinnamon

1 teaspoon ground cloves
raisins

First I peeled the pears and cored them from the bottom.  I also cut all the bottoms flat so that they could stand.  Then I boiled them in the water, sugars, honey, vanilla, cinnamon, and cloves until they were tender.  Since the pears were kind of firm, it took over 45 minutes.  When they are done save about a cup and a half of the liquid to reduce down even more (I actually kept all of it and used it for pancake syrup and to flavor tea).

While the pears were cooling I cut the puff pastry dough into small strips.  They weren't all evenly sized, but I think it gave them a bit of character.  I wrapped the strips around the pears starting at the bottom.  The pears and dough were sticky enough, I was able to just pinch the ends together when I needed to start a new strip.  For the "bees" I pressed raisins into the dough.

Then I put the pears into a brownie pan lined with parchment and baked them at 400 degrees until golden brown (about 15 minutes).  The raisins that fell onto the pan were burnt so had to be tossed, but I plated the pears and poured some of the reduced liquid over top.  So delicious, but very sweet!

Bee Tot Pack

The files are uploaded through Google Docs.  You should be able to print only the pages you want.  Let me know if there are any types of pages you would like me to add.  Also, if you blog about using this Tot Pack, send me a message and I will post a link.

Bee Tot Pack

Bee Tot Pack Part 2

Bee Mini Book

Check out our Tot School Posts using the Bee Tot Pack

Hexagon Blog Post

Diamond Blog Post

Here are the Tot Trays used during our Bee Theme

Bee Tot Trays Week 1
Bee Tot Trays Week 2

Pear Beehive Treat

Insect Scooping

For more bee resources and activities check out my Bee Theme Pinterest Board!

Tot Trays - Hexagon Week

Tot Trays

Xander is 18.5 Months

 These are the trays from last week, so they happened during our Hexagon Week and our Bee Theme.  I try to have the trays link in when I can, but don't feel constrained by making them fit.  I don't intend the trays to be done independently, but rather scaffolded by me.

Pattern Matching with Hexie-Snaps
I made a pattern with them first and included enough blocks to repeat it three times.  Xander definitely couldn't do this on his own, but I wanted to practice looking for patterns.  He really liked grabbing the right color when I asked for it, and pointing to them all and saying the color.

Doing some free building.

Button Matching

I cut up a piece of bulletin board boarder that had button shapes on it and got out the corresponding buttons from out Big Button Fun set.  He did a great job matching them up!

Transferring Pom Poms into Hexagons with Tweezers

Since this week's shape was the hexagon, I figured the hexagon silicone mold was perfect.  Xander had never used these tweezers before and the concept was just a bit too tough for him.  However, by happy accident I used our biggest pom poms and he was able to kind of stab the tweezers into them to pick them up.  He transferred them that way.  I was still happy he was working on his fine motor skills.

Honeycomb Matching

For this tray I laminated the Honeycomb Matching page from his Bee Tot Pack.  I also printed the cards twice and laminated them.  We matched the cards to the template, and then also matched them to each other.  He matched the pictures up perfectly, and even talked about what was on the cards.  He did keep bumping them off the template, though.  Maybe a small piece of double sided tape in each cell would fix it.

Puzzle of the Week

This week's puzzle was just a simple one from Wal-Mart.  I chose it because it had a bee on it.  He can do it if I orient the pieces for him, but gives up too quickly if they are turned or upside down.

Shapes - Hexagon

Shape Themes

Xander is 18.5 Months

Theme:  Bee Theme

Shape: Hexagon


 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, plus some extra vocabulary. 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 week's theme was Bees, although it kind of ended up being Bees and Flowers.  I used our Montessori style 3 part shape cards.  We also used some pocket chart phrases from our Hexagon Printables.  The concepts on these cards are pretty advanced, but he has been exposed to all of them on his Your Baby Can Discover movies. I believe the vocabulary and and reading practice certainly can't hurt.  He really loves his pocket chart, much more than I ever would have expected!

This is his "Mom, stop taking pictures so we can do the cards!" face.

We also used some cards from his Bee Tot Pack.  I changed it up a little bit this time.  I have been trying to work in more right brain learning, which usually involves fast input to bypass the left brain processing (right brain/left brain in this sense has nothing to do with the psychological ideas of practical and artsy, but more to do with the wiring of the brain and the way stimuli are processed).  Anyway, before we put the cards in the pocket chart, I sat him in my lap and flashed through the cards as fast as I could while still saying the words clearly, took about thirty seconds.  He enjoyed it, as well as putting the cards in the pocket chart.  He really likes me to ask him to point to the different cards and can be very insistent about doing this activity.

I don't know how many times we read the Bee Mini Book this week!  

I made a tracing page (in the Hexagon Printables).  We use all of his tracing materials in either page protectors or his Crayola Dry Erase Activity Center.  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.

We also did this tracing page from the tot pack.

Here is a shot of him doing one of the coloring pages.  He is getting more and more independent.

Playing with the bee finger puppet.

I picked these Hexie-Snaps up at a garage sale and they were perfect for this week!  At first he had trouble putting them together, but was able to do it by the end of the week.  Apparently it is also fun to dump them all out on the bed.

This Week's Books:

    

 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.  He absolutely loves Little Reader, but only likes Little Math on some days.

One day this week he wasn't feeling great and just wanted to go through the categories on Little Reader.  He looked at words for over twenty minutes until I cut him off... to a lot of complaining and blubbering.

Music 

I have been trying to incorporate a song or rhyme into each week.  This is the finger rhyme from this week (in the Bee Tot Pack).  

Real Life Learning

Grandpa has a peg board above his tool bench.  Xander was helping put the hooks in.  It is quite a task for a little guy because you have to put it in twist, and let it down.  He got quite a few in all by himself though.

Check back on Wednesday to see this week's  Tot Trays!

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