Shapes - Diamond

Shape Themes

Xander is 19 Months

Theme:  Bee Theme

Shape: Diamond

 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.

Shape Activities

This was the second week of our Bee Theme and the shape of the week was the diamond.  I went back and forth on whether to call it a diamond or a rhombus.  I ended up settling for diamond since that is what he will see on most puzzles, games, books etc.  However, I did make a pocket chart phrase that said a diamond can also be called a rhombus.  I used our Montessori style 3 part shape cards (for anyone who has downloaded them already, I added the diamond card).  We also used some pocket chart phrases from our Diamond 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.

As usual, I made a tracing page (in the Diamond 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.  Some days he does a great job tracing with me, other days he insists on doing it himself... which usually results in just scribbles.

Done with Mommy

He started off coloring the correct colors for his diamond coloring page (also in the Diamond Printables), then he just wanted to color randomly.  It is fine with me.  I want him to enjoy our "school time" and he gets pre-writing practice either way.

Doing our shapes puzzle (which actually calls the diamond a rhombus)

Making play dough snakes on his diamond highway from Making Learning Fun.

Shape cookie cutters.

One morning I got out a bunch of the highway shapes from Making Learning Fun and our shape bean bags to have Xander match them up.  For the shapes we didn't have bean bags for I used plastic shapes from our Tupperware Shape Ball.

A while back I bought some pattern block cards to go with his magnetic pattern blocks.  He hadn't seen them before and I was curious to see how he would do.  Turns out he needed a lot of help, but absolutely loved it.  When he was done and off playing with something else, he got upset when he noticed I was putting them away.

Bee Theme Activities

We still used the cards from his Bee Tot Pack.  I flashed them like I mentioned trying in the last Tot School post, and put them in the pocket chart for him to find.  He still absolutely loves this activity.  He knows that I keep the cards on a shelf up out of his reach and will often go over to it and point letting me know he wants them.  Other times he will just drag the whole pocket chart over to me.  I couldn't be happier that he enjoys these activities.

He wanted to do his cards while sitting on the potty.  Who am I to stop him?

Bee stencil with side walk paint.

Bee tracing (with Mommy's help)

While we had the play dough out one day, I showed him out to press the bee from his Toob into the dough to make an impression.

    Reading and Math:

We are still 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.

This Week's Books:

  

   

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

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Best Books - Week 22

Best Books

Best Books is my series of posts that highlights books we find during our book challenge!
These are our finds from week 22.

(Note:  We try to read a minimum of 28 books a week.  The books we list here are our favorites that we found in each week, not necessarily our favorites overall.  Some weeks we find some fantastic books, other weeks we read a lot of fluff.)

Xander's Favorite:

Big and Small by Aaron Carr

This was a new book they got in at the library and boy was it a good choice.  Xander absolutely loved it.  We read it seven times in a row before I finally put it up (and made him cry).  We read it repeatedly throughout the week.  I love that it has great photographs and builds.  It starts with just a single word like "big" and it keeps building until the end which has full sentences.  We will definitely be keeping an eye out for more Science Kids books!

 Counting Rhymes by Kate Saunders

Another great Usborne toddler book, this book had five cute little rhymes that had to do with counting.  Xander particularly liked the first one called Two Little Eyes.  I liked that the rhymes are simple, so I could easily learn them and tell them to him in the car or somewhere else without the book.

Mommy's Favorites:

Bees Buzz! By Pam Scheunemann

Since we had a Bee Theme this week for Tot School, we ended up reading a lot of bee books.  This one was one of my favorites.  It had great photographs and large, clear font.  It also rhymed, which is perfect for little ones.  Additionally, each page had a little fact bubble, making it even more informational for older kids. For example, the main text of the page was "Bees have wings to fly," and then the fact bubble talked about how fast they could fly.  Xander liked pointing to the pictures of the bees and saying "beeeee beeee" on every page!

Book Store:

I added an Amazon Store to the blog.  In it I included a shop for our favorite books and will be adding the books from the Best Books posts to it.  I hope having them in one place will make it easier when looking for book suggestions.

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!