Best Books is my series of posts that highlights books we find during our book challenge!
These are our finds from week 21.
(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.)
We have both always loved Dr. Seuss books, although some more than others. Somehow, though, I had completely missed this one until I ran across it at the library. Simple and cute, it was perfect because Xander has a habit of walking up to people and poking them in the eye saying "eyyyyyyyyyyyyye."
This is a Real Kids Reader about a little girl helping out her father, but needing to slow down and be careful. It had real photographs and easy to read words. Since the photos were simple, we were able to talk about objects like the ladder and the bananas. I will need to keep my eye out for more readers like this at the library.
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.
This was our second week with our Musical Instrument Theme. I know we made some homemade instruments last week, but there are so many cute noise maker instrument crafts for kids, I couldn't help but make these "drums" also. I started with two empty cans and painted them white. I just used regular acrylic craft paint and it took about two quick coats.
If Xander were older I would probably let him paint the cans, but for now I decided stickers would be easier. We used shape stickers on one and sports stickers on the other (left over from when we did our Ball Theme)
For the top I cut a balloon and stretched it over the can. It really only makes a sound if you have it stretched really tight, so I cut a good chunk of the bottom of the balloon off. I would also have to tighten them down a bit each time we played with them. Regardless, these little drums were cute and easy. Something different for him to do.
These are the trays from last week, so they happened during our Trapezoid Week and our Musical Instrument 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.
Blowing the train whistle and "singing" into his maraca.
Tray #2:
This tray had his xylophone and then the xylophone ordering page from the Musical Instrument Tot Pack. The tot pack also includes the same xylophone page only with the letters in alphabetical order rather than musical order. We ordered the bars, pointed to the letters, talked about the colors, and then matched the letter note to the sound on the xylophone.
Tray #3:
This tray had his Pyramid of Play. I found this toy at a garage sale a couple of weeks ago and absolutely love it. The boxes stack and next, but also have a cut out in one side that a shape fits through. He played with this tray multiple times a day.
Putting the shapes into the boxes.
Stacking.
Puzzle of the Week: For one of his trays I always try to do a puzzle. This one really didn't have much to do with the themes, but Xander had fun matching up the animals anyway.
Shape: Trapezoid
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 was our second week on our Musical Instrument Theme and Xander still really enjoyed it. I used our Montessori style 3 part shape cards. We also used nomenclature cards from the Musical Instrument Tot Pack. We also used some 3 part cards and pocket chart phrases from our Trapezoid 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. Also, while I don't expect him to remember the difference between regular and isosceles trapezoids right now, 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!
I made a tracing page (in the Triangle 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. He is also really proud to erase all by himself when we are done (although I do some touch-up erasing).
My brother is here for the summer and snapped a couple of pictures of us. This is how we do most of Xander's tracing, although sometimes he sits at his table or his lap desk.
I also got out his magnetic foam shapes and our marker board. He likes to have me say a shape or a color for him to point to. If I don't do it fast enough he will keep repeating YELLOW and BLUE really loudly.
I also got out the shape book that came with Your Baby Can Discover. It is a good thing those books are sturdy because he likes to flip through them on his own...
Making Learning Fun has these great shape highway printables. I laminated the trapezoid and he drove his car on it. We also made some play dough snakes to go around it.
While we were at it, we used some cookie cutters to cut out shapes and a music note.
Lately I have been trying to include a song with our themes. To go with the music theme we sang the main part of Do Re Mi from the Sound of Music. He loves me to sing it to him and sometimes he even joins in. I love it when he "sings."
Sometimes I help Xander trace the pages from his Tot Packs, and sometimes I have him point to things for me and I trace/circle them. In this case I was asking where each shape was and tracing it as he pointed to it.
Some friends came over and enjoyed the instrument bin also.
Still loving the instrument puzzles.
I normally don't talk a whole lot about our Little Reader, but this week I was so excited to lesson featuring musical instruments (you can download it for free here). I love that it includes not only the words and photographs, but music to go with each instrument as well. Xander has watched this at least two or three times a day since I downloaded it. I definitely need to take advantage of the free downloadable lessons more often (and make more of my own...).
We lucked out when we went to the children's museum this week! They were doing an instrument activity so Xander got to make a ton of noise music. The guy doing the demonstration was amazing! He got what sounded like actual music out of an empty water cooler jug.
We always make a stop in their xylophone room, but since this week was trapezoids and xylophones are the example, we spent some extra time in here.
Keeping with the music theme, we watched plenty of Trebellina. It isn't the best animation in the world, but he absolutely loves it and wants to watch it all the time. He even likes doing the flash cards with the piano. He also gets plenty of music exposure from his Your Baby Can Discover DVDs.
While I was organizing some of the materials I made for next week, I got out some of our old three part cards (from our multicolored week). He still remember all of them and wanted to just sit and play. In fact, he cried when I went to put them away.
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.
Check back on Wednesday to see this week's Tot Trays!
