Our New School Room

Our landlords, who are planning on moving back to the area and back into their home in September, have had some renovations done on the house in preparation for their return.  (We are in a “house sitting” arrangement while the homeowner’s are in Washington for a 2-year job.)  One of the things they did was finish a small unfinished porch/room into a sort of three seasons room.  It has now become our new school room for the spring summer!  This is where we spend time doing preschool and tot school:

(I’m really not sure what Caleb is doing here, but I hope it’s not what it looks like…)

Tot School #3

Tags

homeschooling, preschool, toddler, Tot School

Caleb is 34 months old.

Our week started out with what Caleb thinks is the greatest thing ever…

a corn box!

We had leftover corn sitting around from when we had a corn furnance.  We filled a box with some of it and Caleb can drive around his trucks, fill up plastic bowls, etc. with it.

Last week I found alphabet stickers in the dollar section at Target.  I used Publisher to make a bunch of circles, each with a different alphabet letter (see above).  My plan was to have Caleb pick a sticker and then match it up with the correct letter on the paper.  I honestly wasn’t sure if the idea was going to work or bomb.

He really had fun with this activity!  I covered up all the letters except for one row, so that he wouldn’t get overwhelmed.  He only does a few stickers at a time, so this activity should last us awhile.

We are working on the Big Machines Tot Book.  He is really working intently on coloring those machines!

Caleb likes building the longest train he can.

Horsie!

Check out the Tot School link at the top if you want to see what others are doing with their Tots.

Tot School #2

Tags

homeschooling, preschool, toddler, Tot School

Caleb is 34 months old.

Like last week, Tot School was sporadic this week.

Right after Easter last year, I purchased an egg decorating kit for practically nothing – maybe 25 cents.  I found it in a cupboard a couple of weeks ago and thought it would be a fun activity to try.  Unfortunately, this is not the greatest activity for a type A mom to do.   Caleb had fun.   I was stressed about something getting stained with the dye.

I don’t think I’m the only Type A around here…

Caleb insisted on peeling his own egg, only to have it break in the process.  So, that became mommy’s egg and…

everyone’s happy again!

We played with our farm animal puzzle.

I made Caleb a little cutting worksheet…just drew some lines and put some construction stickers at the ends.

He loves using scissors, so this was a good activity for him.  Although, next time I won’t use card stock paper.  It was a little difficult to cut.

The finished product.

Making cookies.

I had this great idea that just didn’t work at all.  I thought I would pop in one of my yoga exercise videos and see if he would copy me in doing the poses.  He has done this before when I was actually trying to get a workout and it was pretty cute.  He didn’t really go for it this time.  He tried one pose and started begging me to play trucks with him.  Oh well.

Tot School

Tags

homeschooling, preschool, Tot School

Caleb & I held our first official Tot School this week!  When I say official, I mean that I actually took pictures.    We occasionally do learning activities throughout the week, but I am trying to be more intentional about it.  Things have been pretty hectic around here, but we managed to sneak in a few activities.

We made jello together.

We tried musical glasses, filling each glass up with a different level of water to make different sounds, but Caleb was way more interested in stirring.

Drawing practice.

I saw this idea in a Parenting magazine.  You tip a strainer upside-down and let them put spaghetti in the holes.

Caleb LOVES to use glue.  We spent some time with his truck stickers and, for some reason, Caleb decided they MUST be glued on.

The finished product.

We also spent some time here.  Each letter has a short clip emphasizing the letter’s name and the sound it makes.  Caleb loved watching these and imitating the sounds of each letter.  We didn’t go through the letters in order, instead I let him pick out which ones he wanted to watch.

We got out his Doug & Melissa magnetic chalkboard & letters.  We sorted the letters into different colors.