Tot School Update

 Little Bear is 13.5M

Munchkin is 32.5 M

Wow, it's been ages since I've posted about Tot School, and not because we haven't been tot schooling away!  Anyway here are a few highlights of what we've been up to.

Let's start with Little Bear.  When I do my plans for the boys I usually have a color of the week.  Munchkin is very good at colors so I focus mostly on Little Bear for these things.  I've started making color baskets each week.  Munchkin gets to review because I send him to find objects to add to the basket.  Here is our yellow basket and Little Bear exploring it.  Once he got bored of one thing I gave him another, trying to remember to name the object and the color each time.

I think we added: Hot Wheels cars, a foam lacing square, a happy meal submarine, a triangle bean bag, and a lemon that I only left in the basket while we were having school time.  Little Bear mostly liked banging the cars together.

One day I made a smooshy bag (I have no idea what else to call it).  I just squirted some corn syrup and yellow food coloring into a little baggie and sealed it.  This had to be closely monitered because LB is into biting everything now.  Luckily it was cheap and easy becasue LB was totally uninterested.  He did love that lemon though.

Munchkin has a blast with tot school.  He's always asking to have ac-tib-bities!  For a while I couldn't get him to do some of the activities himself.  He always wanted me to place everything or do all the tracing, so I would.  Model Model Model.  Well all the modeling paid off,  he will now trace, sort, and even glue with little guidance from me.  

Typically he'd want me to color the letters that he'd point to.  This time I only had to do two before he was saying "let me do it!".

We do a lot of Tot School before we even get dressed.

We did lot's of art activities.  Munchkin loves to paint, but instead of painting with brushes everyday we used different tools.  One day we used cork bottle tops.. from.. uh.. wine that I sip every week once in a while.  This actually started out as a finger paint activity, but who knew my boy wouldn't would be into getting his hands dirty.

 We also used sponges and made fall leaves that we hung in the playroom.  I had to help a lot, I think I cut the sponges too small and he got frustrated (mad) that it was taking so long to fill in the leaves.  The finished product was cool though.  I just drew some leaves (and letters and a clock at his request).  Once everything was dry I cut them out.  Fun and easy!

For Halloween we made ghost feet.  Munchkin's daycare did these when he was about 6 months old (no, I wasn't always a stay at home).  I still have them in his box.  LOL, Little Bear was not too crazy about having his feet painted, he had the funniest look on his face when I was doing them.  I used black craft foam sheets and white acrylic paint.  When they were dry I added wiggly eyes and drew a mouth with a Sharpie.

Munchkin's favorite activity by far is the scensory bin.  He asks to play with "the beans" just about everyday.  Right now it's a fall bin.  I found a lot of cute little fall things to add at %50 off at Hobby Lobby.  I also found these tiny plastice pumpkins from the dollar section in Target.  Erasers from the Dollar Tree finished off the bin and it is loads of fun for Munchkin, and Little Bear as long as I watch him like a hawk.

Munchkin loved helping to make the new scensory bin.

%50 off at Hobby Lobby, I think they came to about $1.50 ea.

Dollar Tree Erasers and pom poms I already had.

He loves making pretend meals for me.

In case your wondering... yes this gets very messy, but surprisingly easy to clean up.

I added a muffin tin one day for some fun sorting practice.

 Thanks for stopping by.  I love sharing our activities and reading about what others are doing.  You can checkout 1+1+1=1 for more great Tot School Posts, and learn what Tot School is all about.

The printables Munchkin is using came from these great sites.  Check them out!

Confessions of a Homeschooler

1+1+1=1 Tot School Printables

http://www.1plus1plus1equals1.com/TotSchool.html