Teaching Tots Thursdays

We had our first Teaching Tots Thursday session. I wasn't sure how Mia would do in another environment (other wonderful toys to play with)! She did get distracted but she had a good time and I think Ali enjoyed herself, too. It seemed that Amelia's attention span was shorter than normal but I would guess that was due to trying out something new! I think things will get better the more we get together to learn and play =)

Ali and Amelia sorting the color farm animals. And then Ali working on sorting the real farm animals. Amelia started out with some interest but then quickly decided that she would rather play with Ali's toys! Which is okay =) 

Amelia playing while Ali is listening to farm animal sounds and reading 'Barnyard Dance'

Amelia showing Ali how to play Lucky-Ducks Shape Game and then Ali working on identifying colors and shapes that are located on the underside of each ducky.

I just had to add this picture....Today was a hard day for Mia. Usually Amelia is very well behaved and such a happy girl but today she was a little stinker...maybe we are starting in to the 'terrible-twos' stage! 

I HOPE NOT!

A little Time Out did a little girl some good! Here Amelia is working with the Rainbow Pegs and Farm Mat. She is busy 'planting' a row of yellow corn.

Alexandra's Turn! She got the hang of this pretty quickly!

The Cow goes 'Mooo'. Amelia is getting so good at identifying and doing animal sounds! It sounds like a barnyard around here =)

While Ali was finishing up with the Rainbow Pegs, Amelia read/put together a Farm Animal book/puzzle.

Time to make Pretty Pink Pigs! Here the girls are picking out which shade of pink to use and where to put it! This was our 1st time using glue. (Amelia just used glue for the 1st time last night-I wanted to make sure she wouldn't eat it before I tried it with Ali, too =)

What pretty pictures! Good Job, girls!

Mrs. Wishy-Washy Story and Snack Time! We read Mrs. Wishy Washy...then we got our animals (Animal Crackers) all muddy (chocolate pudding) and then we clean them up just like Mrs. Wishy Washy!

1st Bites...this is yummy!

Look how clean Ali is! And then look at Mia's mess =)

I couldn't believe I forgot to take the Animal Crack-Ups! That was pretty much what my lesson was planned around! Oh well, we had plenty of other activities..in fact we didn't even get to them all (despite 'playing' for 2 hours!)

Amelia loves her mouse in her pocket =) Poor mouse..Amelia got so excited that she began to dance =)

Amelia finishing off our day with a pretty purple match! Phew!

Down on the Farm!

Tomorrow is our 1st day doing 'Tot School' with Amelia's best friend, Ali! We cannot wait...look what all we have planned =)

Farm unit:

Opening: Singing Old MacDonald with Big Book

Math: Animals Crack-Ups

           Rainbow pegs with farm mat

           Farm Animal Attribute Cards

           Sort Play Farm Animals
           Stacking Farm Boxes-Ordering Biggest to Smallest

Read: Mrs. Wish-Washy (before snack)

          A Day on the Farm Pop-Up book

Art: Pink Pig Collage 

Snack: Clean Up the Animals: Chocolate pudding (mud) and Animal Crackers

Discovery Play: Farm Animal Sounds

                             Farm Magnets

                             Farm Puzzle

                             Lucky-Ducks Shape Game

Techy Tot: I Pad Apps: Amelia can't get enough of the IPad =)

I had a hard time taking these pictures...Amelia kept wanting to play with it!

Music: It seems we always have some music in the background-here is what we listened to this week:

Extension: Farm Animal Learning Kit-this is to be done throughout the rest of the week to reenforce learning concepts

Many Manipulatives

We are using a combination of manipulatives that I have ordered (more age appropriate) and ones that I used in my kindergarten classroom (I will be adapting the use of these ones). 

 

Here Amelia is filling out her Daily Planner. We work on Day, Month, Date, Season, Weather, Feelings, and Activities.

Alphabet Bean Bags: Example Activity: "This is the letter 'f'. F says 'fffff'. Frog starts with the letter 'Ff'." This is what we do for each bean bag....work on letter recognition, letter sound and what begins with that letter. Then Mia gets to throw the bag....her favorite part...that and making the animal sound (if there's an animal pictured on the bag)!

Animal Crack-Ups...an educational spin on Animal Crackers! These work on color recognition, animal recognition and fine motor skills!

After the bean bags and animal crack-ups, we finished our morning with the linking cubes. We focused on sorting colors, counting, and making patterns. Here Mia is checking out my pink and white pattern (also known as: a-b-a pattern)! 

Today seemed like a buggy kind of day! We started out with our Number Bugs! These little guys focus on colors and counting! The number on the bug's head matches how many spots are on the bug's body.

So to work on connecting numerals with the spots on the bugs, I would point out the number, we would count the spots together and then I would have Mia kiss the bug however many times that was indicated on the bug =) She LOVED this!

Rain Pegs with Farm Mat. There are a multitude of activities you can do with this =)

These color pegs coordinate with the color of the food on the mat. The then Amelia started to get bored...time to move on!

For our last activity I was just going to have Mia sort the bugs by either kind or color...but I thought these attribute cards would be fun....and boy did Amelia enjoy them! 

 At first I encouraged Amelia to just match the color-not caring the type of bug. But she soon realized the difference and started to match color and type of bug!

Creating A-B-A patterns again!

This evening Amelia played with the Farm Animals and look what she did (with no encouragement from me). Looks like we have been paying attention to Noah's Art Story.

Here Amelia is sorting fruit.

 Now she is sorting transportation. First, we did by color...then by type of vehicle.