January 7, 2013

What are some winter themed tot trays I can do with my toddler for tot school?

Well, Smiley Man has officially stopped taking a morning nap. I do preschool in the morning and I have discovered pretty quickly that Smiley Man doesn’t sit quietly to the side and play happily while I am teaching preschool. I didn’t think he would, but I didn’t have a plan for him either. After a few days of preschool and Smiley Man not going together, I realized something I should have already known. Smiley wants to be in on the action. He wants his own work.

Once I realized that, it was easy to come up with a solution. I will have tot school for Smiley Man. I put together the first set of tot trays to use with Smiley Man and they have a winter theme. I have never done tot school before because when Little Bear was a toddler, he was still the only child and I did a lot of one-on-one stuff with him. So, I’m not sure how all of this will work, but feel free to watch my journey.

So far, here is my plan: I will have 12 tot trays on low bookshelves (so Smiley Man can reach them on his own). I will show Smiley Man how to use each tray, but he will only be allowed to use them during school time. I will have these 12 tot trays out for two weeks. I might decide that 12 is too many or not enough, or I might decide to have them out for only one week or maybe for three instead. Since this is my first time doing this, I will have to learn a few things as I go.

Here are all of the trays for this week:

• Pattern Block Snowflakes
• Snowflake Glitter Craft
• Color Matching with Paint Chips
• Transfer Blue Flat Marbles
• Snowflakes fall on the ground
• Color Games 1 and 2
• Tot Book
• Winter Printables
• Featured Toy – something
• Themed Books – something
• Felt Snowflake Kit
• Shaving Cream and Glue Snowman

Pattern Block Snowflakes

Smiley uses pattern blocks to cover the snowflake pattern blocks templates. Or he’ll just plays with the pattern blocks. :)

Snowflake Glitter Craft

Smiley will use a glue bottle to make a snowflake design. He can glue over the lines I drew, but I doubt that he will. When the glue is just the way he wants, I will help him sprinkle glitter over the glue.

Color Matching with Paint Chips

There will be four different colors of paint chips (white, dark gray, dark blue, light blue). There will be two paint chips of each color. Smiley Man will pick up a paint chip, find the matching paint chip, then put the match into the bowl.

Transfer Blue Flat Marbles

There are two bowls on the tray. One bowl is filled with blue flat marbles. Smiley Man will use his fingers to transfer the blue flat marbles from one bowl to the other bowl.

Snowflakes fall on the ground

Put cotton balls into a juice bottle. You can put brown construction paper around the bottom of the juice bottle so that it looks like the ground. Smiley will drop the cotton ball “snowflakes” into the juice bottle “ground.”

Color Game 1 - Egg Carton Color Matching and Color Game 2 – I Spy Cards

I’ve done separate posts on these color games as part of the Color Games for Toddlers series. Click the links to see more about them! Color Games 1, Color Games 2

Tot Book

I made this simple Winter tot school book. It has simple phrases and uses sight words. I do not in any way expect Smiley Man to learn how to read by looking at this book. This book is intended to help him gain a love of reading. I will read this to him throughout the week and point out the words as I read them. Smiley Man can also color the pictures with crayons if he desires.

Winter Printables

Build a Snowman (Snowman Preschool Pack part 2, page 6) Smiley will not use dice, he will just put the snowman together.  Color Winter clothes (Winter Fun pack – coloring winter clothes). Smiley will color the pictures with the correct color of crayon.

Featured Toy

Mega Bloks (these are normally in the play area. I will simply have them on a tot tray to make them extra special. We’ll see how that works ;) ).

Themed Books

Welcome Winter, Geraldine’s Big Snow, The Big Snowball, Winter

Felt Snowflake Kit

I used this felt snowflake kit and cut the pieces from white paper. Smiley Man will use the pieces to make his own snowflakes, or will just play with the pieces of paper.

Shaving Cream and Glue Snowman

I found these instructions to make a puffy paint snowman. I will have the paint already made and Smiley Man will do the painting.

This will be our first week of tot school so I will be sure to let you know how it goes. Let me know if there is anything specific that you would like to see in a tot school post or if you have a tot school question and/or idea. You can also find more tot school ideas over here! I am very excited to start tot school with Smiley Man and I really think he will enjoy it. It will certainly be better than Smiley trying to steal Little Bear’s work. :) Tot school, here we come!

We've found some fun people with great linky parties. You might just see this post linked up on one of these amazing sites! Link and Learn from No Time for Flashcards Sunday Showcase from Train Up a Child Share it Saturday from Teach Beside Me Tot School Gathering Place from 1+1+1=1 Montessori Monday from Living Montessori Now Tuesday Tots from In Lieu of Preschool Show and Tell from ABC & 123 For the Kids Fridays from Sun Scholars Finished Friday from All Our Days Weekly Kids Co-op from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails Preschool & Kindergarten Corner from Homeschool Creations TGIF Linky Party from 123 Homeschool 4 Me

December 27, 2012

What are some fun New Year’s Eve Celebrations for Kids?

Woohoo 2013 is coming! We safely made it past the Mayan predicted end of the world! Be honest, I’m not the only who has been thinking about that, right? Well, 2013 is coming fast and I want to have mega New Years Eve Celebrations because who doesn’t love mega celebrations?

I want my kiddos to have a blast on New Year’s Eve also, but I definitely don’t want them staying up until midnight. So, I figure I will celebrate with them starting in the late afternoon and still make them go to bed at their regular bedtime. When 11:30 comes around, I will wake them up and let them ring in the new year.

Now, on to the celebrations. Here is what I will be doing with my kiddos on New Year’s Eve to celebrate 2013.

2013 Ceiling Decoration

Write 2013 on a note card sized piece of black construction paper. Have your child trace the numbers with glue.

Pour glitter over it and shake off extra glitter. I had Little Bear do the glittering over a file folder which made cleaning up the excess glitter really easy.

Make as many as you want (we will probably do about 8). Let papers dry completely, and then hang from the ceiling. Hang black, white, silver streamers if desired. We’ll be leaving these up for all of January.

Paper plate noise makers

Decorate the back side of a paper plate with paint, glitter, markers, crayons, stickers, etc. We wrote 2013 on one half.

Once decorated as desired, fold paper plate in half. Staple or tape the edges together until there are only 2-3 inches that are left open. Fill the paper plate with about ¼ Cup rice, beans, or anything that will make noise.

Tape the plate the rest of the way. Tell your child they get to shake it at midnight.

Handheld Streamers

Get a bunch of curling ribbon (hopefully you have some leftover from Christmas) and cut several 1-2 foot lengths. Curl the ribbon.

Have your child decorate a popsicle stick with paint, markers, glitter, crayons, stickers, etc. Have your child choose some ribbons to put on their popsicle stick and tape the ribbons to the popsicle stick.

Wave around like mad at midnight (and throughout the night just for fun).

New Year’s Countdown

Simply print off this New Year’s Countdown and color each time as it passes. My kids will be asleep for several boxes. I’ll just have them color those when they wake up around 11:30.

2013 Calendar Note Card

Our preschool calendar has a little note card for the year 2012. I will make another 2013 note card that is blank except for the year. My kiddos will get to decorate the 2013 note card any way that they want and it will go up on the preschool calendar right at midnight.

Grab Bag Countdown

Along with the paper countdown, we will have several Surprise Bags with times on them. (I will only make these for the times that my kids will be awake.) When we get to the time that is on the bag, we will open the bag and complete the activity that is inside. I’ll probably do the bags every half hour instead of every hour since we will only have a few hours before I put the kids in bed. Here are the activities that will be in our bags:

• Ceiling Decoration (see above)
• Paper Plate noise makers (see above)
• Handheld Streamers (see above)
• 2013 Calendar Note Card (see above)
• Play Candy Land
• Eat dinner
• Eat treats
• Dance Party (turn on your favorite music and dance away)

The best part of our New Years Eve Celebrations will be the awesome food and treats. Here is some of what our food for New Year’s Eve will be:

• Edible glitter truffles (make truffles and cover with silver edible glitter)
• Chex mix
• Shrimp cocktail
• Cotton Candy and Sprite Drink
• Meat and cheese tray
• Rice Krispie Treats
• Pretzel Hugs

If you missed it, be sure to check out some of Cassidy’s New Year’s Eve Traditions that she posted earlier this week!

We've found some fun people with great linky parties. You might just see this post linked up on one of these amazing sites! Link and Learn from No Time for Flashcards Sunday Showcase from Train Up a Child Share it Saturday from Teach Beside Me Tot School Gathering Place from 1+1+1=1 Montessori Monday from Living Montessori Now Tuesday Tots from In Lieu of Preschool Show and Tell from ABC & 123 For the Kids Fridays from Sun Scholars Finished Friday from All Our Days Weekly Kids Co-op from Frogs and Snails and Puppy Dog Tails Preschool & Kindergarten Corner from Homeschool Creations TGIF Linky Party from 123 Homeschool 4 Me