With the holiday hub bub, the off schedule, my grandmother's passing and family visiting I just didn't get much of a chance to blog our December tot school activities. So here is our December tot school in a single post. (an abbreviated version).

Be sure to check out 1+1+1=1, preschool corner and the TGIF Linky Party to see what others are doing this week. I've added a Follow me on twitter button if you'd like to follow our journey.

My Grandma's memorial was yesterday. I realized that I had been putting off a lot of things lately, my blog being one of them. Although we have been very hit or miss about tot school the past few weeks we have done several things and I plan to add them to the blog with pictures this week. The house is still a mess and I feel like I've been cleaning for a week (oh wait, I have- lol). I wanted to share a few of the awesome presents the kids got.

The little man got this great car puzzle from Discount School Supply. Both he and the Princess have played with it everyday. My only complaint is that it is advertised as a magnetic car puzzle but the wheels are not magnetic so you have to construct the cars on the boards that are included. Which is fine, but it would be nice if you could construct on any magnetic surface.

Another favorite is the Melissa and Doug Cutting Food set. The kids have really been enjoying this one as well. I got it when they were on sale at Amazon for 50% off.

We also bough the kids scooters from Toys R Us. My daughter has great trouble with balance and coordination so I wanted a stable scooter after much research I decided on these which have the two wheels on the front instead of the back for added stability and a wide base. Both kids seem to be able to ride them fairly well and the weather has been beautiful (in the 70's) so they have already gotten some use out of them. We got the Cars version for little man and the Princess version for the Princess. They light up, play music and have a variety of sounds. Perfect for toddlers/ beginners.

Another addition to our toy collection that has been enjoyed is this Imaginarium Deluxe Marble Track. There are so many pieces included that both kids were able to build their own tracks at the same time. We've yet to build the actual track that is pictured on the box.

We also received the Tall Stacker Pegs that many of the tot school blogs had pictured. These have really been put to good use.

I found some adorable magnets on Amazon and we received some of them as gifts as well. we haven't used them yet but I am anxious to see what we come up with so far I'm thinking counting and patterns but I'm sure I will come up with some other ideas.

We have not used the ABC cookie set yet, but the Princess has opened it and toyed with it on her own. It is really cute good for beginning phonics. It comes with letter shaped cookies and word cards with missing letters. It has two spinners as well and appears to have a game or two that you can play in addition to just the letter sound recognition activity.

It was so nice to have my mom and dad here yesterday and today. They came from Arizona for the Princess' Christmas Program. I've been pretty down since my grandma passed away and it was really nice to have family here even if it was just for the night. The kids were so cute singing Jolly Ol' St. Nick.

Last week we worked on the letter B and we focused on the story 'Bear Snores On" By Karma Wilson. I made a couple printables to go with the story as well. (You can find them under resources/ printables). My Dear Grandmaother passed away at the end of the week so we didn't do our usual Friday activities. Wed and Thurs we participate in other preschool co-ops so here is what we did at home on Monday and Tuesday. Watch our slide show to see what we did.

I was a little disappointed Sunday night when I put the trays out for this week. I didn't have much time to prepare because we went away for Thanksgiving. The trays seem to be working out well this week despite the shortage of time for preparation. Here is a slide show presenting our trays for this week. Most things can be linked to through the Resources/ Printables Tab.

My son is 34 mos and we are currently reading Bear Snores On so there is a bit of a Bear theme. Visit us again on Sunday to see what we did this week.

I can't wait to see what is in your workboxes or on your trays. Be sure to link up at Workbox Wednesday!

This was a short week for us like for most. We did tot school as usual on Monday and Tuesday then we headed to the happiest place on earth, Grandma and Grandpa's for Thanksgiving. We spent more time this week on crafts which was nice. We completed three turkey crafts. A Toilet paper tube turkey, a foam turkey craft from Joann's and a hand print turkey.

We had time to do several activities in addition to all the crafts even though we only had two days. I had made Thanksgiving lap books for both kids so we spent some time working on them. Here Little man is completing some puzzles from the Thanksgiving pack at Momma's Monkeys.

Then we completed the shadow puzzle. I can not remember which site I downloaded this from and I can not find the original file on my computer :( I am usually really good about linking to each site. SO I apologize that I don't have a link here. Thanks Dawn for letting me know they came from you at Mamas Monkeys

We sorted turkeys by size.

I brought out the feeling pumpkins and poem again to get one last use out of them. We discussed the feelings and talk a little about when we feel each emotion and we practiced making different faces. These graphics and the poem can be found at Super Simple Learning.

We did some pre writing practice from  Little Man likes these trace mazes. He likes to make the objects take the "Crazy" path to get to their destination. The Pilgrim and Turkey Maze sheets came from a A Heart For Home and  2 Teaching Mommies.

Since Little Man knows his colors I gave him a coloring sheet and asked him to color each turkey a certain color and let him find the corresponding crayon. He is not a big fan of coloring yet. I call him my minimalist. I found this on A Heart For Home site. There are quite a few free/ cute printables here.

We have not worked on cutting and glueing skills at all yet. So this week we did a cutting sheet which I found at   (This was only our second time trying one of these). I think I got this sheet from Counting Coconuts.

I found this Fall/ Thanksgiving counting sheet at Whole Child Curriculum  I cut all the numbers out for Little Man and he used a glue stick to place them in the corresponding spot. I found he was a minimalist with the glue as well- lol but he got them all in the correct spot. He was amazed that a 6 is a 9 when you turn it over and he then wanted to turn all the numbers upside down to see if they made another number as well.

We completed the Do A DOt sheets T is for Turkey and P is for Pilgrim from Making Learning fun.

I found a cute Trukey COunting book on childcareland.com. After we counted the Turkeys My Little Man put on the corresponding sticker number and colored the turkeys.

This week I enticed him into the ABC leaf matching game by setting it all up and starting to make a match myself. After the first match he joined in and we finished up all the matches together. (Matching Upper and lower case letters.

I made a turkey counting game. I made little round turkeys and placed a number on each one. Then I set out a bowl of feathers for Little man to place on the turkeys. My daughter jumped right in the day I made the activity and completed it in no time. The Little Man was not so interested the first day. He did complete the activity the second day.

More pre writing sheets. These are from 2 Teaching Mommies.

Time for a break. Here Mom was tickling him.

When sister came home and had to do homework, Little Man asked for his homework so I gave him a DO-A-Dot sheet and a bingo marker. This came from Making Learning Fun.

We had a really fun week, making turkeys and visiting with the Grandparents. Be sure to check out 1+1+1=1, preschool corner and the TGIF Linky Party to see what others are doing this week. I've added a Follow me on twitter button if you'd like to follow our journey.

This was our fourth week of tot school and I noticed a few things this week. 1- My son anticipates tot school and looks forward to it (he asks when he wakes up "Can we do tot school". 2- His attention span has grown- minimally but still some growth 3- His pencil grip has improved and thus so has his ability to trace lines (still needs work in this area but vast improvement- I remember reading and commenting on this on someone else's blog. 4- the routine is more established and it is getting easier.

I am enjoying this time with the Little Man so much. I have really been reevaluating my decision to put the Little Miss in Jr. Kindergarten this year and am contemplating taking her out and having her join us. (Am I up to the task yet?)

So here is what we did this week. What amazes me is how many activities we got through even though we really only had "tot school" TWO days this week.
I revamped our fall sensory bin a bit (see post 11/16) so it did get some play this week. I ended up using the beans that used to be in it for a second tub where I hid bottle caps and later glass stones with the letters T-U-R-K-E-Y and Little Man had to find them and recreate the word. The beans and some silk leaves made the perfect filler for hiding the letters.

We reused the Fall Clip counting activity because little man is still struggling with the clips so this is good fine motor practice as well as counting.  This activity is from the Fall pack at Homeschool Creations. We did a DO-A-Dot page from Making learning fun with the sparkly pom pom magnets (one of little man's favorites). I also introduced the Turkey Hunt from Making Learning fun. This was a fun way to review shapes. Both Little Man and the Little Miss enjoyed lifting the haystacks (cups) to find the matching turkeys. Little man has really mastered the basic shapes and a few more. Sometimes I feel these shape reviews are too easy for him. I am debating between moving on to solids or more advanced 2d shapes. (I'm having the same issue with colors being to easy-- any ideas or suggestions?)

We had a couple fine motor skills activities this week. I made a cute felt turkey (See post 11/13)  for Little Man to practice buttoning. I originally saw this idea on My Montessori. This was really challenging so I will keep this on our tray for the next couple weeks for more practice. I also put out a bowl of marbles with a couple different shaped spoons and a couple bottles with different sized openings. In the picture you see Little Man trying to scoop the marbles into the bottle with the spoon but after a few minutes he decided to try just putting them in with his hands. I tried to convince him to go back to to using the spoon but he just wanted to pour them in with his hands then shake the bottle to hear the loud noise. I got this Idea from The Snail's Trail blog.

Our focus story this week was Turkey Trouble, we also read about Thanksgiving. The Turkey Trouble story was a big hit.  To stay with the theme of the story I made a hand puppet from Childcareland and a Old McDonald Felt Board activity. (See post on 11/ 14)
He did quite a few of the pre writing sheets which is how I noticed his lines are much better this week. He really likes the CARS one from the Preschool CARS pack at 1+1+1=1. We the fall leaves one from the Fall pack at Homeschool Creations as well.

We did a little more with math this week. In addition to the Turkey Shape Hunt activity and the Fall Clip counting we worked on tallest and which one is different as well. We used the Thanksgiving pack from Our Little Monkeys.

As you can see we had a really full week. Next week we will mostly be doing thanksgiving crafts so I'll share a few of those. I really love visiting all the blogs and seeing what others are doing. I hope my blog helps inspire a few of you as well. Be sure to check out 1+1+1=1, preschool corner and the TGIF Linky Party to see what others are doing this week. I've added a Follow me on twitter button if you'd like to follow our journey.

I just purchased theses cute trays. The Christmas tree tray came from Oriental Trading for $2.99. The green one I found at our local 99Cent Only store here in southern California. They had lavender and this green. They are the hard acrylic type plastic. Both were a good deal so I thought I would share.

We tried a few new activities this week as well as a few old ones. I also switched out most of our fall sensory bin as well. I took out the beans and rice and added some fall themes foam beads from oriental trading. I bought some wood chips at the 99cent store and threw in some tongs (also from the 99 cent store). We kept the pupmkin ice tray, scarecrows (dollar tree), foilage, leaves (Joann's and Dollar Tree), and milkshake straws. Also in I collected some tiny little pinecone looking things at a local park and added them in there as well. There are two chenille pipe cleaners that I twirled around my finger to make curly thrown in for variety.

I made the button turkey project I saw on My Montessori Journey. I saw another one similar somewhere else but can't remember the site now. I though this was such a cute idea for practical life skills (practicing buttons) as well as a color matching activity.

I added marbles to a bowl and paired it up with some spoons and bottles and voila a fine motor activity. My Little Man kept trying to put the marbles into the bottles with his hands because it was easier than using the spoons- lol. I tried two types of spoons and bottles with different sized openings. I got this idea from a Snail's Trail blog.

I kept the fall clip counting activity found at from last week because Little Man is having so much trouble with the clips I thought he could use more practice. We also have the silk leaves with the Capital and lower case letters on them (Teach Mama)for matching but Little Man has shown zero interest and has declined to work when them when I offer them up.  I kept the leaf counting game with the milk caps from last week as well.

I made a 5 Little Turkeys hand puppet I saw on Childcareland.com There is a video and patterns there. I used this at my Preschool Co-op today as well.  I also made a really cute Old McDonald set for the felt board that we used today see my post from 11/14.

My daughter's favorite this week is Turkey Shape hunt from Making Learning Fun. You hide the turkeys under the "haystacks" and the child draws a card and tries to find the corresponding turkey. It is essentially a memory game with a fun twist. In the group shot it wasn't completed yet so the cups are right side up, not painted and stuffed with all the turkeys. There is another picture of the Little Man playing the game.

The last tray was a dot marker turkey page from Making Learning Fun that we filled in with pom poms that I stuck magnets to. Unfortunately I can not find the exact sheet on the site (I tried to find it for my CO-op last night) but if you dig around in the Turkey/ Thanksgiving section you might find it along with several others.

I can't wait to see what is in your workboxes or on your trays. Be sure to link up at Workbox Wednesday!

I really wanted to do some felt board activities with my little man and I wanted to have something I could use at my Preschool Co-op this week. I decided to do Old McDonald.  (I know it is Thanksgiving but I already made a felt turkey activity see post 11/13/11 and a glove activity with turkey and magnets)  I looked on line and decided I just didn't want to spend the money to buy a felt board when I could make one and I didn't want to spend a lot for the felt pieces either.  So I did some investigating on line and finally decided to use iron on transfer paper and my own felt. I went on to google and selected some free use clipart for the characters, put them into a word doc and printed on to the iron on transfer paper from my Epson ink jet printer. The set is adorable and EXACTLY what I wanted. I'll put the word docs under printables and resources in case you want to make your own. Easy and cheap!!

I made my felt board out of a foam core presentation board we had lying around and a piece of left over felt from my days in the classroom. Added a little duck tape and Voila a pretty nice felt board.