Tot Trays! Week of August 22

We had a few fun Tot Trays already this week.

This first one is from a set of Tot/Preschool Activities that our sweet friend Buffy blessed us with! It had tons of activities, all packaged up in Ziplock baggies. I thought this one was super-fun. Lots of objects in baseball card holders (and then glued shut) and matching items in a baggie. The child finds the matching objects. So fun!
Here's a closer look at some of the items.
Big brother Robert even stopped to help. So sweet.
So proud!!!! She claps every time she finds a match.

I drew some shapes on this chalkboard and we said "circle", "triangle", "square" and "rectangle".
Then I let her have the chalk and go to town coloring it. The erasing was fun too!
Texture Rubbing. Put the items under the paper and rub your finger and then the crayon over it. This was a hit with all 3 kids. This was also one of those Activity Bags from Buffy!
Hand Puzzles (this is made from Foam). This was for Andrew (kindergarten). He wanted a "Tray Activity" too. :)
A fun wooden puzzle for Zoe. We talked about the animals on the farm, made animal sounds and sang "Old McDonald".
Playdough - let's face it, Seoul Sister needs something to do while mama is teaching History.


There's a few of the fun things going on at our house this week. :) Hope your school year is off to a great start!

For more Tot Tray Activities, check out 1+1+1=1 and see what other mamas and tots are doing!

~Paula

Tot Trays

Here are the Tot Trays we have lined up for the next few days. I decided to work ahead and prepare them to have on hand when Seoul Sister needs something to do and a little mommy time. It sure does make it easier than preparing them in the mornings.

A simple puzzle. I love this Melissa & Doug one that has SOUND!

I scored it at a Used Homeschool Book Sale for $1!

Digging for objects in a large bowl of beans. Lots of goodies in there and SO FUN!

Stacking Blocks on top of one another.

snapping unifix cubes together (fine motor skills)

transferring objects from one place to another. Put one in each hole.

(This is good for teaching 1 to 1 correspondence.)

color matching

watercolor (this mama LOVES art!)

Shape Matching

Here's a closer look at these. They are Oreo Matchin' Middles. Fun!

To see other Tot Activities, visit 1+1+1=1 to see what other mamas and tots are doing together!

~Paula

Maybe a little too ambitious

Zoe can say all of her colors in English. She can not quite "identify" them, however. (Zoe is 21 months, but has only been in the United States 6 months) I set up her Tot Tray with 4 pieces of paper (blue, green, yellow and red) and gave her a few blocks of those same colors.

I think she had a lot of fun, but I don't think she quite got the concept. I think we'll back up and start with "putting the blocks on the paper" and then do one color at a time and then go to two. I think four colors might've been a little ambitious on my part.

I think she had fun though; that's really what it's all about anyway! She threw the blocks at the tray, she put them on the paper. She needed a lot of help getting them to the correct color though. When we finally finished the boys clapped and said "yay" and she grinned ear to ear. She thought she really did something great.

To learn more about Tot Trays or to see other ideas for fun learning with your tot, you should check out 1+1+1=1. Other moms from all over the globe link up and share their ideas.

We'll be trying another one today. I'll let you know how it goes.

~Paula

Tot School

Plans are underway for Zoe to begin "Tot School". Basically the idea behind Tot School is intentional, fun, learning-centered time with your tot. I think back to my time when Robert and Andrew were little. I'd sit on the floor and sing them songs, talk about colors, letters, numbers, shapes and read a ton of books. We'd work puzzles, sort objects by shape, color, type, etc. Now that I have two big boys and a little tot, I've noticed that my intentional "learning" time with Zoe is significantly less because I'm busy teaching math or science to my two older boys the majority of the day. I want to spend this time focused completely on Zoe and having fun as we focus on early-learning skills.

You can head over to 1+1+1=1 and learn more about Tot School. A bunch of moms and tots all over the globe participate in Tot School and share their ideas. The power of the online community never ceases to amaze me. As a homeschooling mom, I don't feel like I have to re-invent the wheel or come up with a million ideas all on my own. We can come together to share with other moms who are homeschooling or doing Tot School too.

One of the ideas that several moms doing Tot School is "tot trays". You put the activity on a tray. This tray provides the place to do many of the activities, and is easy for them to clean-up. I had originally planned on purchasing trays like these,

but they've proven hard to find. Oriental Trading is no longer carrying them and I found some online (in really ugly colors) and they are still expensive and the shipping was outrageous.

Never underestimate the power of the Wal-Mart clearance isle. I found these for $1 each. These will definitely hold us over for a while and if I can score some of the other kind for a decent price, great, but for now, I think these will be just fine!





Some ideas for Tot School may include: pouring, transferring, beading, spooning, hiding items in uncooked pasta or beans, sorting, matching, counting, cutting, gluing, simple arts and crafts, fine motor skills, stickers, etc.

These are things to do WITH your child. If you're looking for Tot Tray ideas, you should head over to 1+1+1=1 and check them out. There are lots of activities for a variety of ages. Most importantly, it should be FUN!

I'm off to make some Tot School plans for this cute girlie!

~Paula

Morning Meeting and Monsters!!

I did some updating to our Morning Meeting area for this upcoming school year. I use the space below my two white boards for our Morning Meeting. Our Morning Meeting consists of two sections: the calendar and the morning meeting board.

I am using my same calendar from last year, but I added a strip of the monster border to spruce it up a bit and to tie it all together! Can you guess what our theme might be for this year?


For the Morning Meeting Board, I used two pieces of foam board as the base. I had originally planned to cover it with the same fabric that is on my bulletin boards, but I decided that was too much hassle, so I got out that cute monster border and viola! a cute home-made bulletin board for about $3. I ran a piece of border down the middle too because that seam wasn't so pretty.



After we add the date to the calendar, we move over to the Morning Meeting Board. (The calendar part is pretty obvious, right? Please say yes because I am not done cutting out my months and numbers yet!)

First we have our "Today is...", "Yesterday was...", "Tomorrow will be..." section. This reinforces the days of the week, their order, etc.
I just created these using Microsoft Word. Once I printed them out, I mounted them on cardstock and laminated them. I made a pocket to hold the extra days. I laminated that too to make it more durable. I do have a toddler running around, you know and this is within her reach!

Next, we have our weather section. The kids check the weather each morning after breakfast and they update the weather at the Morning Meeting. They add the big weather card to the "What's the Weather?" to show that day's weather and the small weather card on the one that shows all 5 weekdays. I like this because it helps show them the weather over a duration of time. The pocket holds all the pieces.


You can find these prinatables at: Homeschool Creations and 1+1+1=1.

The next two things are included in the weather and calendar part of the morning meeting. We have a place to write the day and the date two different ways. This is good reinforcement for your older kiddos. We also have a place to chart the inside and outside temperatures. I just mounted these on cardstock and laminated them. You can use a dry-erase or wet-erase marker to change these each day. I personally prefer a Vis-a-Vis wet erase marker (like you'd use on a transparency).

You can find these printables at: Homeschool Creations and 1+1+1=1.

I love the "Make the Date" section of our morning meeting. This is where the kiddos can practice counting coins to form the date. For example, if the date is the 13th, they'll use coins to make 13 cents. All the pieces are in the little pocket!

You can find these printables at 1+1+1=1.

We also have a Color of the Day on our Morning Meeting Board. This is mainly for the benefit of Zoe, but will be good reinforcement for Andrew (K) this year too. We take the time to point out a few things around the room that are that color or think of other things that are that color too. For older kids, have them practice spelling those color words!
You can find this at: 1+1+1=1. This pocket she's created is blank, so it's good for other things too! Save it as a template. (I used it to hold my days of the week.)

This year, we are studying US Geography. By using these clips, I can change the geography section as often as I need to include whatever we are studying. Here I've clipped an Alabama flashcard.

We'll find Alabama on our map, talk about the capital and a few fun facts about the state. We'll also talk about Mountain Regions, Rivers, Trails, etc. this year in geography. We'll touch on it at Morning Meeting and go more in depth later in the day.

Next I have our weekly Bible verse and our Character Quality we are studying. For Bible, we use Developing Godly Character in Children. Each week, I print our verse and character quality on cardstock and slide them into these clips. This makes it easy to remove them and hang a new one each week.

We also have a weather graph to chart the weather over the course of the month.
You can find this printable at Confessions of a Homeschooler.

One more thing we do each day is our Place Value Chart. Each day we add a straw to the "ones" pocket. When we get to 10, we bundle them up with a rubber-band and move them over to the tens place and put a 0 in the ones place. We do this everyday. It reinforces those place-value skills AND it helps me keep up with how many days we've been in school that year! This pocket chart is beside one of my white boards.

I picked this up at my local teacher supply store for about $12 I think. You should be able to find it online too.

Well, that's basically our Morning Meeting portion of our school day. I hope I've given you some ideas and some inspiration to have your own morning meeting with your kiddos!

And now I'll leave you with a few magnificent monsters that you'll find in my school room this year. I am not done with them all, but here's a preview!

Playdough Mats

I love playdough. Children love playing with playdough and there are so many learning activities that can be done using it. One of the things playdough can be used for is teaching basic math skills. You can do sorting activities, counting activities, size discrimination activities, addition and subtraction activities etc. These can be teacher led or child led activities. It can be used for fun imaginative creating too.

One thing I like to do with playdough is to use 'playdough mats'. Over at Homeschool Creations, Jolanthe has created some awesome number and alphabet playdough mats. There are is a set for numbers 0-10, numbers 11-20 and alphabet.

These are extremely well designed. I printed mine on white cardstock and laminated them. They are awesome. Perfect for a tot or preschooler, a kindergartener or some extra fun for your early elementary student. Once I had mine all laminated and my little Seoul Sister was napping, the boys (K and 2nd grade), got to work on them. They were a huge hit!

The alphabet has a capital letter, a lower case letter and a picture of something that starts with the letter. The number set has the number and dots corresponding to to that number. The child can also form mini balls to place on each of the dots to count along with 1:1 correspondence.

Thanks so much to Homeschool Creations for providing these AWESOME and FREE printables!

Here's some photos of my boys having fun trying out the playdough mats this afternoon!

Andrew was excited because he made a really BIG snake.

When he's really concentrating, he gets that tongue going.

Even big brother Robert loves a playdough break!

He made an 8 and counted 8 mini-balls!

All done!

When we finished with the numbers, we thought we'd give the letter playdough mats a try. Andrew said he started with the letter Z for his little sister. Such a great big brother!

Head on over to Homeschool Creations and get you some playdough mats and some other great printables!

~Paula