Tot School: Spring Flowers

For Tot School, we are currently doing both shapes and other themes concurrently. Here are the activities we did for "spring flowers." Juniper was 21 months.

This was a play dough tray I made for her to explore. It had chocolate play dough, little terracotta pots, Toob flowers, buttons and gems. It smelled wonderful but was messy!

She also used her flower play dough set(the price on this one seems to jump around like crazy, it was pretty inexpensive when I got it). It is one we get out pretty regularly.

Spring flower sensory bin. I used terracotta pots, various types of flowers and a springy base (green rice and spaghetti with multicolored star pasta)

Playing with her flower builders.

Flower paper punches. She loves the activity, but definitely still needs a lot of help.

She did the flowers out of her beginner pattern blocks.

Spring flower tray puzzles. Some of these she does fine on her own, some she needs help.

Flower matching cards and flower toob. She could do several, but lost interest quickly.

Books, of course! We got out lots of spring and flower books. Juniper surprised me in how much she liked some of the "older" books in addition to the board books.

Hope is a Hop

The Hidden Rainbow

First Notes of Spring

There's a Bird on your Head

Are You Ready to Play Outside?

 Bear Finds Eggs

Splat the Cat Oopsie Daisy (absolute favorite this year)

Planting a Rainbow

Don't Touch That Flower

Escargot and the Search for Spring

Little Blue Truck's Springtime

Peek Inside Springtime

A Duckling for Daniel

Baby Loves Spring

Listen to the Rain

Peep Inside a Bird's Nest

Here are some of the early readers I pulled for this theme. I pulled them from Meet the Digraphs, Meet the Sight Words Level 3, Non-Fiction Sight Words Readers Level D and a random scholastic pack.

Spring Dot Pages and Light Table Printables

My kids have really been enjoying light table play lately, so for spring, I made them some printables to use with it. I made a flower and a butterfly, but with dots and without.

To use on the light table, I just printed the pages on to  blank transparencies. I also set out a container with magnetic bingo chips.

I was able to print the same pages on regular paper to use with  Dot markers.

 Print the Spring Dot Pages and Light Table Printables Here

Tot School: Circles

Now that we are done with Color Themes, we are moving on to Shape Themes. Now, compared my middle child, Juniper is not quite as obsessed with shapes. Rather than focusing solely on shapes each week, I think we're also going to do some other themed activities that span a couple of shapes. That means, some of these posts might be a little sparse.

Circles, however, had plenty of activities! Juniper was 21 months.

Her wall area had these posters from The posters are from The Learning Effect, as well as her completed artwork.

Magnetic bingo chips on the light table were a huge hit. She liked them so much, I even had her do her circle dot page with them.

Play dough included some fondant cutters, a cookie cutter, a stamp and a "polka dot" design roller.

She traced some circles. Well no, I helped her trace them and she colored them. (Printable here)

We also looked at some sentences about circles in her pocket chart. (Printable here)

She used her paper punch to make some circles. She definitely needs some help, but enjoys the activity!

Stacking spools.

Playing with her coin box.

Using Do a Dot markers to decorate a circle.

Coloring circles by color. (Printable here)

She really wanted to put dot stickers on her coloring sheet.

Circle fruit fraction puzzle. She liked "cutting" the fruit apart more than putting them together.

Her big brother had Connect Four out, so she wanted to use it too.

She both played with the Otrio board and used the rings on her pasta stand.

Opaque and translucent circle shapes. I kind of expected her to ignore these, but she was interested in them. Mostly, she stacked the shapes.

Circle size sequencing puzzle.

 

Biomes Units: Desert

 As we tour the world, we are also learning about various world biomes. Recently, we spent a couple of weeks focused on the desert. 

Books:

Here are some of the mountain themed books we read.

Who's Hiding in the Desert

Just Ask: What is a Desert

I Wonder Why The Sahara is Cold at Night

Desert Biome

Desert Hare vs Arctic Hare

Desert Biome

Desert Homes

Magic School Bus All Dried Up

Desert page from I Ate Sunshine for Breakfast

We try to read one or two "math" books every week. We included Coyotes All Around while we were studying deserts.

Spread from Turn and Learn Our World

Big Picture Book of Planet Earth

Spread from+ Trees, Leaves, Flowers and Seeds: A Visual Encyclopedia of the Plant Kingdom

We used The Secret Explorers Desert Disappearance for our read aloud.

Activities:

 

Cactus puzzle from a Plant Anatomy Science Puzzles set.

Southwest Desert Search and Find Puzzle

I found these cute little desert animal stickers

He did a couple of pages from the Habitats book.

Matching up Desert Vocabulary Cards and Toob animals.

Videos:

We watched the Bill Nye the Science Guy Deserts episode.