Tot School- September 2015 (1 Year, 10 Months Old)
First day of Tot School ;)
***We have made it through our first month of Tot School this year! Woohoo! It's funny because the thing I wanted to work on the most was being consistent with doing Tot School each morning at the same time, with circle time; however, I don't know what I was thinking! This month (and next too) has just been crazy! I am going into the office twice a week to train for my maternity leave, and then I also have weekly doctors appointments, and just random other things that seem to fill our mornings up! So needless to say, we definitely haven't been able to be too consistent this month (am I crazy to think it'll be easier to do when Fynn's here?!), but we did at least do almost all of the activities at some point or another during the month!
I've attached pictures and notes throughout this post, so you can see it in action!
With the new "school year" approaching, I really wanted to change up how I do Tot School with Aly. Mostly, I want this time to be more structured- like do it around the same time every day, in the same order, and be more planned myself. So I spent the summer creating a {loose} daily and monthly schedule. The daily schedule includes a breakdown of our circle time, which we started doing this summer. The monthly schedule is a breakdown of what activities we will do on which days. This of course is all very loose. My goal is to do tot school activities 4 mornings a week, but I know things always come up and we may only get to do half of these things each month, but for my Type A personality, it feels good to have a daily plan in place! Oh and I also would like to mention that Alynne really loves to color and do dot worksheets, so that is why I've incorporated them in some form every day. Feel free to pick and choose what activities interest and are appropriate for your child! And lastly, I cannot take all the credit for these plans. I mostly combined plans from this site and this site. I have attached their links whenever one of their ideas are listed so you can easily find their printables. Both are excellent resources we'll be using all year long! And now, without further adieu, our September plans...
September 2015 Schedule
Here is the link to this month's calendar. Print it out and follow along for the month!
Most of the tot school activities we do require minimal supplies or we already have on hand. But here is an extensive list so you know exactly what you'll need for the month!
Supplies needed:
Dot markers
Crayons
Stamp, marker, or stickers
Red pom poms
Red, green, and brown construction paper
Red, yellow, and green tissue paper
Contact paper
Apples
Apple seeds
Red, yellow, green paint
Toilet paper roll
Red paper or foam
Blue paper or foam
Beads
Paper plate
Cotton Balls
Felt- brown, dark green, red, yellow, green, peach
Oats
Verse: “Keep me as the apple of your eye, hide me in the shadows of your wings.” -Psalm 17:8
Color: Red
Color: Rojo
Letter: A, B, C
Letra: A, B, C
Shape: Circle
Forma: Circulo
Number: 1
Numero: 1
Theme: Apples
Tema: manzanas
***Doing a new letter each week has been very fast paced for us, but Alynne has done great with it! She already knows all of her upper case letters, and this month she was able to learn lower case a,b, and c as well as the sounds that they make! Aly also learned to sing the ABC's this month. She is also really starting to perfect her counting. She loves to count objects she's holding, as well as just count in general. And finally, she has become obsessed with drawing circles too!
Library Book List:
Apple Farmer Annie
Apple Pie ABC
Apples A-Z
Baby Loves Fall
Counting on Fall
Fall Leaves
It’s Fall
Max’s Apples
Ten Apples Up on Top
***We loved these books, except Counting on Fall was too advanced =]
Music (circle time)
10 Little Apples
One little, two little, three little apples
Four little, five little, six little apples,
Seven little, eight little, nine little apples
Ten little apples for you and me!
Apples and Bananas
I like to eat, eat, eat apples and bananas
Apple Action Rhyme
Way up high in the apple tree (Point up.)
Two little apples smiled at me. (Make the shape of an apple with your hand.)
I shook that tree as hard as I could. (Pretend to shake tree.)
Down fell the apples—(Raise hands and let them fall.)
Mmmmmm, were they good! (Rub tummy.)
#1 Hokey Pokey (Sing using the number 1)
You put your one arm in,
You put your one arm out,
You put your one arm in,
And you shake it all about.
You do the Hokey-Pokey
And you turn yourself around.
That’s what it’s all about!
***We loved the songs, especially the first one!
Fine Motor/Worksheets
A Dot Art
Use dots or stickers to decorate printout
Discuss which letter is "Big A" and which is "Little A." Also discuss the sound the letter A makes.
B Dot Art
Use dots or stickers to decorate printout
Discuss which letter is "Big B" and which is "Little B." Also discuss the sound the letter B makes.
C Dot Art
Use dots or stickers to decorate printout
Discuss which letter is "Big C" and which is "Little C." Also discuss the sound the letter C makes.
1 Dot Art
Use dots or stickers to decorate printout
A letter recognition
Use dot marker to identify the letter A
B Letter Recognition
Use dot marker to identify the letter B
C Letter Recognition
Use dot marker to identify the letter C
Circle coloring sheet
Decorate with torn up red paper
Red coloring sheet
Apple coloring sheet
***Aly loved all of the coloring and dot sheets for this month. She is quite the pro with the dot marker now! I love seeing her little personality come through as she is very methodical to cover up the circles! With the letter recognition sheets, it is hard for Aly to just color in the letter we're looking for. She wanted to color them all, but at least she was naming them all as she did haha!
Math
Apple Sorting Mat
Place the corresponding small colored apple on the large apple.
Bear Sorting Mat
Place the corresponding small colored bear on the large bear.
Candy Sorting Mat
Place the corresponding small colored candy on the large candy.
ABC Sorting Mat
Place the corresponding small letters on the large letters.
Apple stamping game
Use the apple stamping record sheet. Help child to use a marker to cover the numeral on that apple.
Apple Tree math
Print the apple trees and cut apart and laminate if desired. Set out apple trees with a basket of red pompoms or buttons. Help child to count out pompoms/buttons to match the numbers on the apple trees.
Pom poms and Muffin Tin
Use tongs to place 1 pom pom in each cup
***Alynne got to use the glue stick for the first time this month, and boy did she love it!! She was all about our sorting activities! Again, she is so methodical about where she glues the pieces! She had no problem sorting the colors and the letters. She liked the apple stamping game and the apple tree math, but she was definitely more interested in scooping and playing with the pom poms! Good fine motor practice anyways ;) I decided to just let her practice using tongs instead of doing one-to-one correspondence. It proved tricky for her for sure. She had fun trying, but we will keep practicing!
Art
A is for Apple
Cut an “A” out of red paper or foam. Decorate by gluing apple seeds onto the “A.”
B is for Beads
Cut a “B” out of blue paper or foam. Decorate by gluing beads onto the “B.”
C is for Clouds
Cut a paper plate into the shape of a C. Decorate by gluing cotton balls onto the “C."
Stained glass apples
Cut out an apple shape from red construction paper. Add a stem and leaf if you wish. Cut out the center of the apple, leaving approximately 2 inches around the edges. Cover the entire front of the apple with clear contact paper. Cover the back (sticky side of contact paper) with squares of red, yellow, and green tissue paper, creating a collage. Hang in the window so light shines through. This will look like stained glass!
Apple prints
Cut apples in half. Dip apples in paint and stamp on paper. Try making prints in yellow, red, and green paint! Once dry, draw on stems and leaves.
Apple stamps
Use toilet paper roll dipped in paint to stamp tree with apples.
Apple tree craft
Trace your child's hand and forearm on brown construction paper. Cut it out. Cut out a fluffy cloud shape on green construction paper. Glue all of these down onto plain paper into the shape of a tree. Use your child's thumb to paint down "apples" with red paint. Describe the parts of a tree and introduce the vocabulary terms: tree, leaves, branches, and trunk. Ask the child if they can verbally identify each part of the tree ("Can you point to the trunk?")
***Aly loved decorating the different letters each week (especially when it involved using the glue stick!). With the letter A, I forgot to save any apple seeds, so we just used a marker to color on seeds! The stained glass apple was fun, but that activity was short lived because she was pretty cranky that day! The apple prints and stamps were lots of fun, as well as creating the apple tree. Aly loves to use paint!
Science/sensory
Go apple picking around the apartment
Hide red, yellow, and green apples (printout) around the apartment to find. When finished, sort colors and count.
Apple felt play
Create a large felt tree with felt apples to take on and off
Apple sink or float
Experiment to see if apples sink or float in water
Parts of an apple
Create an apple out of felt. Cut an apple shape from red felt. Cut one just smaller out of white felt. Add a peach core with 2 brown seeds. Add a brown stem and green leaf. Let child layer together to create an apple.
Apple playdoh
Make apple scented playdoh
Use cups to create circles in the playdoh. Recipe
Apple Pie Sensory Bin
Fill with oats, cinnamon, red pom poms, and scoops
***Aly was super excited on the first morning of tot school when she saw the new felt scene! She screamed "treeee!" and "apples!" and then immediately tried to tell me she was all done with breakfast haha. We never did the felt apple parts or the apple sink or float. We played with playdoh several times throughout the month, she loves it! The apple picking game was SO fun. I accidentally colored them all red, so we didn't do any sorting with them afterwards, but we played several times where Papi or I would hide the apples all over the apartment and she would hunt for them. This was definitely her favorite activity of the month. And finally, I am just now realizing that we never did the apple sensory bin!! I just checked and it wasn't on our master calendar, so I never even realized we skipped that! Boo! Maybe will do it tomorrow morning ;)
***And finally here are some pictures of all of Aly's finished work throughout the month and some pictures from our apple picking field trip!
