The theme this week is Transportation / Things That Go

Baby L was quite sick earlier in the week and still runny nosed and fussy today.  I got hit hard with her cold halfway through the week, so once again, things were cut a little short, and my documentation is less than ideal.

Baby L is 16 months

Sensory: Whipping Cream “Clouds” with plastic airplanes & helicopters (from a bin of Lakeshore Learning Vehicle Counters).  Shaving Cream would make nicer “clouds” to squish in and last longer, but Baby L is still putting a lot in her mouth, so I went with something edible.

This was a big hit, especially once she figured out that whipping cream tastes delicious ;)  She did zoom the airplanes and copters around for a bit, but then started using them as utensils to zoom the “clouds” right into her mouth.

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Tot Basket: Transportation Magnets and magnetic board.  

 

These magnets are made by Melissa and Doug; but we’ve had them a long time and I don’t think they are sold now (at least I couldn’t find them on thier site or Amazon to link them).  Baby L likes placing magnets and pulling them off

Vocabulary: various types of vehicles

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Tot Basket: Maxim Ramp Race. 

This is another toy that is from Kidlet’s toddler hood, and I couldn’t find the little ramp at the bottom so the cars slide off smoothly (I know I’ve seen it around here somewhere!) but it didn’t seem to matter to Baby L; she really liked watching the cars swoosh down the levels.

Vocabulary: car, blue, green, zoom, top, bottom

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Tot Basket: Wooden Trains & Tracks (legacy of Kidlet who would literally spend hours pushing Thomas around on tracks)

Vocabulary: train, track, engine, caboose, front, back, push

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Tot Basket: Transportation Manipulatives sorting. 

I took a few Oriental Trading “bug jars” (thin plastic cups) and inserted a piece of rolled up paper inside to make a red, blue, and yellow cup.  I took out a handful of the Lakeshore Learning transportation manipulatives in each of those colors to see if she could sort by color yet.  Not so much.  She did enjoy filling the jars and then dumping them out.

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Tot Basket: small cars (brother’s hot wheels, etc) + blocks + street rug

We number of different things with the small cars this week.  I collected several of the same colors and we tried grouping reds with reds, blues with blues, etc.  Made a “garage” for the cars out of a shoe box. We drove the cars on the roads on the play rug, lined up cars and talked about front, behind, and next to, faced each other and rolled cars back and forth, created a “main street” with blocks for cars to drive between, and created a road out of blocks for her to drive the cars along.

Vocabulary: cars, colors, wheels, road, drive, line up, front, behind, between, in, out

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Others: pretended that a large box was a car/train and pushed her around in it, played with boats in the bathtub (weather has been rainy now for a few weeks, so outside time has been curtailed), Fisher Price Rumble & Learn Driver, V-Tech Animal Train

Nursery Rhymes & Songs: Wheels on the Bus, The Choo-Choo Train (chanting game), Down by the Station, Little Red Caboose,

On topic books we read this week: My Little Book of Trains; Sesame Street My First Book of Things That Go; The Race; Zoom, Zoom, Zoom; Bear’s Blue Boat; Traffic Jamboree;

New sign: Car.  Mimic grasping a steering wheel with both hands and driving an imaginary car.

Find more terrific tot school posts over at 1+ 1 + 1 = 1

 

Posted by Kristen in totschool

 

Not really a “theme” this week, except I guess “basics” – the alphabet in general, numbers, colors and shapes.

Baby L is 15.5 months

I had *so* much going on with the volunteer coordination job for Kidlet’s school (I had to teach 2 training sessions, and spent a lot of time prepping for that) that I did a really poor job of documenting totschool time this week, so we are low on pictures.  Then to make things worse, I somehow managed to lose all the updates that I made to the post half way through the week, so my post is looking a little anemic! 

Tot Basket: Alphabet Puzzle

She hasn’t got the idea of matching the picture on a puzzle piece to the picture on the board really (with any puzzle).  She tries to fit it into any hole that looks close.  That works OK when we are using her blocksters or one of the 3 piece chunky handle puzzles, but not so much for one with this many choices.  Sang the ABC song while touching each letter; named each letter as she touched it. 

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Tot Basket: Stacking Blocks

These Metropolitan Museum of art nesting blocks (and books on ABC, 123, and shapes) were gifts from my MIL back when Kidlet was younger.  She did a really great job of getting them stacked quite high.  Knocking them over of course was the best part 😉

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Tot Basket: Wooden Clock Shape Sorter

Although this picture shows playing with big brother, we did have 1 on 1 tot school time with it as well.  She was as “successful” fitting the shapes here as she was with the alphabet puzzle.  I let her play as she wanted though, with mommy naming the color and number and sometimes the shape of each block as she handled it.

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Totbasket: 1-10 Counting Bees and Hive (from last week)

She kept trying to make the bees kiss her toes again, so we did some more of our bumblebee chants from last week, as well as talking about the number on each bee and sorting them into thier holes on the hive.

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Others: Alphabet Cards from the 1 + 1 + 1 = 1 Members Section.  I printed a quick and dirty copy so we could just play with them a bit and talk about the various items (eventually I’ll print them out on cardstock and laminate them), Magnetic Alphabet Letters & Board, Felt Board: basic shapes in small, medium and largest sizes, chunky handle shape puzzle (triangle, circle, square), Melissa & Doug Stack and Sort Board

Nursery Rhymes & Songs: Alphabet Song (and a backwards version that my Kidlet loves to sing), TMBG “Here Come the ABC’s” and “Here Come the 123’s“, Fingers and Toes by Milkshake (counting song and we do it as a “fingerplay”)

On topic books we read this week: Musuem ABCs, Museum Shapes, Museum 123, Sesame Street Elmo’s Guessing Game About Colors, Big Bird’s Guessing Game About Shapes, Annie Ate Apples, Lift & Learn ABC 123, 10 Little Rubber Ducks,

New sign: Instead of introducing a new sign, we worked more on “Book”.  I’ve been using it all along, but she had made what seemed to be a try at the sign, so I wanted to focus on that and see if it would develop fully. 

Find more terrific tot school posts over at 1+ 1 + 1 = 1

Posted by Kristen in totschool

 

I should mention that while I pick a theme for the week, that doesn’t mean we aren’t talking about that topic at other times.  I just like having a theme to help me pick the toys and activities for the week.  We won’t suddenly stop trying to teach Baby L about her body parts once the end of the week arrives ;)  I picked this theme because we were looking a First Words book and when we turned to the “My body” page she reached up and grabbed her hair, which is the first word on the page.

On a completely unrelated note, I think Baby L needs a new web name; she isn’t a baby really anymore, although she’ll always be my baby ;)  I’ll have to think on it.

Baby L is 15.5 months 

 

Baby L is in a stage where she wants to know “what’s that?” (except she only points), and I was looking for ways other than books to show her body parts.   I made up our tot baskets based on that, more than picking something she would choose to play with if she were picking something to play with on her own. 

The majority of our tot school time was spent in song and fingerplays that talk about body parts, rather than focused on the tot baskets (I think we watched on DVD and performed “clap your hands” by they might giants about 500 times).  We did them in front of mirrors.  We did them using stickers, adhering one to whichever body part we were chanting about.

 

 

Stomping to “Clap Your Hands” (the second verse is stomp your feet) by TMBG.

 

I’m missing pictures for a few activities this week; couldn’t find my camera for a couple days. 

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Tot Basket: Baby Doll / Play Doctor

First we read “Doctor for a Day” and then got out the basket.  While playing with the doll (she doesn’t have a ton of interest in them yet, but we have one that Grandma S gave us when Kidlet was learning to potty that came with a little potty chair), I’d say “Uh oh, baby has a boo-boo!  Where does she hurt?!” and wherever Baby L would touch, I’d stick a band-aid on and say “She has a boo-boo on her {insert body part here}”. 

Vocabulary: Names of body parts, boo-boo, band-aid

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Tot Basket:  Mr. Potato Head

I had doubts that Baby L would be able to actually assemble Mr. Potato Head, but it provided opportunity to name each part; and they were 3-D pieces she could pick up instead of just a flat picture.  As she picked up a piece, I’d name the part and give a small fact like “That’s the eyes.  We see with our eyes.”

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Tot Basket: Hand puzzle, layered body puzzle.  Obviously there was no expectation that Baby L would be *assembling* the puzzles.  As with Mr. Potato Head, I was naming whatever she picked up and tried to give a small fact about that part.

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Tot Basket:  Counting Bees and Bee Hive (no longer sold).  This is a toy I bought some years back from Lillian Vernon for Kidlet.  I was amazed to discover that I was able to find all 10 bees (all over the house!)since Kidlet hasn’t played with it in ages.

I put this in because I had a bumblebee/bodypart chant, and also because its just something she likes to do — stuffing the little bees into the holes.  In the picture she had just picked up a bee after we were done playing and started making it kiss her own toes.  Definitely my favorite moment of totschool this week!

Bumble Bee, Bumble Bee (tune: Jingle Bells)

Bumblebee, bumblebee,
landing on my toes.
Bumblebee, bumblebee,

now he’s on my nose.
On my arms, on my legs, on my elbows.
Bumblebee, oh  bumblebee he lands and then he goes.

 

A Bee is on Me

A bee is on my bonnet
A bee is on my nose,
A bee is on my shoulder
A bee is even on my toes.

A bee is in my hair
A bee is in my pants,
A bee is in my ears
A bee is making me dance.

The bee is near my socks
The bee is near my shoes,
SPLAT!
Bee, I know how to take care of you!

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Crafts: Make a Face

 

 

I cut out some eyes, ears, mouths and noses from magazines to glue (mommy did the glue) onto a paper plate to make a face.  The hair is some doll hair stuff I had bought a long time ago.  I didn’t glue it on, but put it in place to try and show her that this was a face, and what was the top of the head.  I recited one of our rhymes, then repeated a line as she did that part of the face.

 

Two little eyes to look around, 

Two little ears to hear each sound, 

One little nose to smell what’s sweet,

One little mouth that likes to eat!

 

 

Well, she didn’t want to stop at 2 eyes and 1 mouth.  Other than that, she did a really good job getting the features into generally the right part of the face!

 

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Various cards.  We used her Wimmer-Ferguson gallery cards to pick out facial features on different animals and people.  I also made our own body part flashcards using pictures of her own body parts.

 

 

Here she is showing me “Where are your ears?” without putting the cards down 😉

 

 

Here are the flash cards made with pictures of her.  The plan was to make a ziploc bag or paperbag book for her with a full body shot at the end, all with labels, but I didn’t get that far.  I’d say “This is Baby L’s mouth!” and tap the card, and then say it again and tap her mouth.  Then I would ask her to find the hand, or ear or whatever.

 

She was sitting in my lap while we did this, so no pictures with her. 

 

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I also tried the “Make Your Body Like This Cards” from Today Is Fun!, but as of yet, it’s too advanced for her.  Kidlet enjoyed them ;) 

 

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Nursery Rhymes & Songs:  Fingers and Toes – Milkshake (one of my favorite kids music bands; grownups can listen to it without going mad), Clap Your Hands – They Might Be Giants (another goodie.  I spent my teen years listening to thier “grown up” music, and I love thier kids CDs), Hokey Pokey, Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, This Little Piggy, Little Girl with a Little Curl, Little Jack Horner

 

On topic books we read this week: Find a Face, Parts, Doctor for a Day (out of print), I Get Dressed (from Gymboree, out of print), Baby Faces, Toddler Two, Where is Baby’s Belly Button, My First Body Board Book

 

On topic snacks this week:  Sandwiches cut with boy and girl cutters, ham and cheese stackers cut with hand shaped cutter,

 

New sign: See.  Make the letter “V” with your hand, hold it near your eyes and then move it away and down.

Find more terrific tot school posts over at 1+ 1 + 1 = 1 

 

Posted by Kristen in totschool