Tot School - Mittens

C is 32 months

This week we did some mitten activities (and some winter and snowmen)

 Mitten match made from scrapbook paper

Later in the week we played memory with them

 Read a book with different colored pairs of mittens on each page. It was read much like Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See? (sorry it is rotated, it wasn't rotated in my picture folder)

I got out all of our winter accessories

 We sorted by family members, matched mittens, 

 and talked about the difference between mittens and gloves

Then I let her dress up

I hid a felt snowball behind different colors of felt mittens and said the following:

Snowball, snowball cold and round

behind which mitten can you be found?

C had to guess where the mitten was hiding by saying which color mitten it was behind. She liked this and then hid it for me a few times.


This is based on popsicle stick puzzle idea I saw on Activity Mom. I couldn't find our sticks so instead I glued a winter scene Christmas card to a cereal box, leaving space at the bottom. I cut it into strips and numbered the pieces.

Water painted animals from The Mitten by Jan Brett and glued them onto a large cut out of a mitten. You can get printables from Jan Brett stories at her website

While we read The Mitten, C put the animal into a mitten. These printables are also from Jan Brett's website. Since I printed them a few years ago, I am not sure which part of the site I got them from.


I wanted C to sort these by colors, but she didn't want to, she spread them out and said they were cookies

 
 We did this last week, but I forgot to add it. It is something called a "5 wide" board - I originally saw the idea at a teacher conference (where i got the print outs) but since I don't have the actual board, I just made one out of cardboard and binder rings.  Below is the rhyme that goes with it, which C LOVED.
 
(you can buy actual 5 wide boards and stories to go with it at Color R World)


 Playing with the felt snowman again


C is always asking me what color when you get when you mix certain colors. So I thought we would try putting colored ice cubes in baby food jars. We have the normal color mixing in the first few jars and in the rest are combinations she wanted to try. At first she was really interested.  But since it wasn't an instant activity, she lost interest pretty quickly. When they were melted a few hours later she looked and we observed the new colors, but wasn't as excited as she was earlier.


Hand print in mittens
(Yellow & green, go Packers!)

Tot School - Snowmen & Snow

C is 32 Months

(J is 10 months)

 C dropped the buttons we used in last week's activities into a water bottle

 Sorted hot and cold pictures

(images were from a Mailbox Magazine from a few years ago)

 Glued circles (snowballs) onto paper

C used scissors for the first time! I helped her cut on the line and thought it was too hard for her since we were struggling. After that I just let her do it on her own and she cut (off the line) just fine!

 Traced lines
Printables from Itsy Bitsy Learners

 Threw yarn snowballs into a garbage can

 J had some sensory fun with the snowballs! (with close supervision of course)

Other things we did with the snowballs, but I did not get pictures

* Snowball fights! C thought that was great!

* Tossed them onto our foam ABC mat and named the letter it landed on

* juggling -- well attempting to :)

Foil snowflake (idea from Frugal Family Fun Blog)

We did this together, C lost interest :(

Name Snowman (idea from Live, Learn, Love)

C and I worked together to make J's while she napped.

We played with small colorful hair ties.

 They are great fine motor practice for making patterns and sorting colors


 She also matched the pattern on her pants

Tot School - Snowman Week

C is 32 months

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 I am not sure if they still make Danimals drinks in this shape? I don't buy them, but I saved these from my teaching days when a child would bring them in for snack. I always thought they looked like snowmen, so I colored one with a Sharpie marker. They work well for Snowman bowling...


This was probably C's favorite of the week! I put tape on the floor to mark where to set the "pins" up. I thought about writing numbers on the tape and pins so she could match, but never got around to that.

Sometimes I forgot I have a huge collection of materials from my teaching days. I dug out all the snowman stuff I could find for C to work with this week. I didn't even get to it all.

 Color matching the hats to the noses and buttons

 I used the snowman that was missing the buttons to play this counting activity.

 Using the buttons to trace letters

 Using the buttons on the counting cards

 Playing with the felt snowman

After seeing this post on Teach Preschool I had to try it. I put the tape on the floor and right away C seemed to know what to do. She jumped from each shape. Then I put the line on the floor and she jumped and balanced on it.

 She is always matching, she started to collect blue toys to put on the blue tape

 I got out these blocks for her to trace the shapes with. She wasn't too interested in this and didn't even  finish this shape.

 She stacked the blocks instead

  Baby J even participated this week, she is really into putting things into something and taking them out. So I gave her an empty puffs container and blocks.

 This was another failed activity. I wrote the letters on the tape to match the letter blocks with, but she wasn't interested. Instead she would just walk along the tape, naming the letters as she walked.

 To keep C occupied for a few minutes while I had to care for J, I told her to use her new camera to take pictures of things that were green. She took this task very seriously and took (extremely) up close pictures of all things the green she could find!