Tot School - Valentine's Day

Our theme for this past week was Valentine's Day! There is nothing like hearts, frills, and lots of pink to get Naomi and I excited!  We read lots of Valentine's Day themed books that we got from our local library, and really enjoyed those.  In addition to our theme activities, and Tot Trays, we are working our way through Get Set for The Code. We only do a couple pages a day, and typically do one letter a week. Our letter for this week was B.

As a side note, I will always put a link to the blog that I get an idea from.  I try my very best to link directly to the post where I got the idea, but realistically this won't always happen. For example, I know I got this shaving cream in a bag idea from Confessions of a Homeschooler, but I just can't remember what specific post it was from. Regardless, it was a great idea!

I filled a ziploc bag with shaving cream as a fun way for Naomi to practice making her letters. This was a great alternative to drawing directly in shaving cream, as Naomi doesn't like to get her hands dirty. I love my daughter! ;) I tried to make it pink by adding red paint, but didn't add enough for it to really work.  I also added way too much shaving cream the first time and it didn't work at all. Once I took over half of it out, it was much better. It was fun and not at all messy!

Nathan had his 9 month check-up, so off we all went to the doctor. One of the wonderful things about homeschooling is that you can do it anywhere! I wanted Naomi to work with her lacing beads, and since we didn't get a chance before we left the house, we just took them with us. She's really good at lacing now and it was a fun way to keep her from touching all the germ infested toys at the doctor's office. As you can tell, I'm a "bit" of a germaphobe!

This was a multi-step activity. First Naomi sorted out all the medium sized pom-poms. Then she peeled the paper back off magnet strips, and attached them to the pom-poms. This was very good for her fine motor skills, as the paper was really stuck on there. Next she put the magnetized pom-poms on a cookie tray.

After she played with them for a bit, I gave here this sheet to put all the pom-poms on. She LOVED doing this, and thought that the magnet pom-poms were the coolest thing ever. When we were done she said, "Mommy, I sure do like pom-poms!". I think it's funny the things they end up really enjoying. I got the Valentine magnet sheet from Confessions of a Homeschooler too.

Here was our Valentine making tray. She had fun decorating cards with stickers and foam hearts. I had her dictate to me what she wanted written in the cards.

B is for butterflies! On this tray she drew a number card from a bowl, and then had to put the correct number of butterflies on the mat. She liked the butterflies but this wasn't her favorite tray by any means. I got the butterfly number mat from here.

Having fun with playdough, using these heart shaped cookie cutters I got at Target.

I hadn't actually planned this activity, but didn't get around to doing it myself  in preparation for the next tray, so I had Naomi help. The best activities are never planned! I had her sort her foam bath set into letters and numbers. This turned out to be more challenging for her than I ever would have guessed, and is something we will definitely be doing again! I think it was hard for her because we've never worked with both letters and nubmers at the same time before.

I thought up this tray all by myself! This was a game to see how many chocolates Gloria Gorilla got for Valentine's Day.  I had Naomi draw these foam numbers from the container. Then she had to count out the corresponding number of chocolates. I thought this was so cute and couldn't wait to see her reaction. She was not impressed. She did the tray - once - after I bribed her with some of the chocolate. Go figure! ;)

Here Naomi did a lentil bean spooning activity. I got the heart muffin tin, and heart spoons, at the dollar section in Target. She loved sponging the beans, and did this over and over again.

We had a great week! Be sure to take a peek at what others are doing during their Tot School at 1+1+1+1. Check back later in the week to see what Nathan has been up to!

Karla