Tot School: Life

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We've been doing this whale unit study from DownloadNGo that has SO many branches to it - I think we're getting about one day's worth of activities done each week.  So we're not gonna go into it just yet on this post.  We'll just give you a sample of some of the other stuff we get to do outside of our "theme" stuff.

We went to the library and just picked out books for the fun of it, rather than looking for a specific theme...  Here are some of them:

• A Huge Hog is a Big Pig by Francis McCall & Patricia Keeler - some good rhyming practice!
• Alfred Nobel:  The Man Behind the Peace Prize by Kathy-Jo Wargin - a nice beginning biography.  A little old for me, but I don't mind reading it.
• 14 Cows for America by Carmen Agra Deedy - another book with concepts that are a little old for me, but it's a powerful short story with really cool African illustrations.
• A House for Hermit Crab by Eric Carle - It's Eric Carle!  Nuff said...
• Pickin' Peas by Margaret Read MacDonald - just a fun book with a little gardening theme as a bonus.
• Honey.. Honey.. Lion! A Story from Africa by Jan Brett - It's Jan Brett!  Gorgeous illustrations and nature lessons.
• 26 Letters and 99 Cents by Tana Hoban - just a little alphabet review with an intro to US money values.
• Ladybug Girl by David Soman and Jacky Davis - Just a fun book that reminds me to ask Mom for my OWN ladybug costume every time we read it.
• Fancy Nancy by Jane O'Connor - A very fun book!  Mom thinks this one influenced me to rename our cat from "Flame" to "Sparkley Tangerine."  "Sparkley Tangerine" is MUCH fancier, wouldn't you agree?

For rainy days, we've been using these very cool alphabet exercise cards!  My favorites are M for Marching and P for Pushups.  Mom likes O for jumping Over the pillow.

Mommy has been teaching me to play the piano/keyboard.  Well, we haven't gotten all that far yet.  We traced my hands and I know which is left and right and the corresponding "number" of each finger - since most beginning books use finger numbering.

I've experimented how if you hit a key harder, the note sounds louder.  And if you go right, the sound gets higher, while if you go left, the sound gets lower.

And we spent lots of time checking out the patterns of the keys.  Two black, three black, two black, three black, and so on.  This week I have been pointing out all the C keys, which is easy, now that I know the pattern!  The next step is to learn how to position my fingers and hands so a butterfly wouldn't get crushed underneath my hands.  But I'm a little resistant to that lesson.

I like to accompany myself as I make up songs.  I made up one about a kitten playing with a butterfly that went up and down in the meadow.  It even rhymed!  Mom says she needs to start writing my songs down so I can repeat them.


I do lots of drawing of funny-looking people...


I helped dye my ballet slippers bright pink.  That took a LOOONG time.


Daddy taught me how to paint with an airbrush.  Mom foresees a graffiti artist in the making!


We played lots of games, like this Sequence for Kids that we got for $0.55 at a thrift store.  It's kind of like Connect Four (another game I like), except you can only put your tokens on the animals you draw a card for.  I'm also learning to play Go Fish and how to put 24-piece puzzles together.  I sort out the edge pieces, and then Mom gives me clues of things to look for - like "Here is Tigger's arm - can you find a piece with Tigger's hand on it?"


We worked on our miniature garden!  We've got three tomato plants and lots of itty bitty onions peeking out right now.


I worked on my Pop Bead people set, making people with really long necks and four legs and that kind of thing.


And I even made the letter S!  I'm quite proud of that.


We did some cooking.  I helped make these really yummy and healthy granola bars.  No raisins or dried fruit in them, thank goodness!


I learned about roasting hot dogs and marshmallows!

I also practiced husking corn.  Then I adopted the littlest cob as my corn baby, whose mommy had died!

I play with play dough a lot.  I love cutting it with scissors.  Here is a beautiful yellow rose I made!


I played with some of my magnet sets.  This is my farm set:

And my horse set:

And my letter set - I am reviewing starting sounds and learning to spell!

I go to church - we are learning about the 5 loaves and two fish right now.  Here I am playing with a windmill in the fan stream.


I also get to go to playgrounds sometime.  I am riding a duck here!


And climbing to the top of the slide...


...and sliding down!