Monday, January 18, 2010

Winter School

Tot School
I've started doing the Itty Bitty Bookworm Curriculum this month, which is lots of fun! The first week was centered on the book Froggy Gets Dressed by Jonathan London, which is all about a little froggy who gets dressed to go play outside in the snow. Except he keeps forgetting to put something on... Getting dressed is complicated!

Anyway, here's some of the stuff we did, along with some carryover Christmas stuff.

Mommy's note on the curriculum: I was a little concerned with how we'd fit everything in since I'm working three days a week, but it worked out great, as long as I had everything prepared! It takes 2 hours or less to get through the "daily" fun stuff with just one kid, so we can do that every day. Then when we're home all day, we have time for the kitchen and science and play center stuff.

Let's start with my bulletin board. Since I can't use my schoolhouse yet, we set up a bulletin board in my bedroom! Every night I get to cross off the day on my calendar, and we go over the number, letter, color, and shape of the week, plus a poem and a Bible verse. The number, letter, color, and shape are way too easy. I've memorized my Bible verse and poem, too!
I also work on my easel. Here I am writing the letter of the week: "O". I even did it in blue, the color of the month! I am learning to spell "blue."
Since the book was about getting dressed for winter, Mommy filled a basket with winter stuff - scarves, hats, mittens, etc. Here is Froggy decked out with the stuff...
...and I also spent a lot of time dressing MYSELF for winter!
I dressed up a paper Froggy with scraps of material and LOTS of glue.
Then we hung up some mittens with clothespins for clothespin practice. Except I am ANTI-clothespin. I don't like working with them! So Mommy had to do it. (Except she's anti-clothespin herself - she far prefers clothes dryers!)
I practiced my cutting by making a fringe on a "scarf." (Mommy's note: so much of our stuff is in boxes in the shop, and I couldn't make myself buy fleece when we already have it in a box, so we ended up using a broad ribbon).
I dressed up a penguin with stickers (we got this from Oriental Trading, but I don't see it in their catalog anymore).
And I dressed up a snowman that we found at Activity Village.
I put together some word puzzles (Mommy just noticed that she took a picture of me making the FROG puzzle). We got these from Ross for $5, plus a sequencing one, a letter one, and a math one.
I did some worksheets. I am getting to be an expert on these, so Mommy's gonna have to find me some harder ones to keep my attention. I also did some minibooks (not pictured).
And I learned a new way to do worksheets - instead of circling something, I placed a flat glass marble on it. On these I was supposed to find all the snowmen with a certain shape. I did perfectly on ALL the shapes. I also had to do the same type of thing with letters, and once again, I did perfectly!
We added some SNOW to my train set for a wintry wonderland... Except Flamey the cat kept wanting to sleep in my train set.
I painted with an ice popsicle and dry tempera paint! (Mommy's note - let the popsicle melt a little before using it - straight from the freezer, it's too dry to be very exciting for a toddler.)
And I did a snow painting using white paint, Qtips, and cotton balls. Mommy told me to use the cotton balls to put snow on the ground, and then use the Qtips to make snowflakes, and I did exactly that!
Speaking of cotton balls, that was what was in my "sensory" bowl this week.
Speaking of snow, here's this really cute snowman I destroyed from a blog Mommy discovered recently and loves: Toy-A-Day. (Mommy's notes - when doing paper crafts like this, use a ruler with a sharp knife to cut the slits, and then use a ruler with the back of a tableknife to score the folds. It makes everything come together neatly.)

I also (impromptu) decided to make a snowman from sugar cookie dough. It didn't bake very well.
I learned a new word: "cryogenics." We experimented with freezing dish soap, water, honey, and pudding. The honey was the neatest - it was still runny after being frozen, and it was yummy, too!
We made latkes to go with our Hanukkah books one night. Boy, are they messy!
Mommy showed me how to write my name in chocolate pudding. Here I am writing the "S." All in the name of education - to go with the "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" song.
And here is the glittery heart I made to put under the tree as my Christmas gift to Jesus.

6 comments:

Amy said...

Wow she is just so amazing. I need to be doing more stuff like this with my little one. She turned two in Oct. I want to get a calendar and go over things. I just have not done it yet. Oops..

ShEiLa said...

So very cute. All wintery. The reason you don't like clothespins... they pinch. If I got pinched I wouldn't like them either. For rude!

So many activities and so much fun!

ToOdLeS.

CristyLynn said...

As always, such a great week! You must be so much fun to play with!

Mama to 5 said...

what a nice selection of activities! Good job!

feefifoto said...

School is fun, isn't it?

Susan-Chasing Marcus said...

I am so impressed with all you guys get done in a week. Especially with Mom working a few days. Looks like you all had so much fun!