Tot School / B4FIAR–Corduroy

 

Nathanael is currently 46 months. Tilly is currently 40 months.

We haven’t done anything for tot school in about four weeks. We had an Easter party for all the kids in our family and the one we co-op with, then had three weeks off for packing and vacationing. I was pleasantly surprised how well the kids did after having that long off!

This week, we read Corduroy and A Pocket for Corduroy, both classics that are so easy to do with preschoolers because there are so many choices for activities!  Because I just have the two tot-schoolers now, I’m not as careful in my planning. Usually I go online the night before and print a bunch of stuff, and then we just do whatever we feel like doing for that day. Here’s a few of what we chose to do:

Dot painting a brown bear from Making Learning Fun

Playing Bear Roll and Stamp from PreK Pages

Prewriting practice from Homeschool Creations

Fine motor skills using Counting Bears, Easy Grip Tweezers, and ice cube trays. This one was tricky for them, but they persevered. I did not say they had to do any kind of pattern or specific color, so it was funny to see what they ended up with:

Nate ended up doing this pattern for the whole tray. Tilly ended up doing a bunch of purple ones, then gave up and just did whatever she grabbed. 

Next we played a color recognition game using my Photo Stacking Blocks and Education Cubes color inserts. I highly recommend these blocks, especially if you have any boys. Adding an active component, even if it’s just a little bit, helps Nate so much! For the game, I used the color cards that matched the counting bears plus a wild card that had them all on it. I had them take turns rolling the cube down the hall, then running to see what color it was. They then had to grab a matching bear from the bin and put it anywhere in their ice cube tray. Again, hilarious, because Nate had to stick them all in a row, all on their bottoms. Tilly just put them wherever. When a wild card came up, Tilly always picked purple, and Nate picked whatever one he grabbed first.

Our snack was teddy grahams, which is not something I usually buy, so Nate loved them! I made simple papers that had the number 1-6. I wasn’t sure exactly what I was going to do with them when I made them, but after seeing that they both needed practice with number recognition and counting, I thought up this little activity. I gave them each 21 bears in a snack cup. They then had to lay out their papers, (which is why they’re not in order), and place the correct number of bears on each page. They got to eat them afterward, of course.

We watched Corduroy from this Scholastic Storybook Treasures that Grandpa bought the kids a few years ago while they ate their snack.

We did some pattern completing from Homeschool Share. I love Nate’s facial expression in this picture :-) Also, notice in most of the pictures from today that he’s wearing a bag. He told me it was his purse, I told him it was his briefcase. So now he has a briefcase that he takes to “work” everyday. He told me it has his lunch and his coffee in it, heehee!

We then read A Pocket for Corduroy and made a Corduroy bear using the templates from Serving Pink Lemonade.

I asked them each if they wanted their own name or Corduroy on the nametag inside the pocket. Nate picked his name, Tilly picked Corduroy.

Overall, a fun and engaging unit!

Oh, and this is what happens when you don’t put away the supplies right away…

This teeny tot is too smart for me! I don’t know what there will be left to teach him when he actually gets to tot school age :-)

Links to some of the printables/resources that I found:

* Homeschool Share

*Homeschool Creations

*Serving Pink Lemonade – Great template with bear and overalls

*We Can Do All Things – Early Learning with Counting Bears 

~S