Tot School

Tot School- Word Fun with Boggle Jr.

February 25, 2013 By Thaleia 4 Comments

Tot School- Word Fun with Boggle Jr.

We brought out Boggle Jr. for the first time last week! (found at a thrift store for $2) Lil’ Red wanted nothing to do with the 3 letter words since there are 4 spaces! So instead of starting with 3 letter words and building to 4 letter words we dove right in with 4 letter words. I found the correct letters for him, but laid them out in a random fashion on Lil’ Red’s tray!

He kept asking for more and more “games”. He could tell me most of the letters and knew all of the pictures. I was very impressed since we had never played Boggle Jr. before. I am glad he stuck with it for quite some time before he was done. He is such a good little learner!

boggle jr

I made sure to keep track of the letters he knew without hesitation versus the ones he was not sure of. I was shocked at some of the letters he DID know. A few he got mixed up like “M” and “W” but that is to be expected at this age. (He will be 3 years the end of April.) I am sure we will be bringing out Boggle Jr. at least once a week until he gets bored with it!

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ABC Play the Dr. Seuss Way

February 22, 2013 By Thaleia 4 Comments

ABC Play the Dr. Seuss Way

I decided to try a few things Lil’ Red had not done before that went along with ABC Play the Dr. Seuss Way. (just had to rhyme a little) I will share a collage of photos for each activity and explain where it came from or what we did during each activity.

This ABC Match-up was an activity from a busy bag swap that I did when Lil’ Red was around 7 mths. old. We had families with young infants up to 4 yrs. old in the group swap. The variety and skill level difference for each activity was great to have things stored up and now we are ready to use them! The neon green sheet was printed and then laminated. The ABC cards are dimensional glitter foam stickers put on cardstock squares. Lil’ Red liked this idea quite well and loved it when he “won the game!”

This activity I made over a decade ago, right after I graduated from college. I made this activity with metal juice lids, vinyl ~2″ letter stickers and magnetic alphabet. I had recently dug this out and it had been sitting on our back porch waiting to be played with. Some of the lids and magnets are missing but I have another 3 sets of magnetic alphabets on the back porch to remedy this. Will just have to save a few more juice lids. The letter stickers my husband had brought home from his work which was throwing them away!

This is one of those great dollar store puzzles again from over a decade ago! I have a numbers one as well. I do not know if/when Lil’ Red has played with this puzzle. I talked with him about the rows being a certain color to help give him a clue plus as to where to put a letter. I would sing the ABC song over and over again pointing at the letters and stopping on an open space.

We still have more ABC activities to pull out from my ABC BOX (again from a decade ago). We have wooden ABC puzzles with tiny knobs, wooden blocks, Boggle Jr., Word Whammer, Braille ABC magnets, ABC sticker strip, ABC small erasers, texture letters, and a start of sound boxes.

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Tot School- Dr. Seuss Style Tot Trays

February 19, 2013 By Thaleia 21 Comments

Tot School- Dr. Seuss Style Tot Trays

I may finally be ahead of the game so to speak! I keep saying that I will participate in “Virtual Book Club for Kids” and then forget to see which author is picked for the month! Low and behold I came across the announcement that Dr. Seuss was the next author. The perfect choice since I had planned to share some Tot Trays with Dr. Seuss Style anyways!

Last year for Big Red’s 2nd birthday we had a Dr. Seuss theme. I created some activities for Tot School then, but was not blogging and have not shared them, yet! Plus we have lots of new things to share. This first post will showcase TEN Dr. Seuss Themed Tot Trays!

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10 Valentine’s Tot Trays

February 5, 2013 By Thaleia 23 Comments

10 Valentine’s Tot Trays

Why is it when holiday’s seem close together that it is hard to transition from one to the other? In January I thought about Valentine’s activities, but have not gotten them all out till last week or printed until today! I did spend an entire afternoon searching our back porch for my Valentine’s stuff, with the help of my sister, to find them sitting on a high shelf!

Lil’ Red has been enjoying these trays. Some he will do over and over. Other’s he will appease me with a one time completion. Today Princess was home and helping engage him. When he got done with a few he shouted, ” Yah, I won the game. I did it!” Made me smile and so glad that he did his schoolwork without complaining or difficulty! Time to up his trays I think to more difficult/preschool learning.

Yes, Spiderman did make an appearance last week during Tot School!

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We Did Not Do School Work in November or DID We?

November 30, 2012 By Thaleia 16 Comments

We Did Not Do School Work in November

or DID We?

POST NUMBER 100!

No schoolwork,GASP! I made a claim we had not done any schoolwork for a few weeks. Okay, so I guess I lied a little on Tuesday night when I said we hadn’t done any school work for a while! I meant to state we haven’t done any boring worksheets or handwriting or math worksheets, but WE HAVE DONE PLENTY of school work during November.

Looking through all the pictures we took in November made we realize WE DID HAVE tons of learning experiences such as shooting a pellet gun, sewing a stuffed bear, learning to cook hamburgers, visiting a news and radio station, attending gym day, taking pictures for mom’s blog, typing up our own things, creating guns out of wood, painting ornaments, tot trays, state quarters…. The list goes on and on, but for those of you who might be skeptical as to what learning CAN take place outside the world of textbooks and worksheets please take a look at what we have done (at least what we caught on camera!)

Here is a recap in pictures as to what awesome

learning DID take place in our Homeschool:

We started the month off with a visit from friends and 2 days at the hotel indoor swimming pool!

Eldest loves weapons and guns. If you know him, then you know he loves learning about their specs and creating his own. He has made them from Lego’s, Contrux, and now hardcore foam and wood! He keeps designing them after real weapons or one from video games. He is very creative and hope he continues to pursue his creative side as an adult.

Lil’ Red does NOT like to be left out. When the big kids were at Grandma’s he decided to do chores. “I crush cans”, he said! He’s so lightweight he cannot crush them very well, but he did his best and that is what counts.

Princess was too excited about the bear she made for Lil’ Red that she gave it to him early and not on Christmas day! She was very proud of the sewing skills she learned last year at Keeper’s of the Home. She is continuing to grow those skills. She is now working on presents for family and friends. (it was hard or me to work on the pc last night since I had to stop 8 times to help her thread needles and tie knots until she learned to tie a knot!)

I have my own set of scientists! We experimented with some candy and plan to do more in the future.

What month would be complete without a field trip? We were able to take a tour of Cox Media Group’s news room and radio station! We had lots of fun with homeschool friends.

We had fun putting ornaments on Grandma’s Christmas Tree after Thanksgiving dinner.

Lil’ Red did work on some fall themed tot trays a couple of times during the month. He also worked on matching numbers with foam puzzle in a line and wooden puzzle numbers.

Boy, this post was really fun and helped to share with you all the things we learned and did and I have not had time to blog about:) I think I should do this each month! I hate not sharing all the wonderful things we do, but sometimes it is hard to edit pictures and get a decent post written. I have loads more to share with you but this post is getting LONG:)

Please take time to comment, subscribe, connect with us on facebook or twitter! We are thrilled to meet new homeschoolers or learn what you do instead of worksheets!

Tot School

Tot School- Word Fun with Boggle Jr.

ABC Play the Dr. Seuss Way

Tot School- Dr. Seuss Style Tot Trays

10 Valentine’s Tot Trays

We Did Not Do School Work in November

or DID We?

POST NUMBER 100!

Here is a recap in pictures as to what awesome

learning DID take place in our Homeschool:

WHAT DO YOU DO TO LEARN BESIDES WORKSHEETS?

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