Tot School

Week 2

Letter B

21 months, 22 months, 3 years, and 4 years

 On Monday when we went out to play and the kids found a 'Happy Birthday' balloon just sitting outside of their neighbor's empty and abandoned home. How perfect! "B is for balloon," I told the children. Too bad when the kids went to pick it up the wind blew it right out of their hands and took it right into the sky. We watched it disappear into the clouds and L made sure to tell me that it was for his Granny in Heaven. (Sometimes kids say cute things that I'll just have to add in, of course.)

Nature sure is awesome! We found this butterfly on our rag that we used to wipe their bikes off with. The kids are crazy over butterflies and are always trying to catch them/ have them land on their fingers.

Every Monday I'm going to start off introducing the letter with the sound and then bring out this sensory bucket which will be filled with things around the house that start with the letter. This week it's the letter B so there is a baby, boy, brush, boot, Bb Bear puzzle piece, teddy bear, B magnet, wooden B block, Buzz lightyear, batman, baseball, and little B game pieces to an alphabet game. The kids get to play with whatever is in the bucket and I try to have them say each item.

We checked out eight 'B' books! The one that is hiding in the back is 'Arthur's Baby.' We read these in the mornings and a lot during lunch while they're eating. Their favorite book this week is called Bicycle Race. The children loved turning the pages and naming the colors and numbers of each bike. They loved seeing who was in the lead of the race on each page and which number and color bike actually won the race was quite a surprise. (the bicyclist had to stop and change their tire and was out for half the race)

I had bubble wrap left over from a gift that Andy's Gramy had given to him the day before so I used that to let the kids do bubble wrap painting! Seriously they can never get enough painting. I cut the bubble wrap into strips for each child and cut out letter B's, taped them onto the piece of paper and told the kids to dip their bubble wrap into the paint and stamp all over the paper. When the paint dried I pulled the B stencils off the paper and Woo-La! They thought this was magic. If I were to redo this project again I'd probably use thicker paper. The paper ripped when taking the stencils off. We also used blue paint since obviously it's starts with 'B.'

The children painted birdhouses to take home and hang up outside. The oldest child, L sat for thirty minutes fully focused painting his birdhouse making sure it looked perfect. I enjoy when I can tell some  kids are really into making their projects looks exactly the way they want it. Then they are so proud of themselves when it's finished.

They painted butterflies and added puffy glitter paint to them to give a bit of a texture. They love painting. We also talked about how "brush" starts with B.

Thanks to having teacher friends at Jefferson Parkway I came up with a stamping activity for the kids. They stamped the letter B, a boy, and a bear. Paint stamping was a hit and I'm sure we will do this again, even if every kid did come home covered in the red paint.

I purchased paper bear masks at michaels. ($1 for 6 masks) The kids colored them brown with crayons, glued pink foam on the ears, a pink pom pom for the nose and glitter for the whiskers. It's too bad I forgot the masks at the school or I would have gotten a photo of them completed and on the children's faces. Oh well, you'd forget them too if you had to get four kids out of a school while carrying diaper bags and activities. Whew. I'll get photos next week.

Every morning we watch a clip about the letter B on youtube. Today it was Sesame Streets' 'Letter B' song from the The Beatles. Way too funny. I had the kids sit and listen the first time around and then the second time around they were all about dancing to the song.

The 3 and 4 year old also trace their letters on laminated sheets with a dry erase marker. I also focus on having them work from top left to top right and then bottom left to bottom right. I never realized what a skill this is to learn and doesn't actually come naturally. I've learned everything is fun when using dry erase markers, and they can do it as many time as they like each day! I also keep these out after nap time so the first ones up can trace and keep quiet while the other's nap. Tracing is definitely something they enjoy, for now at least. 

This is the "beach" tray. I took yellow and blue felt and made the beach quickly. This idea actually just came to mind one morning. I used those decorative rocks from the dollar store as "seashells." When given the tray all the 'seashells' were scattered all over the beach (the yellow sand) and the goal was to sort the seashells by color and shapes into the little cups. This was the three year old's favorite activity! She did this one over and over again for the whole day.

Andy also enjoyed the beach tray. He wasn't into sorting but he did put rocks in the cups and would then pour them into other cups which was fine. He was working on his motor skills and never spilled a rock. He also sat and concentrated for at least five minutes which is the longest I've seen him concentrate or even work on a tray. This was an achievement! He too was fond of the little rocks the whole day and had one in his hand for quite awhile.

These two boys loved the bug activity tray. For this tray the children had to take these toy bugs and trace the big B and the little b. I came up with this activity while at the dollar tree and just brain storming.  These guys were awesome at placing the bugs and even enjoyed playing with the bugs as they placed them.

In this tray I used a felt burrito set made by Melissa & Doug. The kids enjoyed taking my order for my burrito and making what I ordered. I'd usually just pick three different items even though the burrito came with at least 12 different items. It was a challenge to listen and follow my directions of what three items I wanted as they wanted to throw all twelve items in each time but they eventually would listen and try to get my order right.

I had a bead set out for the children to work on their motor skills by stringing the beads on the laces. This activity got the least amount of attention. I am not sure if it's just too hard and takes too much time for them to really concentrate. We'll try it again another week.

The children were able to play and build cubes with waffle blocks. This activity the two older ones enjoyed the most and really focused on wanting to make cubes more than anything else. They had the skill mastered in a few minutes.

We gave a baby a bath this week. I got this idea from another blog. All the kids enjoyed this activity. They got to use real baby bath wash and a baby washcloth to use on the baby. All the kids enjoyed playing the water, of course.

They had to dry the baby off, and wrapped the baby burrito style. ;)

We dotted our B's/b's this week on this ball worksheet. The kids are still super excited to do these. Even the youngest has picked up on the instructions and kept most his dots on the b's! I was impressed.

Our sensory activity this week was with a boat and water. I bought little fish to go in the water with a scuba diver so the kids could pretend the scuba diver was diving off the boat and exploring in the blue water. I dyed the water with blue food coloring. (just one drop gave it a beautiful aqua color that made it more exciting for the kids) They also placed the little decorative rocks in the water for 'treasure'. These were then sorted over and over in the water. Even the older kids enjoyed this sensory activity as their siblings begged me one morning to leave it out for them. 

We blew bubbles almost every day. 

The children made banana pops for their 'B' snack this week. J cut two bananas in half this morning and inserted the lollipop sticks. We laid them on the cutting board and set them in the freezer. We left them in the freezer when we left for the school and came back for them three hours later. We immediately pulled them out of the freezer and let them thaw as we melted the chocolate in a cup. We used a deep narrow cup so we could have an easier time dipping the bananas in the chocolate. We then dipped them in sprinkles and Woo-la! Banana pops!

My awesome little students enjoyed these!

At the end of the week J and L could point out the letter Bb and tell you it's sound. They can list items that start with the letter. Andy and W can say the B sounds along with you and say the letter 'B'. This was a great week! They learning so much and still having so much fun each day. Woohoo!