Sunday, February 7, 2010

Tot School - Letter H

Tot School
M&M is 43 months old

I planned doing the letter H this week so that we could do a lot of stuff with hearts for Valentine's Day.

H is for holes. We started out doing some other activities first though. I gave M&M a hole punch so she could make holes in paper. It ended up being to hard for her so I gave her some scrapbooking scissors to cut the paper with. She absolutely loves cutting right now. This idea came from Delightful Learning.

H is for house. I had printed out this piece of paper a long time ago to use for the letter H, but it doesn't have a website address or anything on it so I don't know where it came from. If it looks familiar let me know. Basically M&M went around the house counting the windows, doors, chairs, etc. and then she came back and reported it to me and I added them up for her.


H is for hammer. I found these foam puzzles at the Dollar Tree and loved that they had the lowercase letters. That's what we need to focus on right now because M&M has her uppercase letters down. She used a hammer to pound them in. We've done this before, but the original idea came from 1+1+1=1. (Can't find the exact post.)
 H is for Hearts.
 I also had this Do-A Dot heart sheet printed out from Childcareland.com.


Since M&M loves cutting so much I knew I had to give her some hearts to cut out on her own. This idea came from Chasing Cheerios.

I found these cute Valentine's Day/Heart worksheets at Super Simple Songs.

I finally found one of these platters at the Dollar Tree. I had been looking in the wrong sections. Anyway we used it to do a simple color sorting activity with conversation hearts.


M&M used tongs to transfer the pom poms to the heart-shaped ice cube tray. 
 

I usually try to do some alphabet, number, and sensory activities as well. This week she worked on her Melissa and Doug See and Spell.

 

I found this great idea on The Shafer Family of how to separate the letters so they are easier to find. These are little wooden shelves from the Dollar Tree which these Melissa and Doug uppercase and lowercase letters fit perfectly into. I want to make some cards with names of people and things so she can start spelling those out and learning them.
  

These magnetic foam letters and numbers were in the $1 section in Target and after I popped them out I just couldn't bear the thought of throwing the other part away. (That is what has happened to me since I started blogging and reading other people's blogs. I'm very conscious of what I am about to throw away and think twice about what I could do with it.)  
So...I decided to use them as stencils. M&M hasn't tried them out yet but she loves to use other stencils we have so these will be a great addition.

  
I've been meaning to get this activity out for a while to add to M&M's sensory tub play. I put black beans in this plastic gumball machine and she played with it for half an hour by herself letting them spill out and then scooping them back in. This idea came from All About the Journey. I got this gumball machine at Walmart for $7.50, but then I saw smaller ones which would work at the Dollar Tree.     
  

This is another thing that I have had printed out and laminated for a while, but just found it again recently and decided that M&M is ready for it. These beginning consonant cards came from Homeschool Creations. There are also a ton of other free printables on the left side of the blog. We didn't finish all of them in one sitting, I didn't want to overwhelm M&M, but this is still a challenge for her which is really good because a lot of the things I give her to do are really easy for her, but she stills love to do them. 


Yet another one that I've had ready for a while, but just needed to bring it out for M&M to do. I got these letter building templates from Tired, Need Sleep. I love these because I've always seen the How to Build an A book and really wanted to get it, but I couldn't get myself to buy it yet. This is free if you already have foam sheets!

 

We used Do-A Dots to do these letter recognition pages, A-F, from PreKinders. Like I said, I'm really into anything right now that helps M&M learn the lowercase letters.  I saw somewhere after we had done these to use transparent colored discs to cover up the letters instead so they can be reusable.
  

I tried a water transfer activity using a dropper with M&M a while back, but she couldn't quite do it yet. I brought it out again and she can do it now.



Whew! We had quite a full week this week which is good because we haven't been able to do that for a while. It felt good.

Find more Tot School ideas at 1+1+1=1.


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13 comments:

  1. We did the Counting the House activity this week too! It's from Let's Explore.

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  2. What a ton of fun activities! I can't wait to give the gumball machine a try! Thanks!

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  3. what a really great week! I love the gumball machine activity.. :)

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  4. I love the gumball machine. I, too, wonder if I am throwing away something that can be used. Lots of great ideas this week. Thanks for sharing.

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  5. love the platters from Dollar Tree (my FAVE place!) and the little boxes for the Melissa and Doug letters- I need those too!
    Change your blog settings so I can email you instead of posting a comment because I'd love to see where you are in the DFW area! :) ( I just don't want to post specifics on the blog)

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  6. We had H week at our house too this past week. The gumball activity looks like so much fun.

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  7. Fantastic ideas!
    I really need to prepare a bunch of activities to have them all ready to go when the mood strikes - not have to spend the time to do the prepwork then.

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  8. What a fun week! I just saw the How to Build an A on another blog today and I was like, "I am going to buy that book." Now I am going to go and create my own! Thanks for sharing the link!

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  9. what great activities! We have done the inside scavenger hunt too & my son LOVED it! What a great blog! I enjoy reading it! Great ideas! :)

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  10. I am new here, you have some great activities~ Thanks for sharing!

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  11. I love the gumball machine activity - man, I need to get to Dollar Tree! I'm so glad you are enjoying the build-a-letter templates (hearing this makes my day, seriously!). I love that you are using the ABC backing as a stencil, such a super idea! Thanks for sharing all of these ideas, they are so inspiring! :)

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  12. A lot of great ideas, I think I may try a few.

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  13. This was a great week! Thanks for stopping by my blog - I REALLY appreciate the comment. I have been looking through my teaching supplies for an eye dropper ... I want to try the water transfer activity with Alyssa. I have seen it several times before and every time I think I NEED to find mine. I'll be back to visit again I am sure. I need to add you to my blogroll once I get the chance.

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