Tot School: Easter/Spring and the letter Ss

What a week! We were very light on schooling this week. Only squeezed 3 days of activities in, but we had fun. I'm directing the Easter play at church so it is consuming my thoughts and that probably has something to do with not getting more done. I have a feeling that this week is going to be the same way. I did not do the letter Ss justice by giving it such a short week and not doing many themed activities that I could've done, but the kids still learned the letter and the sound it makes (including Silas!). We also had a fun time with our Spring trays that I put together earlier in the week.

LETTER Ss
We concentrated on S is for sun. This first picture I just love because all three of my kids are working on three different things at the same time....peacefully! This is one of the things that I know is going to warm my heart over the years of homeschooling.
Asa is working on his Ss letter craft. He didn't finish it (I have no idea why) so I posted a picture of Annabelle with her finished art so you can see the end result.
The finished project. S is for sun and stars.
I printed these off from Sparklebox. We played a game with them. I laid out the set of lowercase letters. Asa would draw a sun from the uppercase letter pile, say the phonic sound, then find the match.
I love his expression here as he is looking for the match.
Spring activities/trays
If you want detailed information about these trays you can find them in my post here (also posted at the beginning of the blog). :)

Working on the sticker tray
This is the CVC egg tray. He did so well with these eggs. He loved this activity. This boy really wants to read! Here he is after putting the letters in the correct order (without my help!) and saying the sounds out loud and then 'saying it fast'.
We made collages using tissue paper and contact paper cut into cross shapes. I plan on making a pretty garland to hang in our window with these and the paper mache eggs that we made this week too. It will be a nice replacement for our shamrocks that I took down.....a couple days ago. lol
Finished....just pretty, and a great reminder of Christ's love for us.
Paper mache.....messiest craft I have ever done with the kids! Although it was enjoyed by all (except Silas....he sat this one out). I got this great idea from The Chocolate Muffin Tree. If you have never visited her blog you should when you get some time. Such creative, artistic ideas for little ones.
This picture does not do them justice. They are quite lovely. I can't wait to get them strung up with the crosses and hung in our window. It will be a great splash of color against the white snow (?!?!) that is falling from the sky right now.
Just a random little picture that I love from this week. He is working on some two part puzzles that we got from a friend. I told him to smile and this is what I get.....goofy boy. :)

SILAS
Silas actually let me take pictures of him this week! I didn't push my luck though and only took them for one of our tot school times. The camera is so distracting to him.

Spooning eggs. This was one of his favorites.
Putting cards into a shoebox that I cut a slit into. (Not Easter or spring, but one that he played with for quite some time this week).
He loved opening and closing all these eggs. There was something different in each one, and he loved finding out what it was.
Bunnies!!
Working really hard at putting the egg back together. Love the face. lol
You can't hear him, but he was saying, "S sssssss". The whole time he was dotting this picture. It was pretty cute.
He joined us in making tissue paper crosses. He likes this art project. He has a fascination with contact paper. lol

That was our week! Looking forward to using 2 Teaching Mommies resurrection egg lessons next week and talking to my kids about the love of Jesus and the joyful news of our salvation! Happy blogging.
jess_hak

I am linking this to 1+1+1=1. See what other fun tots are up to this week.

Easter/Spring and the letter Ss

We had a nice light week here (only 3 days of preschool). I'm assuming that it will be just as light next week as well. I'm directing the Easter play at our church and it's just consuming my thoughts right now so it is hard for me to focus on school. We completed the letter Ss this week, and had fun with some of our Easter/Spring trays.

LETTER Ss
There are so many more things that I could've done with this letter, but I just didn't have it in me to plan like I normally do this week. We concentrated on S is for Sun/Stars. I read a couple books about the sun. So we had some science reading thrown in this week. Here is Annabelle with her completed Ss letter craft for our alphabet wall....and to top it off she is wearing a sun dress. :)
This is a letter matching activity that I printed off from Sparklebox. I laid out all the lowercase letters on the table and Annabelle and Asa took turns drawing a card from the uppercase letters, telling me the phonetic sound and finding the match.
Really reaching for that letter P. :)
EASTER/SPRING ACTIVITIES
One of our spring trays.
Working on putting some stickers on the page.
Another one of the spring trays. This idea came from here.
Sounding out the word BAT. This is the very first time we've done something like this and she did very well! On a side note: This is the very last time she will be wearing that dress. lol
Beautiful cross collages. I thought it was time to switch out our shamrock collages. These will get strung on ribbon and hung in the window along with our paper mache eggs.
Messiest kids craft ever!!! Even finger painting isn't this messy! I actually made a paper mache mix with flour and water and it turned out kind of chunky. Oh well, it still got the job done. I got this idea from The Chocolate Muffin Tree. She has some of the most creative ideas!
The finished product. This picture really doesn't do them justice. They are really quite lovely. Now I have to figure out how to string them up. I will have to post a blog with a picture once they are all hung up in our window.
Alright, I should TRY to sleep....insomnia has been me friend (or wait....enemy) these last few nights. At least all is quiet while I'm blogging...... Happy blogging!
jess_hak

Linking up to Preschool Corner. Go visit!!! :)

Easter Extravaganza! (Our Easter/Spring trays)

I had a lot of fun putting these together. There are still several ideas in my head that haven't made it into completion yet, but I'm sure I'll get around to them this week. Some of these are more Easter themed and will be used in the next week or so and others could last me until May. So here they are. Spring trays for our Preschool/Tot School.

Painting sun catchers. I found these at the Dollar Tree and thought that they would be fun to try. Wish they had a religious or more springy theme than Easter bunnies....but oh well.
A friend of ours gave us all these cup cake picks. There are pink and white chicks, and yellow and pink bunnies. The object is to sort by color/animal by sticking them into the styrofoam.
Eraser sorting. Kind of a bad picture. There are flower erasers and butterfly erasers.
Spooning little eggs. My kids love this cute, little jar I found at a thrift store!
Flower size sorting. Big flower, little flower....enough said. :)
Matching. There are two different types of butterflies and a dragonfly. I think that this will be tougher than it looks because there is no color consistency.
Spinning art a la Dollar Tree. :)
Counting Crosses....however, Asa and Silas both think they're 't'
Bunny smacking. I saw this activity on Hart 2 Hart. I thought it might be a fun new way to work on number recognition with Annabelle.
Foam stickers and paper.
This picture isn't very interesting. lol These are sound eggs (they've actually been moved to an egg carton since this picture). There are 6 matching pairs. I've been wanting to do this for a long time and am excited to see how the kids do with it. The sounds are: bells, rice, buttons, coins, toothpicks, and air. :)
These eggs have simple CVC items (cat, hat, bat, bug, mom, dad etc) and the letters needed to spell them. This is our very first spelling/reading activity. We've done it once already and I was very impressed with both Annabelle and Asa!
Instead of a sensory bin I filled an Easter basket full of stuffed plastic eggs for the kids to open and explore for the next couple of weeks.
I got inspiration for these plastic egg games from Playing House. This blog is pretty awesome and you should go check it out for some great ideas. Happy blogging!
jess_hak

I am linking up to Preschool Corner and 1+1+1=1. Head on over and check it out!

Tot School: Occupations with a little letter Qq action

Sorry that this is being posted late. We had a semi-busy weekend and some gorgeous weather so we weren't home/inside as much as we have been. Which is exciting to FINALLY be getting some warm weather.

Q ACTIVITIES
I love this picture of Asa and all his dot markers around him. He really likes to make his pages colorful.
Sorted out the capital and lowercase Qq's. This is from COAH. He really just humors me by doing these. I still like to use them to reinforce/introduce the letter of the week.
These are quilt puzzles also from COAH (link above).
OCCUPATIONS
Once again we didn't get to all of our activities for this. I guess I plan too many things to do. At least it leaves me an arsenal of ideas/things already prepared for when we get back around to it. This is a picture of the books that we read this week. Our Bible lesson for the week was the parable of the Good Samaritan. We did emphasize on his bandaging and taking care of the man on the road, but we also talked about the importance of being kind to everyone.
DOCTOR
I put this tray together with Homeschool Creations doctor/nurse preschool pack. Asa had to cut apart the band-aids and then paste the correct number (1-5) on the pages of the booklet.

Shadow matching activity for the pocket chart. Also from the same preschool pack.
I made up some sensory doctor gloves. Asa had a great time feeling them and trying to figure out what was in them. The fillings included: shaving cream, ice, water, beans, pasta, flour, oil, and rice.
Trying to figure out what's in the glove. His favorite was the ice glove.
FIREMAN
I saw this idea on Our Country Road. Asa really loves to look through these sensory bins with the purpose of finding something. The pom poms are suppose to be fire. And there were 20 firemen to find and match to the number chart.
Finding a number.
This may not be considered an ok activity for some, but it worked very well for us. I had Asa use my tea candles to squirt out the fire with. This gave us an opportunity to talk about fire safety and what to do if there is a fire in our house. This is something that we had never talked about so there were lots of questions and concerns. A good conversation to have!
DENTIST
This was a cute/fun tray. Asa really liked it. Each yellow square represented a plaque covered tooth. Then Asa used the toothbrush and 'toothpaste' to brush the teeth until they were white. This reinforced the importance of brushing our teeth.
Brushing them clean.
Sorting food by foods that are good for your teeth and foods that could hurt your teeth. This concept was a little confusing for Asa. He kept insisting that jellybeans and ice cream were good for your teeth because they are yummy. Whereas green beans and veggies must be bad for your teeth because they're yucky. The more I tried to explain it the more he insisted that he was right. lol The food printouts are from 2 Teaching Mommies.
Here you can see that he put the suckers on the happy tooth. :)
This is a toothbrush matching activity from 2 Teaching Mommies (link above). He was a little confused at first and thought that you were supposed to match colors, but quickly caught on that we were matching shapes.
This is the first time I've done a letter jumble (this one is from the dentist unit from Musings of Me). Asa really enjoyed this. I would say a letter, he would find it on the page and tell me the sound it made, and then dotted it. I will be doing more of these. I need to make up some number ones for Asa and Annabelle.
SILAS
Silas continues to not like his picture taken so there are not many pictures to post of him. I did manage to snap a couple and would like to share a couple trays that I put together for him for this week.

He really enjoys putting things in and taking them out again. So this tray was really simple and quick to put together. He put the band-aids in and took them out over and over and over again.
This one he put the cotton balls and q-tips in the container. The cotton balls were much bigger than the holes so he had to work harder at getting them in. He enjoyed this tray too.
I caught one of him in action here.
He loved the fire bin that I put together. I gave it to him sans firemen. We talked a lot about the colors he pulled out.
Eventually we got to the point where I would say, "Find a yellow one.", and he would pull out a yellow one. Yellow is the only color he did this with.
That was our week. We really had a great time. This week we are doing S is for Spring! Should be a great week too. Happy blogging.
jess_hak

Head on over to 1+1+1=1 and see what fun things other toddlers are doing.