Tot School: Dental Health

We had fun the past week learning all about teeth and how to take care of them. If you missed the Dentist Trays post you can view it here for more details on what was on the trays.

Flossing. Asa only did this once.....he was more interested in just playing with the play dough. lol
He did great on this sorting activity. He actually figured out all the things that he really likes to eat are not so great for your teeth....especially if you eat them all the time. AND that it is really important to make sure you brush after you eat foods like that.
"It's a circle!"
Matching the circle toothbrush to the kid wearing the circle shirt (cause it's gross to share toothbrushes....).
This was the roll and cover activity. Asa opted for the smaller dice this time because the bigger one was 'too much work'.
Silas mainly had fun covering. He did roll the dice for the fun of it though.
Love these sweet hands.
Working on the art activity.
Silas likes to use LOTS of 'toothpaste'.

We did a really fun experiment from Luv Pre-K. It was to demonstrate how foods can stain our teeth and make them weaker. Also to show how important it is to brush so that foods don't sit in our mouths.

We poured a dark soda over 2 hard boiled eggs, and coffee over 2 hard boiled eggs.
We also poured vinegar over a raw egg. (Ours was a white wine vinegar so that may explain the difference in appearance between ours and Luv Pre-K's blog).
They set in their liquids overnight and this is what they looked like the next day. Soda is on the left, coffee is on the right.
The vinegar soaked egg was squishy and soft....kind of weird. I used this to explain how food and bacteria can weaken our teeth and cause cavities.
After that I set up trays so that they could brush the eggs clean with toothpaste.
They actually came out pretty clean.
Good times with dental health. :) Happy blogging!

jess_hak

Linking up to 1+1+1=1 :)

Tot School: Dental Health

So I received this little activity book in the mail from our dental insurance provider. According to them February is children's dental health awareness month. I figured I'd jump on the bandwagon....not this week, or next week...but the week after that. lol I did throw my trays together a little early. I used some of them last year and made a couple new ones. All of them are originally inspired by one of my favorite blogs From the Hive.
This is just a little craft/tray activity. Glue on some yellow teeth and brush them white using a toothbrush and white paint.
This is from 2 Teaching Mommies. Match the toothbrush with the correct person (cause nobody wants to share toothbrushes). Sidenote to my wonderful husband: If you're reading this notice that these pictures are taken on the cedar chest which means that I came through on my vow to de-clutter it this week....AND it's only Monday. :)
Roll and cover game.
Flossing practice. I really think that they boys will enjoy this one.
Last but not least is a food sort. Good foods vs. bad foods. Last year Asa put all the 'bad foods' on the smiley tooth with the logic 'these foods are yummy', and all the 'good foods' on the sad tooth with the logic 'these foods are yucky'. lol We'll see if we can switch his logic this year. :)
I am also planning on doing a couple of experiments that can be found at Luv Pre-K. Super easy and totally worth checking out if you have a minute! Happy blogging.

jess_hak

Linking up to 1+1+1=1 and Montessori Monday

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.

Occupations and Qq

We had a fairly relaxed week here, but we had a good time learning about different occupations. Below is a sampling of the books that we read this week. The main occupations we talked about were: Doctors, Firemen, Policemen, and Dentists. I wanted to cover more and had activities for construction workers and postmen, but we just didn't have the time.

We read the parable of the Good Samaritan all week for our Bible lesson and talked about what the Samaritan did to help the hurt man feel better. We also talked about the importance of being kind to everyone.
DOCTOR
Annabelle started off this day playing with Silas' trays. They were the new ones this week and she just HAD to check them out.
I printed this activity off from Homeschool Creations Doctor preschool pack. I made it into a tray activity. Annabelle had to cut apart the band-aids and then paste the correct number into her booklet.

We also had fun covering the 'owies' in this game from 2 Teaching Mommies . Instead of making the dice out of paper like they provide, I cut them apart and tape them onto our big dice.

These sensory Dr. gloves were definitely the highlight of the week. These got played with everyday. All I did was fill each glove with something different: shaving cream, water, flour, rice, pasta, beans, ice, oil, lotion etc. The kids had fun feeling the different textures of the gloves and trying to figure out what was in them.
Annabelle's favorite glove was the one filled with water.
FIREMEN/POLICEMEN
I saw this really cute 'fire' sensory bin from Our Country Road and I knew that I had to do it. I thought it might be a new fun way to review numbers. I should know better by now that whenever Annabelle sees a sensory bin that learning is the farthest thing from her mind. Asa loves to look through them and find/learn the numbers (or whatever happens to be in there). Annabelle just likes to use it for creative play. :)

Now, I know that this might not be considered a good idea to everyone, but it worked well for us and Annabelle and Asa really enjoyed it and learned a lot about the importance of fire safety during it. I set up some tea light candles and let Annabelle (and Asa) squirt them out with a water bottle. We discussed why we never touch fire, or play with it. We discussed what to do if there is ever a fire in our house and how firemen may look scary, but we should never be scared or hide from them because they are there to help us. We also discussed how it is important for them to yell, "I'm here." until someone finds them. This is the first time we've ever talked about something like this so it was a big deal.
She was so funny. After every candle she put out she said, "Ha, ha...gotcha." So silly. :)
We also briefly discussed policemen and played this game which is also from 2 Teaching Mommies.
DENTIST
We had a really fun time with learning about dentists and how to keep our teeth healthy. After we read a few books we started out with a craft. Annabelle glued in the (yellow) teeth. Then using a toothbrush and 'toothpaste' she brushed the teeth white. It was a fun and cute activity, and really reinforced the importance of brushing for her.

Healthy happy teeth, and unhealthy sad teeth. We talked about foods that help your teeth grow strong and healthy and foods that can make them sad and hurt if they do not take proper care of our teeth. Annabelle cut the food apart and then sorted them. This idea came from 2 Teaching Mommies as well.

We did a letter jumble for the first time (dentist/tooth themed from Musings of Me). She really enjoyed this. I would say a letter and she would find it and tell me the phonic sound and then dot it off.
Q Activities
Painting with Q-tips
Using pattern blocks to make a quilt. This is from COAH.
....and made a quilt for our alphabet wall.
And I just love this photo because she is just so goofy sometimes. She was wearing my boots and her coat because it was raining and this is apparently appropriate rain attire. :)

I hope that everyone else enjoyed their week! Happy blogging.
jess_hak

I'm on my way over to Homeschool Creations to see what other preschoolers are up to this week. You should stop by too!