Week 4: Friday

***Linking up with Tot School Gathering Place at 1+1+1=1 today!***

FRIDAY:

On Thursday we took a break. So on Friday I pulled out some construction paper and glow in the dark stars.

I traced the stars to form the letter G, then outlined the G around the stars. I also wrote "Green" under it.

My G is a little top heavy, I really do need to find, set up, and restock our printing supplies. Although this has given me an opportunity to practice my own drawing/tracing/penmanship skills ;)

As she was putting the stickers in place, I would say "G. Ga, ga, ga, Green." or "What shape is that?...A star."

I was really surprised that Scout knew what to do right away. I didn't even have to show her to match the shape of the sticker to the shape on the paper. She was really excited about it too. I did have to peal the backing off the stickers though.

She didn't match them up perfectly, but I was still really proud. Honestly, I expected her to just stick them on the page anywhere and pay no attention to the outlines. We will definitely do more play like this in the future.

Vocabulary:

• G
• Green
• Star
• Sticker

Skills:

• Matching shapes
• Letter/color recognition work
• Fine motor skills placing the stickers

The stickers were glow-in-the-dark so that was another fun aspect. After she stuck them all on, we tried to find the darkest corner in the house to look at them.


Last weekend Scout played with some leprechaun window clings. It kept her entertained for quite a while. She would peal them off the window and rearrange them. She like lining them up in different ways too. She came back to them occasionally throughout the week, and I even caught her giving the little guys kisses.

 

This  week we never did get around to painting, or going on a leprechaun hunt, or making green play-dough. But I think she was exposed to a lot more green than she has been, and I'm glad we worked on it. She has trouble distinguishing it from pink, but I think that is because the two words sound similar.

-Jes

Week 4: Tuesday and Wednesday

Tuesday

So Tuesday was a busy day. We had M.O.P.S. in the morning and the afternoon was spent outside because it got all the way up to 47 degrees!!!!

I think I was a little over ambitious with tot school the first couple weeks. I think scaling it back to three times a week is much more feasible right now. I can tell Scout really likes Tot School, since she runs over to the bins throughout the day to get everything out and play with it. But I am not able to keep up with it and everything else going on right now.

Wednesday

It took me all morning to dye the rice green. (Note to future self, follow recipe.) My rice clumped together pretty bad and it took a while to break most of it apart again in order to actually pour it.

I gave her a variety of utensils (somehow we lost my green scoop that I had with her green sensory tray earlier this week). She liked stirring the rice with the big wooden spoon, but she had trouble scooping it up so I gave her the smaller soup spoon to use. She like scooping it up and dumping it in the measuring cup.

I was hoping she would pour it from one of the toy tea cups into the measuring cup or vice versa but she either couldn't quite figure it out or simply had no interest. Scout watched me do it a couple times, and would hold the tea cup like she was going to pour it out, but instead used her fingers to flick the rice out of it.

I showed her how to scoop it and dumped it into the ice cube tray, which fascinated her for literally one second. Then she discovered how much more fun it is to flick the rice out of it and scatter it across the floor. At this point I could tell her attention was waning, and it was soon confirmed by her tossing her cups and plates and kicking them around the room too, (not in a violent way, more like "That made a cool noise, lets do it some more.") So I tried to get her to help me pack it away (still working on this), and she moved on to playing with other toys.

 Vocabulary:

• Green
• Pour/Scoop/Stir
• Smaller/Larger

Skills:

• Scooping/Using a Spoon
• Textures
• Comparing Sounds (of the rice falling and hitting the different containers and the floor)

Once the weather gets a little better I want to try some water play. Given her temperament though, those really need to be outside activities.

-Jes

Week 4: Monday

MONDAY:

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I got some stuff from Dollar Tree for a green sensory experience. I've seen other ideas like this all over the web, and Spit&Sparkles was featured on Carisa's Tot School gathering place with just such an activity.

She's blinking in this one but she really liked those little gift bows.

She actually got bored with this quickly so I pulled out a paint holder thingy (that probably has an actual name) that I recently found at Meijer (30% off their craft supplies this month, so it only cost me $0.69!) and we tried transferring the new sparkly pompoms with it.

For a while she had fun just watching me do it, this is her handing the tongs back to me.

This was fun, but then she really wanted to get all of the pompoms out. She dumped all of them onto the paint holder thing (whose real name I still don't know though I tried to Google it).

After taking a break for a while she came back to green tray. She took everything out of it then sorted out some of the three leaf clovers.

After lunch, we made garland out of the clovers (using a hole punch and some butcher's twine). I tried to get Scout to thread the twine through the holes, but she didn't want to. Instead she liked holding the hole punch and pretending to punch holes in things around the room.

Vocabulary:

• green
• three leave clover
• sparkly
• soft/fluffy
• smooth/scratchy (describing the clovers and bows)
• shiny

Skills:

• transferring/sorting
• textures
• using tongs
• fine motor skills 

We did a leprechaun activity over the weekend but I'll post that later. I also have more green games for the rest of the week. Thanks :)

-Jes

Week 4 Ideas: St. Patrick's Day/Green Theme

 Last weekend we were crazy busy with company and and home renovations, and I didn't have an opportunity to plan a theme for this week. So we basically reused most of the stuff we already had, but I could tell Scout was loosing interest. So I kinda let "school" slide these last couple days. We did have one really nice day where the temperatures reached the upper 40's and we went outside. She enjoyed going for a ride in her red wagon and I let her splash in the mud puddles in our driveway.

This upcoming week I want to do a St. Patrick's Day/Green theme. I'm tempted to buy some stuff Tuesday (when they all go on sale) for a themed sensory bin. I think she will enjoy exploring new things because she seemed offended when I tried to mix in the toys she already had; like she knew they didn't belong in there.

Ideas for St. Patrick's Day/Green Theme

1. Themed sensory bin: maybe dye rice green this weekend, shamrocks, beads, leprechauns
2. Green Play-dough
3. Find the Leprechaun/ Shamrock (I don't know if this will go over well)
4. Pouring green water or rice
5. Try to find some green magnets to use on a cookie sheet
6. Art: Shamrock painting with a green pepper

I would love to do more bead work or transferring with her, but she is having a real problem not putting small choke-able items in her mouth. She just thinks its funny. She will come right up to me and make sure I'm watching. (I don't get it) We are just going to have to wait until she's older.

She hates green veggies (she has always cried whenever I tried to feed her peas, even sneaking them in, she can tell and starts crying) but I'd like to try out some "green" recipes.  Most of the good ideas like spinach in eggs or green pancakes are a no go around here too because she's allergic to eggs. I think I'll scour Pinterest this weekend for some more ideas too. Might be a good time to try green smoothies ;)