Tot School - Baking Themed Week

First of all, Happy Birthday to ME! I am turning 31 on Monday...dang I am getting old. :)

As I am spending my birthday with my favorite boys (probably treating myself to a fancy lunch at McDonald's), I am leaving you with this little post on our baking themed week during tot school last week. I thought it turned out really cute and finally made up some new games for John. Woohoo! So, here it goes...

**All games that I made can be dowloaded HERE!**

Cookie Monster Game:
I printed off a picture of Cookie Monster and attached it to an empty tissue box. Then I printed out different pictures of cookies- either different shapes or with letters, numbers or words on them. I put out all the cookies for John and pretended to be Cookie Monster asking for a certain cookie. John loved it and would crack up every time he fed Cookie Monster the correct cookie. I threw in words that he spells on his own to see if he could recognize the words and he did! I was so excited! We played this game several times (even with Daddy at night). Matthew joined in on just putting stuff in Cookie Monster's mouth. Seriously, John LOVED this game and wanted to play it every day. So, I consider this one a success!







Counting Cookies Game:
I printed some different style cookies, laminated them, and glued them onto magnets. My mom has been giving me advertising magnets for a while so I have quite the stash of magnets now! (Thanks, Mom!) I took a block we had at the house and used stickers to number the sides. John would roll the cube and the put that many cookies onto the baking tray. I used a muffin top pan for this which worked perfect because each cookie fit nicely into its own spot. You probably could even do without the magnet part but I thought it might be fun to let Matthew use them on a the fridge late or for another activity.





Fine Motor Skills:
John practiced pouring rice krispie cereal using measuring cups. After he did this a couple times he decided he just wanted to eat the cereal and made a HUGE mess. They had fun so it was ok that I had to vacuum up half a bag of cereal off the floor. :) I am still nervous about Matthew choking on small items so I am hesitant to use beans or something else that isn't edible.



He also practiced scooping up 'candy' (decorative stones) and put them in a muffin tin. Not very exciting for him so he only did this one time.



Sorting:
I put out a pitcher of different spoons for John to sort by size. He did a couple and lost interest. Then I let Matthew play with it and was interesting because he didn't quite know how to get the big spoons back in the pitcher. So this was a great activity for him too- very simple but he is still fine tuning those fine motor skills.





Dot Pages:
I made a C is for Chef page and downloaded a B dot page from Confessions of a Homeschooler. John really loves dot pages so I thought he would enjoy playing around with the marker. However, I guess he decided he wasn't as interested in dot pages this week and only did the C page. You can download the C is for Chef page I made and the other cookies games HERE for FREE!

Random Kitchen Stuff:
I put out a tray of random kitchen stuff for the boys to play with: measuring cups, spoons, sifter, slotted spoon, and cupcake liners. Matthew liked stacking the measuring cups and squeezing the cupcake liners. So this was kind of just like a sensory bin without the beans. We also played with the play kitchen for a little bit. The boys aren't super interested in the kitchen at our house yet they love to play with toy kitchens at other people's houses! So weird!







Real Life:
We made cupcakes and icing during the week. Of course I had my helpers with me the whole time! Then my nieces came over for our weekly playdate and we decorated cupcakes together. So fun! and super yummy! Tomorrow I will post more about this for Toddler Art Tuesday.







Science:
We mixed up pudding and watched it change colors as we mixed in food dye. That counts as science, right?! We then turned it into a sensory activity and I let the boys paint and play with the pudding. Matthew had a cooking brush and John has a bottle cleaner and they just sat there mesmerized by how it felt with pudding all over it. So cute! Of course we ended up with baths (and a quick mopping of the floor!) to clean up the mess.
















The printables I made are available for free download HERE!

John starts preschool tomorrow so wish me luck on not crying when I drop him off!

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C is for CARS {week 1}

We had a fabulous week working on the letter c using all of John's cars. It actually turned into cars and other modes of transportation since John has so much of those toys around here. It is crazy how all those types of toys have accumulated around here! John showed a lot more interest in this week's activities and only said 'mommy do' for maybe two of the planned activities.

This week I changed things up slightly, only because we had so many themed toys and I organized it all one night while the boys were sleeping. I loaded up all the tot trays, put car themed books in a bucket, and put extra car themed toys all in the 'school' area in our dining room. So, when it was time for school, we ended up staying in that area for a long time just playing with all the fun stuff instead of going back to the living room where we usually play. I think that really helped us get much more accomplished this week and John seemed to be having fun! I also was able to pull out some baby toys so Matthew could join in the fun!

In case any of you were wondering, this is what our little area looked like. We had our small bookshelf with the tot trays and extra toys...



...our books that matched the theme (well, some were in John's room since he wants us to read those for naps!)...



...and our sensory bin.




So, here is what we did...or at least what I got pictured! and fair warning- lots of pictures in the post!!!

John completed this train puzzle several times this week. I was so proud of him because he did it all by himself and didn't need my help! He was so proud of himself and would say 'Mommy, look what I did!'. Too cute!





He worked on more puzzles. I got these from the dollar spot at Target at Christmas...



I use cards of transportation items and road signs and found objects that we had around the house. I put the objects in a box and layed the cards out on the table. John had to match put the objects with the correct card. So, really it was just another easy matching game, but just presented in a different way. I was SUPER impressed because John put the stop sign and do not enter sign in the wrong spot but self-corrected without me saying anything to him. We did this activity twice and even though it was easy for him, we were able to connect to our week's theme.







John and his cousin, Bella, painted using their cars and then had a car wash in the backyard to clean them off. Those two kids had a blast with this activity!





They also played with the sensory bin.



John got a 'Cars' marker book for his birthday so he colored with that a couple times. I love that these are 'magic' markers that don't mark anywhere but the paper, although I don't love that there is a bit of a delay for the color to appear on the paper when you actually use the markers. Guess that is the price you pay to not have your house colored with markers!



We used color cards from PreKinders to sort John's cars by color. He was too funny and had to have the cars all facing the same direction. Since we had a TON of cars by the end (30 to be exact...we counted!) we took turns pulling a car from the box and putting it in the correct column. I know you are supposed to let your kids do these type of things on their own, but I thought he might get burnt out on the activity AND he can always use practice on taking turns! I put the cards across horizontally so that way we could also indirectly be graphing with the cars. We counted each column of cars at the end and John was able to count most of them correctly. Yay!!





I found this Cars stamp set at the Dollar Tree. It was a short lived activity, but the set came with paper, three stamps, ink pad, and stickers. All for a DOLLAR!!! What?!??! I also got a Cars puzzle, but we didn't get around to doing that one.





We used the Shape Book from this tot pack. John wasn't super interested in it, but he did find all the shapes on the cars so I guess that is what counts!



We read lots of books, including 'Red Light, Green Light'. After I read it to John and Bella, I taught them how to play. It was so cute! John mostly understood how to play even though he didn't stop running right when I said red light. Bella just copied what John did! :)



Using a printable from 1+1+1=1, John matched pictures of cars with the correct number of cars. John can get 1, 2, and 3 perfectly and would automatically guess 5 without counting when he saw several cars in the picture. So, at least I know he knows that 5 is more than 3 so it is a reasonable guess! :)



Using printables from Homeschool Creations, John practiced 'spelling' car, boat, and plane. We only got about half way through this activity when he lost interest.



Last, but not least, we painted a traffic sign from www.theprintableshare.com.



Holy canoli, we did a lot this week!!!

Tiny Tot with Matthew (who is 7 months this week! how crazy is that?!)...

Playing with transportation snap toys:



Playing with a steering wheel toy:



John had to play too!



Reading a transportation book:



Is anyone still reading anymore? Leave me a comment about this post and I will do a giveaway for being such a wonderful reader and powering through the longest post EVER! Being totally serious! I think John had fun, don't you?! Guess I had better get started on gathering stuff for Letter C Week part II while John is at Nana's for the night! :)



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