Happy Trails

This is that time of year when you can really take advantage of the great outdoors! A fun and very inexpensive (free!) activity you can do with your family is to go on a nature walk. There are trails everywhere- from the mountains to the beaches, from parks to prairies! And it is such a great way to create memories and get some good old fashioned exercise!

The teacher in me can't waste a possible learning moment- I created an adventure sheet of different things we would search for on our walk. I stuck that on a clipboard, grabbed the family (and the camera), and we were off! I had my daughter color in with a pencil each of the items as we saw them during our walk (clouds, worms, trees, etc.) The great thing about using an adventure sheet is that it provides a visual reminder of what we did during our walk. Feel free to follow the link to download the file or use it as a guide to create your own!

We saw a small snake on our walk. . . it got my husband and I thinking about the family night activities we could have on trail safety and first aid. . . you can NEVER be too safe (you could even create your own family merit badge program and provide your kiddos with small badges or stickers every time they learned a new safety skill!)

Happy Teaching!

Learning Trays are FINALLY up!!!

It has only taken me about 5 months to finally get my toddler learning trays up! Working at home is nice in so many ways, but it definitely has cut into my mommy planning time. Here is a pic of what our trays looked like Monday morning (I accidentally put the blue piano on the tray- they are two different activities):

Piano- This tray is not really a tray. It is our early piano skills activity. Or as we simply call it- playing the piano. I have color coded squares as "piano music" that match the keys on this little tikes piano. We are currently learning the first line of Mary had a Little Lamb. I think that piano time will be the first learning activity we do each day.
Underneath the piano is the light blue tray. This is currently our religion tray that will go with our My Faith Monday activity. This week we learned about Joseph and the Coat of Many Colors. I found a coloring book about this story for a $1 at a local bookstore. (we also rented the broadway production of Joseph and the Technicolor Dream Coat that was made into a movie- it is great! My little girl loved it! After watching the brothers rip Joseph's coat she turned to me and said- "just like the stepsisters and cinderellas pink dress!")
Yellow tray- this tray is currently unassigned to any specific activity- I just threw some sequencing puzzles on there.
Purple tray- this is the math tray. I have a tangram activity sheet and shapes. . . My Boo is pretty good about putting the correct shape in the spots,but struggles a little with orienting the shapes.
Dark blue tray- this is our alphabet tray. We are matching lowercase letters to uppercase stickers. These ABC sticker sheets have been a great way to review the alphabet letters and sounds! A great activity for anyone who loves stickers, too!
Green Tray- this tray will currently be our name recognition tray. I created a chart in a word doc program that had two rows and one column for each letter in her first name. (I blurred it out on the blog for safety reasons) I then placed a stamp pad and a letter stamp for each letter of her first name. She had to look at each letter on her sheet, find the matching stamp, and then stamp it underneath her name in the correct square (does this make sense??) It was a great way to practice spelling her name and work on orienting stamps.

The pink tray is currently unassigned to a topic. I just put on some playdough tools and green play dough and called it good. My daughter likes working with playdough- cutting it especially- but i have to be careful because she likes to eat it!
The red tray is our craft tray. We strung jingle bells on pipe cleaners and made jingly bracelets. It was cute to hear my daughter repeating the directions to herself as she slid the bells on the pipe cleaner. I see a little teacher in her already!

Some things I am noticing- I have 8 activities, and we have already gone through them all. And it is only Tuesday. So. . . . I need to either come up with longer activities, or plan more things that she can repeat, like the puzzles, piano and play dough. All in all- a good experience so far. My daughter calls these trays her "super work" and she loves to sit at her desk and do work like daddy!
Happy Teaching!!

Picnic Table Review

I had the opportunity recently to review a Little Tikes picnic table through CSN stores. I have been eyeing a little table that she could use outside, and when the opportunity came for me to receive and review this product, I was tickled pink!

What I love about this product:

• It is super lightweight- I am such a wimp and I love that I can lift it from our kitchen to our backyard with ease. And although it is lightweight- it is not cheaply built. I can even sit on the bench without causing damage!
• It is small. We don't have a lot of room in our home, so I love that this table will fit nicely in our small kitchen. And it is just the perfect height for my 2 1/2 year old girl. It is also folds up pretty easily (small muscle work on my part) and can be stored in tight places.
• I love the umbrella. It just looks cute. I really don't see any MAJOR use with the umbrella yet. . . but it sure looks nice!

What I would improve:

• When you fold up the table there is no way to "lock" it in place, so you have to be careful when transporting it.
• I believe that anything that is made for a toddler that has holes in it should provide a plastic plug. The hole for the umbrella (when the umbrella is not in use) is very distracting for my girl. We have had small piles of bread and fruit directly underneath the hole. . . hmmm, wonder how that got there??

Overall, a fun product- it is a small table and I would not recommend it for kids older than 3, just because you wouldn't get the most use for your money, but it is cute!

Happy Teaching!

Questions for a Daily Calendar Time

For the past few months I have wanted to start doing calendar time with my daughter. I think there are many great educational ideas centered around the calendar such as number recognition, learning the days of the week, practice counting, talk about the weather and activities throughout the day, learn terms such as yesterday, today, tomorrow. It will also be the beginnings of a daily structured learning time. I even have visions of us happily skipping to the piano for some lessons afterwards (I can dream big, right?).

What are some ways that you have implemented calendar time? I would love to hear your ideas!

Happy Teaching!

Did you ever. . .

Did you ever have one of those afternoons, when you accidently fell asleep while reading to your tot just to have them wake you up fifteen minutes later to proudly show you this:

Yes, my daughter thought it a good idea to lick the frosting and sprinkles off all our cupcakes. While it wasn't the BEST choice she could have made, I thought it funny enough to take a pic to remember. Life would be so different without all the sprinkles and frosting that make it so sweet.

Happy Teaching!

Alphabet Match-Up Game

Here is a SIMPLE way to get your tot to practice their ABC's! We play a match up game with alphabet stickers and a bunch of letter pages that were on their way to be recycled. The letter pages would be SO easy to make- they just consist of all 26 capital letters!

We have played various games such as finding the match with capital letter stickers, or match the lowercase sticker with the capital letters. (This activity was a little confusing at first so I had to explain it with terms she understood. "The baby letters had to find their mommies." Then we were good to go. And I was such a stickler about using proper terminology, too. . . .) My tot needs structure, so here are the steps we followed to play the game:

1. Name the letter on the sticker (I give her one sticker at a time)

2. Name the sound that letter makes

3. Point to the match on the page

4. Place the sticker on the match

I found that if I gave her the sticker first I lost her focus. Anyway, an easy game to make and play!

We have also recently been playing games where I say the sound and she has to hurry and stand on the correct letter on our alphabet rug. This works well with my little bundle of energy!

Happy Teaching!