Tot School - Week 1 - Theme: Circles
Owen & Eli: 18 months old
This was our first week of Tot School and it went really well! I tried to come up with multiple activities involving circles to try to introduce the boys to shapes and I think it was (at least mildly) successful. They don't talk yet, so I wasn't expecting them to say 'circle' or draw a circle or anything like that... the goal for the week was exposure and I think we achieved the goal!I made a very simple 'flashcard' with two different sized circles and the word 'CIRCLE' on it. I gave the boys a set of pipe cleaners, cookie cutters and paper circles that matched the different sizes and they were pros at matching little with little and big with big.
To work on their fine motor skills, I gave them the case that the play-doh came in and they put the canisters into each individual circle slot. They also put pompoms into muffin tin circles and dropped individual propel packets into the circle opening of an old juice bottle. We played with stacking cups (always a favorite), the shape sorter, and multiple sizes of Tupperware circles and their lids. I bought a sheet of baseball stickers and drew a baseball (circle) for the boys to put the stickers inside. The fatal flaw with this was that the stickers were even hard for ME to peel off the sheet, so I had to hand them each one individually, but they really seemed to get the concept.
We completed a few 'art projects' too! I drew pig faces and bunches of grapes (made primarily out of circles) for the boys to color, we made balls out of play-doh, and we 'painted' with sponges on tissue paper. Did you know that the colors bleed into the white paper making an almost stained-glass finished product? I found a 100-pack of tissue paper at Hobby Lobby for $5.99 and got every color in the rainbow. That'll come in handy for future holidays and projects!
To celebrate the end of our first week of Tot School, we made circle shaped sugar cookies to decorate together. The boys spent the rest of the evening saying 'cookie!'
Next week's theme is squares - let me know if you have any good ideas! If you're new to my blog, thanks for stopping by : )
11 comments:
Are you going to scrapbook some of the art?! This is very impressive, Bethie!
we just started tot school, too and LOVE it!
you look like you had a great first week!
Great activities!!! They are so cute :)
Great ideas!!
They are adorable! Great activities!
Great activities! And good buy on the tissue paper, it has immeasurable uses! Looks like a great start!
Welcome to Tot School! A square idea for you - glue squares on a grid to create a paper quilt.
Welcome to Tot School! You did a great job! Your boys are adorable! I love all your ideas, great job! I just completed 3 weeks of teaching my tot his shapes, for some other ideas go to my blog & check it out! Look forward to seeing you on Tot School! Have a great week! :)
Nicole
What a wonderful first week of tot school! I love the tissue paper art project and the circle cookies look delicious!
I think it is really neat how you had the big circle and little circle and the boys matched them up. It not only taught the shape, circle, but brought in matching, sorting and identifying big and little. I love activities that serve more than one purpose. I think it would be neat to set something similar up for my little one.
Thanks also for the link on your sidebar!
Love the idea of your tot school! Our LO is only 13.5 months, but I plan to start something like this with her around the 18month mark. Great ideas :) How long did you do this for? I see these posts are almost 3 years old, do you still blog? Thanks!
Post a Comment