Saturday, March 27, 2010

Tot School - Shapes Review

Tot School - Week 3 - Theme: Shapes Review
Owen & Eli: 18 months old

Last week was supposed to be Triangle Week, but since we were struck with a terrible round of respiratory problems, breathing treatments, ear infections and puking, Tot School was on hold. Instead of pushing everything back, we pressed on this week with Triangles and the review of Circles and Squares. I mentioned in my first week of Tot School, I wasn't expecting the boys to be able to say 'circle' or 'square' and I wasn't even sure if they would get to the point of recognizing the shapes in such a short time, but they totally can!! If I show them two different shapes and ask them to identify one of them, they can choose the correct shape each time. It's pretty exciting to see the activities starting to pay off!

To focus just on Triangles, we used a few of the same activities that we had used for circles and squares so the boys already knew what to do. They could match the paper shapes to the outline (but I had to limit them to only two shapes; three seemed to be too many). We practiced using colored popsicle sticks on triangle outlines to create the shapes and we finger painted (with baby food) for a texture activity on our triangle sheets. Contact paper cleans up nicely! We tried out do-a-dot markers for the first time too, but they were much too excited to stamp as much as possible and couldn't be bothered to stamp inside the triangles.

As for the review of circles, squares and triangles, we played with foam blocks, using the triangle pieces as slopes for their cars and the cylinders for both color matching and filling the squares with the circles. We played with the shapes puzzle, matched lids for the pots, made balls with play-doh (not pictured), used flattened marbles to fill the white holes on the shape pages, and...

... the biggest hit was using Cool Whip and their shape sorter pieces as a stamper and finger paints. At first they didn't know what to make of it, but pretty soon they had a great time!

This upcoming week we're focusing on Easter (and ovals for the egg shape!) and we're travelling to Michigan to visit family. I'm looking for some toddler friendly Easter crafts, so please send me a link if you have any ideas!

8 comments:

Lisa said...

Great ideas! Hopefully they are feeling better soon!!

sbswtp said...

It looks like you did a lot of fun activities! I hope they feel better:)

{lauren} said...

Awesome shape ideas! I love using cool whip for paint...great idea for little ones that like to eat everything:) Hope everyone is feeling better soon!

htebazile said...

your blog has some great ideas Im going to come back here often to find ideas to do with my little guy!!

Patricia said...

Hi! you're doing a great jog. I have to try the Cool whip i love it.

MamaDuck76 said...

Cool Whip and shape sorters ~ very...um...cool...idea! We'll have to try that sometime!

I love all your triangle activities. We need to pull out the popsicle sticks & give that a try!

Susan-Chasing Marcus said...

Wow! I love everything and how fearless you are with your activities. Maybe because you have two delightful boys and I have one girl, but I get so nervous with whip cream or painting with baby food!
I thought it was really neat how you put the contact paper down to contain the mess.

Lisa @ Our Country Road said...

I really like how you used baby food for paint! And the cool whip really is a great idea, thank you for sharing with us.