Tot School - Ll

Tot School - Ll is for Ladybugs

Owen and Eli: 41 months old

Most of what we did this week revolved around Ll is for Ladybugs. Usually I try to use more words that start with our Letter of the Week, but I liked the slower pace of just using one animal/word this week. We talked many times about other animals (lions, lobsters, lambs) and other words (lips, licking, letters) that start with Ll, but the activities centered around little ladybugs. Confessions of a Homeschooler has some great Ladybug printables and I found a great unit on Homeschool Share for the Very Grouchy Ladybug by Eric Carle (our book of the week).

(Pictured below: Writing Practice, Letter Hunt, Dot Counting and Ladybug Sequencing)

Shaving cream letter writing was a big hit, and I was actually surprised that they could write as many letters as they could.

 

Matching lids with their jars - fine motor skill practice and spacial reasoning.

We made paper plate ladybugs and then I punched holes in the edges and the boys used them as lacing cards. We don't do that very often (or ever!) but they seemed to enjoy it. I ended up writing numbers next to the holes on the back of the plate so they knew which hole to lace next - originally they wanted to make it look more like a spider web than a circle.

This was a printable on Homeschool Share. These were the directions they had to follow:

1. Draw 6 black legs on each ladybug.

2. Color 1 ladybug orange. Color 2 ladybugs red.

3. Draw black spots on each ladybug.

4. How many black spots do you have total?

5. Draw two antennae on each ladybug.

6. How many antennae are there total?

7. Draw faces on your ladybugs.

And of course, no week is complete for us without a hand/footprint craft!

Visit 1+1+1=1 to see what other Tot Schoolers were up to this week!

Tot School - Ll

Owen and Eli: 31 Months

Ll is for Ladybugs and Leaves! We had a short school week because my brother and his family came for a visit, but we managed to squeeze in a few activities anyway. We started out with do-a-dot L's from Confessions of a Homeschooler and used L outlines to make leaf collages with our backyard leaf scavenger hunt findings. They loved talking about the little and large leaves and trying to get them to stick to the glue.

We used the size sequencing ladybugs from Confessions of a Homeschooler too. We put them in size order and rainbow order, we matched our Melissa and Doug fish color puzzle to the ladybugs and they answered questions that I would ask them ('Which fish is the littlest?' 'Which fish is the largest?'). We finished out the week by making ladybug magnets with foam, glue and pipe cleaners too. They love anything that has to do with arts and crafts these days!

We're going to take a break from the alphabet next week to focus on Easter activities. Hard to believe we're almost halfway through the alphabet already! Click here to see what others did this week.