Tootsie Style

So in reviewing the photos from the last couple of weeks I noticed Tootsie is usually half dressed.  We really do get dressed in the morning but she prefers not to wear pants whenever possible.  From the time she was able, Tootsie has removed any article of clothing she could when at home.  For awhile she spent as much time in a diaper or naked as she did clothed.  We finally convinced her to keep her diaper and then undies on but as soon as we walk through the door after school, the shoes, socks, pants and then coat come off.  Recently, we have noticed that while she still likes to be pantless, Tootsie has begun changing clothes three and four times a day.  She tries on different leggings and pants, puts on her ballet leotard, and loves her dancing dress.  Laundry is piling up at alarming rates these days!  It's fun to watch her grow and try out her style wings but a part of me misses chasing the little streaker around the house, diaper in hand.  They really do grow up too fast!  Here's a couple photos of Tootsie style.

Valentine's Day and Letter A Activities

Valentine's Day and the letter A kept us busy for quite awhile!  We had the Valentine theme trays out for a little more than a week and I think we were both a little tired of them - well maybe mostly me.  Tootsie was still wanting to play one that allowed her to eat conversation hearts!

Here's what we were up to:

I received a gift certificate to Kaplan Early Learning Company and one of the items I chose was these Geoboards.  There are quite a few in an order so I was able to take some to school and leave a few at home for Tootsie.  They have been a hit in both places.

Once she got the hang of the using the rubber bands, there were surprisingly few finger snaps!
 

This activity wasn't a favorite at all.  I added small figures and Model Magic to the tray.  I recently put this activity out in my classroom and it was the most chosen one for at least a week.  I figured Tootsie would like it too but not so much.  She immediately swapped the Model Magic for playdough and only played with it for a very short time. 

This was by far the most favorite tray!  I really wish I could find where I printed this from so I could give credit but I haven't been able to.  If I find it I will post!

I cut the sheet apart into individual cards and then spread them across the floor and set a baby food container (I am SO glad I saved some of those) on top so Tootsie had to move around to sort the hearts.  

After she did it once, I gave her a small dish of conversation hearts to sort.  She loved it!

After we sorted into dishes for awhile, I gave her a graph to sort them on.  We continued to talk about how many of each color there were, which had the most, which had the least and if there were any colors that had equal amounts.

I found this little Valentine tree at the Target Dollar Spot.  Getting the heart ornaments on was pretty easy for Tootsie but taking them off took a little more work!

The heart sticks came from the Dollar Tree.  I collected pink, red and purple beads from several of our activities and added them for stringing.  

Tootsie strung them a few times and thought they looked "beautiful" but then decided it was more fun to stack the biggest beads and then knock them down.

I don't have a photo of the finished product but I hung the pink piece on the wall and Tootsie ordered them by size and glued them on.  

Our Valentine sensory bin contained white beans of two different sizes, heart containers, a heart ice cube tray, pitcher, bowl, scoops and a few other odds and ends. 

Tootsie filled up the ice cube tray and a a dish and decided to cook them in her kitchen.  She is still cooking beans.  I have a feeling I will be finding these for quite awhile.

I also made Tootsie a letter A sensory bin.  I have taken a three drawer storage bin and turned it into alphabet activities.  The top drawer is this pom pom bin, the second is an "A is for Alligator" magnet page and a sand paper A, the third drawer contains her Animal ABC's binder from 1+1+1=1 as well as her Tot Time Notebook and some dry erase markers.

Here's a little better look at what's in the drawer with the pom poms (we just remove the whole drawer when she wants to play with it).  I collected upper and lower case A's made from different materials.  Below are the ones that I sewed from felt for her.  There are alligators, angels, airplanes, apples, tongs and a few dishes and bottles.  I wrote the object's name on the back so she could see that all items start with A.

I'm planning to make an entire alphabet of these stuffed felt letters.  Very simple and quick and it gives Tootsie another way to experience the letters.

We mixed Karo Syrup and food coloring to paint our
letter A.  It took forever to dry but the results
are very shiny!

Tootsie painted this heart with chocolate pudding!  Smells delicious and I didn't even mind if she licked her paint brush!  I noticed today that this heart is missing a few candies!

We made these cute Valentines that I found on Pinterest for Tootsie's friends at school.  She didn't break any of the glow stick - momma, however, broke four!

Hope you had a great Valentine's Day!

Kate

February Tot School

 Jeesh!  Where has the month gone?!?  I'm a bit behind in my posts!  I realized that Valentine week I took a ton of pictures so that post will follow later (today hopefully).

Items for sink and float

We talked about sinking and floating and Tootsie did pretty well sorting them.  She played with the items and the water for a long time.  She ended up in only her undies and the towel got so wet we had to exchange it for a new one half way through!

We've tried some other hole punches in the past but Tootsie doesn't have the hand strength get to make them work.  I found these at Michaels and they are a little easier for her but it still takes some effort.  We punched out the shapes and saved them for an art project.

I picked up a packet of lint rollers at the Target Dollar Spot awhile ago .  We used them to pick up the punches we made.  It only worked so-so.  I will probably figure out a different way to use the rollers. Tootsie also cut out the outlines of the punches and added them to the lint roller paper.

Tootsie wasn't excited about this tray at all.  I convinced her to punch a few holes around the square with the toothpick but that was it.  She never went back to it during the week.

This idea came from theprincessndthetot.  I drew the colored x's on the paper and Tootsie matched the dots.  We're doing a lot of color work because color recognition isn't something that she has picked up yet.

She stuck this one on her knee and called it a bandaid.

Then she ran around and stuck them to things in the room of the same color.

Mitten Tape Math came from Toddler Approved. I added the dots to help Tootsie figure out the number.

I taped the mittens to the wall and tore off the tape for her then Tootsie counted them out and added the correct number.  She really enjoyed this activity!

We read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom several times this week to go along with our Animal ABCs from 1+1+1=1and began making our own coconut tree to add letters to as we work on them.  I cut the trunk and tapped it to the wall and then we worked on the leaves and the coconuts together.  

We mixed blue and yellow paint to get the green for the leaves.

Tootsie wanted to add glitter so we started with green.  Note to self:  never turn your back on a three year old with glitter.  She took the top off and dumped.  When the green was gone she moved on to red and silver.  Our coconut tree ended up looking a little Christmasy.

She also couldn't resist painting her arms and tasting it all.  I carried her from the kitchen table to the bathroom, stripped her and dumped her in the tub.  There was so much glitter on her we could see it sparkling in the water and she had it in her hair for a week!

The coconuts went a little more smoothly.

The finished product!

Other activities this week included:

After painting the coconuts she wanted to paint more shapes so I cut a few out for her and taped them to the easel.

Lots and lots of water play.  We added pony beads to the water and she loved it!  She poured and scooped and raided my kitchen and hers for utensils to use.

This isn't really a tot school photo but she just looked so cute!  Tootsie picked these reading glasses out at the Dollar Tree and I popped the lenses out for her.  She calls them her sunglasses and totally loves them!

An illustration of just how much Tootsie doesn't like to get her fingers messy.  She was eating cheese doodles and didn't like the cheese on her fingers so she grabbed the dish cloth to wipe them off.  She ended up using it to pick of the cheese doodles and put them in her mouth!

Dance Party!!!

So my I Pad doesn't take great action photos but this pretty much sums up a lot of our week.  Tootsie was a dancing fool!  We danced to videos, the I Pod and our own singing.  She danced in her jammies, in her undies but mostly in her fancy shoes.  Tootsie dug these fancy shoes out of my closet for me to dance in!  It was a great way to get some exercise and expend some of that extra energy we sometimes have around here on winter days.  I had fun playing some of my favorite songs for Tootsie and watching her reaction to the variety of music on my I Pod.   We discovered she likes Sam Cooke a lot!  It was a very fun week for both of us and we even managed some Tot School!  We did several activities inspired by one of my favorite books, The Snowy Day.  Here are are trays for the week.

We read The Snowy Day and sequenced the story with cards I laminated several times.

Tootsie painted a winter tree with glue
and sprinkled glitter to make it sparkle.

A quick project but she loves glitter!

Tootsie practiced cutting and sorting snowflakes.  This was a good cutting project as most of her previous practice has been on smaller strips.  She had to make a few cuts on the same line to get through the paper.

Tracing and pre-writing practice with Crayola Dry Erase Markers.  The printables came from Homeschool Creations.  Carissa at 1+1+1=1 uses page protectors with a few of her projects and I have found that they tend to wipe off easier than laminated pages.

It was a beautiful day so we headed outside to make snow angels and tracks in the snow.  Before heading in we packed a snow ball and brought it inside to watch through the afternoon.

I was trying to keep her from tasting the snow by giving her a popsicle.  Notice it didn't work?

Our (predictable) results.  Tootsie was amazed and enjoyed watching the snow ball slowly melt.  I hoped to convince her not to eat snow by showing her what was in the snow ball.  Don't think that worked either :)

Tootsie placed the marbles on the bath tub suction mat using first her fingers and then strawberry pickers.  The pickers were definitely more challenging.  Then I remembered a toy I had picked up at the Dollar Tree a few weeks ago and grabbed that.

She placed all the pegs in the holes and then added the marbles.  She even devised a way to get the marbles when they fell in between the pegs - using an extra peg to poke them out!  We decided that it would be much more fun if it was orange so Tootsie added LOTS of paint to the triangle!  She did this activity several times throughout the week.

I hid the letters from one of her alphabet puzzles in colored pasta.  She quickly found them, finished the puzzle and then ran to her kitchen to grab dishes to play in the noodles.  This sensory tub is still out and being played with.

I recently made Cloud Dough with my preschoolers and Tootsie really wanted to play with it in my classroom so I figured we could make it at home.  She enjoyed the making more than actually playing with it.  I wondered how it would go over as she really doesn't like to get her hands messy.  It's actually really cool, made with only flour, oil and glitter.  It molds like damp sand.  The recipe came from The Imagination Tree.  Check out her blog.  There are a ton of really cool sensory ideas.

We are still playing hide and seek with the letters of her name!  Here she is finding one I stuck to the refrigerator.

We ended the week making brownies in honor of the cupcake app I mentioned last week!  Yes, she is also tasting this!  Notice the (ugly) nightgown.  It is currently her favorite thing to wear, which she does often.  This day she had it on with bright pink leggings and her fancy shoes.  Got to love that little girl style :)

Hope you have a great week!  Can't wait to show you the activities we are currently working on!

Kate