Showing posts with label boats. Show all posts
Showing posts with label boats. Show all posts

Sunday, March 20, 2011

Tot School- b is for ball and boat (26 months)

Tot School
Jonathan is 26 Months
After having RSV last week, we slowly got back into gear this week. We finally finished up our letter b activities by having fun with balls and boats!

Bible 


We continued to review our memory verse from Songs for Saplings.


Books 


We read lots of books this week about balls and boats. Here were some of our favorites- click on the links to see our reviews!

Yellow Ball by Molly Bang
Boats by Byron Barton
Froggy Plays Soccer by Jonathan London
Busy Boats by Tony Mitton




Jonathan's B Book
And we also made our own "B" book. I downloaded the template from Alphabet Avenue, but then added some of our own pages to focus on "b" words that we learned about. I searched and found free clip art to use in our pictures. Jonathan really enjoyed looking through his very own "b" book and would tell me the items on each page. He also got very good at pointing out that each word began with b!

Our Bb book


b is for boat



Motor Skills 


We had a burst of Spring this week! Midweek we went to our local park and Jonathan had so much fun climbing and using the slide. He's so much more confident than he was last fall-- he did the climbing wall all by himself!

We also went to our local forest preserve and played at the toddler playground with a friend. Jonathan loved a feature called "the cave"-- they carved a small tunnel in the rock that toddlers could run through. I think it reminded him of the bear hunt- and he wasn't scared at all!

We also played with balls quite a bit this week-- Jonathan really enjoys his basketball hoop. We also made a little ball pit using his wading pool and all his different balls around the house:

Jonathan in the ball pit
Gracie playing with her ball


Math


We were lighter on math this week. I tried to work on patterns with Jonathan, using foam ball shapes I picked up on clearance at Michaels-- but he was more interested in playing than with patterns.

We also played with our Melissa & Doug beginner pattern blocks. There is one pattern that makes a boat, so we worked on that one this week. 


Art


We played with paint, using a bouncy ball in a box.

Our ball painting-- nothing fancy!
We put ball stickers on a letter b, which was good fine motor practice!



We played with blue playdough using a Bb Playdough mat from Homeschool Creations. Jonathan still doesn't really get the concept that he can make the playdough into something. But he likes mashing the playdough around. :)

And we made a boat craft by folding shapes in half. He wasn't too interested in this one though. Folding doesn't catch his interest as much as stickers and glue!



Music


We sang several classic songs this week such as: Take Me Out to the Ball Game, & Row Row Row Your Boat.


Practical Life 


Our biggest change is that Jonathan gave up his pacifiers this week! He's only used them at nap time or night for over 6 months now, but I've really been chicken to take them away for good. However, his pacis were so well loved that in the past month, he had chewed little holes in some of them. I'd heard that this takes all the enjoyment out of them.

I'd been telling him for about a month that we were going to say bye bye to the pacis soon. Since he was getting so frustrated with them, I thought he could say bye bye to the broken ones. I got a little box and had him put 2 pacis in the box. We gave the box a little kiss and said bye bye to them. When I got downstairs, he was still crying and I had second thoughts. I was going to just leave the box on his dresser so he could see the pacis, but he decided that he wanted to put them all  in the box. And then he went right to sleep with his teddy bear!

When he woke up, he found several little matchbox cars in his box. He was so proud! He lined them up and started playing with them on his rug.



The first night, he still was a little sad, but understood he said bye bye to the pacis. He's never even asked for the pacis again! Here I was so worried that it would be a big deal, and he practically did it himself. He's played with his cars constantly the past few days-- I think he's really going to like the c is for car activities I have lined up for next week!


Mom's Favorite: 


I love that they are actually smiling at each other! 





I'm linking up to:

Link & Learn @ No Time for Flashcards
Tot School @ 1+1+1=1
What My Child is Reading @ Mouse Learns, Mouse Grows




Friday, March 18, 2011

b is for boat

Image source


Sign Language


We reviewed the sign for boat.


Books 


Boats by Byron Barton

We've really enjoyed Byron Barton books. Barton's simple text and bold, cartoon-like illustrations are appealing to Jonathan. They really are the perfect books for a vehicle loving toddler! This particular book introduces several different types of boats- rowboats, speed boats, tug boats, ferries, etc. Jonathan really enjoyed it and asked to read it several times this week.


Busy Boats by Tony Mitton

This was probably my favorite read this week. Mitton's book is similar to Barton's in that it also introduces different kinds of boats. However, it also gives lots of good information about what boats do. Mitton's text uses fun rhymes. Jonathan enjoyed finding his boats and matching them up to the ones in the story.





Sail Away by Donald Crews

We've enjoyed other Donald Crews books so this one was a natural one to check out. It follows the story of a boat's journey. A family takes out the boat one morning and spends the day sailing. The boat travels by lighthouses and through a storm. It's a simple story that is told through beautiful pictures and font. There are a lot of opportunities to explore vocabulary as well as different sounds.


My Blue Boat by Chris Demarest

This was the last book we read. It's a story about a little girl playing with her boat in the bathtub and imagining going on a journey in her blue boat. She dances with whales and dolphins and looks up at the stars. It's a very imaginative story that is told with vivid illustrations.








Poetry- 

We read My Bed is a Boat by Robert Louis Stevenson.


Bible 


We read the story of Noah's Ark and pulled out our Little People Noah's Ark set to renact the story. (There are lots of great printables you can use with this story at 1+1+1=1) There are lots of other stories that feature boats in the Bible-- you could also do Jesus Calming the Storm.


Pretend Play 


I picked up a few plastic boats from Michaels' & Target's $1 areas and let Jonathan play with them in the tub. We dyed the water blue using some of his Crayola Color Bath Dropz and then turned the jets on in the tub.We pretended there was a storm, like in some of the stories we read. He had a lot of fun with his boats! (Sorry- no bathtub pictures!)



Math 


We did a boat pattern from our Melissa & Doug beginner pattern blocks.

Music 


Row, Row, Row Your Boat. is a classic song! There are some other great songs listed here.


Art 


We did this craft from DLTK.It went okay, Jonathan was excited about using the glue stick again, but wasn't interested in folding. I think might have been more interesting if he was older. However, I think I'll look for more interesting crafts if we talk about boats again. I'd love any ideas!





Library Links 


Boats
Busy Boats
My Blue Boat
Sail Away



Web Resources 
B is for Boat @ First School
Boats @ No Time For Flashcards
Boats & More @ Train Thy Children
B is for Boat @ Walking by the Way
My Blue Boat @ Delightful Learning
Deviled Egg Sailboats @ Totally Tots
Boats @ Preschool Express
Boat Theme @ Step by Step
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