Tot School- c is for car and cat (26 Months)

Jonathan is 26 Months

This week we started learning about the lowercase letter c. We're focusing on the hard c sound such as in "cat" and "car".

Bible 


We have a new memory verse this week from the Songs for Saplings CD:

"We will be changed into his likeness" 2 Corinthians 3:18. 

We printed out the memory verse from the Totally Tots printable. Right now, all we personally do is sing the song together and look at the memory verse page.


Books 


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

My Car by Byron Barton
Have You Seen my Cat? by Eric Carle
Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag
Cool Cars by Tony Mitton
If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by Laura Numeroff
If I Built a Car by Chris Van Dusen

Motor Skills 


We started out with nice weather this week, but ended up being in the 20s and 30s by the end of the week. I think this is the longest winter I can remember. I can't wait for Spring.

Still, we got to play outside at the beginning of the week. Jonathan used his new crazy coupe car:

We also tried to move and stretch like cats on one of the colder days. And we played with our basketball hoop quite a bit.

For fine motor skills, we did a lot of work on puzzles. We did some chunky puzzles by Melissa & Doug which featured cars and cats. These puzzles are too easy for him now, but he still enjoys putting the pieces in:

We also did a three piece cat puzzle that Carisa over at 1+1+1=1 provided as part of her new tot school printables page. It took him a couple tries, but he figured out how to put the pieces together to make the cat picture. We also used her cat lacing card and he really enjoyed that activity too.

Math


We did a couple math activities this week. I downloaded some printables to go along with the Cars movie from 1+1+1=1. We used her Counting with Cars activity and counted how many cars were on each card. This gave us good practice of counting 1-10. Jonathan has the sequence of 1-10 down, but he doesn't always keep track of which items he's counted. So this was a great activity to give us practice counting.


We also have been using the Parking Lot Game printable from Happy Brown House to line up Jonathan's new matchbox cars and count them. He puts one car in each space, which helps him visualize and count the cars.

Pre-Writing 


We've been driving Jonathan's matchbox cars on some Highway Letter Cards from Making Learning Fun. He loves driving his cars on the roads and it's great practice for getting the motion of the letters down:

We also did some "C is for Cat" printables from 1+1+1=1. I laminated a few of her "C is for Cat" pages and gave Jonathan a dry erase marker. We did the "Find the Cats" page where he tried to connect all the cats by making lines on the page.

We also did the Connect the Cats page where he traced the dotted lines. He actually did surprising well at this one. While the lines weren't perfectly straight, he got the concept down pretty well!

Art


We played with paint, by rolling his toy cars through paint and then onto paper. We also used a car cookie cutter and stamped cars onto the paper using the paint.

We used our Do-a dot markers to find uppercase and lowercase Cs on another one of Carisa's C is for Cat printables. We also used her printables to color cats different colors.

And we played with yellow playdough using a Cc Playdough mat from Homeschool Creations. We used our car and cat cookie cutters.

Videos 


We had Cars movie night(s) last weekend, where we watched the Disney/Pixar movie. Jonathan was really enthralled with the story. He liked Lightning McQueen!

We also watched "Millions of Cats" on a Scholastic Storybook Treasures DVD.


Music


Jonathan's favorite song this week was the "Car Car" Song by Woody Guthrie. We listed to a version of the song on a Kimbo CD.

Games


We used another one of Carisa's printables to play a Memory game. I printed out two sets of the cat shapes printable from 1+1+1=1 and we played a memory-style matching game with them. He already can name the shapes, so we worked on finding "matches". First we matched the shapes with all the shapes facing up. Then we attempted the "memory" style game with the shapes facing down. That was a little harder of a concept for Jonathan to grasp- the taking turns and turning one set of cards over at a time. But, he still had fun and got the concept of matching.


Baking 


We made cupcakes to go along with our "If You Give a Cat a Cupcake" story. Jonathan had fun helping me ice the cupcakes:

and eating them too!

Practical Life 


Jonathan made a big step in potty training this week-- he's at least using the potty every time I ask him if he needs to go. He was holding it in until after he got his diaper back on.

I realized he kept leaving the room when he needed to go potty, so this time I started closing the door partway when he would sit on the potty. I think having the privacy has helped him! He isn't initiating going potty, but it's a big step forward! We've been using M&Ms as rewards and he loves picking out what colors he wants.



So we've had a busy week

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

c is for cat

Image Source

We had fun talking about cats for a couple days. I even pulled out a beanie baby cat I had and he named it "Reilly" after the his nana's dog. He had fun toting it around for a couple days.


Sign Language 


We reviewed the sign for cat.

Books 

Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag

This book is consistently referenced on lists of best picture books. Written in 1928, it was awarded a Newberry Honor Award in 1929 (one of very few picture books to do so). It's a simple story about an older couple who wish to adopt a cat. The man sets out to find his wife a cat, and ends up bringing home "hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats" because he can't decide which one to bring home. The cats fight over which one is the most beautiful until only one is left. It's a great story for discussing pride and humility. Jonathan, however, wasn't as drawn in to the black and white illustrations. Watching the video (see below) made him appreciate the story more, but I think it may be more suitable for older children.

Have You Seen My Cat? By Eric Carle

In this story, a little boy has lost his cat and begins to look for her. His search takes him around the world, encountering many different types of cats. The text is very simple and repetitive, but it engaged Jonathan and he would participate in the story. It also helped his vocabulary as we encountered lions, bob cats, pumas, jaguars, etc. He would name each animal as we would see Carle's vivid illustration. This was a story he wanted to read over again- it was a definite hit!

If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by Laura Numeroff and Felicia Bond

This is a cute story, similar in style to the other "If You Give" books. However, I really didn't enjoy it as much as the other stories (particularly If You Give a Mouse a Cookie). The story didn't flow very smoothly to me. Jonathan, however, did like the story and kept saying that the cat was silly.




Videos 


We watched Millions of Cats, part of one of the Scholastic Storybook Treasures DVDs.


Pre-Writing 


Carisa at 1+1+1=1 has just this week launched some free Tot School printables for each letter of the alphabet. I was very excited to make use of some of her resources. I laminated a few of her "C is for Cat" pages and gave Jonathan a dry erase marker. We did the "Find the Cats" page where he tried to connect all the cats by making lines on the page.

We also did the Connect the Cats page where he traced the dotted lines. He actually did surprising well at this one. While the lines weren't perfectly straight, he got the concept down pretty well!

Motor Skills 


By the end of this week, the weather turned cold again- we were in the 20s and 30s and there was no hope of going outside. So we pretended to stretch and move like a cat to get a little bit of his energy out.

We also did some work on puzzles. We used our Melissa & Doug chunky pets puzzle which, at this point, is too easy for him. He still had fun with it though.

We also used the cat  puzzle printable that Carisa provided at 1+1+1=1. This was a three piece picture that he had to put together and he did a great job! It took a couple tries, but he got it.

We also did the lacing card from Carisa's printable as well. He really enjoyed poking the lace through the holes- I think he was pretty proud of himself. He also enjoyed dragging the cat card behind him as he walked. Unfortunately, I haven't gotten a picture of that one.

Art 


We used more of Carisa's printables- I printed out the dot painting page and we dot-painted the upper-case C and lower case C's. We also used the Colored Cats page. I told Jonathan what color to color each cat and then he picked up the appropriate marker and colored on each one. It was a very simple activity, but one that he seemed to enjoy. He knows his colors, so I was mostly working with him on following directions. He did a pretty good job and had fun using markers.

Games


I printed out two sets of the cat shapes printable from 1+1+1=1 and we played a memory-style matching game with them. He already can name the shapes, so we worked on finding "matches". First we matched the shapes with all the shapes facing up. Then we attempted the "memory" style game with the shapes facing down. That was a little harder of a concept for Jonathan to grasp- the taking turns and turning one set of cards over at a time. But, he still had fun and got the concept of matching.


Baking 


We made cupcakes after reading If You Give a Cat a Cupcake. Jonathan had fun trying to help me ice the cupcakes.

He wanted to eat the cupcake upside down though!

Library Links 


Have You Seen My Cat? by Eric Carle
If You Give a Cat a Cupcake by Laura Numeroff
Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag


Web Resources 


Shape Cat Art Project @ A Mommy's Adventures
C is for Cupcake @ Totally Tots
C is for Cat printables @ 1+1+1=1
Cat puppets @ No Time for Flashcards