Tot School: A little bit of this and that

Sawyer-3.5 years
Jax- 2 years next week

Lately tot school has not been going the way I imagine it in my head. I am still adjusting to teaching 3 year olds twice a week at the Mother's Day Out at our church. I have not had as much time to plan for the time at home with the boys. We do a lot, it just hasn't been planned or documented very well. Lots of unexpected things keep coming up and I am trying not to let it bother me so much. I am such a planner, but sometimes the best learning comes from my kids' spontaneous games. I have managed to catch a few things on camera in the last couple of weeks, so I will share them now.

I saw this cute idea for an apple tree on the Just for Fun blog. It wanted to try it with my students, but thought I would try it at home first. It didn't quite work the way I imagined. The boys weren't interested in following directions. As you can see my almost 2 year old was not a happy camper. I don't even know what he was so upset about.


The trees came out fine, but not as perfect as the ones I had seen. Jax was happy again when I just gave him a paint brush and let him paint as he pleased. When I did this with my class I helped each child one at a time and they were much more cooperative than my own children. Imagine that!

The boys did have a blast free painting with brushes and fingers and here are some of their master pieces.

Another day last week we played with floam. Sawyer and I made letters out of the floam. He wanted me to write his friend Jolie's name. He told me it started with a J and then I helped him sound out the rest.


We decorated the letter S with stars. I let the boys glue and stick stars all over their paper.

We made a bit of a mess, so I decided to make clean up into a game. I asked the boys to find all the blue stars, then the red, and so on until they were all cleaned up. I can be sneaky when I need to.

Go to Carissa's blog to see what fun she and others had in tot school last week.

Tot School

Sawyer: 41 months
Jax:23 months
We had a good, but very busy week this past week. I didn't get my camera out much, so almost all of my pics are from the same day. I found out this week that I will be teaching mother's day out at our church. I will teach 3 year olds twice a week. I am excited about it, but have been so busy trying to get ready. I plan to continue tot school with my boys at least a few times a week.

This week the boys made L ladders. I found this idea on No Time for Flash Cards and knew the boys would love it, since they are both obsessed with fire trucks.

I ordered a few things from oriental trading a couple of weeks ago. We finally have real trays to use for tot trays. I got these nuts and bolts with Jax in mind, but Sawyer is the one who really loves to play with them.


Both boys played with this fish bowl color match I made. I helped Jax sort the colors. When Sawyer played I had him sound out the words and then sort the fish. When he was finished I had him count and we talked about which bowl had the most and the fewest.

Sawyer continues to love stickers. I got this little sticker album and automobile stickers at the Dollar Tree. He chose this activity almost every day.

We have been learning about creation during our Bible study time. On Monday we talked about how God separated the light from the dark. I put out a bowl of white and black pom poms and had the boys separate them.

The boys loved painting with their new Melissa and Doug easel.


We set up a new reading corner in their play room and it warms my heart to see them reading on their own. I am so happy they love to read.
Check out what other's did in tot school this week.

Tot School: We're Back!

We are finally starting to settle into our new home. This was the first time in a few weeks that I actually planned learning activities for the boys. We are just getting back into the swing of things, so we didn't do as much as I would have liked. We did one craft on Monday.

The boys made a red collage. Jax is still learning his colors and Sawyer is learning his color words, so we are going to focus on one color a week. This week we learned about the color red. One day we all dressed in red and found everything red in our house.

They also put beads on red pipe cleaners. Sawyer spelled the word red with letter beads.
I found this Noah's Arc toy at a garage sale a few weeks ago. It has wooden animal cut outs that the boys can match. It also has a little handmade wooden arc. It is so cute and the boys love it.

Sawyer also did this color matching activity.

Jax had fun transferring red pom poms with a spoon. I am still surprised by how much he loves these simple activities.

He is getting more into puzzles lately. Here he is putting together a puzzle on our new play table.



Jax helped me water our tomato plants every morning. He also decided to wash his car and give himself a bath on this particular day.

Both boys love to play with their cars these days.

I caught Sawyer reading a book in his new chair. I love that my boys love to read. It makes me so happy when I find them sitting quietly with a book.

Check out Carissa's Blog and see what other tots did this week.

Snack Baskets

I saw this idea on a couple of blogs and decided to try it. On Sunday evening I filled two baskets, one for each child, with snacks for the entire week. I put enough snacks for them to have one in the morning and one in the afternoon. It really has made my day a little easier. When they say they are hungry I just tell them to pick out a snack and they do. They have really enjoyed having a choice. I thought Jax would always choose whatever his big brother chose, but I was wrong. I don't think they have chosen the same thing yet.

I put snack size portions of goldfish, cheerios, popcorn, etc. into little baggies. This saves me from having to give them more and more during snack time. They know they get two snacks a day and they haven't whined for more.

I also let the boys choose to eat their snack inside or outside. It gives them a bit of control and independence, since I am usually the one who decides what and where we eat.

It also makes my days easier when I don't argue with my three year old when he wants to put his pajamas on at 3:30 in the afternoon because "he was hot" in his t-shirts and shorts. Of course he was hot again 10 minutes later and changed back into his regular clothes.

Color Word Matching

Sawyer is becoming more and more interested in reading. He really wants to read and it is so cute to watch him try and sound out words. I made up a little activity to help him learn his color words. It was very simple.

I just cut out strips of colored paper and strips of white paper. On the white paper I wrote the color words in the corresponding color. I first had Sawyer match these to the color strips. He did this very easily.

Next I wrote the color words in gray and had him match them to the color words. He actually had to look at the letters in the words and figure out what color it was. He did really well with this too. After he masters this I will just put out the gray words and the color strips.

Lately if he can't do something perfectly he just quits, so I am trying not to push him. At the same time I want to encourage him and challenge him to try new things.

Back to School

We are finally getting back to normal around here. We are all moved in to our house and the boys are doing well with the transition. I have really missed our tot school time together. We are still working on our playroom/school room as well as my craft closet, so things aren't perfect, but I decided we will do what we can for now. I have decided to review a new color and letter each week. My goal for Jax is that he will learn to recognize and name the colors and letters. Sawyer can do those things, so my goal for him is to learn his color words and begin writing his letters. This week we are doing letter r and the color red.
We are also going to begin each day with a bible story and weekly Bible verse during breakfast.

Yesterday, the boys made a red collage. I put out different red scraps and materials for the boys to glue on their papers.

Jax had a little trouble squeezing the glue by himself. Next time I will put some glue on a plate and have the boys dip q-tips in it.


Next, I had the boys string beads onto a red pipe cleaner. This is a great activity to help with fine motor skills. Jax wasn't able to do it at first, but with a little practice he could do it all by himself. I put the letters r e d out for Sawyer and had him spell red on his pipe cleaner.


Sawyer suggested that we play a game of candy land, so we did this as well. He is a competitive little guy, but not a poor sport. He likes to play by the rules.

The boys also played with their clippos. Here is Sawyer building a house. I also did a little writing practice with him. We are just focusing on tracing right now. He traced with his finger and then a crayon. He didn't want to try writing it on his own and I didn't push it.

Tot School

Last week we were out of town visiting family and looking for a new house, so these pics are actually from two weeks ago. Things have been so busy and probably won't get any better for a few weeks. We are going on another little trip next week and then we close on our house in Texas and move to Louisiana. I have so many ideas and things I want to do with the kids, but it has been hard to fit it all in. I probably won't be able to post much for the next month or so.

Last week I let the boys play with sugar. I tried to get Sawyer to write letters in the sugar. He did l and o and then just wanted to fill his trains with sugar which was fine. Jax had fun pouring and transferring sugar and making a big mess.

We also did these backyard number boxes that I found from Teach Mama. I forgot my tape though and the wind kept blowing our flowers away. I also should have started with a smaller number, because the boys got bored of it after about 5 boxes.

Recently Sawyer has learned how to spell his name, Jaxon's name, mommy and daddy. One day I wrote our names on sticky notes and had him stick them on the correct person. I also made this little chart with our names and had him match the pictures.

He really liked this and was able to do it correctly the first time. I want to try doing this with new words each week.

The boys also had fun playing in the sand at the sprinkler park.

Two weeks ago our air was out so we stayed with my in-laws. The boys always have fun there. Here is Sawyer playing barrel of monkeys with Daddy and Lulu.

Check out what other kids did in tot school this week.