Tot School

Learning Toys and Tools
Sawyer sorted his pegs by color. The boys like stacking these, making "trains" and sorting them.

Jax got these new Melissa and Doug stacking construction vehicles for his birthday. I think they are so cute and the boys love them.

They also liked playing with these Melissa and Doug magnetic puzzles. I played a game with Sawyer where I asked him to give me the truck with a certain number on it. Then he put them in order from 1-10.

Jax is especially fond of the fish puzzle. I used this to work on his colors.

Another new toy the boys enjoy are these Melissa and Doug lacing animals. Can you tell we like Melissa and Doug toys at our house?

I made the boys this bottle top name activity. I found the idea on Carissa's blog. I also made one for every kid in my class with their pictures on it. I just realized I forgot to put my own kids' pictures on these. I will do that soon.

I also saw this book on Carissa's blog and we love, love, love, it. I am so glad we got it. It is called How to Build an A. It is perfect for Sawyer.

Art and Letter Activities
I wanted the boys to make fall trees one day, but they were just not in the mood. They humored me for a minute, but all they wanted to do it paint with their hand. I have to admit it kind of frustrated me, but then I remembered that it is the process, not the product that is important. I really did pay attention in all those child development classes in college.

I hung up Sawyer's fall tree, even though it looks more like a fall colored blob.

Jax was also much more interested in just making hand prints.

I think we will just do open ended art for a while. They love to just free paint and color and it is so important. Maybe I just needed to be reminded of that. It isn't important that we have cute pictures for my blog. The important thing is that the boys are learning and having fun. Look how much fun Jax had with the markers and his easel.

We painted the letter C with cars. The boys loved this. I have done this activity several times with different age groups and every kid loves it. It is so simple, but there is just something about it that kids adore.

When the Cs were painted they didn't want to stop, so I put out more paper for them to paint on. We used various trains, trucks, etc and looked at the different tracks they made.

When they were done they washed their cars in the "car wash."

One day we made Chocolate Chip Cookies to review the letter Cc. I wanted to form them into Cs, but the dough was too soft and we were too hungry to wait for it to harden.


One day we made squishy bags with shaving cream and red and yellow paint. We talked about how red and yellow make orange.

Jax really liked squishing his bag. Then I let them finger paint with a little bit of it. They weren't really into this, so it didn't last too long.

Theme: 5 Senses
We did this theme a couple of months ago, but we are talking about the 5 senses in my class, so I thought we would review it at home.

I found the template here thanks to the ten kids and a dog blog. Sawyer did a pretty good job with this.

We talked specifically about taste and sound this week. I put various items like cinnamon, lemons, and honey into little containers. I blindfolded them and let the boys smell and guess what they were smelling. They had so much fun with this.

Just having fun
Last weekend we went to a birthday party where the boys were able to decorate pumpkins. Jax decorated his to look like a cat.

We also went to the fair. They loved riding these little cars.

Check out 1+1+1=1 to see what everyone else did in tot school this week.