Sharing some of my lockdown thoughts before diving into our Tot school lessons. I had so many plans for M during this spring/summer. Having more playdates, enrolling her in a dance class/ swimming lessons, checking out local kids events, carnivals, waterparks, visiting friends and the list goes on. But staying home all day and tot schooling or potty training her was not one of them.
When we started our ‘home stay ‘ days I was clueless where to start. On a whim I started potty training her and it went pretty well. Then the idea of Tot school arises. Slowly we have settled into the new normal. I acknowledge the sufferings and difficulties of this time but I also feel grateful for those extra snuggles in the morning , being able to spend more intentional play time with her and most importantly seeing the beautiful bond developing between my kids. Of course the days are exhausting and lonely but these little things keep me going.
If you’ve missed the previous letter of the week activities please read them below.
Here’s the weekly lesson plan for Letter D
Focus Wall
Day 1
🔸Object Bin
🔸 Lego duplo Painting
A simple process art to do with littles if you have lego duplos at home. Just squirt some paint on a plate and let them use the legos to stamp on paper to create some beautiful prints.
🔸 Dump truck counting
We used the dump truck printable from themeasuredmom to practice some counting. Use a dry erase marker to write the numbers and place that many blocks on the mat.
She was at first interested to scribble with markers and I pretended that she wrote 1 and placed 1 block on it. After some tries like that she was ready to put the blocks when I wrote the number. Go with the flow and then bring them back to the task in hand. This is the trick that sometimes work when she resist any activity.
Day 2
🔸Vocabulary cards
We played a different dice game this time with the vocabulary cards. I spread out one set of cards on the floor and slid the other set into the pockets of a clear pocketed dice. Then they roll the dice and pick the picture that they got. At the end whoever has more will be the winner. They were so fond of this game and I lost track of how many times we actually played this one.
🔸Dino Erasers Digging
I used some of our dinosaur mini erasers from target dollar spot to hide in black sand. They had so much fun finding them out using a paint brush
Soon they ditched the brush and picked erasers with hands to collect in a glass jar.
🔸 D is for Dino Craft
Supplies needed:
Green construction paper
Yellow construction paper
Green foam sheet
Googly Eyes
Glue
Cut out ‘ D’ from green construction paper. Cut triangles for spike and 4 rectangle for legs from green foam sheet. Also cut a neck, head and tail from green foam sheet.
First Glue ‘D’ on a yellow paper. Then glue the triangles on curved side of D for spikes. Glue 4 rectangles as legs on the straight edge of D.
Keep gluing the neck on top of ‘D’ and attach the head. Don’t forget the tail at end too. Once done add the googly eyes on head.
🔸 Dinosaur dot page
We used pom pom magnets to fill in the dinosaur dot page on a cookie sheet.
Day 3
🔸 Book: Ten black dots
A great counting books for toddlers and preschoolers. Learn what you can do with ten black dots through this book. She loved to touch and count on each page but always lost track after 6. But I like her persistence 😊 and she’s getting better at counting skills.
🔸 Rock counting
For bookish play I used some rocks and wrote the numbers on them using chalk marker. Hot glue some TP rolls together as shown and number them too. Have the kid drop the rocks to the corresponding rolls.
Alternatively you could get some black poms and have them drop as many poms as marked in each rolls. Now we are mainly working on number recognition hence I skipped that part.
🔸 Letter Collage
This letter collage could also go with the book Ten black dots. She love these dot stickers and had fun sticking them all over the ‘d’.
🔸 Dot Dice game
A simple game you can play using dot marker and a dice. The game is intended to get four in a row to be the winner. But I modified the game a bit and used a dice with 1,2,3 written on it. Player has to roll the dice and dot as many dots as the number he gets. Whoever gets the most will win.
Having her big brother to play is always a great motivator for her and we played enthusiastically till the end.
Day 4
🔸 Letter D book
We use this mini book to learn some D words and she loves the cute little book. And after reading she always put them in her backpack. Seems like she’s ready for preschool already!!
🔸 Donut coloring
A simple dropper activity using cotton rounds and colored water. She is a big fan of rainbows so anything that involve colors will get her attention.
I cut a hole in the center of cotton rounds to make it look like donuts. Use a dropper to transfer the color water and color the ‘donuts’. It’s a great fine motor exercise too.
🔸 Puffy paint Donut
I wanted to try puffy paint for so long and thought it makes the perfect recipe for a donut frosting. Enter the puffy paint donut craft.
Supplies needed:
- Shaving cream
- Elmer’s school glue
- Food color
- Paper plate
- Brown paint
- Multicolored construction paper
I mixed equal parts of glue and shaving cream and sectioned them to add different colors for the frosting. She wanted pink and purple. But I couldn’t get the right mix and ended up with orange ,green and purplish colors.
First cut a hole in the paper plate and then let them paint it brown.
Once it’s dried off add the puffy paint for frosting. I cut up some multicolored construction paper to make the sprinkles. They couldn’t get enough of that and asked more and more sprinkles.
🔸 Donut matching
Got these cute donut printables from here. I laminated them and cut in rounds to play a matching game. We also tried a memory game but she still haven’t got the idea of memory game yet.
Day 4
🔸 Book: Pete the cat & five little ducks
M loves this pete the cat version of the famous 5 little ducks song. She learned to count the ducks in each page and is getting better each time she does. A wonderful counting book to read to a toddler.
🔸 5 Little ducks puppet play
These cute mommy and baby ducks printable is from picklebums. After printing and cutting them out I stuck them on craft sticks using tape. Then used half cut pool noodles to make a stand for them.
We sang the song and counted the ducklings. Her favorite part was to knock them down while counting.
🔸 Paper plate Duck
Supplies needed:
- Paper plate
- Yellow paint
- Orange construction paper
- Googly eyes
- Yellow feathers
First cut the paper plate in half and let them paint it yellow. While they are painting cut out two webbed feet , the head and a triangular beak.
Once the paint is dried glue the head, feet and beak on the paper plate. Add the eyes and then staple the feathers at the top.
🔸Duck Tracing mats
We printed these pre writing page from 1+1+1. Since she is crazy for dry erase markers I got a new pack of expo markers from amazon and she is loving it. After tracing and wiping multiple times she decided to hold them all together to make rainbow colors.
Sensory Bin
We love our Flisat table for sensory bin set ups. Here’s a duck pond small world to go with our letter D week.
Supplies needed:
- Plastic ducks
- Rocks
- Logs
- Leaves
- Blue gems
- Blue food color
- Tools ( cups/net/dropper/spoons)
To make the pond add a drop of blue food color to water and invite them to splash and learn. They had so much fun squeezing the ducks, counting them and singing the song.
She used the big dropper to fill the cup. The texture of rocks in wet water was something fascinated her. She also collected the blue pebbles in the cup.
Playdough Invitation
For this Playdough invitation I used almost the same supplies I used for the sensory bin along with our homemade Playdough.
We used the Melissa & Doug stamp set to stamp some dinosaurs on the Playdough . Using the cutters we made some dinosaurs and decorated them.
We poked the leaves, logs and pebbles on the dough to make a small dino world too.
The Wall of Fame
