Saturday, July 21, 2012

Olympics group tot school

Another group tot school has come and gone. This time our theme was: OLYMPICS! I was pretty excited, and it was hard choosing between all of the fun activities. Here is what we ended up with: 

Olympic Rings Printing:We used upside down Play-Doh containers to create the Olympic rings.  The original idea uses toilet paper tubes, found here.


Do-a-dot Olympic rings: Printable from Making Learning Fun.

Create a sailboat and see if it floats: We used recycled baby food tubs, play dough, straws, tape and foam stickers to decorate.  This was located next to a full kitchen sink so the kids could see if their boats floated.


A few extra indoor activities were:
Two sorting trays

Two "What Comes Next?" trays
(both from part one of the 3 Dinosaurs Summer Olympics Pack)
 

and an Olympic matching game
(found here. Click on her TPT link on the left...it's free!)

OUTSIDE: everyone got a score sheet and there were markers at each station to fill in each section

Basketball: best out of ten

Throwing mini-beach balls through a hula hoop into a basket (shot put?)
(keep track of how many you got into the basket)

Hurdles
I saw this idea in a Family Fun magazine.  You take pool noodles (mine were from the Dollar Tree) and hook them onto chopsticks that are stuck in the ground.  So fun!
(write how many times you jumped over a hurdle.  A chose to do this again and again and again!)

Soccer: best out of ten

Balance Beam
checklist of skills(walk with one foot in front of the other, turn around, bend your knees, walk to the end and hop off, etc.)

Snack: ice cream cone and popcorn torches
(our friends provided strawberries, blueberries and juice boxes!)
I'm already working on next month's activities!

Monday, July 9, 2012

Love Books Exchange

The Educators' Spin On It

We recently participated in a book/activity exchange through The Educator's Spin On It.  It was so much fun!  We got our package from Michelle and her kiddos over at Having Fun at Chelle's House!  It was amazing!!

We got the book  Harold and the Purple Crayon along with all of these fun activities:

Purple/Not Purple sort
A really liked the purple ring from this.  You can see her wearing it in the other pictures!  :)

1-10 numbered moons 
We lined them up in order (because she will not stand for anything out of order!) and she hopped from one number to the next as we counted.

1-10 numbered moons and crayons
She put the correct number of crayons on each numbered moon

Purple Star Crayon (how cool is this?)

Pom Pom transfer with tongs

Sandpaper and string
We practiced making shapes with the string.  There was a little card with suggestions, "can you make a square?" etc. 

Lacing Moon
I let her do this any way she wanted at first, then we practiced again and I showed her how to lace from hole to hole in order. 

Baby Sister even got an activity!  She really loved pulling the fabric squares out of the wipes container.  I'd been meaning to make this for her and now I don't have to!  

Jell-O
A actually wanted to make this with me.  I was surprised since she has never shown an interest in eating Jell-O.  She was very excited and then I gave her a little bowl.  She had fun stirring it, but then told me, "Mama can eat it."   Ha!  We tried!  At least I enjoyed eating it.  

Blank Books and doodle cards
We haven't gotten to these yet.  The idea is to write stories/pictures in the books and the doodle cards are for us to pick a card and then draw a picture that includes the doodle. 

We also got purple play dough that I didn't get a photo of, but A was very excited to play with it!

This was so much fun and Michelle provided us with so many activities we threw half of them in our tot school drawers and A played with them for days.  I still have the other half to switch them out with.  We'd love to be a part of this again!