Tot School and Learning Through Love

and

I will be linking to both Tot School and Learning Through Love this week. Susana has a wonderful blog at My Family, My Forever and I am happy to be able to join in on her MckLinky as well as in Carisa's Tot School.

Because I am extremely tired today, I am posting these photo collages. I know they are tiny, but if you click on the photo collage, it will open up bigger and then you can scrutinize each activity to your delight. I will also describe each activity from top left and across so you can follow along more easily.

There was definitely a focus on fine motor skills this week, mostly because of an article I read here.

• sorting shapes from an old mobile
• knobbed puzzles matched to their outlines
• button practice
• clothespin color naming (recycled parts of the clothespin color game - the new presentation made it fun for Bear)
• popsicle sticks through a slot in a yogurt container
• using tweezers to sort buttons of different shapes
• using wooden tongs to sort pompoms
• a button snake
• cutting play dough snakes
• using a plastic knife to cut play dough "baguette"

• The tweezer activity again
• using felt shapes to make pictures (she didn't like this at all, though I thought it would be enjoyable)
• taking the handles of the plastic popsicle molds and rearranging them so the colors wouldn't match (loves this activity)
• sifting through rice using a slotted spoon to find letters
• sorting nocturnal and diurnal animals
• seeing peacocks at the Zoo Ave
• tracing letters with her Do a Dots
• playing some grid games
• teaching her baby brother animal names (It is SO cute to hear her say them to him. Of course, she doesn't quite hold them so he can actually see the cards, and she also snatches them away pretty quickly so I don't think he gets to see anything, but it's darn cute)
• Bear found a game I have from when I taught third grade and insisted on playing it. It involves matching fractions. However, I found a way for her to play it with my scaffolding such that we count the picture items and match them to the numerator part of the fraction. She is counting the eggs in the last picture in the photo collage.
  
• using pre-writing tracing cards of which I plan to post later in more detail.

I feel worn out and blogged down (yes I meant to write it that way) and may be taking a break next week from daily posts unless my energy returns.