My Favorite Quotes:

A person's a PERSON no matter how small... -Dr. Seuss

I am a little pencil in the hand of God who is sending a love letter to the world. - Mother Teresa

The aim of education should be to teach us rather how to THINK, than WHAT to think- rather to improve our minds, so as to enable us to think for ourselves, than to load the memory with the thoughts of other men. - James Beattie


Tuesday, November 3, 2009

Day 1 of our Tot School!

Today Scarlett was very excited because she knew we were going to do "school"- and she just couldn't wait! We are using a very basic (very revised) version of the workbox idea. I have 6 plastic shelves ( from Big Lots) and in each box is one activity that Mommy and Scarlett will do today. I let her pick whichever box she wants. Because we have very big cars and we never use the garage we have converted it into a learning/play room for the girls. We bought two really large rugs from Home Depot- on deep deep discount and cleaned out the garage the past 2 weekend, then rolled it out. I have a rectangle activity table that can lower pretty low and I purchased some preschool chairs as well. I have 3 very large shelves (that are built in the garage) that I am using for games, art supplies, paper, activities, and music. I also have a 5 drawer file cabinet that I am using for filing everything I do (because next up will be my little one, Lily!!) It is also holding somethings we won't normally use or my recycled boxes, egg cartons, etc for random art projects throughout the year. So here goes!! Day 1 : We started around 9:30am (waayyy later than I will usually start...!) Scarlett happily skipped out to the garage and we started with the calendar and the day of the week, month and date today. Amidst all of the excitement we forgot to pray first( oops!) We will definitely be doing that every day from now on . I think Scarlett and I were just so excited for all of the activities and the newness of it all.
Here is what my TOT workboxes look like:

DAY ONE- What is in each WORKBOX?


Scarlett's candy from Halloween- today we just sorted it BIG/MEDIUM/SMALL
(then she got to eat one!)


Color Match up with the words ( I got this from one of my favorites- Confessions of a Homeschooler)



This one I have seen in various forms on lots of blogs and website-So I made up my own with stuff that I had! Spooning the puff balls into each individual egg carton hole. She loved it!



Letter T "tree" I forgot who's blog I used for this but we tweaked it a bit- we just talked about the letter T- traced it with our finger and then ran outside and found leaves to glue on the tree.




Cutting practice- from the Kumon cutting book (got it at Target) - lots of fun!




Ghost matching letters (this was supposed to be used last week- but it didn't get finished). Unfortunately I can't remember who I got this from either :( I now realize I need to put a sticky note on everything I copy so that I can give credit where it is due... I am learning while I do this blog today!! Promise it will be more accurate next time!!
Here's our calendar as well- we are going to talk about the day/month/ and date each day. Plus we have birthdays and holidays on the calendar. This month both of Scarlett's cousins have a birthday!!
After the workboxes were finished Scarlett and Lily danced to music and played with playdoh- their choice!
Today was great- everything seemed to go so smoothly and most important- she had FUN!


Check out what others are doing!
Tot School





5 comments:

Carisa said...

Welcome! I love your setup!
Carisa

Counting Coconuts said...

Welcome to the fun world of Tot School!! Looks like you had a great first week. The ghost matching activity is just too cute.

PS - Love the title of your blog! :)

Jo Shabo said...

Thank you- I am so excited about Tot School-- I have been looking at it for months now and finally had to join in! :)

Jeanette said...

This was my first week posting to tot school as well. Lots of fun!

LD said...

Hi! I love your blog! Thanks for all the hard work you have put into it. I've gotten so many ideas to use with Anna. I think I did the right thing to officially become a follower, but if not, let me know:-)
-Leslie