Tot School- Fall

This past week, we did our first of three weeks working on a fall theme.  It was kind of a hectic week, so we did not get through all the activities I had planned.  We will pick up these activities during the next week.  Little Guy is 28 months old.

During the week, our work centered on Tot Trays, so we did not have a lap book to work in.  The first tot tray shown was the leaf poke page, from the fall pack at This Reading Mama.  Little Guy enjoyed using the toothpick to poke the holes, although he had a hard time only poking holes on the outline.   

Look at my leaf!

The pumpkin tray was next.  Little Guy had strips of orange construction paper to cut into pieces, then he glued them onto the pumpkin outline.  He really likes using scissors, but had not chosen this activity at all the previous week when we had it out originally.  He did seem to enjoy it, though!

Cut this piece!

The salt dough leaf impressions was fun, but took several sessions to complete.  I used this recipe from Art Club Blog to make the dough.

Ingredients:

• 1/2 cup salt
• 1/2 cup water
• 1 cup flour

Directions:

• Combine salt and water.  
• Add flour and mix.
• Knead to make dough smooth.

 I gave Little Guy a clump of dough at a time to roll out.  After he did some rolling, I checked it to make sure it was pretty even.

Making sure its flat.

 Then we used some plastic leaf impressions to push into the dough.  (I had to sprinkle flour on the  rolled dough to make sure the impressions did not stick.)

Push down the leaf!

We used a straw to poke a hole in each one so we could hang them later, and they were ready to bake.  I baked them at 200 degrees F.  I think our leaves must have been pretty thick, as it took them 4 hours to bake! 

All set for baking.

The next day, we got out acrylic paint to decorate our leaves.  Little Guy painted one leaf, then he was done!  We might be getting the painting out again!

Painting my leaf brown and red.

 Our next tray was reading and coloring the book "I See Fall," again from the fall pack at This Reading Mama.  Little Guy would turn to a page, I would read it, then he found the correct crayon to use.  After he finished coloring, I gave him some autumn themed stickers to add to his book.

Do you like how I color?

The next tray is a game called "Roll and Count Leaves" from the leaves pack at 3 Dinosaurs.  We did not play this game this week; look for it next week!

Our final tot tray was sorting leaves into small, medium, and large.  This activity is from Homeschool Creations. Little Guy did a great job of sorting the leaves into the three sizes.

This is a medium leaf.

In addition to these 6 activities available to choose from, Little Guy could also do a dot marker page or a coloring page (one per day for both of these).

What fall themed activities are you working on?

This week we linked up to No Time for Flash Cards and 1+1+1=1!