Tot School- W is for Winter

Its still cold here!  Learning about winter made for our next theme- W is for Winter!  Little Guy is 31 months old.

We had a fun week.  Little Guy's favorite activity was the salt tray.  I put blue paper in the tray, so that when he wrote in the salt, the blue showed through.  Sometimes he practiced writing letters (copying the ones I did) and sometimes he drew pictures and circles.  I am okay with either, as it is getting him practicing the same type of movements.  I did write the letters he knows on index cards for him to try to copy in the salt, and he really seemed to enjoy copying those letters.

Making circles in the salt.

We practiced some counting this week with the Winter Counting Book from the winter pack at 3 Dinosaurs.  Since Little Guy has one to one correspondence to three, I printed out the pages up to the number five, to stretch him a little without overwhelming him.  We practiced counting the number of items on each page.

I can count 3!

Of course, we had some cutting practice.  These strips were from the winter pack at Gift of Curiosity.

Holding the paper while cutting.

We have been working on playing the game Memory (or concentration).  The time we spend during work time was a good time to focus on learning the game without many distractions.  When he tries, Little Guy can be successful!  We started with 4 pairs, and by the end of the week were using 6 pairs.

I matched two backpacks.

Do you want my pair?

To practice the letter W, I drew the outline of a large W, then covered it with sticky paper.  I put out pattern blocks and cotton balls for him to stick in the shape.  I am always disappointed with his reaction to sticky paper, as he does not really seem to enjoy it, and only did this activity once during the week.

My fingers are more interesting than this W.

Another way we practiced W was by stamping it.  I think that this activity will be a staple for letter practice, but I will mix up what he stamps on.  This week, I made a couple of little booklets with blank pages for Little Guy to stamp in.

Stamping purple W's.

This activity shows the value of trash things that no longer serve their original purpose.  I had a pepper shaker that had a pour hole on one side and shaking holes on the other side.  Little Guy had to sort the toothpicks and tiny pom-poms into the correct holes.  This was another favorite activity.

The toothpick goes in here.

The last activity was a sorting activity from the winter pack at Gift of Curiosity.  Little Guy had to cut apart the pictures and then sort them by winter clothes or winter activities.  This week, I did not have him glue the pictures the first time he sorted, so we could complete the activity more than once.  He did glue them at the end of the week.

Cutting apart all these pictures!

These are winter clothes.

How is tot school going for you?

We linked up to Tot School Gathering Place at 1+1+1=1!