Tot School - Red

Over the holidays, when we weren't completely sick, I began to plan for the new school year. I truly felt like I wasn't completely able to devote as much time to the tot as I would like without feeling that I wasn't doing enough for my kindergartner. I am making changes in our school day, which is an on going process, hopefully for the better. For the tot, I decided to work on colors for the next few weeks - the first color being red. Here are a few of the activities that we accomplished.

I recently found a marble game at a yard sale here called Wobally. It is full of rainbow colored marbles. I gave Kaleb a bowl full of red marbles, a spoon, and a small plastic bottle. The idea was to work on his fine motor skills by spooning the marbles into the bottle.

He mainly enjoyed pouring them into the bowl and dropping them back into the bottle.

The next activity was also for fine motor practice. I gave my tot tongs, red foam blocks, and a bowl. I showed him how to use the tongs and moved the block from one bowl to another. He practiced this for awhile.

He is so serious. While I was working with Kaleb, I had J working on some things I knew that she wouldn't need a lot of instruction on. She practiced her handwriting and worked on some adding. Seeing all of the activities that I was doing with Kaleb, she asked to do some as well.

The next activity was a water transfer using an eye dropper. I had planned on tinting the water red but I didn't. I showed Kaleb how to use the water dropper. This was somewhat frustrating for him.

He is dropping some water into an ice cube tray.

I turned my back and found this...I guess he was thirsty. Now, I am glad I didn't tint the water red.

A quick mental note - don't play with marbles the day after you have eaten M & M's. The candy was a treat from my parents in 'Merica and we do not normally have them. He thought they were candy. No worries - I stopped him. (always watch your children when playing with small items)

I gave Kaleb scissors and some red paper to cut.

With a little direction, he glued the red paper onto a heart that I cut out. He definitely didn't like getting glue on his fingers though.

Last activity for the week, I gave Kaleb a milk carton and some pick-up sticks - remember those? I used to love that game when I was younger.

Then I let him see what he could do. It didn't take long for him to figure out - he placed all of the sticks inside the carton. He loves things like these. Well, that was our tot week full of the color red.