Colors for Tots–RED

Just in time for Valentine’s Day I am starting my Colors for Tots series with RED!!

Baby Girl or K (I refer to her as both) is now 15mos!  This last month we have been playing with RED!!

Here are some great ideas for introducing RED to your toddler.  Follow each month as I share ideas for introducing colors and teaching about COLORS!!  Next month is GREEN!

Discovery Basket

I found a bunch of RED items and put them in a basket for her to explore.  Red blocks, Red stringing Blocks, red pom poms, Red attribute blocks, red manipulatives (bugs), Red, Red, Red! 

For Valentine’s Day (and not pictured) I also added a red heart bracelets, red plastic heart necklace and red heart sunglasses (all from The Dollar Tree). 

Discovery Bottles

Red Glitter Bottle

Made from Clear Glue, some water and red glitter (I used larger and finer glitter).  The finer falls slower! 


The far left is plastic red hearts in a mix of baby shampoo and water (so they fall slower), the middle is the glitter bottle and the far right is red water beads!  I also put some small red plastic beans into a small spice jar (pictured in the basket picture at the top).  Made for a fun shaker too!

Art Collage

I got this great Color Art Collage from Alex Toys Jr on Amazon.  I got it on sale for $6, so it was well worth the cost in my opinion, full price is a tad much.  Keep an eye out for another sale!

Light Table

The sensory bottles and some other clear blocks and light table items in RED were lots of fun on the light table!

Now is a great time to find lots of fun red items at places like Dollar Tree to fill your sensory bottles, discovery baskets and for collage items! 

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Workbox Wednesday–Kites and Magnetism

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Welcome to Workbox Wednesday!  If you use workboxes, tot trays, or anything similar, feel free to post a link to your blog post or a picture (pictures can be from facebook, but please make sure they are PUBLIC so we can see them, or use a host like photobucket.com to get a URL for your photo) that shows WHAT IS IN YOUR BOXES!

Please visit my co-host at Tots and Me and Line Upon Line Learning

Visit others that link up, leave comments, follow, etc.  The favors will be returned!  Feel free to grab a button too, so others can find the link up and join in the fun!

These two are for my 15mo (L) is from Letter K at Confessions of a Homeschooler.  The (R) is from 3 Dinosaurs, I used plastic shapes or cut out shapes from foam.

These kites are also from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  I attached ribbon tails and got bow shaped hair clips to add to the tails.  This is for my 4yo.  You’ll need two boxes to have enough to do all 10 kites.

My kids favorite are always the Roll & Graph activities (especially my 5yo), and anything that has stamps!  Stamping K’s for instance on a kite!  Lot of great choices and Deb, has lots of great ideas as well at PreK & K Sharing.

Living Montessori Now has a GREAT list of Kite Themed Printables.  I used many of them, however these were the ones I sort of made my own (as opposed to just printing and using).

So many magnetic things are tiny pieces that my tot will most likely put in her mouth (though she is pretty good about not doing it, it does happen).  I wanted to put together some discovery bottles that would be fun but SAFE! 

Additionally I wanted my older kids to have fun too!  My 8yo is doing a Moving Beyond the Page Electricity and Magnetism (& Ben Franklin) unit, so I wanted to put some things together that would coincide for the youngers.

The bottles are as follows:
1.  BBs (as in BB gun)
2.  jingle bells
3.  colored paperclips
4.  cut up pipe cleaners
5.  Magnetic counting chips (pictured below)

I bought the Mighty Magnet Set (pictured below) and it was great b/c all the pieces were large enough that I didn’t have to worry about my tot.  The magnets were large enough for little hands to grip too.  They all had a blast (though for some reason I didn’t get any pics of my tot playing with them!).

An InLinkz Link-up

Baby Sensory Lids Drop and ABC Lids for Tots/PS

I have been saving can lids for sometime wanting to make something with them.  I FINALLY did!!

These are from can fruits/vegetables I used a safe opener so that the edges aren’t sharp then washed them.

SENSORY LIDS DROP

I used glue dots to adhere a wide variety of fabric, papers and other materials to the lids.  Some examples are fabric, burlap, ribbons, textured scrapbooking paper.  Make sure they are baby safe!!

I then cut a slit in the lid of a large #10 sized can for them to be dropped through. 

For younger babies, feel free to remove the lid or make a bigger slit.

It makes a great sound when they are dropped in.  They can take them in and out and have lots of fun!

ABC LIDS

For toddlers and preschoolers adhere ABC foam stickers to the lids.

Have an ABC hunt, drop them in order, or just say the name as they drop them in!

Weekly Workboxes–Pirates–Arrrgh! (Free Printables)

 

First off FREE Pirate Math Printables!!  An adding mat and counting cards, just add Gold Doubloons or Pennies….
The other printables used with this unit (unless otherwise indicated) came from 2 Teaching Mommies Pirate Unit.

 

Sensory Table – Sand, Rocks, Toy Pirates, and buried treasure (gold doubloons, golden necklaces and jewels).  It looked nicer when I first set it up, but the kids got into it before I took a picture! 

Pirate Potato Head

Matching uppercase and lowercase letters.  I got this from Teacher’s Notebook (FREE download).  There are other matching options, like lowercase to lowercase and beginning sounds.  I already had these round letter magnets from the Letter of the Week curriculum (from Confessions of a Homeschooler), I have them on magnets, but you could put them on milk caps (or other round items).

Counting cards with gold doubloons

Magnet page from 2 Teaching Mommies

Adding doubloons- roll dice and place that many doubloons in gold coin (do twice), then add them and place correct number in treasure chest OR pick a number, count the doubloons and divide them between the gold coins to make a problem.

Shadow matching from 2 Teaching Mommies

Size sequence from 2 Teaching Mommies

Pirate spelling from 2 Teaching Mommies

Counting clip cards from 2 Teaching Mommies

Pattern cards from 2 Teaching Mommies (I cut the pattern demo strips shorter so that he can finish the pattern on his own without copying)

Tweezing for treasures – jewels under the sand, tweeze and place in bucket.  Hand broom is for cleaning up sand messes.

 

I also have a few prewriting pages from 2 Teaching Mommies, and some cut and color worksheets from Enchanted Learning (membership required).  For my oldest, I printed out several of their spelling, following directions, etc pirate themed worksheets and made a packet.  For him this is just a ‘fun week’, he will only be completing the packet, reading time and math.  Other subjects are on hold. 

 

We are also listening to Treasure Island Book/CD and will be watching several pirate themed shows/movies.  The week will end with a Pirate ship cruise with Hawaii Pirate Adventures!! 

We will also be decorating our own wooden pirate treasure chests!

Items used for this unit:

and pirate treasure items from your local dollar store (or equivalent)!

 

Will post what we read and watch in our WRAP UP!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Weekly Workboxes–Dolphins (with printables)

I used a few printables from 1+1+1=1 blog D is for Dolphins, as well as some free dolphin and whale printables (that go with the toob) found at The Pinay Homeschooler.  But other than that there was not much for dolphins in the preschool realm, so I made a few things of my own and you can find them HERE (9 pages).

Here is what is in the boxes!  Sorry the pictures are so washed out.

Dolphin spelling (uppercase or lowercase) – made by me

Letter D from 1+1+1=1 cover in ocean stickers

Dolphin size sequencing – made by me

Dolphin and Whale sort – made by me (using the Whales and Dolphins Toob)

Beginning writing pages from 1+1+1=1, and a dolphin maze I copied from an oceans activity book.  We also used the cutting page and coloring page from 1+1+1=1.

Non-standard measurement using 1” cubes – whales and dolphins- made by me

Sensory Bin – blue rice, blue and clear flat marbles and some blue aquarium rocks, whales and dolphins, scoops and cups, FREE whale and dolphin info cards.  For how to dye rice – click HERE

We are using Unit Studies by Amanda Bennett Dolphin Days as the core for my 7yo, and the littles join in (they like the videos!).