Confessions from Toddler School: Football!

Are you ready for some football!?! I know we are! We are huge football fans in our household so this is always a fun week for us!

Here's what we did this week:

You can get my blank thematic planner here.

Books:

Not gonna lie, finding toddler style books for football was TOUGH. But we did find a few that we really liked! Our favorite by far was the Sports Illustrated board book. Cohen loved it! And I loved the juxtaposition (You like that word!? Sometimes my brain still functions like a normal adult 🤣) between the cartoon style and the real NFL photos!

 

Activities:

Field Goal Words:

I have to admit I was super impressed with myself when creating this activity! All I used was a piece of chart paper and a cut out football! What I loved most about this (aside from how easy it was to create) was how adaptable it is to any skill! 

Although I am kicking myself for not laminating this. After 1 day it was pretty worse for wear. But laminating could have solved that issue and would have been made it dry erase so I could swap out the learning skills. Live and learn!

Football Drop:

This is a tried and true staple in our house! We have used this exact same activity 3 years in a row and it is still in tact! 👌 It was first used as a fine motor activity to get the footballs into the slots. The next year we added shape matching. This year we're adding word families! 

So easy to make and durable!

Football Puzzle:

This little activity was so. much. harder. than I had anticipated. I had initially wanted to put something on each piece to help line it up properly but numbers felt too "easy" for my little one. Although thinking about it now I could have chosen a random starting number which would have increased the difficulty...Hindsight is 20/20 am I right!?

Football Word Slide:

We used the same printable football for this activity! I just cut out a window and added a strip of paper to practice -all words. Cohen loved sliding and changing the word. I loved how much it helped his fluency. I will definitely incorporate more of this in the future. 

Football Toss:

I use a box and made a large cut out to toss the football into however Cohen created a different game out of it! He called it Quarterback - and in his little voice it is the cutest thing ever. He throws the ball to mama and then once I catch it I run around the kitchen island while he chases me. Once he catches me, he "tickles" (tackles) and gives a lot of kisses. It's my new favorite game!

Want all of this week's printables and plans?  You can grab them here!

Up next: Fall Leaves 🍃🍂

Confessions from Toddler School: Apples! Apples! Apples!

Does anyone else get sick just thinking about back to school!? And by sick I don't mean nauseas-becasue-you're-not-ready-and-your-to-do-list-is-a-mile-long sick (although there was a decent share of that as well) I mean like the worst cold of your life sick. Runny nose, head pressure, cough, sore throat...the works. I swear I get sick every year during the first week of school (even when I haven't been in the classroom for 3 years...). It's like my body knows!

But we didn't let a little sickness stop us from doing our favorite theme: APPLES 🍎🍏🍎 

Here's what we did this week:

You can get my blank thematic planner here.

Books:

I love apples so much - just looking at our bookshelf made me so excited all week! All of these books were super cute and fun to read but our favorite was definitely Apple Picking Day by Samantha Brooke. I think this was partly because Cohen is reading himself now and he loved that he could read almost all the words by himself.

Activities:

Apple Orchard Sensory:

This sensory table turned out so much cuter than I expected AND got both boys engaged! That's a win! And given all the sickness going around we definitely needed a win!

This sensory table took less than 10 minutes to throw together. During nap I folded these origami "baskets", made some tp roll trees and dumped in our attribute apples! We use these bad boys all the time! If you don't have a set, you can get them here!

Label the Apple:

I am so impressed by how much my toddler schooling has done for Cohen's academics and I want to increase the difficulty and make more real world connections for him. Now that he is exceeding in math and reading, I want to start bringing in some more science and social studies for him. I have decided to incorporate an anchor chart every week to launch our theme and tie in some of these other pieces for our learning. 

I bought a roll of chart paper that I hang on the wall and I can prep anchor charts on it as needed. For this one I just drew a large apple and then hand wrote the labels at the bottom. When we were ready to interact with the chart I cut the words out, added tape and we labeled together! 

Simple, easy, effective!

Sight Word Tree:

This was one of my favorite activities this week! I used the same chart paper and made a tree outline. I wrote words that we've been practicing on the tree and on little dot stickers. I would hand Cohen one sticker at a time, he would read it and then find the matching word! 

He's even gone back to it several times to read the words even after the activity was over! Definitely good practice to help with his fluency!

Search and Find Apple Words:

This was probably Cohen's favorite activity all week! To prep this activity:

1. Cut out apples and laminate (this makes them dry erase so you can use over and over with different learning targets!👌)

2. Print out search and find worksheet - you can find that along with all the other resources used this week down below!

During his nap, I wrote some words on the apples and hid them all over the house! He was so excited when he woke up! I gave him his paper and crayons and he hunted all over the house to find the words. 

For an extra challenge little brother kept moving the apples so I had to hunt for them too! 🤣

Outings:

Apple Picking:

I am so excited about this new apple orchard we found just minutes from our house! It's a "short orchard" which means no ladders are necessary AND it's perfect height for kids of all ages. Cohen had so much fun picking the apples. We even learned how to pick them properly (twist not pull). We can't wait to use the apples for all kinds of fall inspired baking!

Want all of this week's printables and plans?  You can grab them here!

Up next week: Football  🏈