Confessions from Toddler School: Snow!

🎆Happy New Year!🎆

I hope this year is starting off smoothly for you all! We've been sick since before the holidays so it's been a little rocky here and a whole lot of exciting with the launch of our brand new subscription boxes! Check it out in the tab above if you're interested! 👆

We're kicking off this year with a snow theme - and wishing for some real snow of our own. It has been the mildest winter ever. Mostly dry. No colder than 40 everyday. It's been weird. So hopefully our snow theme will bring some flurries our way! ❆❅❄

Here's what we did this week:

You can get my blank thematic planner here.

Books:

We read some really fun snow books this week but the favorites were definitely Puppies in the Snow

and Snowmen at Night. 

The rhyming and counting in Puppies in the Snow was Cohen's favorite part. 

And I really love the hidden pictures in the Snowmen series! My husband and I even took the book to bed a few nights to try and find all the pictures 🤣 It's harder than you think!

Activities:

Hidden Snowball Words:

Our sensory table this week was super quick and easy to throw together! I threw some cotton balls in along with these snowball words and both boys had a blast! Cohen liked reading the words and Avery liked breaking apart the cotton balls. Win-win!

Build-A-Snowman Words

This one turned out so much cuter than I expected! I made these little hats and snowballs for the boys to build snowmen (and words)! Cohen's reading skills have gotten so strong that I'm starting to introduce word families and increase his vocabulary. For Avery I just talked about the letters as he destroyed everything in his path 🤣

Snowman Bean Bag Toss

This is a really easy movement activity to set up for any theme! Just pick your shape, obviously ours was a snowman for this week, and then write whatever skill you want to practice all over it. Cohen chose letters so that's what we did. 

We all took turns throwing the bean bags and saying the letter and sound for wherever it landed. This one has been a favorite all week! We play it multiple times a day. 

Snowman Emotions

We talked a lot about emotions this week because, well, we're 3 and that is a tough age. We're dealing with some pretty big emotions and are learning how to process not only our own but also how others  are feeling as well!

This activity was perfect for that! I put together this little snowman and a variety of face parts for him to make different faces. After some free exploration and face making we talked bout things that make us feel happy, sad, angry or surprised!

I then would give him examples and he had to make the appropriate face for the snowman. For example: When it's snowing the snowman feels ______. When the snowman loses his scarf he feels _____. I was actually very impressed with how well Cohen did identifying feelings. Now if only we could see that in practice. 🙄 

Want any of this week's printables?  You can grab them here!

Up next week: Penguins 🐧

Confessions from Toddler School: Spider Activities for Toddlers!

Boy oh boy am I behind on my blogging! Sorry! 

The end of October was just nuts! 

My youngest turned 1 and it was a whirlwind of birthday parties, photo shoots and cake smashes! But we did squeeze in a few toddler school activities for our spider unit and halloween unit (up next!) The spider unit is one of my all time favorites! Something about the webs make for the best activities! IMO. 

Here's what we did this week:

You can get my blank thematic planner here.

Books:

I did not get a picture of our books this week but you can see the list on the planner up above! Our favorites were:

The Very Busy Spider and Itsy Bitsy Spider!

Activities:

Spider Games: 

This is one of my favorites (I know I say that all the time, but seriously, this one has so many possibilities!). We played a few different variations this year:

Walk the web: I placed the spiders around the web and would call out a word for Cohen to walk to while balancing. At first he wasn't so great at understanding what I meant by balance/walk on the line but after a few tries he got really good! I think next year I will make the web MUCH bigger so I can play on it too though.

Spider Toss: We tossed the words onto the web and tried to get them to land on the web! Cohen thought this one was hilarious when he missed the web and I would say "so close!' 🤣

Toss the Spider and Read the Words: An adaptation from the spider toss above. But this time we used a spider toy and tossed it onto the web trying to land on a spider word. If we landed on a word we would read it and collect it. Whoever had the most at the end, got to go first the next time!

If you want these cute little spiders to go with the activity, you can find those here! I've included the blank set and the spider descriptor word set.

Appearing Spider Web Art:

I love that Cohen is finally starting to get into art projects! Up until now he hasn't had much interest or would try for half a second and then give up. But now he's engaging more in the artistic process and I love seeing his creativity come out!

These appearing water color pictures were a huge hit! I don't think I've ever seen him engage in art for that long! 

If you've never done this before it's super simple! All you do is use a white crayon to draw any picture on paper. Give your little ones water color paint to reveal the image!

Spider Web Obstacle Course:

This was another easy one to set up! I set it up during nap time so it was a surprise for the boys when they woke up! I used white streamers and created a web obstacle course! 

Originally I wanted one they had to actually crawl through but given how naughty my oldest had been, I figured that was an accident waiting to happen so I opted for an over head one they just crawled under. I loved seeing the boys play together with this one.

Bonus: We had fun exploring the shadows created by the web!

Spider Writing Plate:

I made this cute spider plate with a black plate and some construction paper. Just fill with sugar and you've got a fun writing plate! One of my big goals with Cohen right now is working on his handwriting (we haven't really done much of that up until this point). So this activity was a perfect pre writing activity. 

To start, I just let him freely explore the sugar by drawing and shaking. I would then model a letter for him and have him trace my letter. Then we would reset the plate (like an etch a sketch - you lightly shake to clear!) and he would try it himself. On the letters he struggled with, I would hold him finger to help direct him. 

**Not pictured** Sticky Web Toss:

I tried to get a decent picture of this but if I'm being honest, they looked hideous! it was set up similarly to the obstacle course but instead of streamers I used black masking tape with the sticky side out. We then used tissue paper balls and threw them at the web to stick!

Outings:

No spider specific outings this week! Although our backyard is overran with spiders and intricate webs if that counts!? 

Up next: Halloween! 🎃