Confessions from Toddler School: Cars!

You guys are not going to believe the last 2 weeks we have had. I'm not even sure I believe it myself! It started with a cold that got our entire family. Just when we started to feel better, Cohen got his 18 month shots and was not feeling hot. And then the kicker, my husband ended up in the hospital for some crippling stomach pains. Long story short, while in the hospital I started to get the same pains and then about an hour after we got home, Cohen got them. We spent a solid 48 hours down for the count. Being sick and dealing with a sick toddler (and husband - not sure which was worse) was the hardest thing I have ever had to do. I had to summon strength I didn't know I had. 

Needless to say, we did not get to all of our activities in a single week. We stretched it out over 2 weeks and got to almost all of them!

Here's what we did planned to do this week:

You can get my blank thematic planner here.

And here's what we actually did:

Car Ramp Painting: 

This activity was SO much fun! And super messy! To build the ramp I used some cardboard and taped it to the top of his sensory table. I put some towels at the bottom to protect the floor as best I could! 

On the top, I put blobs of colored paint and mirrored how to drive the car in the paint and then down the ramp. He picked it up (and behaved) so much better than I anticipated! I definitely want to do this one again.

Car Themed Sensory Table: 

This sensory table was a big hit! Here's what we used:

- Rice dyed black *PRO TIP use this Black Food Coloring. It's the only dye I've found that gets that deep black color 👌*

- I made these cute little road signs. (You can find the signs in my car pack on TpT). Then I just taped onto tooth picks! 

- Throw in some tp rolls and cars 

and voila!

Road Tape: 

I found this awesome Road Tape on Amazon and it was perfect for our car unit! We actually had a play date this day and the littles loved walking on the roads! It was super cute to watch. 

Number Roads: 

We have been working on our numbers this week with our cars! I made these number roads for Cohen to drive his cars on! They are the perfect width for the little hot wheel cars! 

I posted the shape ones on our wall. Cohen loves to point to them while I say the shape name! You can find the number and shape roads in my car pack! He's really starting to be able to identify numbers, shapes and colors! It's amazing watching him learn!

Number Parking Lot: 

This is one of the activities from my car pack! The original page just has the numbers (no dots). I added the dots using an expo marker so it can wipe off! I then put numbers/dots on 6 of his hot wheels. Cohen has a million cars, literally a million, so finding 6 wasn't difficult! Admittedly this activity is still a little over his head, but he had fun watching me drive the cars to the right parking spot. He's just starting to get matching so he should be able to do this on his own soon enough!

Driving in Sugar Salt: 

We actually had to do this activity twice because the first time Cohen just ate his road 😝. This was a fun little texture activity (and made up for the fact that we didn't get to play with our texture ramps). If I had to do it again I would find something to give us a bigger driving space though. Perhaps the sensory table! 

**fun fact: if you try to dye salt black to make it more like asphalt it will turn green. Don't ask me how I know this... #momfail**

Our Stop Sign: 

I have a feeling this bad boy is never coming off of our wall! And I am okay with that! Just like the shape roads, Cohen has a blast pointing to the colors and having me say the name! After having this up for a few weeks he can already identify red, yellow and green!

To make: 

- 2 black sheets of construction paper

- 1 red, 1, yellow, 1 green

- toddler plate (I'm sure you have one)

I used the plate to trace the lights. Glued on and then laminated for durability!

We also used the stop sign as a landing pad for our car launching! We used our trusty hot wheels launcher (you may remember this bad boy from our penguin unit) and launched cars onto the stop light trying to get in the red! If you follow my IG you may have seen the video I posted of us playing this. His giggles would melt your heart! 💕

Car Painting: 

Originally I had planned to sponge paint these car templates but with all the sickness and fussy baby we've got going on, I decided to hold off and do something mess free!

What we used:

- Car template found in my car pack

- Plastic dollar tree storage bin with lid

- Poms

- Paint

I taped the image down to the bottom of the plastic bin, dipped the poms in paint, dropped them in, put on the lid and let the little ones shake! So much fun! They turned out great too!

One tip: When you drop in the paint covered poms, do it off to the side or you get big circle splotches on your image. 

Outings this week the last 2 weeks:

Play Boutique - Before we got struck down by the plague we were able to get out for a play date at this awesome indoor gym for kids. We spent a lot of time driving cars around which was tied in nicely. Although Cohen's favorite was the bouncy house! I couldn't believe he just climbed in on his own! 

Ceramic Shop - Another fun outing we had was a trip to my parents ceramic shop! Cohen got to pick out his own little car to paint! He had so much fun and it turned out SO cute. He takes it everywhere with him. 💙

Firestone - We had to take our car in for a tire leak this week which worked out nicely for our car unit! I can not say enough nice things about the mechanics! They let Cohen play with the tires on the wall and even played cars with him in the lobby. It was so sweet and Cohen had a blast!

📙📘📗 Our favorite books this week 📗📘📙

Cars Galore by Peter Stein

Honk Honk! Beep Beep! by Daniel Kirk

Alphabeep by by Deborah Pearson

Counting Cars by by Mara Van Der Meer

(this one we didn't really read/count. We found the pages to be very dense and overwhelming. Instead, we looked at the different cars and talked about colors)

Toot Toot Beep Beep by by Emma Garcia

Because we have been battling so much illness we didn't get to a lot of the activities in my car pack. But you can find it in my TpT store. If you do try any of them out, I'd love to know how they go!

Up next week: Valentine's Day 💖

Confessions from Toddler School: Penguins!

Man, these past couple of weeks have been rough! First, we had a crazy snowpocalypse that left us snowed in for over a week! And let me tell you, being snowed in with a very active toddler is not for the faint of heart! The snow finally melted just in time for Cohen to start getting his 2 year molars (waaaaaay early) and now he has a cold. I haven't slept more than an hour or 2 each night for a week. I feel like I deserve some sort of award here. 😪💤

Never a dull moment. #parenthood #whereami #canisleepyet

Thank goodness I had so many fun penguin activities planned to keep us entertained! And the snow actually added a lot to the fun!

Here's what we did this week:

You can get my blank thematic planner here!

Feed the Penguin: This was probably one of Cohen's favorites! He pulls it off the shelf several times a day! I made this little penguin out of an old frosting container and some construction paper (and then covered it with packing tape to protect it)! He did have a 3-D nose but someone got hungry. 😂 The fish are part of my Penguin Toddler Unit! I laminated them for durability and bent the tails up so they were easier to pick up!

We started with just red and slowly added in other colors for
color recognition practice.

Alphabet Flip Game: This game was definitely over Cohen's head (especially the taking turns part) but it was still fun. I chose a handful of letters to start. We would take turns flip over all the cards and say the letter names as we went. You can also get these alphabet cards in my Penguin Toddler Unit.

Real Snow Sensory Table: This is where all that snow came in handy! We brought some indoors to use in our sensory table with our penguins! If you aren't as lucky as we were to get real snow, you can use this fake snow.

Bonus: You don't have to wear clothes to play with snow indoors! win-win! 

Painting Igloos: I actually stumbled upon this activity while on IG one day and it fit perfectly with what we were doing! The idea comes from Mrs. Plemons Kindergarten! You take those little fruit cups (that we had in our sensory bin above) and freeze water in them. Then use water colors to paint them while they melt! Mrs. Plemon's is a genius! You should definitely check out her stuff!

Penguin Launch: Cohen gets all the credit for this game! He got a Hot Wheels Launcher for Christmas and found that he could also use it to launch his penguins. We had so much fun with this! You can't see it but I put colored landing pads at the end for some color practice. But you could also do letters, numbers, spell out child's name... The possibilities are endless!

Torn Paper Penguin Art: This is another activity in my Penguin Toddler Unit but you can easily do it without! Just draw a penguin body on a white paper and you're ready to go! My son helped tear the black paper pieces and glue them on. 

We then traced his hands (I can't believe he cooperated with that) and then I added the face. It turned out super cute!

Excuse the black background, someone had serious
 mom brain and didn't think that one through...

Painting Snow: As you can see we ditched the paint brushes and used our hands. And due to being snowed in (and out of food coloring) our color options were limited but it was still fun and it kept him entertained forever!

Penguin Pom Push: This is one of my favorites! I have done this before with different themes/images and Cohen absolutely loves it! It's such a great quiet time activity and is amazing fine motor practice. He's a pro now! 

You can find this penguin image in my Penguin Toddler Unit. It fits any standard shoe box. I didn't have any shoe boxes (looks like I need to go shoe shopping!😍) so I made one out of a cereal box. I will be posting that DIY soon!

Outings this week:

Children's museum - We were able to get out after the snow finally cleared and boy were we ready! The Children's Museum had a penguin snow globe room which fit our theme perfectly! They had little penguin hats, igloos and white loofahs everywhere! He had so much fun. Just look at that smile! 💓

Sledding - We took advantage of the snow and did some sledding! We happen to live on a really steep hill so we went out and practiced our penguin belly sliding! 

📙📘📗 Our favorite books this week 📗📘📙

If you follow this blog or my IG you know that Cohen is obsessed with books! As a teacher, that makes me so happy! Here are some of our favorites from the week:

Your Personal Penguin by Sandra Boynton

Little Penguin Gets the Hiccups by Tadgh Bentley

Penguin in Love by Salina yoon

My Life in the Wild: Penguin by Meredith Costain

(although reading them 500 times a day can be a bit much) 

So there you have it! Our first OFFICIAL toddler school unit! I'm so excited to be starting this new adventure and I can't wait to see where it takes me! Leave me some comments! I'd love to get some feedback 🙂

Up next week: Cars! 🚗