Learning Activity: Sorting with colored erasers

Lately my almost 3 year old son has been restless and I'm trying to come up with some fun and maybe somewhat challenging activities to keep him busy!  I have seen lots of people using muffin tins so I found these dollar store colored erasers and decided to do a little sorting activity.  First we put one eraser in each cup.  Then I had him put 2 erasers in each cup.

Then I had him put 2 in each cup that were the same color.  I also had him put the same color in 3 cups in a row.  At the end I had him match up all the colors.  After that I let him do whatever he wanted.  Can you give me some more ideas?  He is very quick and bright and I want to give him more!  I like this activity because we learned about sorting, colors, counting, fine motor skills, reasoning and spacial concepts.

Brightly Beaming Resources Week #15: Rain

This was an easy unit because we live in the part of the country where it is known for rain!  And wouldn't you guess, our fall/winter weather started right on time.  Our vocabulary word was downpour and even though our rain usually is a day long drizzle, we did have a downpour one day.  Our nursery rhyme was Doctor Foster who stepped in a puddle.  Unfortunately we didn't find too many puddles to splash in.  Shrade really enjoyed the books we read for this unit and I thought they were all pretty cute!  Check them out.

Here are some cute books we read:



I love doing our Letter Craft! This week since we learned letter O we made an owl.  I get all my letter craft ideas from No Time for Flashcards.

We also sang this song that learned at Play to Learn. We used our fingers to tap our hands and then at the end we used our hands to make a BIG splashing sound.

"Little Drop of Rain" (tune of If you're happy and you know it)
First a little drop of rain hits the ground
Then another drop of rain hits the ground
Then another and another and another and another
And pretty soon you'll hear a different sound: Splish! Splash!

Music Notes: Ten in the Bed (Song Activity)

I love singing and more than that I love finding fun activities that go along with songs.  I taught Kindergarten for 12 years and I'm just starting to try to remember all the fun things I used to do with my students.  My little guy is somewhat reluctant to do these activities with me.  He has his own agenda, but once I get him interested, it's hard to tear him away.

I read a book called "Ten in the Bed."  There is also a song by that title on Toddler Favorites.  So I had Shrade gather up 10 stuffed animals and put them on the edge of the couch.  During the song one animal falls off the bed as they all roll over.  "There were 10 in the bed and the little one said, 'roll over, roll over,' so they all rolled over and one fell out."  At the part where the animal falls out I had Shrade throw an animal out.  That was fun!

So have some fun today with Ten in the Bed!

Brightly Beaming Resources Week #14: Horses

This week we learned about horses.  We took Shrade to the local fair and saw horses.  That was fun!  We learned about letter N and did a craft with newspaper. (Idea from No Time for Flashcards)  I also try to add something else from what we are learning so we glued 14 pieces of newspaper to the N because we learned the number 14 as well.  On the day we learned about brown we scavenged for brown things in our home.  We only spend maybe 10 minutes a day on these activities since my soon to be 3 year old still has a short attention span.  He is enjoying the craft projects so I might try to do more of those, but that's not my strong suit.  Our nursery rhyme was "Ride a Cock Horse."

We really enjoyed reading Fritz and the Beautiful Horses and Robert the Rose Horse over and over!

Books we read:


Here's a really fun activity that we did with #14: I gave Shrade a bucket and he had to run "the circle" in our house and every time he passed I would throw a bead in his bucket.  It got louder each time and he ran off some energy.  Here is just a snippet:

October Monthly Plan

*Bible Verse:  John 6:48 "I am the bread of life."    Songs for Saplings 
Bible verse activities from Totally Tots

*Brightly Beaming Resources:  We are using the Preparatory Curriculum for 2-4 year olds for Shrade
I try to blog about what we do for each "weekly" activity.  It takes us about 2 weeks for each theme.

We are still trying to finish up Rain from September, but hope to squeeze these 2 units in.  I know they are a bit out of season, but oh, well.

Butterflies

Sheep

*Brightly Beaming Baby:  Nursery Age starting at 3 months for Jessna (lessons are for up to 1 year).  Each lesson is 2 weeks long and includes literature, poems, nursery rhymes, Bible, speech & vocab, classical music, lullaby, foreign language (I'm going to do some Spanish and sign language), baby game, exercise and baby massage.  I love these lessons because they give me a focus on what I can do to entertain my baby!  It's fun and she loves it.

Lesson 5

Lesson 6

*Sensory Play: (really need to work on this)
-water play
-playdough
-dig in dirt

*Literature Connection:
The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and puppet from My Oatmeal Kisses
We'll use this paint recipe from Fun on a Dime.

*Daily Music time: Songs from Music Notes and CD's we get at the library




*Art:
You can also see in our "weekly" lessons that we do a letter of the week from No Time for Flashcards.  Right now we are doing the capital letters.

-coloring

-water painting

*Field Trips:
Playdates
MOPS
Zoo- free day
Nursery
Nature Center
Mall playground
Play to Learn
Library Storytime
Pumpkin Patch


*Skills/Chores:
-When asking a question to mommy and daddy, begin with "May I please...?"
-wash hands- doing well
-taking off clothes and put in laundry basket- doing well
-putting clothes on-just started this
-drinking from cup- doing well!
-clean up toys- say "yes, mama" when asked without whining or crying
-throw away garbage/recycling
-clean up messes on the floor 

-put dishes in the sink

-help put dishes away from the dishwasher

-put clothes in the washer
-Help mama with the baby!
-Cooking with mama
-spelling name
-starting potty training (sitting on toilet)
-brushing teeth (we've been working on this for awhile)