Sunday, September 15, 2019

B is for Birds!

It is our second letter-of-the-week, and we focused on bird activities! Click on the links below to revisit similar tot school themes, or keep scrolling to see what we did this week!


Books
We found several toddler-friendly bird books at the library this week! Each of these held her attention, and we returned to them frequently throughout the week. Our very favorites were "Birds" by Kevin Henkes and Scholastic's "Bird Babies."


Letter B - Dot Markers
For now, we like to do one letter recognition activity per week. I printed a dot marker page from Shannon's Tot School, and she filled in the circles with dot markers this time.





Bird Feathers - Color Matching
I printed some bird images from the internet, colored them, and cut them out. Then I let Sweet E glue on the googly eyes!





Then, from up on the couch, she started matching our colored feathers to the birds they belonged to.



She continued this until all the feathers were matched up!





Later in the week, Little M&M found our supplies and decided to lead his own tot school activity with his little sister. He taped together several sheets of blue paper, while Sweet E matched the feathers to the birds. Then he taped everything together and created a lovely scene! 


Egg Scavenger Hunt + Pretend Play + Counting
For this next activity we went outside! I showed Sweet E this little nest, and told her that inside the eggs were the bird's babies. Then I had her close her eyes while I hid them in the backyard. When I returned, we played pretend! The blue bird told Sweet E that her babies were missing, and asked for her help to find them!



Sweet E was excited to help!



She looked high and low to find the eggs for bluebird.





As she brought them back to the nest we counted them. She can count fine to ten, but we need to work on one-to-one correspondence now. And this was a great activity, because we could point to each egg as we counted.



After she found all five eggs, she asked me to hide them again. Then she wanted a turn with the puppet!



Watercolor Painting
I traced an image from the internet onto watercolor paper, and provided Sweet E with watercolors for today's craft.



I showed her how to dip the brush into water and then into the paint.



She worked diligently! I found that a larger brush worked best, so I quickly swapped that out for her.



When it was dry, I went over the outlines with a black marker. I think it came out cute!



Bird Seed - Sensory Bin
This was a lot of fun during Little M&M's bird unit a few years ago, so I did it again for Sweet E. I just poured some bird seed into a bucket and let her play!



She did lots of scooping and pouring!



It was so much fun to gather a bunch up in her hands...



...and let it slip out slowly.



She played for a while, later adding a bucket too.



Bird Feeder Craft
Next, we spread some peanut butter onto empty toilet paper tubes...



...and rolled them into bird seed.



I tied a string to them so we could hang them up! Proud little girl!





We made two more without string (since I ran out).



And we just slipped them right onto the branches!



We returned outside to take a peek at these the next day, and two had completely been devoured. And by the end of the week, there was nothing left but strings! "All gone!"






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