Letter: D

Theme Of The Day: The Letter D

Age: 21 months

Magnetic Pom-Poms

I haven't used these in a while, and thought Honey Pot might have a renewed interest in them. She did for a short while, but didn't return to them throughout the day. I found this cute printable at Making Learning Fun. They are all over the Internet, so I had some choices. And how could I not choose the dalmatian?

Coloring Page

I don't often use coloring pages as a tot school activity, since her crayons and pages are always at her disposal. But I came across these fun animal alphabet pages, and decided to include it today. She loves to use her markers, which require my help and aren't always in her reach. So I pulled those out for added interest. She loves to just squiggle on the paper with them, then focus on putting their caps back on. As always, we had wipes handy for quick mid-craft clean-ups!

Leap Frog Fridge Phonics

I brought out Honey Pot's Fridge Phonics toy today with the letter D in it, to have her hear what it sounds like. Then I named a few familiar words that begin with the letter, which she repeated exactly as I had said them: "d-d-dog" and "d-d-daddy" for example.

Play-dough D

This is always a fun and successful activity on our alphabet days. Honey Pot even sometimes goes to the kitchen cabinet on other days, looking for the cookie cutter letters. She identified the letter correctly, chose a color of her homemade Kool-Aid play-dough to use, and immediately got to work. Then she wanted to do it with her other colors too, so we made a few "D" shapes, and turned it into a counting game too!

D Is For Dinosaur Craft

I found this idea at one of my go-to blogs, Totally Tots. I held up the body piece and asked Honey Pot what letter it was. Without hesitation, she called "D!" Next I told her she was going to make a dinosaur. That, combined with the fact that she was about to use glue, made her very excited! I guided her through the craft - explaining where she should dab the glue stick, and place the pieces. Her favorite was the googly eye! And she was so proud of her "arwork" as soon as it was finished - she immediately picked it up and walked out of the room calling for Dad.

Valentine's Day

Theme of the day: Valentine's Day

Age: 21 months

Paper Plate Hats

What a fun craft to start the day with! I found the inspiration here, and I am so excited to try some of the other holiday cut-outs too. After cutting out the heart, I gave Honey Pot some markers to decorate her hat with. I even cut one out for myself! We wore them periodically throughout the day, and she loves them!

Valentine's Day Bingo

I found this idea on Pinterest, originally from here. Although it had a free printable, I decided to make my own version in Photoshop Elements with images Honey Pot might enjoy more. This was her first introduction to the game of Bingo; and although she is a little young to fully understand the concept, she liked it anyway. I used the magnetic pom poms I made for her, and placed our game cards on a cookie sheet. I had her pull the call cards out of a bowl one at a time, and we placed the pom poms on our game cards. And...with a little help from me...she won!

Heart Search

I had come across the idea of giving children word searches, with words that have to do with the Valentine's Day. So I thought it would be a cute idea to let her search for shapes instead! I "hid" three hearts among a group of circles, and asked Honey Pot to find the hearts. She did so successfully and seemed to enjoy the challenge!

Baking Cookies

Honey Pot loves Mickey Mouse! I know these packaged cookies require no skill whatsoever, but they were cute. And Honey Pot really enjoyed helping me place them on the cookie sheets.

Heart Hunt

I found this fun activity here. I really enjoyed it because it emphasized love, rather than just hearts. Such a clever idea! Using scraps of paper, I cut out 15 hearts in Valentine's Day colors. Then I wrote the names of her closest family and friends on each. I hid them around the house, and Honey Pot went on a hunt for them with her bin. As she found each one, I read the names to her. "It says 'Grams' because Grams loves you!" Then she repeated their names and put them in her bin.

Sorting through the hearts she collected, and saying a person's name for each. "Uncle Jake!" she'd shout...even if it said Kailei. :)

Then Daddy dumped the bucket of hearts on her head!

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Color: Green

Theme of the Day: The Color Green

Age: 21 months

Which is Green? - Picture

This is the usual start to our theme of the day. I created the sets of images in Photoshop Elements. Today we did one of the colors that I wasn't sure that she knew. But she surprised me and correctly identified all of the green pictures without me first showing her what the color looks like. Then, as usual with this game, she asked for more!

Which Is Green? - Toys

We didn't do an official Color Walk today, but something very similar. We started by sifting through the food bin that goes with her play kitchen, looking for green foods. She pulled out a couple by herself; and with my help, we found all of the green foods that we could.

Then throughout the morning, as we played in her room and came across colorful toys, I asked her, "Which of these is green?" She answered correctly every time! Here are the groups I was able to snap pictures of:

"Now look at this! What do you see? Spots as..." I read.

"GREEN!" she shouted.

"...as green could be!"

Pom Pom Sorting

We did this activity last week as well. She enjoyed it so much that I had to return to it with her new pair of plastic tongs. She was so good at handling the tongs, and loved them! ($1 for a pack of 4 at the Dollar store!) This time the activity required very little explanation. She sorted the yellow, green and blue pom poms perfectly! I am so proud of my little sweet pea!

Mess-Free Finger-Painting

Ah, thank you, Pinterest, for leading me to this fun craft! We haven't had any major messes...yet...but it was so nice to have the paint contained in a bag. And it provided a whole different level of fun than regular finger-painting. I squeezed a small bit of yellow and blue paint into a Ziploc, sealed it up, and taped it to the table. Then Honey Pot began squishing her fingers into it!

She said she was drawing an "A"...but the one you see here is mine. Her's was just a squiggle...

Then Honey Pot moved the paint around with her fingers, eventually mixing it together to make our color of the day: green!

Of course the piggy and the big bad wolf (who are actually great friends, regardless of what you've read in the story) had to spin in circles on the paint. "Whooooa, I dizzyyyy. Ow."

And then she drove her truck around on it too!

Green Gumball Punch Art

This was a fun craft to end the day! The idea and free printable came from here. I used a paper punch to cut out green circle "gumballs" for Honey Pot to glue onto the gumball machine. She correctly identified the color of the circles, and picked up the glue. I'm pretty sure she has never seen a gumball machine, but she got the hang of this really fast. I didn't have to place a single one for her; and for the most part, she kept the glue exactly where she was supposed to.

Green Bath

I have no photos of this, but we dropped one blue and two yellow fizzy tablets into Honey Pot's bath tonight for a bright green bath! She loves these!

Weather

Theme of the Day: Weather

Age: 21 months

Weather Chart

I created this weather chart in Photoshop Elements, then "laminated" the pieces with Con-Tact paper for stability. This morning when Honey Pot came out to the kitchen for breakfast, we stopped to look out the window. I asked her what the weather was like outside. "Is it rainy," I would ask. "Nooo," she'd respond. And we continued until I asked if it was sunny. She peeled the sun off, and stuck it in the box.

I imagine it'll take some time to identify the weather without so much prompting. But it'll be something we can go over every morning together. Even before the end of today, it became cloudy so we returned to it again. She loves peeling off the Velcro!

Worksheets

I found the first of these on this site, and created the second in Photoshop Elements. She did incredibly well with the first worksheet, identifying the images that were different in each set! The object of the second worksheet was to match the weather to the item that is used in that weather...but the concept was a little difficult for her to understand. I may be jumping the gun here, but I was just so excited to give it a try!

Fingerprint Rain Craft

This site has so many fun ideas and free printables. I was so excited to try this craft with Honey Pot, as it is not only cute, but incorporates so many different types of art (markers, scissors, glue, ink). She was bound to find something to enjoy in this craft.

First she colored the umbrella.

Then as I was cutting it out, she got her scissors so she could "clip, clip" too!

(Glue is her favorite! But unfortunately I didn't plan ahead, and had to quickly charge my camera through most of the cutting and gluing...But imagine here she glues the umbrella onto the paper, and then adds glue to the top of the page for the clouds.)

Next, she placed the "clouds" onto the paper.

Coloring the clouds black to make them "rain clouds." The blog that posted this craft says to use paint and brush it on with an extra cottonball...but we don't have any black paint! This worked just fine.

Now the messy part...dipping her finger (then her whole hand!) into the ink pad, to dab onto the paper and make raindrops! We keep wipes handy during all of her crafts, for quick mid-craft clean-ups if necessary!

And here is the final product!