10,000 Pageviews!

WE'RE CELEBRATING 10,000 PAGEVIEWS!

Mom's Tot School began about a year ago just as a place for me to document all of our themed activities. Honey Pot (then an only child) and I were on a mission to learn all about letters, numbers, shapes, colors and concepts through play and fun crafts. What an adventure it has been! And we have learned so much!

Now that Little M&M has joined us, our lives are a little bit more hectic. But we try our best to cover one new theme each week, as well as participate in a virtual book club each month.

Thank you to everyone who has stopped by our little place on the web! We have many more fun themes in store, so we hope you'll come back again and again!

THANK YOU!

The Cat in the Hat, by Dr. Seuss

Theme: The Cat in the Hat, by Dr. Seuss

Honey Pot is 2 years and 9 months old

This month the Virtual Book Club is featuring Dr. Seuss! We decided to choose one of our current favorites—a classic—The Cat in the Hat. We had so much fun this week with it! Take a peek at what we did!

Cat Hat

We needed a quick cat hat for our first activity. So I drew the shape, and asked Honey Pot to color in the red stripes. I asked her to try to stay in the lines. And I think she did an excellent job, as this isn’t something we do too often!

And here is the page we are going to copy:

Cat in the Hat Picture Pose

I saw this very unique idea on Adventures at home with Mum, a blog I stumbled upon via Google. I just loved it! First we looked at the pose we were to imitate, and I asked Honey Pot which things we needed to gather.

Then she set them out on a blanket.

We improvised a little bit with some things. There's just a cake plate instead of a cake, and there's an umbrella pole instead of a rake, for example. But here is the final picture!

This wasn't easy to do with a 2 1/2 year old...especially with a clingy 11 month old messing up the blanket all the time. But I think it came out pretty awesome! So much fun!

Thing 1 Magnet Page

This printable comes from Making Learning Fun. Honey Pot loves playing with our homemade pom pom magnets.

Hat Matching

Joyfully Weary provides the free printable for this game. It seemed like it would be a little overwhelming for Honey Pot at her current age, so I only used 12 of the 20 images. Then I pasted them onto a bright blue paper.

Honey Pot picked up an image, and looked at it closely.

Then she searched hard for where it belonged!

She was very proud of herself when she found each match.

Here she is counting the stripes on the hat, so she knows what to look for.

I did it!

Rhyming Game

I gathered a few toys, with names that rhyme, and set them out on the table. Then I picked the first one, and asked her which of the remaining objects rhymes. She needed a bit of help getting started with this, but overall I was pretty impressed.

Book + Hook!

What rhymes with bread? Bed!

Cat + Hat.

Fish + Dish.

Car + Star.

House + Mouse.

Chair + Pear.

She had fun with this, even though it was a challenge. Great rhyming practice!

Thing 1 Thing 2 Blow Painting

We have wanted to try blow painting. And I thought Thing 1 and Thing 2 would be just perfect for our first effort! First I found a picture of them via Google, and erased the blue hair in Photoshop Elements.

Then I put a dab of watered down blue paint onto just the tips of their heads, and provided Honey Pot with a straw. I showed her how to start, by blowing Thing 1’s hair. Then she began to create Thing 2’s hair.

Here is our first effort!

Then we added more paint because it was so much fun. Wacky hairdo’s! Loved this craft!

Cat Hat Smoothie

I found the idea and recipe for this on Crazy for Crust. I’m not the best at layering things likes this. (Remember the cloud theme? Huge challenge for me!) But here it is! I also discovered a cat hat in my closet while cleaning this week, and gave it to Honey Pot. No idea where this even came from!

She enjoyed the smoothie! And so did I!

Check out what we did last year to celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday, by clicking HERE!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Visit the Virtual Book Club's Facebook Page!

  

We are linking our activities up to the Virtual Book Club!
Check out what some of our blogging friends did with this month's theme:

Valentine's Day

Theme: Valentine’s Day

Honey Pot is 2 years and 9 months old

Little M&M is 11 months old

Books

We borrowed a few books about Valentine’s Day and love from the local library, as well as reading a few from our own collection. We left these out on the ottoman throughout the week to read again and again. Here is what we read:

I Love You, Stinky Face by Lisa Mccourt

Pigs in Love by Teddy Slater

If You’ll Be My Valentine by Cynthia Rylant

Guess How Much I Love You by Sam McBratney

I Love You Through and Through by Bernadette Rossetti Shustak

Candy Heart Sorting and Graphing

These free printables came from Teaching Tiny Tots. Honey Pot just loves candy hearts, and so she was particularly excited to do this activity. Here is the invitation:

First I asked her to sort them by color. She had no trouble with this!

Then we began graphing. I had to show her what I meant about stacking them up. But once she understood this idea, she did quite well.

After they were all stacked up, we made some observations about her graph. Which color has the most candy hearts? Which two rows have the same amount? Then she counted each row up!

Finally, I allowed her to choose three candy hearts to eat. The rest we would put aside for another time. She was thrilled. And I’m pretty sure all three went in her mouth at the same time…

Crayon Resist Watercolor Painting

“I was thinking we can do a craft.” Honey Pot says this a lot. And I hadn’t prepared anything by this point so I quickly threw something together when she asked. We have done this activity once or twice before, but not with the watercolors. Honey Pot had fun! First I used a white wax crayon to write a secret message on her paper. Then I showed her how to dip her brush in the water and then into her color of choice.

The first one was a bit all over the place, so the second time I told her to only paint inside the hearts. Much neater results. Fun little craft!

Crystal Hearts

I found this on Pinterest via Club Chica Circle. Oh my goodness, I cannot tell you how much I loved this one! First, I shaped some chenille stems into hearts, and attached them with string to a ruler. (The original I saw attaches them to a Popsicle stick; however, they were to be placing their hearts in glass jars. I don’t have any and needed to use a great big bowl. So I needed something longer. A ruler did the trick!)

Then I boiled some water and poured it into a Pyrex bowl. Very carefully, Honey Pot poured in two and a half cups of Borax. (If using glass jars, you only need a third of a cup each.)

Then she stirred it up. Again, very carefully!

And I placed the ruler over the bowl. We let it sit overnight.

In the morning our hearts (and the bowl) were covered in wonderful crystals!

To clean the bowl, we just rinsed with water and scraped it off very easily with a knife. Then we hung our hearts in the window. Just beautiful!

Valentine Person

I had seen so many versions of these on Pinterest. Just had to make one with Honey Pot! I cut out all the pieces in advance, then asked her to assemble him. She glued on the white circles for eyes.

And carefully placed the black circles onto them for pupils.

Then she added a button nose. She tried to help fold the arms and legs, but in the end it was a little complex for her. So I did them, and placed them down onto the table, not necessarily where they were to be glued.

“Is this the tongue?” she asked. LOL.

She put a dab of glue on the back where the arms and legs go, and pushed the pieces down hard!

Next, some glitter! I did the glue this time, but she helped pour glitter all around.

Ta da! Isn’t he cute?

Rice Sensory Bin

We love sensory bins. And we had used this rice a couple times before. It needed color. First, we added a few drops each of food coloring and white vinegar. Honey Pot helped me shake the bags up.

While they were still in the bag, we quickly let Little M&M enjoy them. He likes his sensory bags!

Then I dumped them both into our bin, and added a couple pink and red accessories.

Honey Pot got right to work! She scooped and poured so happily. She kept filling the cupcake liner and offering it to me as a present.

Then I encouraged her to dig her hands in!

Such fun! And it’ll keep for a while in a sealed container, so we’ll use it again soon!

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *