First day of Tot School

Yesterday was our first official day of Tot School. Last week I planned out three days worth of activities with about five activities planned per day. Sissy who is going to be 3 in a little over a month was super excited to do her "ativies" as she calls them. This week we are focusing on Spring, the letter A, the number 1, the color red and triangles. Tot school, isn't really school or meant to be constricting, it is just a time of the day set aside to play, teach and learn with your toddler. 

We started our time with circle time, I haven't had a chance to get my calender set up since we've moved but I didn't want that to stop me from doing "school" so we just skipped the calender and weather time. I need to pick up a foam board because there is no space in the new house to set up the calendar, but I think I'll like that better anyways. 

Circle time which consisted of singing some songs, reading Fletcher and the Springtime Blossoms, a circle time prayer and will have a bible verse as soon as I unpack them. 

After circle time we started off with some Letter A jumping jacks to get our blood flowing.

Then we worked on some coloring of the letter A and number 1. We used only the color red with crayons, markers, colored pencils, etc. whatever I could find in red. 

Since Sissy colors most all the time that was short lived and she was ready to move on to the next "ativy"

By this point I was in the middle to trying to clean up the kitchen and get some potato bread going in the bread machine.

So she independently played with the first file folder game I've made her, it's called Beautiful Bees and it's a color matching game, you match the bee's stripes to the flower's colors. She really enjoys it, is good at it and likes playing it over and over.

But after a few times she was ready to move on and since I was still busy we pulled out the bean box I made her last summer. After several months of annoyance with the bean mess I realized that if I put a blanket underneath while she plays the mess can all be picked up and dumped back into the box very easily, no more picking up beans forever. This is another "ativy" that she loves to play with and it usually keeps her attention for a decent amount of time.

Then when mommy was finally done in the kitchen we were able to focus on the most exciting activity of the day, the tissue paper butterfly. I ripped up all of the paper for her and she loved picking the colors and bunching them up and sticking them to the paper. I'm so happy that I keep all of the gift bags and tissue paper I receive for gifts.

So serious during craft time.

All in all, Tot School lasted maybe an hour even with me cleaning and making the bread. She loved it though and that was the most exciting thing.