Tot School - Hearts and Valentine's Day
Now that our color study is over, we are moving on to some loose learning of shapes. I am hoping to purchase a good, albeit inexpensive, set of geometry solids here soon, and will be going over them again with him - for a good sensorial lesson on the solid shape.
Since Valentine's Day was right around the corner, we started on hearts! I have two weeks worth of Valentine's/Heart trays to share, and then will show them in action.
Week 1 - The Heart
Matching heart shaped cookie cutters to traced, laminated cards. A great lesson for Big, Medium, and Small.
Clipping Clothespins
I made these last year, and put them in a glass heart shaped bowl. This was a favorite! (and yes, he did clip them on his fingertips more times than I can count - he's still a boy!)
Sticker tray
This was post play - the original tray had blank paper where the used paper is now, and sticker sheets cut in half (to fit) in the bowl. I found the stickers at Walmart last year, and used them for another tray that you will see farther down, as well.
Hand transfer.
Once again, a missed opportunity to use tongs for transfer. Actually, there was some thought in that, since the heart shaped ice cube tray actually has fairly small sections, and I would have had to use the smallest pair of tweezers I have, which are still a little difficult for him.
Our Valentine's/heart sensory box!
Included are:
clear gems and heart shaped gems from the Dollar Store (as a base)
purple pom pom's
small heart boxes - got them in a pack of ten at the Dollar Store
pink scoop and cup
small Valentine's erasers - found them at the Target Dollar Spot last year. This entire sensory box probably cost me $5 max - and it's been the ultimate favorite!
Week 2- The heart and Valentine's Day
Button snake
I made this last year, and pulled out only the red squares this time. He gets tripped up on remembering the word red every time, so this helped to review color names some, as well.
Sticker Tray
I removed the stickers from last week, and added these - found at Target's Dollar Spot.
Cookie Cutter Size Matching
The same as the last week, except that this time I used hearts with a swirly edge, and the appropriate matching cards.
Number Wheel
This is what I used the same stickers from week 1 for (last year). It was a hit last year, and is again this year!
The only change to our sensory box is this red, silicone ice cube tray. Miss Priss saw it at the grocery store, and exclaimed "Hey - we could use that!" What's funny is, I knew she wasn't thinking about using it to make ice - and neither was I! :)
Week 1 - action shots
The sensory box was the favorite once again! Okay - so I lied, a little. These sensory box pictures are actually from week 2. They were the best ones, though, and since nothing much changed, I didn't see any harm. We did a LOT of filling the small heart boxes with gems, 'giving them to mommy as a gift' and counting how many were inside. Did you know that after counting the same heart, that still has only 7 gems in it, about 15 times - you are tempted to *accidentally* drop it back in the box?
Buddy Boy LOVES 1-1 correspondence trays, and that is what this ice cube tray was used for most of the time.
Except here.
He filled the cup (great scooping! Interesting that he scooped with his left hand, and did that consistently with this box for days. He has favored his right hand for a long time, but managed just fine!)...
Then proceeded to loudly exclaim, "It's throwing up!!!!" - and dumped the contents in to the box, right on top of the ice cube tray.
He wasn't a big fan of matching the cookie cutters the first week - I suggested it this particular time, and you notice he still has the cup in his hand from the sensory box.
Then, we have week 2 of action shots....
Buddy definitely didn't get the point of matching the numbered clothespins to the correct space, although, if you look at the next picture, he did try to make sure there was one for each section, which I thought was wonderful!
Bug came behind him and did this work correctly, and very easily of course. She told me after, "Look! It's a sun!"
I wasn't sure if the button snake would go over well - a year ago, he loved it. He is past this as a work, though, for the most part. He did enjoy doing it, though.
He really liked saying, "Look! It's a swingy swing (pronounced by him as a shfingy shfing!).
Where he didn't enjoy the Big, Medium, Small heart match the first week, he did like the one the second week. Maybe he was just too distracted by other trays the first week, maybe he liked the wavy cookie cutter lines... who knows! We were able to do a 3 period lesson with the vocabulary *Big, Medium, Small* and he was able to grasp it very well, and could tell me which was which after a couple repetitions.
Concentric hearts? Maybe... or maybe he just enjoyed putting them together!
That's it for the pictures! We are still working with these trays, through Valentine's, and then - who knows what shape will be next? That is yet to be determined, which just tells you that I don't always plan ahead for everything we do!
To see our Valentine's Day theme unit from last year, check out:
We also had a special lesson in Love this year, when we go to
I hope you all have a wonderful Valentine's Day!
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