Category Archives: Workbox

Stories With Word Tiles

What’s In The Workbox?

WORD TILES

We scored at the dollar store recently! They had magnetic learning packs available for $1. These are a great fit in our homeschool workboxes.

I bought four different packages. SCORE! These included: long and short vowels, shapes and colors, nouns, and compound words. Each package comes with over 50 different word tiles and picture tiles. I put these in our workboxes for hands on learning fun and all the kids enjoy using them.

STORIES WITH WORD TILES

My son age 10 has dislexia and reading and writing is difficult for him.   But he loves making silly sentences with these tiles. He is very entertaining. His assignment was to tell me a short story using the tiles. So he made a “silly” short story.

Here is his short story he made with the word tiles. He said I could share it with you.

        The Boy, The Dog, The Frog, And The Popcorn
                                              by John   age 10

        Once up on a time, a boy had a dog, a frog, and some popcorn.

        The frog was green.

        The dog was brown.

        The popcorn was white.

        The boy was hungry.

        He put yellow butter on the popcorn.

        The green frog ate the yellow popcorn.

        The brown dog played with the green frog who ate the yellow popcorn.

        The hungry boy has no popcorn.

        The hungry boy has a brown dog and a green frog, but he does not have
        any white or yellow popcorn.

We had purchased another wonderful word tile set at the dollar store a few years ago that also includes prepositions, verbs, nouns, adjectives, and punctuation marks. These tiles are not magnetized, but they are made of sturdy hard plastic in bright colors. My son combined the words from both sets to make the sentences in this short story. He could only make one sentence at a time as there were not enough pieces to make the whole story all at once. But this was very good practice for story making.

He does not like to write things down, and becomes easily frustrated with reading and writing. I help him write by letting him dictate his ideas to me and writing it down for him. Then he copies again what I have written.   Using these tile manipulatives is a good alternative for him, he can do it independantly, it reinforces his reading and spelling skills, and it can be fun. However, I still ask him to write too.

FURTHER THE LEARNING

I plan to help him create some paper puppets on a stick to retell his story. He will be so excited to find this project in his workbox. I will look for some printouts to color and put these in his workbox with some crayons, glue, scissors, and popsicle sticks.  I will also have him draw out some of his ideas and cut them out and glue onto popsicle sticks. We will make a theater stage with a box. We will gather in the living room and put his stage on an end table and he can retell his story with the puppets and a copy of his story beside him. This should be a lot of fun!

LETTER TILES

While he was being ever so clever in his story making, the younger children’s workboxes contained yet another product from the dollar store that we have gotten a lot of use out of. We have a couple of sets of foam puzzles (capital letters, lower case letters, and numbers). We have used these for learning and quiet play in busy bags on the road as well as in our workboxes at home. These can be used in so many different applications (tracing, matching, spelling, etc).

WHERE TO FIND

You can find all of these wonderful tiles in dollar type stores and dicount stores. I have also found magnetic letters and numbers in our local grocery store too. Grand total: all of these hands on learning manipulatives cost $1 each or a total of $8 for all of it. These are great items that can be used in lots of different ways, and will stand up to years of use by multiple children, in our homeschool.

Questions:
What silly sentences or silly short stories do your kids make up?
What do you use in your workboxes to encourage your children to create stories?

This post will be linked up with:
ABC and 123
Sharing Time
No Time For Flash Cards
Raising Homemakers

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Cat In The Hat

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We have been having lots of fun in the workboxes, and on the activity trays, during March with Dr. Seuss and Cat In The Hat learning activities. Dr. Seuss published Cat In The Hat in March 1957 and every year his books and silly sayings are celebrated around the world.

If you would like to hear the Cat In The Hat story read aloud, check out this video produced by Pizza Hutt for their Book It program. The video features Justin Bieber reading Cat In The Hat by Dr. Seuss.

Activity Trays

On one of our Seuss Activity Trays this month was a wooden Melissa and Doug birthday cake.  The kids set up the cake and we pretended to celebrate Dr. Seuss birthday of publishing Cat In The Hat.

The cake comes with its own tray, six wooden slices, a serving spatula, a plate, candy toppings, fruit toppings, and candles. The kids put the cake together, added the toppings and the candles. They counted the candles as they took them on and off the cake. They sang happy birthday and practiced blowing out the candles. They also practiced serving each other a piece of cake too.

The next Seuss Activity Tray held a bucket of red and white cubes. We used the cubes for making patterns with the colors of the cat’s hat.   We first practiced making the pattern of the red and white horizontal stripes on the cat’s hat. Then we practiced a similar but different pattern, in which the rows of blocks could be turned vertically to recreate the horizontal stripes.

The three year old loved this activity. He loved receiving praise for repeating the patterns I set out for him. He also loved taking all the cubes apart and counting them as he put them back into the bucket.

He sorted groups of white blocks and groups of red blocks into piles.

He also used the red and white cubes to fill in the patterns on this H is for Hat printable.

His sister, age 4, used red and white pom poms to create the stripes on the H is for Hat printable.

She also did a matching activity with lots of different hats. Then we used the hats again in making patterns.

Workboxes

In our workboxes for all of the children, I put lots of printables, worksheets and coloring pages in addition to our Dr. Seuss books.    We did word searches, math worksheets, measuring, and more. I will write about some of the worksheets and activities that go with Dr. Seuss books in a future post. See the links at the end of this story for lots of printables to add to your workboxes with this theme.

I had the kids trade books on different days so everyone had a chance to have some one on one time with each of them. We included Cat In The Hat, Foot Book, Fox on Sox, Left Foot Right Foot, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish, and more. Here is a picture of a few of the Dr. Seuss Books we have, and a few more are somewhere being read by someone.

I also had the older children read to the younger children.  This really blesses my heart to see the younger ones listening as their older siblings read a story.

The kids love hearing the silly phrases and looking at the silly illustrations in the Cat in The Hat Book. It seems that no matter how many times you read it, it is still funny.

It is really funny to hear the three year old retelling the story as he looks at the pictures.

We colored Cat In The Hat pictures.

We made paper bag puppets with some of our coloring pages and acted out parts of the story in the book.

We made silly statues of Cat In The Hat characters with snap Cubes. See that story here. These turned out so great! We plan to re-make more Seuss characters with Legos sometime soon.

We also spent some morning times watching the Cat In The Hat program on PBS Kids. It is a 30 minute program on weekdays on TV on channel PBS.   We also played games and activities online on the their website.

Be sure to check out the lots of videos, games, and activities for Cat In The Hat on PBS Kids website.

We also ate dinner with Cat In The Hat at Golden Corral. They also gave us some of the coloring pages we did to make our puppets. See that story and lots more pictures here.

Time just seems to fly by. I remember when my oldest was the toddler, and I would read the Cat In The Hat to him. He loved all the Dr. Seuss books. Here we are all these years later and those books, especially Cat In The Hat, still have a fun place in our lives, and we all enjoy them.

RESOURCES

Cat In The Hat related products

You can find the snap cubes also on Amazon.

Cat In The Hat Printables and Worksheets

Seussville

A to Z Teacher Stuff

Making Learning Fun

ABC Teach

This post will be linked up with
No Time For Flash Cards
ABC and 123
Sharing Time
Raising Homemakers

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We Choose Virtues Review

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We Choose Virtues is a fun way to teach positive character traits to children.

Heather McMillan is the creator of We Choose Virtues. For years she saw a lack of positive character training in the children she worked with in schools and church. She is the wife of a pastor. She has used her knowledge and experience and taken on the challenge of mentoring young people. She has also empowered families and teachers by providing tools to meet this challenge too. These products are useful for families, schools, and churches in working with children and teens of all ages.

We Choose Virtues has posters, clue cards, coloring books, assessments, and teachers manuals, classroom kits, homeschool kits, family kits, and more to reinforce this method and program of teaching and learning positive character qualities. Products are written both secular and Christian programs with or without scripture references.

These products are available individually for purchase or available in kits. Prices range as low as $3.99 and up. Kits are the most expensive. Some downloads are available for free too. You can pick what system works best for you, and the setting you are teaching in. You can purchase products directly from the We Choose Virtues website.

We Choose Virtues focusses on twelve main character traits.

    Being:
            Attentive by watching and listening carefully.
            Diligent by working hard and enduring.
            Helpful by finding things that need to be done and doing them.
            Persevering through to the end.
            Gentle by speaking gently and touching softly.
            Content with what you have.
            Honest by always telling the truth.
            Kind and treating others the way you want to be treated.
            Self-controlled.
            Patient and wait as long as needed with a smile.
            Obedient with a smile..
            Forgiving.

I really liked the clue cards. They are portable and can go with you anywhere. They are great for practice in the car, in a waiting room, using in a class setting, or using at home. They are a handy “business card” size and easily fit into a business card holder, a daily schedule, pocket chart, baseball card page in a note book, workboxes, etc. The Virtue Clue Cards retail for $7.99 and are currently on sale for $5.99.

I also really liked that the character traits they are teaching in We Choose Virtues are easy to incorporate into our bible learning. Bible verses are paired up to reinforce each character trait. All of the research has been done for you, and it is a fun and easy to use tool to teach your kids with.

I would love to have the opportunity to review more of the We Choose Virtues program. I would especially like to get my hands on the Homeschool Kit or the Classroom Deluxe Faith Kit. I have seen other homeschool moms review this product over the past year and it seemed like such a valuable part of their homeschool learning. These families seemed very successful in transforming their childrens characters using these products. I would love the opportunity to review the full program with our children and share the results with our reading audience too.

I give this product two thumbs up. It is easily adaptable for different learning and teaching styles. You can spend a short time on it each day or each week, or take a longer time and use more of the available resources to reinforce the learning.

We Choose Virtues is a system of tools for daily practice, that reinforces a lifestyle of right attitudes, and positive behavior choices, for the right reasons.

I was given a set of the Virtue Clue Cards for the purpose of writing this review. Read here to see what other members of the TOS Homeschool Crew had to say about We Choose Virtues.

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Word Puzzles

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What’s in the Tot Workbox today?

                            Some really cool word puzzles.

I found this neat box of word puzzles for $7 at a local store.

It comes with 26 word puzzles, one for each letter of the alphabet. It has both the upper and lower case letter side by side, and then a picture, and then a word in lower case letters at the bottom.

Today we started off with 6 of the puzzles, or one sheet. They come in a sheet and you punch them out to get started. No sense in mom having all the fun. The tots wanted to punch out the puzzles themselves.

Then it was time to start matching. Even though my three year old daughter doesn’t know how to read yet, she can match pictures very well.

She made a drum, a baby, a frog, an earth, a violin, and a goat.

The word puzzles were short, and had from 4 to 6 letters, or pieces, to match.

These puzzles have bright colorful pictures, and it was easy to see what matched up.

Even my two year old played with the pieces, but he didn’t quite get the hang of it on his first try. We will be practicing this “puzzle game” many more times in our workboxes, and it won’t be long before he picks up how to do it. I will limit him to one puzzle at a time, and that will increase his success. He loves puzzles, so I am sure he will master this one soon.

This word and matching puzzle will be great practice for several of my kids as they practice fine motor skills, cognitive skills, literacy and learning to read skills.

These puzzles remind me of the Word World program on PBS- Kids. In the same concept as building a word and a picture at the same time. I really think this is a beneficial way for children to begin to learn reading.

Oops, the big kids wanted to play too, and mixed the parts from all 26 puzzles together.

Looks like I have some sorting to do before these go back into our tot workboxes.

These puzzles are a lot of fun.

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Skill Practice With Connect Four

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                                                                Toddler Workbox

What’s in the workbox today? A fun game to play.

Connect Four is a fun game that my whole family loves to play. It is a game of strategy, and is recommend for ages 6 and older.

But did you know you can help your toddler, and preschooler too, with many skills by allowing him (or her) to play Connect Four by himself?

Once you get over the fear of him loosing pieces to the game, set out a game in his workbox. Just kidding, there is no need to be afraid of loosing pieces, as you can find this game at lots of garage sales and thrift stores and its a great idea to pick up a couple so you have spare parts, just in case.   This game comes in different sizes and a smaller size game fits nicely in a workbox.

Also in our family, more than two kids want to play at a time, so having a couple of these games on hand lets us all play, and even have tournaments and switch off players.

Free Play

Free play is my favorite. Just let your toddler play on his own, placing the disks into the slots. He will be thrilled at his accomplishment of getting them into the holder and watching them slide down the slots into position. It helps him with awareness of his environment, as he sees his progress, and how his choices impact the colors, and patterns that appear.

Lots of eye hand coordination and fine motor skill is involved in picking up one disk from the pile, and putting it into the slots.

Recognition and thinking skill are involved in making patterns, designs, counting, and sorting.

You might even see some artistic flare in your tot as they come up with fun designs and great big smiles.

Guided Play
You can also work with guided play ideas.

You can try all of these ideas out on the same day, or use them on different days. I prefer to use them on different days.

Make patterns:
Make a pattern on the table and have him repeat it on the game.
Make a pattern on one collum of slots and have him repeat the pattern in the next collum.
As their skills improve, you could draw out a page of patterns you want them to practice, and eventually they may be able to do it independently.

Sort:
The game has wonderful bright colors to sort. I love working with two colors at a time with my toddler. Comparing the colors helps him remember them better.
Color sort into piles.
Discuss the two colors.
Try using only one color at a time to fill the slots.
Call out the name of the color you want him to use.
Alternate every other color, etc.

Count:
Practice counting to four or more.
You could have the child place four of a color, then change and place four of the other color.
This skill will help him get ready to play the real game of connect four.
But they can also have fun counting to ten or twenty, whatever their skill level may be.

Two by two:
Have the child practice placing two disks, one in each hand, at the same time in the slots.   This helps them learn to coordinate their left and right sides. This can be lots of fun.

Timer:
Set out an hour glass timer like for one minute or three minute and have the child race the timer to see how many disks they can place into the slots before time runs out.

Heads or Tales:
Flip a coin. If it lands on heads, you put in one color. If it lands on tales, then you put in the other color. In the end, did you have more head or tale tosses? As your child gets older, they can learn to graph the results of their tosses.

Art Practice:
Besides practicing patterns and designs, draw a circle on a piece of paper and have the child lay the disks onto the circle. They could just cover the line, or fill in the circle. Try other shapes too.
Place the disks on a picture to make certain objects such as flowers, trees, animals, or spell their name.

The more ways you incorporate using the disks in your child’s hands, the more ways your child’s brain will process the skills.

Eventually you can teach them the rules of the game, but until then, just have fun playing in various ways with the pieces.

Soon your child will be “connecting” all the fun learning you have been doing together, and they might even beat you at a real game of Connect Four!

This post will be linked up with
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We Play
The Play Academy
ABC and 123
High Paw

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Green Sensory Bin

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                                                    Whats in the box? A Green Sensory Bin

Each month I build at least one or two sensory/discovery bins for my children around a letter, a holiday, or a theme/unit study we are learning about.

This Green Sensory Bin goes along with our Letter Of The Week G, our Garden Unit, and the color green theme. There will also be a second Garden Sensory Bin for the Garden Unit to show you soon.

Ideas in our bin are:
Garden creatures such as insects, turtles, frogs, and dinosaurs (they ate from ancient gardens!)
Green plants that grow
Green trees
Green feathers
Green magnets
Green marbles
Green cubes for counting and measuring
Green ribbon for threading and counting
Green pipe cleaners for threading, counting, bending, and poking into containers
Green containers. I had recycled parmesian shaker bottles. These are great for various activities.
Green cars for counting and free play
Green shapes: circles (lids), squares (blocks and foam), triangles (foam shapes), rectangles (wooden blocks) these shapes are great for tracing, building, stacking, and more
Geen stamps
Green pony tail holders
Green magnifying glass for looking at things up close
Green crayons for tracing
Green magnetic letters and numbers for spelling and counting
Green foam letters and numbers for spelling and counting
Green letter beads that spelled the word “green”
Green pom poms
Green juice lids
Green popcycle or craft sticks
Green stacking cups in three sizes for small, medium, and large
Green legos
Green broom and dust pan
Green ball, lots of fun to roll across the table or across the floor to a partner
Green buttons in various sizes for counting, sorting sizes, and lacing
Green dice
Green cookie cutters
Green playdough

Also scoops, trays with holes or slots, tongs, spoons, a large green basket (for a scavanger hunt), and more.

The bin is a simple plastic box.    We also use these boxes for school work and then they are called a workbox or activity box. I rotate the items in the bin from different themes, and reuse the container when needed. I keep a couple empty bins on hand so I have one available when its time to make the next one. You can find affordable bins for $1 and up, the cheapest place being the Dollar Tree.

There are so many fun activities built into this little bin, I am not sure I can tell you about them all in one post.

In the picture above, my two year old son was putting green pom poms on a paint pallet and then discovered how fun it was to put a green cube on each of his fingers. He loves to put his fingers into holes, and this has gotten him into difficult situations before. He just couldn’t get over the sensation of how each finger felt inside the cube. As he wiggled and moved, it caused different sensations than when his fingers don’t have these contraptions on. This amused him for a long time and he kept holding his hands up to show me how neat it was.

My three year old daughter loves this bin almost as much as her pink bin we created in February. Though the pink would win her first vote. She asks for her pink bin all the time, so I haven’t yet dismanteled it. It has gotten a workout over the past two months for sure.

You can read about the pink valentine bin here

In this photo, she laced green counting frogs onto a green pipe cleaner.

Then she took green pom poms and scooped them from a basket into the holes on the paint pallet.

We had green ice trays on hand to fill the compartments, and they work great for lots of different items. You could freeze some green colored water or juice in them for an activity. But we put in insects, magnets, trees, popcycle sticks, juice lids, and cubes and they sort well into these larger spaces.

One favorite item to put into the long slots of these ice trays are dominoes. Yes, I know they are white, but some of them have green pokadots as well as other colors, and I just can’t seem to seperate the children from dominoes. They all love dominoes. So into each of our monthly bins, I put in the dominoes.



Even my older boys ages 6, 8, and 10 had fun with various items in the sensory bin. First of all, I sent them on a green scavenger hunt to help me locate the many items we have that are green. Large items were put into a green basket, and the smaller items we put into our sensory bin.

In the picture below, the older children used the dominoes and various green insects and dinosaurs to set up a mini play world. They made a catepult with the scoop and secret caves and passageways from various items.   Insects and dinosaurs were flying through the air and competing for distance and territory. I think ultimately the dinosaurs died out, and the insects won the contest.

I love to give the bins to the kids to just play and explore on their own. Through out the week or month, we pull different items from the bin for guided play and learning activities too. But just to see them explore and create on their own, and watch how their minds work, is pure joy for me.   Kids are very creative.

Since we have a large family and the children have to share the bin, it gives them a chance to show thier better side of taking turns, or including the other person in thier role play and games.
< BR>Sensory bins are a wonderful way for children to explore, play, practice skills, and learn.

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Spelling With Beads

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                              Beads Are A Literacy Tool

Whats In The Workbox? Beads

Beads are a really neat medium for arts and crafts. You can do so many things with them. They are also really useful for teaching math, colors, sorting, and patterning concepts.   They can also help strengthen a child’s eye hand coordination, fine motor skills, and more. But did you know they could also be used for literacy?

My ten year old son, does not like to write. He loves to talk. He will dictate a story for you to write. He loves to draw. He loves word puzzles, word search and crossword puzzles. He loves to read and gets in plenty of reading time. He loves math, and is a whiz at it. His favorite subject is science and engineering.  But he doesn’t want to write sentences or work on spelling words.

His test scores are high in every category, except when it comes to spelling. I know this is normal for a boy of his age, and I choose not to worry about it.

I was brainstorming how I could incorporate more fun ways for him to work with letters. He loves legos and working with his hands.   So rather than writing worksheets, spelling tests, or journaling which he just doesn’t seem ready for, I was trying to think of other ways to build his word skills, including typing on the computer, magnetic letters, letter puzzles, letter tiles, and such.

When we were at the local craft store, I found some really nice alphabet beads. I bought a package of colored alphabet beads for $4.   I figured I would get him involved making something with letter beads. Even if he didn’t want to, at least I could use them with the younger kids.

I wasn’t sure how my son would take to this activity, but he surprised me and was very interested. At first I told him I needed his help sorting them and spelling a word for the younger kids so they can get used to how it is spelled.

( I know, I should be re-named the sneaky mother, as I am always finding ways to get him to participate even if it is a subject he hates. You should see what I sneak into his meat loaf! But it works with him and with his dad and siblings too. His personality is geared so that if I say I could really use his help, he will help even if it is a task he doesn’t like. His younger siblings? Forget it. You could beg and plead and if they don’t want to, they won’t! It takes lots of different “sneaky” strategies to make this house of seven flow.)

We are doing activities this month with the color “green” and I asked him to find the letters to spell “green” for me. As I mentioned, these letters were going to be used later in a letter activity with the younger kids.

He organized the whole container of beads by color, and found all the letters for the word “green”. He attempted the words of the other colors, but there was not enough letters to spell the colors. I was proud of him, as I didn’t ask him to go to that step. So, now I knew this was a manipulative that was peaking his interest.

After sorting out the colors and the word “green”, we put the other beads away. I gave him some cord and pony beads, and clear beads and he strung a necklace. He counted how many pony beads he wanted on each side. Then how many clear beads to place next to each letter bead and he came up with a nice pattern.

As he worked, he changed his mind a few times and unstrung the beads. Then he started over with counting and spacing them again.

He was really proud of the outcome. He especially likes it if he thinks it was all his idea. Shhhhhh. We won’t tell him he was set up…

He remade this again, taking it all apart and adding in black pony beads. You can see that version in the middle of the table below.

His brothers also wanted to work with the beads and spelling words, so we brought out a package of black and white alphabet beads also purchased from the same store for around $4.

This turned out to be a very good activity for boys. I knew girls enjoy making necklaces, but I never thought my boys would enjoy it and want to wear them. This is really a great activity for boys and girls. I think using colors that appeal more to boys, and using alphabet letters, made it seam like a guy thing. I am sure if we were using pink, purple, and delicate colors and flowers, my boys would not have been very interested.

In the picture below, the six year old is making a necklace with a message for his dad. We talked about making a pattern. He doesn’t yet have the insight to make the pattern first in his mind. He needs to lay out the parts and then follow the steps. Where the ten year old is able to see the pattern in his head and work from there.

The eight year old could not quite get the concept that if he picked up the necklace, before tying an end closed, his beads were going to slide off. I bet we picked up his beads at least a dozen times.

For some reason, he wanted to show me the necklace he made in a vertical position. Yep, you guessed it. Beads went everywhere over and over. He just wanted to hold it this way, but would forget to hold on to the bottom, at all times. Once he let go, we had beads all over the room. (I think he might have enjoyed this.)

When the ten year old had a huge array of alphabet letters to work with, his language skills really started to show.   He made up all sorts of words, quickly and easily. Then he used two pipe cleaners, and put on the words “Back Jack”. Then he started chuckling and adding more beads and presented me with his funny necklace “Back Jack This Means You”. He laughed and laughed. I am not sure why it was so funny.

He continued making more words with the letters. I it was really obvious this was working as a learning tool for him.

Later that night, he wore his creation to the 4 H meeting. (To my horror. I hope
d no one would see it as disrespectful, because that wasn’t his intention, he just thought it was funny.) But he was so proud of his creation, I just couldn’t say no when he asked if he could wear it to the meeting.

Making beaded necklaces was a great activity, because various skill levels can participate and still have fun.

All of the boys had a lot of fun. We will definitely make this a regular activity in our workboxes. I would like to create spelling worksheets or various printables to go along with this.

I will keep you posted.

How do you incorporate words with your reluctant speller?
Leave a comment. Thank you!

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Letter Of The Week P

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Letter Of The Week “P”

Workboxes, Activity Trays, and just for fun activities.

Our “Letter Of The Week” this week is “P”
Our color is pink
Our number is 3
Our shape of the week is the heart.



My goal for the week, and for the month really, was to tie in lots of “P” words and activities to reinforce our learning of the letter “P”, the color pink, the shape of the heart, and the number 3.

Many of the “P” words we focused on were things we are familiar with in our everyday life, such as “pink”, “picture”, and “pizza”. It is really important to use words they are familiar with to reinforce the letter. Then I expanded with words they may not be as familiar with or new words. Some of the new words for my kids were “peace”, “planet”, “prince”.

Three of the holidays this month that worked well with “P” were Valentines Day, Black History (civil rights and peace between the cultures), and Presidents Day. So we were able to do so much more with our letter of the week, and make it more like a letter of the month!

Each of my three younger children ages 2, 3, and 6 participated in these activities on their skill level. The older two children ages 8 and 10 did related work to the theme (Valentines, Presidents Day, Black History, and more) that correlated nicely with these activities that the younger children were doing.

Listed below are several vocabulary words you can pick from one, or a few, or brainstorm other fun ideas for a theme to give your child more practice with the letter ‘P”.

Our main vocabulary focus from the list was on the words “pink”, “pig”, “pasta”, “peace”, and “pizza”.

Vocabulary words:

P is for pig
P is for pink
P is for prayer
P is for panda
P is for puppy
P is for puppet
P is for pennies
P is for peace
P is for pail
P is for pattern
P is for Pinkalicious
P is for pokadot
P is for President
P is for Pastor
P is for Papa
P is for planet
P is for pizza
P is for pasta
P is for piano
P is for play
P is for park
P is for purple
P is for pumpkin
P is for practice
P is for peanut butter
P is for picture
P is for pretty
P is for princess
P is for prince
P is for pirate

Scripture

Peace

John 14:27   Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.

Books we read:

Pinkalicious Pink Around The Rink

The Three Little Pigs

My “P” Book

Crafts

Pink pig

Pink panda paper bag puppet

Pink Valentines Day Hearts

Letter “P” with pasta

Activities:

Math, Counting, Numbers, Patterns, Colors, Shapes, Practice,
Separate pink from other colors of manipulatives: legos, cubes, letters, pompoms,
Sort and transfer pompoms. Read about it here .
Use a pink magnifying glass to view pink butterflies and pink hearts.
Count up to three.
Count backwards from three.
Count three pennies and place into three compartments
Count three clothes pins and attatch them to a pink pail. You can read more about this and several other listed activities here .



Played with the valentines day discovery bin full of pink, white, and red items. Read about it here.



Thread pink ribbon
Thread pink beads
Make a pink pattern
Say a prayer
Dora coloring page
Pig coloring page
Make a pink (and red and white) Valentine Park mini world with legos. Read about it here .

Role play with pink kitchen items. foods, pink babies, and pink stuffed animals in pink clothes.
Play with pink and purple playdough
Write the letter “P” with playdough, crayons, dots, pasta,
Play at the park

Science

Past
a Science comparing dry pasta and rehydrated pasta. Read about it here .

Games

TIC TAC TOE TOSS using Pink Bean Bags

Scavaenger Hunt: PINK

Scavanger Hunt: Starts with the letter “P”

Songs

PINK

Tap out notes on the piano

Recipes with Kids In The Kitchen

Pepperoni Pizza

Pink popcorn snack mix
Pink and purple smoothies
Pink lemonade
Pink punch
Peanut butter and jelly sandwiches
Pasta with cheese

Pears cut up
Pumpkin Bars (will get a link to this posted soon)

Summary

Pink and purple are my three year old daughter’s favorite colors. In addition to all the fun activities, we also looked in her closet and found all her clothes that were pink and purple or pokadots (shirts, pants, dress, underwear, socks, shoes). She practiced trying them on, folding, and lining them up. She has the colors pink and purple memorized!!!

My daughter has asked me to make her a “purple pizza”.   I am trying to figure out how to accomplish this.

I considered making a purple onion pizza, but none of the kids like onions.

I thought about a plain or a purple sugar cookie crust, layered with blueberry, or blueberry-blackberry smooshed cream cheese frosting, and topped with blue berries and purple grapes. Possibly could use some Pomegranate Blueberry juice for color and flavor in the crust, or sauce (frosting) too. But I am not sure what combinations will taste good. Guess I will need to try out a small one and see if it works.

If you have any ideas for making a purple pizza, or any activities, crafts, recipes you use teach the letter P, please feel free to leave us a comment.   Thanks in advance.

This post will be linked up with

Tot Tuesdays
ABC and 123
We Play
Play Academy

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Button Free Play

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What is in the workbox and on the shelves today? A whole lot of buttons.

I set out various objects on the table and called the children over to see what was there. I gave the TOTS (my three year old and two year old) some buttons, bobbins, a thimble, and different sized spools and I waited to see what they did with them. We will be doing more with buttons as part of our Letter Of The Week B theme.

The three year old began sorting her buttons. I watched to try to understand by what category she was sorting. She was singling out the prettiest and smallest buttons first.

Right away the two year old lined up the spools from biggest to smallest in a straight line and sang “Happy Birthday”.

He also put a button in each hole of the muffin tin.

The three year old did a wonderful job of sorting the objects into different areas of her divided box. She put bobbins in one spot. Pretty colored buttons in one spot. Darker buttons in another spot. And she sorted out two buttons that had a different back on them, they were not flat, but instead had a knob at the back. This was really great for her first time ever playing with little buttons.

Next, she began picking up the smallest buttons and putting them into a thimble turned upside down like a cup.

She was proud of her accomplishment. She continued to try to stack more on top, but they kept falling off once the thimble was full.

The two year old decided to put all of his objects into the muffin tin. He counted the bigger spindle and told me it was a big one.

Sister had left the room for a minute to go potty, and brother confiscated her objects to add to his creation. I could hardly keep from laughing in front of him, because he knew he did a no, no, but he liked the way it looked.

Once sister came back and we divided up the loot again, she came up with a new game.

She decided to see what buttons could hold the bobbins. “Look Mom! See what I did?”

A little while latter, I came into the room to find them lining up their objects.

The two year old was very serious about making sure everything was in a straight line. If one of sister’s objects wasn’t exact, he fixed it. He is a very particular line maker!

And again a few more renditions of his favorite song “Happy Birthday”.

It must be somebody’s birthday somewhere. So whoever you are, hope it’s a great one!

Today was totally free play with their objects. Since buttons and these other objects were new to them, this kept them busy for almost an hour. Usually after they become familiar with objects I set out, they may keep their interest for 15 minutes to half an hour.

Next time, I will use some guided activities along with the buttons and objects to help them practice following directions, counting, sorting, reasoning, begining reading letter “B“, and problem solving skills. I will also plan an art activity using buttons as our medium to explore, perhaps we will make a letter “B” or a butterfly collage with buttons, I am not sure yet. Stay tuned to see how it turns out!

Plan to link this post up at:

We Play
Play Academy
ABC and 123
No Time For Flash Cards
Preschool Corner
Tot Tuesdays

Please share.

Magnet Line Up

2 Replies

What is in the Tot Work Box and on the shelves this week? Lots of magnet activities.

My tot, age 2, loves to line things up. He usually then sings a rendition of Happy Birthday To You. This is so funny and I will write another post soon that shows him blowing out his pretend candles with cars, dominos, pompoms, cubes, and lots of other toys. It is a daily occurrence around here. His birthday was two months ago, but he replays the song and blowing out the candles scene daily.

Magnets are really fun to line up, because sometimes they will, and sometimes they won’t, go together.

This is a fun activity for learning about attraction and repulsion.

He maybe to young to understand magnet vocabulary, but this simple activity helps him understand that if he turns the magnets one way they are attracted to each other, and if he turns them the other way, they repel.

No matter how hard he tries, if he has the wrong ends (two positives or two negatives) they just won’t go together. He can feel them pushing the pieces apart.

This is a good activity to build reasoning and deduction skills in your toddler. It is a fun sensory experience too as the child can feel the force of attraction or repulsion.

Success is sweet! He was so proud of his long train when he got it finished! And then he sang Happy Birthday and blew out his imaginary candles. So funny.

If your tot is a little older, they maybe able to understand color and shape patterns, some of the magnetic vocabulary words, and practice counting their magnet train as well.

This post will be linked up with:
No Time For Flash Cards
Sharing Time
ABC and 123

Please share.

Weiser Academy

Homeschool and Family Life Adventures

Category Archives: Workbox

Stories With Word Tiles

Cat In The Hat

We Choose Virtues Review

Word Puzzles

Skill Practice With Connect Four

Green Sensory Bin

Spelling With Beads

Letter Of The Week P

Button Free Play

Magnet Line Up