Foil Surprises

When the Wee One came into the learning room recently, she found a basket with tin foil surprises waiting for her - Hello Christmas morning.  She spent the next 45 minutes opening and having me re-wrap the shapes.   

After she opened a shaped, I would say, "This is a ____."

She moved from the floor to the table and back to the floor with  her basket. 

The Wee One practiced crumpling, ripping, waving, and wrapping her own shapes when she became tired of opening her tin foil shapes.

Nocturnal Animals - Part One

Well, the printer had it's final print last week.  Mister did a little too much tinkering with it trying to figure out how it worked and it's done.  It's a drag because I had a few things things to add to my shelf that needed to be printed off.  At least he finally figured out how it worked...glass full.

Math

I introduced skip counting with this activity.  Next week I will have them join me on the rug to look for a pattern in this activity using the calendar.

Literacy

Rhyming Boxes - This is a pill box with pictures taped to the top.  Mister and Ladybug must match the rhyming words from the miniatures in the basket.  It's a two-fold activity since they must open the each compartment too.

 Practical Life

This fun activity is a carryover from our Sports Spectacular month.  I love that this activity takes concentration to keep the balls from rolling off.  Thanks to A Bit of This and A Bit of That for this neat activity. 

Nocturnal Animals - Raccoons

One of my favorite exhibits at the zoo is the raccoons because have it set up as a house with knocked over trash cans.  At first I thought it was a joke until I saw a raccoon ontop of one of the garbage cans. 

Anyway this is our first art project for nocturnal animals.  We started off by reading Raccoons.  I really liked that it presented small bits of information about raccoons with great photos.  After we read the book, we talked about some things we learned.  Ladybug was so excited to tell me that they have big eyes that glow.  Then, we made our own raccoon masks. 

The mask are their hands on black paper and Ladybug had the idea to use pom poms for glowing eyes.

Halloween Transfer

The Wee One is all about transferring, so I put this activity on her shelf. 

Rather than scooping the pom poms, she would put a few on her ice cream scoop.

The ice cream scoop was successful because the pom poms

After each one, she could smile, laugh, and clap.  I would say that means she likes it.

Wordless Wednesday - Summer's Last Stand

I am sad that I cut off her arm and her leg.  If I had more than a second, I would have been happier.

Treasure Basket - Halloween

Ah the Wee One's first real Halloween, so here is her October Treasure Basket (Discovery Basket). 

• Wooden skeleton
• Wood door sign with springy bat
• Squishy toad
• Spider web
• Spider
• Black cat
• Pumpkin
• Jack-o-lantern purse with small bats
• Sparkly bat
• Halloween cookie cutters
• Metal skeleton head
• Black lace
• Glass jack-o-lantern candle holder

The Imagination Tree refers to Treasure Baskets for older babies and toddlers as Discovery Boxes.  Her blog is a wealth of good ideas and it so happens her first idea for Discovery Box was the Wee One's Treasure Basket for September.

October Sensory Box - Nocturnal Animals

Last year we did a classic Halloween Sensory Box and it was a huge hit, but since we have been there, done that, I wanted to do something different.  This year we have our Nocturnal Animal Sensory Box.  They are in love with this one.

• Spoon
• Tongs
• Black dish (cave)
• Black beans (night sky)
• Yellow pom-poms (moons)
• Stars
• Deciduous trees
• Leaves
• Coniferous trees
• Bear
• Bear cub
• Raccoon
• Red fox
• Badger
• Wolf
• Rat

When I introduced this box we discussed how all these animals are nocturnal or awake at night.  I also told them that all of them could be found in the deciduous forest in our state.  We went outside and found deciduous and coniferous trees and talked about how they were different and the same.