Tot School

We had a fun filled week this week. We have begun practicing for our Spring Program (as none of my daycare kids will go off to Kindergarten, we won't have a "Graduation" until next year.)
We also did a lot of fun activities, where the "big" kids had fun "teaching" the smaller kids. It was fun to watch and really goes a long with our Montessori philosophy.




A little fun with play-doh. We have been trying to make snakes with the play-doh in preparation for play-doh alphabet mats. I got the idea from Handwriting Without Tears and Making Learning Fun. We still have a tough time making the snakes to form the letters so we will continue to practice... and what fun we will have!!!






One of our favorite toys is the Leap Frog Letter Factory. The kids choose a letter and put it in to hear the letter name and sound of the letter. They like it and use it often.







Another favorite... opening and closing containers. I thought this work would get boring fast for the kids, especially the older 3's and 4's, but I was wrong. They continue to take it out and I will add beads to it or small pom-poms and it is like a whole new activity for them.





We received these sandpaper letters in a Morning Circle Time Center I purchased from Lake Shore Learning, they are so not true Montessori, but since it is all I have right now we use them a lot. We are practicing the sounds and then the kids each had a turn to do a crayon rubbing. We then stapled their "books" together and wrote words on the back of the page that coincided with the letter. We look forward to next September when we have more of our Montessori materials at hand.

Well, that is all the photo's I got this week, although we did have fun with Dot Markers, the Magnetic Maze, Tree blocks, Transferring Beans & the Sensory Table. But I must have not been able to find my camera, or was so engrossed in helping the kids, that I didn't get photo's of those. I will try harder next week.

Bye for now... have a great week!!!!