Tot School--Valentine's Day Theme

This week we did Valentine's Day stuff and the letter E. I probably won't post next week for 2 reasons. First of all, we're now on half-term break. In England, they have a week off school this week, and even though we homeschool, we try to take the same holidays off. That's okay with me...I needed this break! Secondly, we're getting ready to apply for permanent residency in the UK, and there's a lot of paperwork to gather. Despite the break, things are going to be busy as we get everything together and get this taken care of asap before our visa runs out. Hopefully everything will go well and we'll get accepted. Plus, we're busy cleaning and organizing the house. If you've noticed the backgrounds of my photos the past month or so, you will see lots of clutter everywhere--piles of papers, piles of laundry, etc. So, maybe my holiday isn't going to be such a holiday after all! Anyway, I may be taking a break on blogging until we get our residency sorted...hopefully.

1. Valentine Matching Box--I made this myself out of a box (which I partially wrapped) Valentine stickers, and craft sticks...also using a knife and my laminator. I put 2 of every kind of sticker (12 sets in all) on a piece of paper and laminated it. I cut the stickers apart and put one set on craft sticks and the matching set under slits I cut into the box. I wasn't sure if Gabriela would be able to do it, because it's not very clear which slit goes with which picture. However, she figured it out very quickly. We did this activity every day this past week, and she even got it out over the weekend.


2. Letter E Trays--I tried hiding the letter E's inside all sorts of containers. Some she opened easily, and others I had to help her with. She enjoyed finding them, though! Also she colored an E, stamped the letter E, and made play-dough Es.



3. Valentines--Colors and Sizes. We talked about which was the biggest heart, medium-size, and smallest. We also talked about colors. Then I helped her paste them together in size order.


4. Valentine stickers: After pasting the 3 hearts together, Gabriela had fun putting stickers on it. This was also a confidence-builder for her, because she kept saying, "I can't do it!" Then suddenly she would get it, and she was so happy.


5. Bingo Dauber Valentine: Using a red bingo dabber (the ones I have are called dabbers, not daubers...anyway) and a heart pattern I got from DLTK, Gabriela dotted each circle...sort of. I helped her with the first few to show her what to do. She understood that she was to hit the circles only, but she wanted to color them, not dot them. By the way, DLTK has more bingo dauber Valentine pages besides this one.


6. More Bingo Dabbing/Daubing: When Gabriela used the stickers, I took off the backing to make it easier for her to peel off the stickers (an idea I've seen on several blogs). I put the backing on a piece of construction paper and let her dab the spaces. She actually enjoyed this and worked on it very intently. However, she still tried a few times to color with the dabber instead of just dotting it, or else she pushed it really hard instead of lightly. I guess we'll just have to practice--at least she enjoys it!


7. Real Life Skills--Unloading the dishwasher...yeah, a 2-year-old...and she even unloads some of the breakable things (I let her do the bowls, but I rescued the glasses and large plates before she got to them). She loves doing this! Sometimes she tries to help Isaac and Moriah when they unload, but this particular time she was helping her daddy. We do monitor her while she does this, and we take out the sharp knives first! Basically, she just takes out the items, one at a time, and hands them to her daddy to put away. When she got to the plastic cups, though, she stacked them all before handing them to Greg.


Here's a cute video of Gabriela helping. The quality isn't the best on our indoor videos...we need a new camera!


And shutting the dishwasher when she was all done!


8. Letter E Matching


9. Rice spooning--I dyed some rice pink and used it for spooning...or maybe it was more like scooping. We had this cute red scooper that come in an oatmeal container. We tried different things to scoop it out of and into, and at the end she just used her hands to play with it. The red container she's pouring the rice into is from a container of mince pies we had around Christmas!


10. Playing with her little dolls:


11. Playing with her Dora playground set:


12. Watching Dora (again) with her sister...Greg had brought in the car seats, and the girls thought it would be cool to sit in them while watching the DVD. It was nearly naptime at this point, hence the yawn.


13. Pasting Valentines. I cut out hearts of all different sizes and helped Gabriela paste them onto paper.


14. Pooh's Valentine--I read this to Gabriela, and she enjoyed looking through it several times on her own.


15. Cutting out Valentine cookies!


DE-WISH-USH!


I'll leave you with more funny faces from my Funny Valentine! (This could be a weekly thing...)


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