Tot School

This is my first time linking up to Tot School at 1+1+1=1. My oldest just went back to school and I think it's the perfect time to make more of an effort to do more "purposeful" learning activities with my younger two (who are 33 months and almost 12 months), and I have been inspired by Carisa and all the other tot school moms! So far we are having lots of fun! Here are some things we've done over the last couple of weeks:

We did some Do-a-Dot art, which K loved. He did a letter A page and then I let him do some free art with them.

I recently purchased these buttons from Oriental Trading. My oldest (who is 5) traced some of them onto a paper and K matched up the shapes.

Then inspiration hit and I invented a game called "Button Soup." We sorted all the buttons by color, then I would say something like, "Our recipe calls for one orange star" and he would find an orange star and put it in the bowl. We would repeat this until I would say, "Okay, time to mix!" K would then mix the "soup" with a wooden spoon (his favorite part) then we would pretend to taste it. He even made me blow on it because he said it was hot. :) This was BY FAR his favorite activity this week - he asked for it every day (and his 5 year old brother even tried it after school and liked it too!)
Baby J liked playing Button Soup, too! Well, his game was more along the lines of: put buttons in bowl, dump out, and repeat . . . :)

He put clothespins on pipe cleaners, matching the color of pipe cleaner to the color of the clothespin (which I just used markers to color on).

He enjoyed playing with his lacing farm, and we sang Old McDonald as he put each animal on.

He sorted small buttons into these little plastic boxes I found in the dollar section at Target.

I bought some plastic cups at the store one day, and K asked to play with them. I had plenty, so I gave him some. Who knew how fun a bunch of plastic cups could be? He enjoyed stacking them . . .

then knocking them down! Sometimes he was even nice enough to let his little brother knock them down. :)

Field Trip!
Grandma and Grandpa came to visit, and we went to a local zoo. The boys' favorite part turned out to be the train ride and the playground they had there, though!
Head over to 1+1+1=1 for more Tot School posts!