Using household items for unplanned Tot school activities

I haven’t had an opportunity to post about the kids’ progress with mommy school lately, so I wanted to be sure to do that today.  The kid’s learned about the color Azul (Blue); while, I learned that its quite hard to get good pictures while two kids are working on their lessons.  So, I only have a few pics of our activities.

I hadn’t prepared for many activities this week, so I put together quick activities with things found around the house.  I’ll share with you some activities that you can put together with a few minutes.

We started our school day by reviewing our calendar.  I don’t have a picture of our board today, but I will be posting pictures of our school room and morning board soon.  After circle time, we completed a couple of activities that highlighted the color Azul that Nugget and Chi Chi then alternated once they were done.   Nugget (3 years) gets teaching materials in Spanish, while Chi Chi gets her materials in English.  Now that Nugget knows how to read the names of colors and several other words in English, its’ easier to now teach him in Spanish since he can associate the words to English.

Nugget worked in fine motor skills by transferring pom pom from one container to another.  He had to count the pom poms in Spanish as he picked them up with the pink tongs.  You can easily make this transfer activity with two kitchen bowls and a tong.  If you don’t have pom poms, you can use pouch tops or milk caps that are spray painted blue.

Chi Chi tried to eat the pom poms several times, so she didn’t get too much time doing this activity.  She worked on placing blue pouch tops into a wipes container that was labeled with the word “BLUE.”  She counted in tops in English as she placed them into the container.  If you have a child in diapers, then you probably have a good 10-15 boxes of wipes like I do.  I am always finding new ways to use these containers.

We also did some of our Hot Dots Jr color cards.  Nugget loves to do these cards since the dog pen gives feedback on his performance.  If you haven’t seen these cards yet, they are available through Amazon, here.  I purchased our box from ToysRUs and have stocked up on the numbers box as well.

Chi Chi worked on matching her Doc McStuffins 2 part puzzles.  These are available as a printable learning pack from a great homeschooling site, 1+1+1=1.  We have used a lot of Carisa’s printables and this Doc McStuffins preschool pack is a must if you have fans of the show.  I made this puzzle board a while back, but it has held up since I laminated it.  I just pulled this puzzle board out of my homeschooling binder for another fun activity.

To make your puzzle board, simply glue the top part of the puzzle pieces to a piece of colored paper then run it through a laminator.  Laminate the bottom pieces then cut them out and attach a velcro attachment piece to the back of the puzzle piece.  Attach the coordinating velcro piece to the puzzle board you made with the top puzzle pieces.  Both of the kiddos love this game!   Not only does it help with motor skills, but it also helps build cognitive skills since they must match the puzzle without a copy of the image as a guide.

Chi Chi also did some color sorting using her stacking cups and pegs.  I literally just grabbed the cups and pegs from the playroom and had this activity ready to go in 1 minute flat!

We also worked on identifying the words of the colors by using the same pegs and a laminated sheet with the color words on it.  This was part of a printable preschool pack from Confessions of a Homeschooler, another great homeschooling site!  This sheet is part of Erica’s Pond Pack which has some great handouts for learning colors and about a pond environment.  I already had this printed and laminated in my homeschooling binder, so I just pulled it out.

Nugget used the same sheet later in the week to sort out some dinosaurs.  I found these colored dinosaurs in the dollar section of Target.  If you see any small colored toys that come in an assorted set, BUY THEM!  I can’t believe how many times I used little little sets of $1.00 toys for counting, sorting, matching games, etc.  These are definitely a must for your classroom/playroom.

If you have a few diaper boxes, you can make a color train!  Once again, I came up with this game in about 2 minutes.  I just grabbed a few empty boxes from the 15 stored in Nugget’s closet and presto, a fun activity.  I called out a color and the kids would place items with that color in the train.  Nugget picked up a passenger for the front of the train. 🙂

Sometimes you just don’t have the time to do a lot of planning for tot school.  However, you can easily put together some fun, learning activities that your kids will enjoy.

Thanks for stopping by,