Tots and Me... Growing Up Together: Learning Trays

Showing posts with label Learning Trays. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 4, 2015

Workbox Wednesday- February 4, 2015

Welcome to Workbox Wednesday!

This week I would like to share an old post. Several years ago, we were using a lot more learning trays in our school time. One time, I put together some Montessori type activities that focused on Valentine's Day. Here is a peek at my Montessori: Valentines post.

I invite you to follow the link above to see the details.

If you use workboxes, tot trays, or anything similar, feel free to post a link to your blog post or a picture (pictures can be from facebook, but please make sure they are PUBLIC so we can see them, or use a host like photobucket.com to get a URL for your photo) that shows WHAT IS IN YOUR BOXES!

Please don't forget to visit my co-hosts at Chestnut Grove Academy and Line Upon Line Learning.

Visit others that link up, leave comments, follow, etc. The favors will be returned! Feel free to grab a button too, so others can find the link up and join in the fun!

What is in your workboxes?

Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Toddler Ideas Tuesday: November 25, 2014

Welcome back to Toddler Idea Tuesdays! I hope you will join with me again in sharing the fun activities, crafts, and lessons that you are doing with your young children.

The other day, I shared my Poppins Book Nook post for this month titled Surprises in the Kitchen With Poppins Book Nook. In the post, I shared a bit about the Alphabet Soup Learning Trays I created for the younger children. There was a letter matching tray for Harold.

Hannah's tray also had a letter matching sheet, using only lower case letters. She also had Word Family sheets.

For Toddler Idea Tuesday, I wanted to go through the step-by-step process for these Word Family sheets.

First Hannah had to use her spoon to find the "a" and the "d" so we could work on blending the ending. She knows the sounds of the letters, but is still struggling with blending them.

She then had to scoop out another letter and place it on the line. She would say the sound of each letter and then we worked on blending them together.

She then moves the beginning letter off to the side and moves the "ad" down to the next line. I actually made 3 lines because I was going to have her write the letter to make the word. We haven't done that yet. Letters that do not make a word are added into the pile (I realize cad is a word, but not one I wanted to really have to explain). Then she finds a new letter.

She then repeated the above step.

I plan to have her work on writing the words. I will also be adding more letters and using different Word Families to keep this activity fresh for Hannah.

Now onto:

Toddler Idea Tuesday Features

On my last Toddler Idea Tuesday post, there were 4 wonderful posts linked up. Today's Feature was randomly selected.

Joanna from Clark and Luci Learn shared her post, Germs and the Importance of Handwashing. Stop by to check out this really neat, hands-on idea for teaching children how germs spread and how to get rid of them.

I would love to have you join in this week! What sort of activities do you do with your toddlers and preschoolers? Do you have some favorite activities you would like to share? I invite you to link up below. I will be pinning posts on my Toddler Ideas board and I would love to feature some of the activities each week from what is linked up. Please know I may share a picture from your post and link back to it, along with sharing how we used your idea in our toddler time. By linking up you are giving me permission to use a picture from your post. I will ALWAYS give credit and link back. Additionally, if you choose to try out any of the ideas with your toddler, please make sure you give credit where credit is due.

Linky will be open through Sunday night, to give me time to check out all the posts and get the Features organized. Please take the time to visit some of the other wonderful posts linked up.

Wednesday, November 19, 2014

Workbox Wednesday- November 19, 2014

Welcome to Workbox Wednesday!

The girls' workboxes have remained about the same through the weeks.

As a reminder:

Workbox #1- 100 Chart and occasionally they get Number of the Day worksheets
Workbox #2- Copywork, which can be our memory verse, Character trait copywork, or cursive practice
Workbox #3- Math worksheets or workbook
Workbox #4- This is the one that has changed. They used to have manipulative work in there. Now they have their Bible Notebook and Time Line pictures.

I also have some new Learning Trays to share with you. We are reading a book called "Surprise Soup" for our Poppins Book Nook unit this month. Here is a sneak peak of the learning trays. Please stop back on Monday to see details of how we used these trays and all the other fun we are having.

What is in your workboxes?

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Workbox Wednesday- October 1, 2014

Welcome to Workbox Wednesday!

Last week I shared some of the learning trays/sensory activities I made for the younger children to go with our Wild West Fairy Tales Lessons.

I also added these two trays later in the week. You can find complete details on my Fun With Wild West Fairy Tales Poppins Book Nook post and this week's Toddler Ideas Tuesday post.

The older girls have continued to work on handwriting. They are attempting to improve their cursive.

And their print. Last week they found Bible verse copywork in their #2 workbox. I tried to find verses that went with the moral of the fairy tale we were reading.

Another addition to their workboxes for this past couple of weeks is this weather chart from the My Father's World curriculum. When we are done with all four weeks we will be working on graphs, I believe.

What is in your workboxes?

Tuesday, September 30, 2014

Toddler Ideas Tuesday: September 30, 2014

Welcome back to Toddler Idea Tuesdays! I hope you will join with me again in sharing the fun activities, crafts, and lessons that you are doing with your young children.

I apologize for there being a few weeks between posts again. I do mean for this to be a weekly link up, but between trying to get organized and internet/computer issues, it hasn't been happening. Hoping for a better future of Toddler Idea Tuesdays!

It has been difficult to find time some days to get the one-on-one time I would like to have with the younger two children. I am still working out our schedule and my organization to have things run smoothly. However, last week, I did make some new learning activities for them. This was to go along with our Poppins Book Nook theme of The Wild West. Our focus was Wild West Fairy Tales, though our trays were mostly inspired by the main ideas in the tales themselves, so there really wasn't a western theme there.

On Tuesday we read "Little Red Cowboy Hat" by Susan Lowell, along with "Little Red Riding Hood", so our learning activities centered around the color red.

Harold hasn't had much of a chance to use these yet, but Hannah's favorite was the Bead Counting on Pipe Cleaners.

For this simple activity, Hannah placed beads on the pipe cleaners to match the counting chart I made. She was able to work on counting, number recognition, and fine-motor skills.

I also put together a Block Counting Basket.

For this block counting activity, I added 1-1 peg block, 2- 2 peg blocks, 3- 3 peg blocks and 4- 4 peg blocks for them to sort and count and build with. We haven't had much time to use this one yet though.

Next, I put together a Red Sensory Bin.

Unfortunately, this was one they didn't have any time to use.

I was quite happy with the way my new Word Family Tray turned out. I have always enjoyed coming up with activities that will help the children learn to read, and we like to focus on word families.

I have found that these Tupperware trays are very good for some learning trays. For this activity I set out the "at" in the top left-hand corner using felt letters, then I placed more consonants in the lower corner, letters that would make words when added to the "at." In the middle compartment, I set out blank index cards on top and a pile of "at" family words on the bottom. On the right, is a red pencil (to keep with our theme).

Hannah was to build the word directly on the index card, covering the written letters.

Then she wrote the word on a blank card.

On Tuesday we read "Dusty Locks and the Three Bears," also by Susan Lowell, along with Goldilocks and the Three Bears.

I made a theme-related size sorting activity.

And I also brought out the Bean Sorting.

I had some other ideas for learning trays, but I just ran out of time. However, they were kept quite busy with our craft projects during the week. In addition to the two books mentioned above, we read two other books by Susan Lowell: The Three Little Javelinas (The Three Little Pigs) and The Bootmaker and the Elves (The Shoemaker and the Elves).

If you would like to see all of the craft projects and food ideas that I had to go along with this theme, I invite you to check out this month's Poppins Book Nook post, Fun With Wild West Fairy Tales. At the bottom of the post, you will find a linky with many other great Wild West Themed posts linked up, plus a wonderful giveaway. For this post, I wanted to focus on the Toddler/Preschooler Learning Trays/Sensory Activities.

Now onto:

Toddler Idea Tuesday Features

On my last Toddler Idea Tuesday post, there were 5 wonderful posts linked up. I will be picking one randomly selected post to share, plus the top clicked-on post.

This week's randomly selected post is:

Katie's August Tot Trays, posted by Greatly Blessed.

The following post received the most clicks.

20+ Busy Bags to Entertain the Littles, posted by Embark on the Journey.

I would love to have you join in this week! What sort of activities do you do with your toddler? Do you have some favorite activities you would like to share? I invite you to link up below. I will be pinning posts on my Toddler Ideas board and I would love to feature some of the activities each week from what is linked up. Please know I may share a picture from your post and link back to it, along with sharing how we used your idea in our toddler time. By linking up you are giving me permission to use a picture from your post. I will ALWAYS give credit and link back. Additionally, if you choose to try out any of the ideas with your toddler, please make sure you give credit where credit is due.

Linky will be open through Sunday night, to give me time to check out all the posts and get the Features organized.