Tot School ~ Animal ABCs ~ Letter B

~Ladybug is currently 32.5 months old~

It was a full week for us, despite some sickness floating around.  Mostly for me, Krash and Ladybug towards the end of the week.  We carried on with school amidst coughing and snot.  Hopefully we will mend soon!

Here is her desk set up for letter B. We have the Scholastic Alpha Tales book set, which is where the letter Bb book you see is from.  I wasn’t sure if she would like these books but she really does!  A reader shared that you can find this book set cheaper on a different website, I have never ordered from there but the price IS much lower! 

The items in the pocket chart are all available for free here on the Animal ABCs webpage.  I added a stuffed bear on her desk, and also several other bears over on her Tot Tray shelf.  I included polar bears and panda bears too, she loved that!

We also had several bear books off to the side in her pink basket.

The books were by FAR her favorite part of this week, we read and read and read!!!!

Here are some bear ideas for you…

As you will see, my tot LOVES to write.  She honestly blows me away with her desire to trace, color, draw, and write.  Neither of my boys were like this.  The “extras” were developed because of her intense love of writing and tracing.  Because her Tot Time Notebook was such a hit, I decided to go with a similar plan for her Animal ABC work.  The pages for the current unit are all in a 1/2” 3 ring binder, inside of sheet protectors.  She uses her click markers and eraser to work through her pages whenever she wants to!   

Here are a few action shots…

My favorite “no picher” face. Gotta get those while they last!

I snapped some finished project shots since I don’t have papers to keep for her since they are all dry erase.  I want to be able to show her when she is older!

The discussion sheet is fun when I can get her talking to me.  At first she didn’t want to but then when she noticed the baby bears she was into it and chatted with me for awhile. We are using this sheet as a way to develop vocabulary and observation skills.

The coloring page is pulled out and we worked on a few bears per day.  She usually likes to do this as team work, which is fine!I have noticed that her grip has consistently went from “correct” to this 3 fingered thing.  I will not be pushing her at this point-I don’t want to frustrate her and she is easily frustrated when told what to do.  I want school to be fun at this stage and let her guide her learning.  I hope to get the grip corrected slowly over the next year, we’ll see! Here’s an article from an OT about pencil grip if you have more questions.

She worked with me to make the letter craft, which is basically an open ended project that you can do whatever you want with!  We chose to paint the letter B, and then glue down the bears.  She wasn’t interested in cutting at all this week, so I trimmed the bears while she painted.

The next day she chose red paper and we glued the B and the bears down.

She immediately wanted to hang it up and stood admiring her letter A and letter B work!

Special Note: I know I said this last week, but I will probably repeat it every week just in case someone new comes along, I really think it is that important!  PLEASE remember that most tots will not enjoy this type of work.  Ladybug is unique in her desire to do these types of things.  When Krash was this age, he would barely sit at a table for a few minutes, let alone do tracing worksheets!  I only do this type of thing with Ladybug because she practically begs for it.  It is “her thing” and I just follow her lead.  All children are different, just have fun and follow your child’s lead at this stage!

We worked on a few parts of the Brown Bear Printable Pack, which she LOVED!

She roped Daddy into reading bear books to her whenever she had the chance.  You can barely see her little head behind the book!

We are taking our All About Reading Pre Level 1 lessons slowly.  I am not expecting mastery from Ladybug, just using this program as a way to expose her to the Big Five Skills.  She is a bit too young for the program and Krash is a bit too old, so that’s why we are using it together.

This week we did lesson 2, which focused on letter B and also rhyming words. With Ladybug I do tons of modeling, you can see us using the rhyming cards below.  She loved me putting the duck into the truck and being all goofy about it.

Pac was taking pictures {it’s his new favorite thing to do}, I am so glad he moved around and captured her face while we were doing this.  She was giggling hysterically!

As for Ziggy, she seemed a bit nervous around him this week, not even wanting to have him be a part of the lessons.  Instead she chose her new favorite, Sunshine Bear {who came out of basement hiding for bear week}.

Ziggy read with me, but she wanted him gone after that.

We used blue dot paint for blueberries…

and she asked if she could trace the lines on the bees.

The letter pages are simple and require little prep or planning, we just sit down and do it!  I am allowing her to choose if she wants to complete it or just watch me.

We are repeating the same lesson a few times during the week, since she is so young.  This was a different day {yes she is wearing the same jammies-she loves them}.  Here we used her Scrabble Alphabet Soup game to work on letter ID with Ziggy-she liked him this day!  We also worked with the rhyming cards from lesson 2 again.  I was amazed with how much she actually learned from the first lesson!

This girl loves puzzles, and she gravitates towards those that are a bit too difficult to her.  These are K’s old puzzles!

The Busy Hands Box has some new sparkly white play dough and some blue!  She is sitting on a splat mat that my mom made for her, it used to be under her high chair.

We made a letter B!

Another puzzle {dollar spot Target} that she loves and did several times even though it is such a challenge for her and she needs help!

Our ball pit {Target} came out for some fun indoor gross motor play!

Markers and paper are a common thing for her.  This day she drew tons of little faces and told me who they all were and how they were feeling!

She loved watching Leapfrog Phonics Farm {which she calls “purple doggy movie”} a few times thanks to Netflix and the iPad!.  The hoys liked it too!

In these shots she was playing The ABC’s of God. See more iPad apps we love here, iPad apps part 2 is here!!

I love this shot of her bouncing in the bounce house at a friend’s birthday party!  She was scared of it at first but when it emptied out, she went in for a try and loved it!

More Tot School Links…

• Tot School 2011/2012 Blog Roll 
• Behind the Scenes ~ Where Do I Begin with Tot School?
• Tot School Webpage {including links of all participants}
• Tot Trays {webpage}, Behind the Scenes ~ Tot Trays, Where are the Trays?
• Totally Tots {my other team-written blog, all about tots!}
• All of our Tot School Posts {sorted by ages here}
• Visit our Tot School Tools Store
• Tot School Zones {Linky with other moms sharing their Tot School zones}
• Tot School FAQ
• How do I Link up to Tot School? Please be sure to read this BEFORE you link up for the first time!!! If your blog is not linked back here to Tot School {within your post, not just on your sidebar}, and/or your post is not specifically a Tot School post, your link will be deleted to help Tot School surfing moms. If your link was deleted, please email if you don’t know why.

Please put your tot’s age (in months) after it, like this: 1+1+1=1 (41 mos)