Tot School - Letters P & Q

~Zachary is 38 months old~
~Natalie is 14 months old~

Well, we've been busy & the kids have been sick, so school hasn't been quite as organized as usual, but we have pressed on and learned about the letters P and Q! So here are the ideas we found & the fun things we did!

We talked about things that start with P, and we colored a pig and a puppy, since they started with P.

Natalie decided to do her own little project of dumping out the crayons &
putting them back while Zachary colored. :)

We also played with pom-poms, just for fun, but I don't have any pictures of that. :) We also played with lots of puzzles & made pudding for a snack. :)

We used our consonant cards - we use these every consonant week, so we are getting a little bored of them - I thought of a new game to play with them to keep Z's interest a little longer. :) Out of curiosity, how do you do your tot school? If your tot is bored with an activity, do you make them continue or let them move on to something else? I have toyed with the idea of setting a timer for the 'educational' games & activities I have planned, so he focuses on them for 5 minutes or so...is this asking too much of a 3-year-old?


He matched at least one picture with each letter - he's getting VERY good at beginning sounds! :) He'll often say, "I want to do something that starts with M. Mmm, Mmm, Mmm, music time!" :)
We made some Valentine's cookies "for Daddy" (but really for us, too). :) Z had fun icing these & eating Twizzlers, especially since he was sick & felt so nasty. (He ended up having a nasty cough and an ear infection like Natalie & starting antibiotics last Friday - he's feeling much better now!)

We did some cutting practice!

Then we made a 'penny P' collage - starting with plenty of glue, of course.


Then we added some pennies.

Voila, our finished Penny P!

I made prayer books with cardstock and binding combs for each of the kids, but haven't printed out the pictures of our family & friends to put in them yet. Our verse for the letter P was Pray about everything, so this went along with that.


Here are our supplies for making vinegar heart prints:

We painted the white construction paper till it was very soaking wet with vinegar.

Then we stuck on red tissue paper hearts, till they were all soaked & stuck on the paper.

Then we let it dry, and voila! See anything? Not really. I'm not sure if we used the wrong kind of paper or tissue??? The prints are there but not very strong. :(

So that pretty much sums up the letter P! Well, this next picture sums up that week, too - my little sicky on the couch watching Word World! :(

Then, this week, we focused on the letter Q! Here is a picture of our morning board:

Z especially loved this week's song - Patience (Herbert the Snail) from the Music Machine's Fruit of the Spirit CD. :)

We used scrapbook paper scraps to make a quilted Q collage.

We dot-painted an Elmo number page from Making Learning Fun. Notice Natalie pretending to dot-paint? :)


Natalie came up with her own idea for the dot markers. :)

We also played with playdough on our Q playdough mat, but I didn't get any pictures of that. And we played with plastic bags filled with shaving cream - we felt them & wrote letters in the shaving cream. We used our clothespin cards with wipe off markers for a fun twist (again, we've
done this activity each week, so it is getting a little less exciting at this point, trying to spice it up a little). He was supposed to circle the letters, and I made him point out which letter matched each time, but then he just wanted to draw on it. He said he was drawing a 'Happy Valentimes'. :)



Natalie played with the clothespins! :)

Zachary enjoys wiping it off as much as writing, almost! :)

They played with tools together...

Zachary colored in his big coloring book. Natalie colored some, too, but I didn't catch it on film. :)

Our unit for the next few weeks (till we go on vacation at the end of March!!) is animal habitats, so we watched this Sesame Street video about that, and made a diorama from a diaper box that we can use to dialogue about habitats & what animals live there.


Z has asked to color on this every day - I hope it's something that we keep updating & playing with! :) He put his moon & clouds & birds up here because apparently this was the sky -
this is on the top of the inside. :)
We painted with Q-Tips for the letter Q! Natalie painted...

And Zachary painted!

Natalie painting some more...

Ewww - this stuff doesn't taste good! :)

We played with pom-poms and our Dot Numbers this week - so fun! The kids LOVE
pom-poms, I seriously could not get them out often enough for them, so this is a
great game- we counted the dots & put the corresponding pom-poms on them, and
then we threw them at each other. :) This picture was obviously taken later. :)

Natalie has done a few new, fun things these weeks - besides running around like crazy & not just walking anymore! :) She is sharing more, especially with Mama, so that is fun. She also yells for fun & says "Ma-ma, Ma-ma..." whenever she wants something, it is so cute. :) Here's a picture of her sharing with me. :)

And she wore her first ponytail last weekend! It lasted about half a day till she ripped it out & wouldn't let me touch it again, but it was SO cute, don't you think??? :)

To see what everyone else is doing for Tot School this week, head on over to 1+1+1=1! :)