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Compassion

Saturday, April 30, 2011

Treats 4 Your Tot

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Here are some more cool giveaways for tots/moms of tots, check them out below and let us know if you win something we told you about!!!!

Bolded are items we personally own and love!  If you are hosting a TOT friendly giveaway you are free to leave a link in the comments section!

Friday, April 29, 2011

In My heart ~ Psalm 128:1

Walk in His Ways {Psalm 128:1} is #9 from Seeds of Faith. image

Full Page Verse Printable… image

Verse Mini Book {which could also be cut into mini flash cards to have kids put the verse in order}…  image

Copy Work Tracers {print & cursive}  image

Copy Work Sheets…  image

Full Verse Coloring Pages… image

Seeds Family Worship printables here!

Visit the main Seeds Family Worship Printables page here.

Visit Seeds Family Worship to learn more about their ministry here!

Simple verse cards from Seeds, and also a verse memorization checklist can be found here on their site!

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Thursday, April 28, 2011

Once Upon a Book ~ Chickens Aren't the Only Ones

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Chickens Aren't the Only Ones by Ruth Heller
Book Summary: Children will enjoy listening to you read this delightful book about egg-laying animals and their unique eggs. The colorful illustrations in this story are vivid and make the book come alive with fascinating detail. The words in rhyme tell this story in an informational, but highly interesting way that will attract children. This is one of my favorite informational books!


Bible Verse: Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? (Matthew 6:25-27)

Vocabulary:
In the book, Chickens Aren't the Only Ones, we learn a new word "Oviparous" which means egg-laying. We practiced saying this word a few times. Since it is a long word, we count the letters...9 letters long! Jonah was so proud of his new "grown-up" word! (In full disclosure, I didn't learn this official word until my first year of teaching!)

"Tap, Tap, The Egg Cracked. Who is oviparous?" Discovery Activity:
I placed pictures of all the animals mentioned in the book in plastic eggs. As a reinforcement to reading the book, we opened the eggs and talked about each one. Each time we said "Tap, tap, the egg cracked. Who is oviparous?" to practice our new vocabulary word. If you have small animals that would fit in your egg it would be more fun. Sadly, I didn't have many of the animals that I needed, so I just used the pictures for this activity. (Download available)

Science:
We watched a video of chicks hatching from eggs from the Museum of Science and Industry Chicago. We watched it several times. After watching this video, I got interested in what other egg videos we could find. I headed to YouTube and did some searches. Warning: Use your own "mommy discretion" with YouTube videos and ALWAYS preview them before showing them to your child. There were tons of options for videos, but we liked this one...


Hatch, Hatch Little Egg Game:
Take turns curling up into a ball and pretend to be an egg. You or your child will pretend to be an animal hatching from their egg. Make sounds and movements for the animal and see if the other person can guess the animal.

Fine Motor Skills:

Jonah used tweezers to pick up "chicks" (yellow pom-poms) and place them in the compartments of a recycled egg carton. For added difficulty, have your child place the "chicks" into plastic eggs and closing them before placing the egg in the carton.

"Who is Oviparous?" Sorting:
I gave Jonah pictures of oviparous animals mentioned in the book and some that were not in the book. He sorted the pictures and glued the pictures in the right section of a T-chart. Our headings were "Lays eggs" and "Does NOT lay eggs". (Download available)

Letter Sounds Matching:
 

I wrote the beginning letters of oviparous animals on plastic eggs and gathered enough various animal puppets and manipulatives to match the letters. Jonah had to place the animal in the corresponding egg, depending on the beginning sounds. Example: O for Octopus (If you don't have enough animal manipulatives, use the pictures from the download available.)

Math:
We are still working on identifying and matching the correct number of objects at our house, so we did a simple number/counting activity using some frogs and turtles counting manipulatives I had around the house.

Just for Fun:

I pulled out a favorite of Jonah's just for fun. The Lucky Ducks Game is easy and Jonah enjoys hearing the ducks quack. To make it an independent activity, I made cards with the shape that appear on the bottom of the ducks for Jonah to match the duck with their shapes. We also played "by the rules" a few times, too.

Downloads Available To You:
I have posted the printable pages for the activities mentioned above on my blog. Feel free to download them and use them with your tot!


Sara

Wednesday, April 27, 2011

Now I Know My ABC’s ~ Ii is for Igloo

 
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Summary: Immi, and Inuit child, goes ice-fishing and finds a beautiful wooden bird. Day after day she fishes up other beautiful things and decorates her igloo with these items. Her igloo becomes a source of beauty in a white landscape and all the animals come to visit her. When it is time to move on, Immi throws her wooden bear into the fishing hole where a little boy from around the world finds it washed up on the beach. Beautiful illustrations and a sweet story.
ABC Letter Box

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For our Letter Ii week, we went back to our ABC letter box. I hid various letters and letter Ii objects in the box while the girls searched to find them.
ABC Letter Learning Activities
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For each letter I’ve created a handwriting/poem sheet. We read the poem together, highlight the letter Ii’s in the poem, and then finger-trace how to make the letters. Then we trace the letters with either a crayon or chunky pencil.

ABC Crafts

letterInoodles    
We used Magic Nuudles to make our letters and to try to build an igloo. These are biodegradable building blocks that stick together when just a little water is added. My kids would wipe the nuudle across a wet sponge and then stick it to another nuudle to make their creations. You could try to do something similar with mini-marshmallows too.

ABC Theme Activities 


Immi'sigloocraft 
In the story, Immi find many colorful things in her fishing hole. She uses them to decorate her igloo.

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We used some cut-outs and fabric flowers to decorate Immi’s igloo (Download available below)

icefishingforletteri  
We did a little ice-fishing of our own. I printed out Letter Ii word cards from 1+1+1 and mounted them on index cards. Then I placed paperclips on two sides of the index cards. (The picture only shows one paper clip. I added another since my tot was having difficulty catching the cards.) My kids made their own fishing pole by adding a magnet to some yarn and tying it onto the stick.

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I scattered the cards on the floor and then the kids went fishing.
 
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We also made our own salt-dough necklaces (click for instructions). This was a two-day activity and the girls loved creating a necklace just like Immi.

Other Letter Ii extensions:
While reading Immi’s Gift, I would point out all the letter Ii words:
Short i: Immi, Inuit, igloo, it, in
Long i: ice, icy

This book also presents the opportunity to talk about artic/tropical  or warm/cold. We talked about things that were warm  and cold.  One day we drank a cup of hot chocolate, and the next day we went to get a scoop of ice-cream. If you wanted to add some ice-cream extensions, I have a couple of ice-cream activities that we did last summer available:

icecubeart icecreamcoloring icecreamrecipe

Downloads:
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For each letter I will be providing several downloadable resources plus a letter planner page. You can find these resources at Spell Outloud’s HSPrintables.

Other ABC Resources:
ABC Printables from Homeschool Creations
Letter of the Week Curriculum from COAH
ABC Flashcards and More from 1+1+1=1
ABC Letter Crafts
Songs for Saplings ABC Verses

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Tuesday, April 26, 2011

Play With Me ~ Interlox

This month our Play With Me toy a wonderful and simple building toy from Guidecraft ~ Interlox.  Interlox are plastic squares that can be clipped together to create and build. No screws. Nothing fancy ~ just clip and build. The squares all intersect as specific points and are made out of plastic, so you cannot bend and make curves, but overall are sturdy {recommended for ages 3 and up}.

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Here are a few fun things that you can do and create with the Interlox to extend your learning with your little one:

Sort by the shape that is on the squares ~ we found diamonds, circles, starts, hearts, flowers, and octagons.

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Sort by color…

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Play mailman and drop the pieces through a slit in the top of an oatmeal container!

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See how high you can stack and balance them.

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Create a garage for some of your vehicles.

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Sort by color and have fun counting them together.

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A few more ideas for using Interlox:

  • create simple color patterns {orange, yellow, orange, yellow}
  • create simple shape patterns {circle, square} with the shapes on the pieces
  • create a hands-on graph with the pieces once you have sorted by color ~ which color do you have more of?

Interlox can be purchased directly from the Guidecraft website, via their NEW Facebook page or from Amazon.

Much thanks to Guidecraft who provided this toy for us to use and review as a part of the Guidecraft Mom Bloggers team.

Monday, April 25, 2011

What’s in the Tub ~ Princesses and Knights

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Next month our theme at Totally Tots is Princesses and Knights.  Here are some ideas for you to use in a sensory tub with your little one to explore the theme up close and personal.   

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What’s in the Tub?: 

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I used the glass gems to make a moat around the castle and the craft sticks as a draw bridge. 

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The small ceramic crown held our glass gems and small treasures.

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So, what fun things did we do with the tub? 

  • Dug for the princesses lost treasure (buttons)
  • Counted how many glass gems it took to make our moat 
  • Defended the princess from the bad Knight and made up lots of fun stories

What’s in the Tub? is a feature that focuses on fun sensory tub ideas to go along with the monthly theme at Totally Tots.   Click here to see past sensory tub ideas.

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Saturday, April 23, 2011

Treats 4 Your Tot

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Here are some more cool giveaways for tots/moms of tots, check them out below and let us know if you win something we told you about!!!!

Bolded are items we personally own and love!  If you are hosting a TOT friendly giveaway you are free to leave a link in the comments section!