9.08.2013

tot school - toddler geography - 25 months

The past two weeks (sidenote: I think once we get back to our house we will move back to one week tot school sessions, as the hectic summertime seems to finally have dissipated) we have deviated from our individual letter lessons. I set up a Toddler Geography unit which helped Ethan to learn about our hometown and the state he lives in, as well as a lot more of the country and world thanks to our new classroom maps and postcard swapping activity. This was the first time I officially introduced Ethan to marking the postcard locations on his maps instead of just storing them as they came in the mail, which is something that I want to be an ongoing part of tot school. I'll update our colorful, marked maps with our future tot school updates!

GEOGRAPHY STACKING BLOCKS

I wrapped a few different boxes in some heavy duty white cardstock to make these stacking blogs. The largest one has a photo of the world, the next one has a photo of the United States, the next one has a photo of Florida, the next one has a photo of Coral Springs and the smallest one has a photo of Ethan's house. The point of these was to stack them (or line them up, which Ethan did a lot of) in corresponding order. The world is the biggest, and Ethan's house is the smallest. Ethan really enjoyed this activity, if not just to order the blocks by size or build a big tower.

NEW FOUND GLORY FELT BOARD

Ethan always hates the felt board so I try to make it fun in hopes he comes around. Since we were learning about our hometown, Coral Springs, I thought it would be fun to include New Found Glory who are both Ethan's favorite band and from Coral Springs. Ethan actually got a kick out of this, and it was the first thing he noticed when he walked into our tot school classroom. For probably the first time ever, he actually had fun playing with the felt board.

POSTCARD MAPPING

One of our trays was a stack of our postcards and some colorful post-it tabs. Because I am horribly disorganized what with our "moving house" situation, I totally didn't snap a photo of our marked maps for this update. So far we have a whole bunch from around the country and even some cool ones coming in internationally, which has been a lot of fun. Our maps are getting pretty colorful!

FLORIDA DISCOVERY BIN

For our discovery bin, I collected a bunch of "Florida" items. This included some oranges, manatee cards, a stuffed raccoon, snakes, turtles, seashells, sunscreen, sunglasses, lizards, alligators and some other odds and ends. Ethan wasn't thrilled with the bin, but he did enjoy snacking on the oranges.

BUILD A BEACH

Since we go to the beach a lot living in South Florida and all, I thought it would be fun for Ethan to create his own little beach in a bin. I put out a cup of sand, some water, sea shells and a shovel. I thought Ethan would go crazy for this activity but really he only tolerated it. I guess it couldn't compare to the real thing.

WHERE IN CORAL SPRINGS ACTIVITY

This was Ethan's favorite activity this week. Actually, this was probably Ethan's favorite activity in the history of our tot school adventure. Actually, this is still one of Ethan's favorite toys and things to do and he still does it a handful of times a day. Anyone else remember "Where In The World is Carmen Sandiego" or am I totally showing my age? I thought it would be fun to recreate this but in our hometown and with Ethan's favorite person ever, his aunt Megan. With the promise of a Jamba Juice, my sister agreed to spend an afternoon with me driving around the city and taking photos in front of all of Ethan's favorite places and our city landmarks. I printed the photos and put them onto little craft sticks. For extra fine motor practice, I put a collander out and Ethan got to stick the photos into the holes as he named them. I was surprised at how many landmarks he was able to actually recognize on his own (the mall? The post office?) and he loved this activity. Now when we're driving and he spots one of the places in this activity, he's quick to call them out.

ART WALL

We were all sick, and then we had to leave our house, so we didn't accomplish nearly as much art as we usually do. I had used Twisty Noodle to print some Florida printables and also used Coloring Page Creator to turn some pictures from our little hometown into a coloring page.

LINKING UP WITH:

Tot School Montessori MondayI Can Teach My Child

No Time For Flash CardsFor the Kids Friday



1 comment:

  1. absolutely excellent post! I love the Florida Discovery Bin and how you incorporated music (a band) into his learning experience :) Pinning!

    Daydreaming Realist

    ReplyDelete

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