Tot School: F is the letter of the week!

The twins are 28 months old and they are begging to do school. From the spontaneous tot school activities we've had, it is now time to a more structured tot school (because they are literally begging for it!). Since, we already have Sonlight's P4/5, I figured we can still follow the same pattern - only... in a faster pace because they are still tots and when tots are bored... they just don't want to do school anymore.

How did we start tot school today? C woke up at 7:30am singing her usual la-la-la song while on her bed. She woke me up with her song and suddenly climbed onto my tummy and said "Mom, I want school! want school, mom!" So, that was it. We ate breakfast, but since she was insisting that we do school right away, I asked her to play puzzles with her yaya (nanny) which she shove away and told her "No, mommy only! Mommy, teach school only". :)

So, our letter F for the week goes this way.

Our 1st activity was memory verse: (2 minutes)
"Pay attention my child (index finger on head) to what I say (finger on lips), listen (hands on ear) carefully" - Proverbs 4:20

2nd activity: (2 minutes)
We were supposed to read a bible story, but today, we reserved our nightime reading to bible stories so we read a Mother Goose story Jack and Jill instead.

3rd activity: Introducing the Letter F! (3 minutes)
I have 2 fabric flowers and a magnetic letter F. So, I told them "The sound of F is... /F/ for flower! Here's 1 flower for C and another for D! Hurray!" "This is letter F... /F/ /F/ - flower!" Then we traced a letter F using their finger on the table.

4th activity (3 minutes): Wooden sticks - I bought from Handwriting w/o Tears at Sonlight.com. You can use Pocky sticks or wafer sticks if you don't have the wooden sticks from HWOT.
I gave them 2 short sticks and 1 long stick, then we played "tap the sticks" then, I asked them to "Raise the long stick! Now, tap.. tap.. tap... tap your.... shoulder! tap.. tap..tap your... head! hands, nose." After this, we started building the letter F with the sticks.

Wooden sticks are from Handwriting without tears. We use this a lot to teach body awareness and  correct handwriting strokes.

5th Activity (10 minutes): Color and add stickers INSIDE the letter F.
Download the activity sheet here.

I instructed them to color within the lines (inside the petals) as this is a good exercise for fine motor skills. On the left is C's work, which shows that she is more interested  in these types of activities.

D is more interested in making funny faces rather than coloring activities. So, I said... "Wow! That's right, D! F starts with Funny Face!!!"

6th Activity (10 minutes): Sensory Bin aka Magic Letter Box with all F things like Fish, Fork, Feather, Four, and the letter F itself! I just filled it with Beans so they feel different textures in the box.

Buried treasure!

They were crazy over this sensory bin. As they pick up and find a treasure, I would ask them what it is and to tell me if it starts with /f/ - F!

7th activity: Line tracing. Butterfly and flowers (5 minutes).
Download the activity sheet here.

 You can download the free worksheet which I have done specially for my readers.

Busy.. busy...

8th activity: Art with flower petals. (8 minutes)

You need to cut out 5 petals from a flower gift wrap (just my choice), trace those petals as a flower on a paper. Have the kids stick those petals using a glue to follow the puzzle-like pattern and color or decorate them.

Ready for art!

Building art with the letter F!

9th activity: Clay making with the letter F. Since I really do hate cleaning up clay which all ends up on the carpet, I just allow them to play 1 color of their choice per day per child.

Making a letter F, I joins in to teach them how to do it.

Just a tip: Try sticking the paper/worksheet with a tiny piece of tape on top of the paper attached on the table. This prevents the paper from moving around the table and this frustrates tots.

We did not finish all of this in one sitting! We do 1 letter per week or sometimes, we even do longer or go back to a letter for review. It doesn't matter, just as long as there's mastery before we move on to the next. Since they have mastered the letter A, the sound of A and what starts with A (As, I have introduced that letter for 3 months already) so it's just time to introduce a new one - the letter F!

I follow mostly the lead of my tots (which is way different in handling my 7 year old). With tots, If they don't feel like doing a certain activity, I just carry on, do something else, stop it and do it again next time.  No pressure needed for this age. Try engaging them to 1 activity for a day, do 1 letter a week (or 2) and follow your heart to teach what will best suit your little one!

Till, next time! Do share if you have done any of these activities! :)

Tot School: Activities for 18-24 months old!

I got this from a Montessori way of teaching. I have yet to introduce this to the twins. These were just plain cardboard and pompoms. The kid will place those pom poms on top of the letter. I am a firm believer for the Montessori method!

My twin girls are now 28 months! So, it means... we are officially starting our slightly structured and formal (rather than spontaneous) - TOT SCHOOL!

Prior to this - sort-of-formal-tot-school, we have been doing some engaging, just-when-mom-feels-like-it activities. When they were around 12 months we would do 1-2 activities a day (am and pm). That would be whenever I feel that they are in that "listening mood" - usually before their morning bath. Then, when they turned 18 months, we would do  (2 activity in the morning and 1 at night). But, since last week, I have tried to introduce 4-5 activities in one sitting and I was amazed how well they picked up and have fully sat through it.

Handling two different tots at the same level/age is far different than handling just one at a time. You become tempted to compare or focus alone on the one who does things more attentively. You cannot compare your child to another just because the other seem to be able to sit longer on an activity over the other. Being patient with both is key and focusing on their strengths is vital.

My twins are sooo much different with each other C can stay put for more than 15 minutes just to finish her painting while D wouldn't even care and would just playfully hold a crayon and do whatever strokes she can make. During a sticker activity time, C would follow my instructions by putting each sticker INSIDE the letter, while D would just play around and make silly faces and stick those stickers on her nose and cheeks. On the other side, D can count perfectly from 1-20 while C is not at all interested in counting. Each child is unique, I am now in the stage of finding their interests and learning style.

So, comparing each kid won't help at all. That is why I admire preschools who don't YET brand kids by the level of what they know (valedictorian, salutatorian, Best in this-or-that etc). IQ changes over time and is not always a basis for success. What matters are parents who will encourage their child and to focus in finding the child's interest, learning style, and most especially, their character, values and love of learning.

As a homeschooling mom, we are rewarded too by our daily experiences when what we teach manifests on our kids' daily encounters. Recently, one morning, C was crying and begging me to do school. I wasn't ready for any activity just yet and even if I have activities on our activity shelf,  she was insisting that I (and not her "yaya") to teach her- She was crying saying "I want Mommy, only!! Teach, teach, Cayie [Callie]" Aww... I almost melted. It has come into her bright idea that school is something that I would sit them on our table and do several activities. Most importantly, she loves to learn from mom.

Just to share to you, here are some of our spontaneous activities we've done before we had this more structured Tot School. Although, I am a real sucker on any educational toys and trinkets whenever I go out to the mall, I would buy almost anything interesting even in P88 Store (or the Dollar store in the US). Or I would rather make use of what is readily available in the house or anything inexpensive that I can easily throw away.

Body awareness: Manila Paper and crayons on the wall . I would trace them  on the rolled Manila Paper and would ask them to draw eyes, nose, ears, etc on their traced body. Kept them busy for 30 minutes which is a free time for me to read a book as they do these.

Pipe cleaners and a random basket makes a great fine motor activity. Kept them busy and happy for 15 minutes!

Pipe cleaners and pasta lacing activity!
get Uncooked Penne Pasta Shoot each on the pipe cleaner. Pipe cleaners @ Office Warehouse.

A great tantrum reliever is this handy dandy 1 whole illustration board! I just pop it open  when either of the girls are in a crabby mood. This side they are playing is full of crayon, paint, chalk, oil pastel, marker art. While we use the other side for chalk writing which they also love! It's less messy because even if they spill paint, it forms part of the artwork. This lasted for a year already and they are still using it for random art activity. All 3 kids share this all at the same time. We simply tuck in the illustration board at the back of our activity shelf when not in use.

Egg crates are awesome! Even if I don't intend to teach anything but this egg crate can do a lot of stuff. Here, D is simply putting pom poms on each spot. I plan to recreate this tray for color, number or letter matching activities soon.

They (or just C) are doing Pattern Blocks. D is really not into these kinds of activities and would rather use the mirror and gaze upon herself. Yah, that mirror comes with the pattern blocks which can be bought at sonlight.com

Look at those proud eyes. C is very proud that she knows how to write the letter A (well, almost). I make use of dry-erase markers and papers to some of our worksheets that are inserted inside a clear book so she can easily erase or do the same worksheet next time. I have been using Phonemic awareness to teach them and not yet (sometimes) teach the actual letter. But, still they know the letter well enough. We use starfall.com and hooked on phonics videos a lot for following letter strokes!

We love art! We have excess paper bags and those googly eyes, pom poms and teared scratch paper , bingo markers are a sure win for art activity!

Of course, we water the plants too!

How about you? What are your usual activities you do with your kid/s? Do share as I am also a learning mama who just simply adore teaching the little ones. :)