Tot School-Getting ready for Christmas

Madalyn is now almost 25 months old.

This week, Madalyn got to start choosing the trays she wanted to work on (I have tried to keep about six out at a time).  She really loved being able to make these choices and especially loved the crafty trays.  Several years ago, I taught preschoolers and we went through a new curriculum training and our trainer told us that kids will do what they need to.  And sometimes it's over and over again that they will do it.  But it's important for them to be given this opportunity.  That's not to say that it's not important to offer a variety of different types of activities.  :)

Check out all the wonderful ideas on this website, plus there are links to other blogs who also participate in tot school.  Tons and tons of wonderful ideas (I love checking out all the activity ideas that different moms share). 

Has anyone found anything good at Target in their $ bins lately?  Ours has nadda, especially for Christmas craft stuff and I'm so disappointed!

Each morning, Madalyn woke up to a little present in a sock for Advent.  Many of those gifts lent themselves to different tot school activities that you will see below.

Lots of crafting going on this week... painting, glitter glue, gluing, cutting, markers... the list goes on and on.

painting a wooden snowman

wooden Christmas tree ornament with paint, jewel stickers, a foam sticker star, and glitter glue 

using foam paint to decorate a snowman

sticker card making

liquid water color painting

do a dotting on accordian folded paper

gluing gingerbread confetti to some paper

several foam sticker crafts, Madalyn especially loves the ones that have something like a hat to put on an animal or gingerbread cookie

decorating a foam tree cutout with jewel stickers, regular stickers, and glitter glue

Some other tot tray activities:

sorting by shapes

one of Madalyn's absolute favorite new tray activities: eye dropper transferring.... this kept her busy a long long time!

Madalyn continued to enjoy her sensory tub, often she would use pinchers (tweezers of some sort) to transfer the objects, she is getting really good at successfully using the pinchers

hanging ornaments, this mini tree was just the right size for her to practice on (and she's received a few ornaments in her socks lately)

And I think this particular activity may just have been her favorite.... wrapping presents (aka some of her ornaments that she thought should be wrapped).

And a picture of the finished project.

She was quite proud.