Yippee Ki Yo Ki Yay

Happy Monday!!  This week's Munchkin Theme is Cowboys!  Rootin, tootin, shootin cowboys.  Munchkin hasn't had much exposure to Cowboys (fictional or real) and it seems high time the lil pardner gets in the saddle.  Here's a round up of our planned Cowboy activities


Letter of the Week: H
Crafty Creative Sensory Activities:

• H is for Horse letter craft (since Cowboys ride horses)
• Bandanna matching game
• Horseshoe sponge painting
• Dowel rod 'hobby horse' races
• Gold digging sensory tub

Books:

• Cowboy Slim by Julie Danneberg
• Cowboy Small by Lois Lenski
• Cowboy Camp by Tammi Sauer
• Gingerbread Cowboy by Janet Squires
• B Is for Buckaroo : A Cowboy Alphabet by Louise Whitney
• Cowboy Roy by Cathy Dubowski , Mark Dubowski
• Cowboy and Octopus by Jon Scieszka

Songs:

• Home on the Range
• I'm a Little Cowboy (I'm a Little Teapot tune)
• I'm a little cowboy here's my hat...here are my spurs and here are my chaps
• When I get up, I work all day...then get on my horse and ride away

Alphabet Soup

Happy Monday!!  We've been doing the letter of the week thing for awhile now.  I'm not sure if the letter knowledge has really been sinking in with Munchkin, so this week I decided to do a full alphabet theme.


Letter of the Week: All of them
Creative Crafty Sensory Activities:

• Alphabet hop game (I spread foam letters out and then call out a letter for Munchkin to hop to)
• Letter tracing
• Letter fishing (with foam fish having a metal brad eye)
• Letter hunt (during weekly errands)
• Alphabet collage

Books:

• Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr
• Dr. Seuss's ABC : An Amazing Alphabet Book by Dr. Seuss
• The Sleepy Little Alphabet : A Bedtime Story from Alphabet Town by Judy Sierra
• Eating the Alphabet by Lois Ehlert
• Goodnight Moon ABC : An Alphabet Book by Margaret Brown
• K Is for Keystone : A Pennsylvania Alphabet by Kristen Kane
• Museum ABC by The (NY) Metropolitan Museum Of Art
• Alphabeep!: A Zipping, Zooming ABC by Debora Pearson

C is for Car

Happy Tuesday!  Here's our C is for Car letter craft - Munchkin liked this one so much that he's told me that he only wants to make car crafts from now on :)  Here's what we used for our letter craft:

• Green construction paper for the background
• Blue construction paper for the letter C
• Yellow, Orange, Red, Purple and Black construction paper for the cars

Beep Beep, Honk Honk

Happy Monday!!  It's no secret that Snugglebug's favorite plaything are his cars.  Lots of cars.  He loves to drive them around... crash them... build parking lots...  So we're devoting an entire week to cars :)  Here's a look at our vroom-tivities for this week:

Letter of the week: C

Creative Crafty Sensory Fun:

• C is for Car letter craft
• Paper collage stop light
• Car color sorting
• DIY car mat
• Cardboard box city (to go with our car mat)
• Car wash water sensory tub

Books:

• The Berenstain Bears and the Big Road Race by Stan and Jan Berenstain
• Everything I Know About Cars by Tom Lichtenheld
• Cool Cars by Tony Mitton and Ant Parker
• World of Cars by Disney Storybook Artists
• Cars and Trucks and Things That Go by Richard Scarry
• Cars by Ben Smiley
• Ready, Set, Go! (Cars Series) by Annie Auerbach
• Car Wash Kid (Rookie Reader Series) by Cathy Goldberg Fishman
• Cars by Anne Rockwell
• The Life of a Car by Susan Steggall
• Rattletrap Car by Phyllis Root
• That's Not My Car by Fiona Watt

Post Master Munchkin

Happy Thursday!!  One of our activites this week was setting up a Post Office.  Munchkin has been to the Post Office a few times and had a vague idea about what goes on there.  Our role play game included him 'stamping' the incoming mail and putting it into the mailbox, then collecting the mail from the mailbox and putting it into his mail bag (aka, my old laptop case), and finally delivering the mail based on the color of stamp.  I set up four 'mailboxes' around the house and he went from box to box sorting out the mail for that colored box.  He had an absolute blast with this game and has played it every day this week!

I used index cards for the 'letters' and adhered the foam stamps from our stamp matching to the corners with a glue stick

And here's Munchkin with all of the other Post Office stuff.  I gave him one of my big paper punches to use as the 'stamper' and just cut a slit in one of Dad's shoe boxes to stand in for the mailbox.  Those colored bins behind him are our mailboxes (they're also our tot trays, but tot school wasn't in session during this activity)

Stamp Matching

Happy Tuesday!!  Over the past few weeks, I've finally got an actual tot school going for Munchkin.  I have a 3 shelf bookcase stocked with 4 trays at a time and tons of supplies just waiting to make it into rotation.  The nice thing with the set up is that Munchkin's table & chair (and bookcase) are right beside my desk in our office.  He's able to work independently beside me, and I'm able to get some work done :)  And Munchkin L-O-V-E-S tot school.  It's the first thing he wants to do in the morning and frequently asks for more tot school in the evening.  Since Mail is our theme this week, I thought we'd have at least a few Mail themed activities in the Tot Trays this week.  Here's our Stamp Matching:

I just used sheets of foam from the Dollar Store and cut them into stamp sized rectangles with my pinking shears

Then Munchkin sorted out the colors into four small containers.  We're working on Munchkin's patience and focus (he likes to jump around from activity to activity just like his Mama) and I'm finding that sorting is a great activity for that - it's not so long that he becomes overly bored, but it's long enough that by the end the novelty has worn off

M is for Mail

Happy Monday!  Our Munchkin Theme is Mail this week.  As part of our mail fun, we'll be setting up a post office and doing some color and shape sorting with 'stamps'.  Here's what we used for our letter craft this week:

• Green construction paper for the background
• Legal sized envelope
• Red construction paper for the letter M
• Yellow foam cut with pinking shears for the stamp