Z is for Zebra Mini Tot Pack + Activities

Z is for Zebra Mini Tot Pack + Activities

We’re doing another informal summer tot school with Squeaker this year. Last year’s attempt at Mommy Camp didn’t get too far. But that was also due to poor planning on my part. Lack of interest from Squeaker also contributed. This year we’re taking daily walks (weather permitting), playing outside, having plenty of indoor picnics and tea parties, building with blocks… and just enjoying the moments. Along the way, if she learns something- great. But it’s not the focal point of summer for us. Recently, I had the opportunity to participate in an A to Z of Animals series with some amazing kid bloggers. We’re up last with the focus on the letter Z and we chose the Zebra for our animal. Be sure to check…

N is for Nest: A Mini Tot School Unit

N is for Nest: A Mini Tot School Unit

Squeaker’s interests are all over the place lately, so that means we haven’t done too many themed tot school units. Instead, I leave access to art supplies, books, and manipulatives for her to explore during the day. We also play a lot because I know that she’s learning through play and I think play is incredibly important for her development. With the recent change of seasons, and her ongoing interest in birds, I figured that we could start exploring outdoors and looking for signs of spring. I also wanted to incorporate letter recognition and some fine motor skills into it; so it would be beneficial for both Squeaker and Sweet B. We ended up with a mini tot school unit (that I also carried over…

Simple Science for Toddlers

Simple Science for Toddlers

It seems like forever since I’ve done a School with Squeaker post! Our tot-school this year has been incredibly informal and sporadic. I go off of her lead and her interests but I don’t have set activities or a schedule for her yet. This is based on her age. Yes, her attention span is increasing but she’s also 2. That’s not to say that I don’t do activities or crafts with her or that she doesn’t have access to materials. She does. I just haven’t planned it out exactly and again, I go by her interests. I want to keep it fun for her and I know she’s still absorbing all of the information, just that it happens in unplanned situations. And honestly, that’s how…

Easy Letter Matching Activity

Easy Letter Matching Activity

As we have our informal tot school, and by informal I mean we do a fair amount of free play, learning through play, pretend play, reading books, arts and crafts; sometimes I’ll try to sneak in a learning activity. But those learning activities are also play based, or at least have some element of play in them. I want to keep it simple enough for Squeaker and yet still with an element of challenge so she’s working on her skills. Things like fine motor, gross motor, letter identification, and that sort of thing. For Squeaker, this also means playing games and having learning activities that can be quick in nature or that she can come back to when her attention span allows for it. We’ll…

M is for Monkey Tot School Unit

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #FuelTheirAdventures #CollectiveBias Though our Tot school is still very much informal at this point, sometimes we do more in depth themes. And by in depth, I mean somewhat in depth as Squeaker’s attention span is still quite short. Still, I try to capitalize on her interests at the time and the most recent theme that we tried out was based on monkeys. To make it more of a theme, we decided on M is for Monkey as our tot school theme. We may revisit this in the future. For Squeaker, I wanted to keep this simple, yet fun. So I started looking through the books that we have…

F is for Farm Sensory Bin

Welcome to Alphabet Sensory Activities, hosted by The Jenny Evolution along with their partner site The Sensory Spectrum! 26 amazing bloggers have gotten together to share a sensory experience based on a letter of the alphabet every day this month. As one of the participating bloggers, I chose the letter F and we’re doing a fun farm sensory bin. Squeaker enjoys learning about farm animals, so I thought it would be fitting to do a sensory bin for her. Easy Sensory Bin Ideas (for non crafty moms) We haven’t done as many sensory bins as I would like, but when we do them it makes it extra special for Squeaker. One of the biggest problems that I run into is finding a filler material. Previously, I had used green…