Calendar Cards: Thanksgiving

Later this month we'll be celebrating the American holiday, Thanksgiving, so I made these calendar cards with that in mind.  As requested, I'm making these available to all of you. :)

Click here to download

Please keep in mind that I format these myself, so they're not perfect, but they'll certainly get the job done. : ) Also, as with all of my printables, these are for your personal use only - please do not sell or offer them in a giveaway. Thank you and enjoy!

~Thank you for your comments!~

August Sensory Tub - Back to School!

One last sensory tub for the road. I sure will miss creating these over the next few months!

Since James will still have school with my husband, I decided to go with a 'back to school' theme for this tub. I've been wanting to make this for a while, but opted for a fall/apple theme last year instead.

Here's what's inside:
:: Shredded notebook paper (James, under my supervision, used a shredder machine to make this)
:: Personalized pencil case (I won this in a giveaway. James can pack the supplies in the pouch and I know he'll love using the zipper!)
:: Crayons
:: Pencils
:: Erasers (which can be added to the pencil tops for a fine motor activity)
:: Pencil sharpener (to be used with the pencils, of course)
:: Scissors (James can further cut the shredded paper)
:: Paper clips (these can be used to make chains - see our recent activity involving this)
:: Wooden alphabet tiles with little holes at the top (to be used with the lacing string in the pencil pouch)
:: Number beads, 0-10 (can also be laced)
:: Foldable ruler - no clue where this came from; I've had it for years.
:: Tiny yarn apples knitted by me last year
:: Colorful shapes (they link together)
:: Mini homemade notebook (James can use the pencils he's sharpened or the crayons to draw inside of the notebook)
:: Small alphabet book
:: School bus calendar cards
:: Back to school novelty buttons (found at Joanne's years ago)

James had since grown tired of the transportation tub and the pond tub so this new one was welcomed with opened arms! His favorite thing so far is the foldable ruler. :)

Click the button below to see a full list of my sensory tubs or click here to view my slideshow on the Counting Coconuts Facebook page.

~Thank you for your comments!~

On Our Shelves - November

Here are our activities for November - some are fall/Thanksgiving theme related, some aren't. These activities are for the entire month of November. I should note that I don't put them all out at once, but rather I rotate them around.

Practical Life

Button Turkey. This is the same one I made last year, the idea came from here.

Pouring Corn Kernels. Always arrange transferring work so it begins left and moves right (it simulates the direction of reading). I've made an exception to that with pouring and I arrange it with James' dominant hand in mind.

Snap Dressing Frame. I got this from Kid Advance and I can't say I'd recommend their dressing frames. They're a bit tight and hard to work with. I had to cut and alter them in order to make them usable.

Sorting Beans

Tonging Pom-poms

Transferring Marbles. The little suction cups hold the marbles perfectly, but it does require some careful handling. Excellent fine motor activity.

Transferring Fruit. These fruits are actually little erasers, which I found locally. James will use a strawberry huller to transfer these from one bowl to the other.

Lacing Wooden Spools

Sensorial

Harvest Sensory Tub

Turkey Playdough

Color Tablets... with a twist. These were starting to collect dust, so I put some flashcards out along with the box. It worked! James worked with these a few different times last week.

Language

In our book corner:
In November by Cynthia Rylant
Scarecrow by Cynthia Rylant
Too Many Pumpkins by Linda White
This First Thanksgiving Day: A Counting Story by Laura Krauss Melmed
A Plump and Perky Turkey by Teresa Bateman
Thanks for Thanksgiving by Julie Markes

Poem & Poetry Basket. This fun idea comes from My Montessori Journey and the poem, which I found in one of my poetry books, was written by John Updike.

Thanksgiving Vocabulary Cards. I found these on abcteach.

Reading Cards. Now that James is sounding out words, he's anxious to practice his new skill. These cards are great because on one side there's the word and corresponding photo, and on the opposite side there is just the word. James and I went through these once using the photo side and then again using just the word side - he read them all quite easily.

James is definitely in a sensitive period for language. He's reading a lot and this week he's taken to spelling out tons of random words. It's pretty cute because he'll be talking and he'll say, "Mom..." and then he'll pause to spell out the word m-o-m and he'll continue on with his sentence stopping to spell this or that word as he goes along. :)

Math

Fabric Numbers

Cards & Counters. I used some cornucopia calendar inserts for the cards and leaf sequins as the counters.

Pumpkin Pie Game. This is just like the one we did last year, only this time I used larger numbers and small plastic pumpkins (which I found at Hobby Lobby while I was in the states - I highly recommend them). This work was a huge hit with James and we ended up doing much more with it than I originally planned. We worked on the concepts of less/more, bigger/smaller, some/all/none and also addition/subtraction.

I also printed out a couple dot-to-dot activities from abcteach.

Culture/Science

Leaf Rubbing

Anatomy of a Bird Puzzle

USA Puzzle

Discovery Tray. Lots of fun things on this month's tray: a seed pod, some acorns, a geode (which we'll crack open next week) and those sweet little husk dolls were a precious gift from Beth of From the Hive. Thank you again, Beth!

Plant or Animal Cards. These are from Montessori For Everyone. These were super easy for James and he kind of looked at me like, "why are we doing this?" Ha! But while he knew for sure what was or was not an animal, he seemed a bit surprised by what was a plant. Like the grapes or flowers or trees - we've never really referred to them as a plant before.

Art & Music

Stamping. I had this out for October and James LOVED it.

Build A Scarecrow. For this activity I simply cut out little bits of clothing which James can put together to make a scarecrow.

Cutting Stickers. I spaced out these little fall stickers along a strip of paper so James can cut in between them.

We're singing some of these songs this month.

Instrument Nomenclature Cards. I made these myself. I'm sorry, I tried and tried, but I wasn't able to format these properly in order to share them as a PDF. You can find the images on Google, save them to your hard drive, then collectively print them.

Nearer to Thanksgiving we'll be doing a "thankful turkey" activity. James will think about and tell me what he's thankful for and we'll then write it down on little feather shaped pieces of paper and add them to a cut-out of a turkey. I've remember doing this when I was in grade school and I'm excited to do it with James now.

I also printed out some color pages from abcteach.

~Thank you for your comments!~

Turkey Playdough

I've dedicated our November playdough to the American Thanksgiving holiday coming up later this month.

Gobble-gobble!

I simply created some brown playdough (see my sidebar for the recipe) and gathered some feathers and googly eyes together in a basket.

James thought this turkey making business was hilarious!!He named his turkey "Old Featherhead". :0)

~Thank you for your comments!~

Tot School - The Letter Q

Hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving holiday! We spent lots of time relaxing and enjoying our family and the nice 4 day weekend my husband had off from work - it was wonderful to have him around so much!

We did do some Tot School stuff earlier in the week though - this week we hung out with the letter Qq...

Art & Music:
We made a "quilted" Q. James wasn't really interested in placing the squares, but was more than happy to be on glue detail, so we worked as a team that way. :)

James painted with Q-Tips. This was a big hit!

Aside from our weekly Kindermusik class, we didnt' do much in the way of music. Well, unless you count listening to TONS of Christmas music!! We set up our tree this weekend and had a blast dancing around to Charlie Brown - James thinks it's hilarious when Mommy and Daddy get jiggy with it!

Letters & Numbers:
We read a.lot. of Thanksgiving books as well as the Q book from our AlphaTales series. James played with one of his alphabet puzzles and also worked on a simple Q sounds matching game I found on Kidsoup.

I got this pumpkin pie counting activity idea from Kidsoup. It's meant to be used with a pair of tongs, but James couldn't be bothered, so he used his hands instead. He did a great job putting the correct number of cotton balls (whip cream) in the pie tins.

I made these turkey manipulatives for James to sort into popsicle holders. He loves these and really enojys lining them up and counting them.

Science & Nature:
We went on a nature walk to collect leaves for a rubbing project I had planned (and never got around to doing). James was fascinated by all the different trees. We saw an avocado tree full of avocados, a palm tree full of coconuts and a Kisskidee sitting atop another trees (don't know what kind it is - if you do, let me know!).

Practical Life:
James has gotten really good at washing his hands, so I thought it was high time he wash something else... a mini pumpkin! He l.o.v.e.d. this and spent a good 30 minutes scrubbing this little pumpkin clean!

I pulled out the ol' button turkey. James is getting a bit better at buttoning, but still has a ways to go. He's more entertained with the turkey itself. Wait till he sees the button Christmas tree I made!

Quesadilla starts with Q, so I thought it would be fun for James to make a quesadilla all by himself! Well, I prepped everything and put it in the microwave, but he sprinkled the cheese on the tortilla and added the top tortilla (after taking a bite out of it 1st) when he was finished. Yum!

I saw a link on Activity Mom's blog to get this cute Max & Ruby placemat. James is a big fan of M&R, so I knew this would go over well. I set up a basket of table items for him to practice with. He liked this so much he did it many times over.

Other activities:
We tried money sorting. (yes I washed the money 1st!) James usually likes to play with the coins in my purse, but for some reason he just wasn't digging this activity. He looked at the coins and got a kick out of how Bermudian coins have pigs, birds, and fish on them, but that was the end of it. Ah well, we'll try it again another time.

I special ordered pegs just like these from the States because I could not find them anywhere on the island. So, they arrived and I packed them away for Christmas, and then wouldn't you know I found them at a flea market for 50 cents the other day! James LOVES these things!! I highly recommend them!

I printed out this Thanksgiving sequencing activity from Kidsoup (my go-to place, can you tell?). James did a great job at this and I plan on doing more of these kinds of things in the future.

James (and his fake gecko) enjoyed the last week of his autumn themed sensory tub. On Tuesday I'll post my Christmas tub!

You'll never guess who came to Bermuda last week - The Queen of England! And during our Q week, too! What a treat! Of course we (and everyone else on the island) went to see her at Dockyard. We got pretty close to her, too. :)

We spent Thanksgiving at the beach, enjoying the sun, sand and a picnic. It was so relaxing!
Despite our taking a few days off for Thanksgiving, we managed to have a fun-filled Tot School week! Some people have asked me how we fit everything in each week and the truth is I'm always surprised at how much we get done. I never push any of the acitivites on James and we always do things at his pace. Fortunately he wants to do Tot School stuff all the time. I just have to make sure I'm organized and ready to go with activities!

Click the button to the left for more Tot School ideas.