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!

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