Working on Tommy's goals in play is getting boring, so the teacher in me wants to have some more thematic stuctured time. So I've picked some themes and have searched on the web for thematic activities. Then God led me to homeschooling blog sites. Yes, stay at home/homeschooling moms write blogs about their children's adventures in learning. And yes there are preschoolers and toddler. They even make thematic packets with worksheets and "games" to print out. All for FREE! So I have downloaded lots of colorful and cute packets. Our goal for Tot School is focusing on Tommy's sensory goals like fine motor skills, oral motor, vocabulary, and getting off "Tommy's agenda."
Our first "unit" Garden
We have been working outside to restore our yard and get ready for a planter box for a garden. So what a better theme than flowers and gardens.
I made a sensory box with beans and included: pots, flowers, and bugs. We searched for bugs (Tommy's favorite part), planted flowers, picked flowers, and smelled flowers (another favorite part).
Workboxes
-Matching colors folder game- colored flowers to colored pots
-Matching numbers to amount of seeds folder game- flowers have a number on each and the pots have seeds on them. Count the seeds on the pot and match to the flower.
-Part of
homeschoolcreations.com's garden unit; we matched initial letter sounds to the picture and the tracing of the letter both lowercase and uppercase.
-Another part of
homeschoolcreations.com's garden unit; we matched black and white pictures to colored pictures.
--Another part of
homeschoolcreations.com's garden unit; we put the parts of a flower together and matched the vocab word to the part of the flower (ie. flower, leaves, stem, and roots)
-Read books from the library.
-I made grass, flowers, and flower stems out of felt for the felt board the Easter bunny brought.
Reflection
Tommy's attention span was more than anticipated and I was able to "reel him back in" when needed. This week I lacked in songs and art, two things I will add in next unit (transportation). I have so many ideas, but need to keep it simple and repetitive with a learner like Tommy. He likes to practice and master.
