Good Morning! I hope you all had a wonderful Halloween. AG had tons of fun trick or treating, I can’t wait to share the pictures with you. I also can’t believe November is here. There are just two months left of 2014. Craziness. I’m definitely not ready to see this year end, so I’ll be soaking up every bit until the new year. Anyhow, I’ll be back tomorrow with a Halloween recap. Until then, the lovely Katie from The Happenings of the Hermann’s is here guest posting for Mommy School! Katie has been a rockstar with mommy school with her little ones. I love seeing everything she’s doing posted on IG, she has so many unique and cute ideas. Her littles are pretty lucky to have such a fun mama!——————————————————————————————————————————Leah so kindly asked me to do a guest post on Mommy School and toddler learning. Given that she was the reason I started all of this learning with my daughter, I gladly accepted. We began our series of lessons based off of what Leah did with Avery…I just added my own touches here and there. Her lessons are a perfect starting place as she is awesome at providing all of the little details and tips you need.
This is our version of the Transportation Unit. I have an older son as well as my toddler, so it has been a learning experience for me, incorporating him into all of this too. We do most of our learning while he is in school, but he is also home a lot and wants to be a part of it.
Transportation
The sensory bins are by far the favorite part of all of these lessons. If you can imagine, this particular unit was very exciting for my older son (4 years old). I let him help me create this bin by gathering all of the cars, planes and tractors. He helped me put it all together and then I explained to him how it was important that Hadley got to play with it first. He knows this learning is mostly for her, and was wonderful about letting her do it first. I think he was excited to let her play with what he helped create.
We focused on learning each vehicle.
Vocabulary
Car/Truck/Airplane/Helicopter/Train/Tractor/Bike
We always try and incorporate colors and counting too! The stop light was extremely helpful in this lesson.
These are all books we already owned along with the My First Things That Go flashcards. They have been a great learning tool since my son was a baby. If you don’t have any, I highly recommend them. They come in Colors and Shapes, First Words, Animals and Things That Go.
My son already knows all the vehicle names, but we talked in more detail about what each vehicle did and places you would find each one. He also helped me read to his sister.
The Wheels on the Bus
Row Row Row Your Boat
The crafting is always my favorite part of each lesson!
We made a stop light craft while talking about colors, shapes, counting and matching.
We made alphabet trains and talked shapes, colors and letters. My son practiced writing his name and cutting shapes.
We painted hot air ballons with our fingers!
We pulled out every car, truck and train we own. Hadley is still talking about this day when we came home for just a few minutes between errands for a quick lesson. It was literally 10 minutes, but so worth it, knowing that it made her so happy she wants to do it again and again. Just a few minutes at a time is all you need.
More colors, counting and sorting…
Meyer was thrilled to show her how all of his boy toys work!
Meyer happened to have just gotten all of these transportation stamps for his birthday and they were the perfect addition to our lesson.
Ok, I lied, themed snacking is my favorite part…forget the crafts!
How fun are these? And easy?
The final way we included big brother was letting him take her for rides in his truck.
He felt like such a big part of these lessons…a win win for all!
How fun is this "lesson"? We have done similar things with Connor. One thing that he loved was when we took him to our small downtown center and pointed out the lights, signs and the crosswalk. Now, every time he sees the do not walk hand at the crosswalk, he tells us to stop and when the white walking guy comes back out, we can go. Even if we are idling at a red light. I love the age we are in.
Wow everything looks like so much fun. My two year old son is obsessed with trucks, trains, and diggers so this is right up his alley! We just got those stamps for his birthday too! I will definitely have to do a lot of these activities with noah!