Tot School Week in Review: Ice Cream!

This week was a pretty relaxed week with tot school. I've been super busy trying to get all of our homeschool curriculum bought, organized, and ready to go in a few weeks. How is it almost August already? This summer just flew by!

On Instagram this week, we had an "ice cream" play prompt, so our activities centered around ice cream! Some of these resources I offer for free in my Toddler Resources tab, so be sure to check that out. 

This ice cream scoop color matching worksheet is great and can be used in a variety of way - dot markers, dot stickers, pom poms, or other counters are just a few things you can do with it. Zeke used dot markers and dot stickers. I made the scoops big on purpose - it's easier for little fingers to get the dot stickers or markers inside a circle that is a little larger than the sticker or marker dot. This is a great activity for fine motor control and color matching!

Here is a tip I have for stickers and toddlers - fold back the sticker sheet so the stickers are poking up about halfway. It's much easier to peel those stickers this way!

We also used these pattern block mats from Tara West on Teachers Pay Teachers. Zeke did such a great job with these cards! I can't wait to print out more for him to use this year.

We also used these ice cream scoop counting cards from Tara West. I only printed and laminated the 1-4 cards because those are the numbers we are working on. I gave Zeke playdough and a biscuit cutter to make the scoops. We keep our playdough on a piece of parchment paper for easy clean up!

I also whipped up this worksheet the other morning. Zeke had to look at the number and count that many dot marker "ice cream scoops" on each cone. He did a pretty good job, but he can't recognize his numbers yet. I would name the number and he would repeat, and then we counted together as he dotted each scoop.

These ice cream scoop pom pom matching cards are in my Etsy shop for $2.00, but I offer them here for free under my Toddler Resources tab. You can laminate them and cut them out to make cards, or slip the entire sheet into page protectors like I did here. Zeke matched the pom poms to the scoops, and although this seems simple, he had a blast and did it several times!

I printed an extra one of the color matching worksheets to use a sticker chart for brushing Zeke's teeth. He has been refusing to have me brush them or brush them himself lately, so I thought an incentive would be nice. It's worked pretty good so far, but he still isn't doing a great job at brushing his teeth. At least he is trying!

He also played with several busy bags this week, including this Transportation Shapes bag. He loves driving the cars around the shapes and placing them on the roads. This is available in my Etsy shop - link in sidebar! It's been a great before-bed activity to settle him down a bit.

He also reads books to himself all the time. He'll grab a big stack of picture books and go to the couch in the living room or the couch in the den and read, read, read! I love it. He talks about the pictures and recites the storylines that he remembers. It's so sweet.

He loves this peg stacking toy! He was putting the pegs around the outside of the base, making a big square. He did this quite a bit this week. It's funny how he gravitates to certain toys more than others some weeks.

We had a simple week themed around ice-cream with lots of hands-on play. Some weeks we do more worksheets and some weeks we do more play-based learning. Which does your toddler prefer? Leave me a comment and let me know! Zeke loves both, but he especially loves worksheets and is always asking for another worksheet.