Tot School Tuesday - Matching

Matching is similar to sorting, but it's a totally different skill set that can be practiced in many ways. Matching is important for visual discrimination, language building, noticing patterns, and teaching focus.

Zeke loves matching activities. There are so many things you can provide for your child to match:

• colors
• shapes
• animals
• numbers 
• letters
• pictures
• shadows
• sizes
• socks

We do a lot of hands-on matching activities, but I also create plenty of matching worksheets for Zeke to use. He loves cutting and gluing, so I try to incorporate that into his tot school. He loves to match color pictures to their black and white outlines, which is a great visual discrimination skill. We also do shape matching worksheets, color matching worksheets, and shadow matching worksheets. 

Here are few of Zeke's matching activities that he enjoyed.

He is matching farm animals to picture cards I created.

I used a sand sensory tray and some starfish shape cards to make this matching activity.

I used our alphabet flashcards and Learning Resources letters for Zeke to match.

He is matching pom poms to ice cream scoops. This is available in my Etsy shop.

He loves Fruit Loops! He matched the cereal to the same color of the rainbow.

He used dot markers to dot the matching ice cream scoops.

I love these shadow puzzles from Voila! This is a great visual discrimination toy.

He matched his Melissa and Doug wooden cards to flashcards I created.

I love clothespin activities! He matched the clothespins colors to the bear card.

These are just a few of the matching activities Zeke has done. When he was younger, we would do these almost every day. Look around your house for items you can let your child match. Colored bears to pieces of felt? Animals to matching animal print fabric? Cereal to colored paper?

What has your child matched lately? 

Tot School Tuesdays - Transferring Objects

Tot School Tuesday is when I share tips and ideas for tot school. Zeke is 3 years old so technically he is still considered a toddler. We do some preschool work as well. Today I'm going to talk about transferring and why it's an important skill.

Transferring is exactly what it sounds like - it's transferring objects from one container to another. We have done this is many different ways. There is no right or wrong way to practice this skill!

Transferring is important because it helps build the fine motor muscles in your child's hand needed to do harder tasks later on - cutting with scissors, writing with a pencil, and buttoning their own clothes. It's also an easy way to practice crossing the midline (which is also exactly what it sounds like - crossing from one side of the body to the other).

An invitation for Zeke to transfer plastic bugs with tongs onto bottle caps

You can introduce transferring activities to your child as young as a year old. Zeke began transferring objects with his hands at about that age. The older they get, the bigger variety of transferring tools you can offer. Transferring tools can be as simple as a spoon or as complex as a pair of tweezers. You can find many great tools at your dollar store - mini tongs, large plastic serving spoons, kid's plastic tweezers, magnetic wands, and even salad servers. In fact you may have many of these at home!

Zeke (3) transferring cotton balls with tongs

Zeke (18 months) transferring cotton balls with a spoon

There are so many options for what your child can transfer, too! A few of the things we have transferred are:

• dried beans
• cotton balls
• pom poms
• water
• plastic animals
• glass beads
• wooden eggs
• rice
• rocks and pebbles
• beads
• buttons
• jingle bells
• plastic gems
• small pinecones

To introduce transferring to your toddler, simply gather two small containers, a transferring tool, and objects to transfer! If your child is new to this activity, be sure to begin with something easy. Cotton balls and a spoon work well for the first time. If they resort to using their hands, let them! You want your child to be comfortable with this activity before making it a bit challenging.

Zeke (2.5) transferring colored water with syringes

Even though Zeke has been transferring objects for about two years now, he still enjoys the activity and reaps benefits each time. I've watched him go from using his hands to learning how to manipulate a pair of tongs and move objects! We continue to transfer objects because it's continually building those fine motor muscles! 

Zeke (2) transferring rocks with a spoon

What objects has your toddler transferred?

The Peaceful Preschool - Letter C

Zeke had a great week learning about the letter C with The Peaceful Preschool! Our books this week were "Caps for Sale", "Corduroy", and "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom" - three of our family favorites!

I'll post each activity under the book that we used for inspiration.

CAPS FOR SALE

Such a cute book about some mischievous monkeys and a cap peddler! I found a few printables to go along with this book. 

One of the activities in the Peaceful Preschool guide was to sort coins. I really wasn't sure if Zeke was ready for this activity yet, but I decided to go ahead and give it a try. I used this tray and some plastic coins (nickels, dimes, and pennies). Zeke was actually really great at distinguishing between the coins and sorted the entire tray! 

It also suggested painting a scene from the book, so I printed out a coloring picture of a cap and let Zeke use watercolors. He has started painting objects instead of covering the whole page, and I love the tie-dye look his cap has!

I also found a free printable of some peddler's caps. I shrunk them and glued them to clothespins. I drew some colored lines on a craft stick and Zeke had to clip the hats on the correct colors. This was a great fine motor activity! He also matched caps with the lowercase letters to monkeys with the uppercase letters (A-C onlhy).

He also put coin stickers on his letters. 

He loves feeling the glitter glue on his tactile flashcards!

THE COW 

This poem was included in the curriculum, so I decided to make Zeke some Montessori-friendly cow printables! He really loves worksheets that involve gluing, so I made sure to include one of those!

I created a dot marker letter sheet with Montessori fonts. He loves dot markers! I also used a cow coloring page and added some "C"s for him to dot. I used the same image of the cow to make the counting spots worksheet, where he added brown dot stickers to each cow according to the number. He can recognize numbers 1-5, so we've been doing plenty of activities with those numbers! I also had him count the cows and glue the correct number in the square. 

CHICKA CHICKA BOOM BOOM

Beat you to the top of the coconut tree! This book is so fun to read! I focused on the letters A-C since that is what Zeke has learned so far. I created these worksheets.

I made these cards with numbers and Zeke had to add that many "coconuts" (brown stickers) to each tree. He loves stickers!

I put the upper and lowercase letters for A-C on this tree and gave Zeke a basket with the same moveable alphabet letters. He had to match them to the tree.

I also added circles with the letters and called out a letter for Zeke to "dot" with his marker.

Zeke has always been excellent at tracing, so I made this tracing worksheet with the letters A-C.

We also played with the letters in his name using his moveable alphabet.

I used the same tray he sorted coins in and let him sort his letters A-C. This tray was $10 from Amazon, and I use it for so many different activities!

CORDUROY

Such a cute story! I knew we had to use buttons for these activities, so again I made some worksheets. I make my own worksheets because I can make theme just the level Zeke needs. 

Again, I used this tray and a package of wooden buttons in three sizes. We worked on the vocabulary for "small", "medium", and "large." Zeke was great at noticing the sizes of each button and sorted the whole tray.

He also used the counting cards from The Peaceful Press and small buttons. He put buttons on the numbers and color-coordinated them himself! 

I made a button shape matching worksheet and a coloring page for Zeke.

We are really loving the gentle preschool lessons from The Peaceful Preschool. 

The Peaceful Preschool - Letter B

 Zeke enjoyed another week learning all about bears, blueberries, and bunnies! The Peaceful Preschool is such a gentle preschool guide and we are really loving it. I'm not going to list each activity we did like I did for the letter A week. It's a free sample week so I didn't feel as if I were giving too much away by listing things out so specifically. Here is an overview of what Zeke did. He had such a fun week! His books were "Blueberries for Sal", "The Runaway Bunny", and the Creation story from the Bible.

Zeke counted "blueberries" (blue pom poms) into this tray. I placed the numbers 1-5 in the squares and he had to count out that many blueberries. He can recognize the numbers 1-5 by sight now and can count out that many objects. 

I also set out a tin bucket of blueberries, raspberries, and strawberries. Zeke sorted them into smaller bowls, and then taste-tested each of them. He loves strawberries, but is not a fan of blueberries or raspberries!

This was a free printable from Royal Baloo. He colored the letter "b" bush green, added dot marker blueberries, and colored, cut out, and glued the bear family by the blueberry bush.

These were all free cut and glue printables from Teachers Pay Teachers. He color matched the characters from Brown Bear, Brown Bear, sorted uppercase and lowercase Bs, and glued the bears in number order 1-10. I had to help with the numbers 6-10, but he did such a great job with 1-5!

He also sorted socks and tried folding them together. This is one the "practical life" skills in The Peaceful Preschool. I'm always tempted to skip these, but then I'm always glad when I don't!

Another sorting activity was sorting animals into pairs. I put a set in each basket and he had to find their pairs and line them up. He also loved this!

He used the number cards from The Peaceful Preschool to count out colored bears. He did all ten numbers on his own, and I was so proud of him.

He really enjoyed sorting the animals by land and water. He understood the concept and did such a good job. This was simply two pieces of felt I laid in an old wooden tray. I added a mix of land and water animals from our collection. He played with this for a long time!

These were two activities from The Peaceful Preschool. He had a great time making the bunny mask and gluing the "bunny tails" onto his letters!

He also transferred "bunny tails" using tongs. He has finally gotten the hand of using the tongs to transfer items. Cotton balls are a great first choice because they're easy!

I printed this bunny labeling worksheet for Zeke as an introduction to labeling. I would name the body part, he would find it, and then he glued the label in the correct box. He wanted to color the bunny blue!

I'm so excited about everything he is learning. Have you read these books?