Winter tot school activities

Well, I am way behind. I guess that's what happens during Christmas, right?? Here's a quick list of recent tot school activities in the last month:

Coffee filter trees, combined with pine needle printing for the background: These turned out wonderfully, and let the kids experience a number of textures, techniques and creativity.

Felt tree decorating: My aunt made this for Ellie last year, and the kiddos loved decorating the tree (and telling me what shapes to cut with the extra felt). It was great fun, plus good shape and color practice.

Ice cream cone tree decorating: Ice cream cones, frosting (they got to smoosh in the food coloring themselves) and sprinkles -- they were in heaven!

Look at that crazy hair!!

Salt dough ornaments with nature stamping: We gave each of the kids a cup, bundled them up and sent them outside to collect nature things to make prints in their ornaments. They picked all kinds of neat things, like pine needles, pinecones, rocks, leaves, etc. We added whole wheat flour, which gave them a really neat texture. I didn't get any pictures of the finished product, but here's one of them hard at work!

Cotton ball snowflakes: Ours didn't turn out exactly like snowflakes, because we let the kids do their own glue. But it was good fine motor practice, and we were surprised by how much the kids liked this one. 

Candy cane tissue paper collage: I printed out a candy cane picture for each kid, then gave them red and white tissue paper to glue onto the correct color. The older kids seemed to get it and like it for awhile, but needed more one-on-one help than we had adults for. Ellie enjoyed it on her own later.

Candy cane letter name hunt: I printed out each child's name in a candy cane font, then printed a duplicate set that I cut apart. I hid the letters around our living room, and we helped them match the letters. Two of the oldest really liked this, but again, it took a lot of adult interaction to help them do this one. 

Fluffy stuff: Keeping with the theme of this day, the older three liked it, the younger ones did not.

Red and white beanbag toss: Taking an idea from a library story time by us, I made six red and six white beanbags out of children's socks. Just fill them with rice or beans and tie a knot. They held up wonderfully and the kids sorted them into a red or white basket. This was a great game that Ellie has asked to repeat multiple times since tot school that week.

Christmas picture fishing: I made "fishing rods" out of a dowel rod, string and a heavy-duty magnet. Then I printed out a bunch of pictures of Christmasy things, and attached a paper clip to each. I put all the pictures in a hula hoop and let the kids fish. This one held their attention for a LONG time. We'll probably repeat it with different pictures later. 

WHEW! That's a lot of catch up...

Tot time: oat dough monsters, toast painting, watercolor letter plates

Tot school this week was crazy good. Pinterest, well played. Here are the activities I (read: Pinterest) contributed this week:

Oat dough monsters
The recipe calls for 1 c. oats, 2-3 c. flour, and 1 c. water. I ended up using a little less flour and a little more water. This made enough for five fist-sized monsters.

The kids had cut-up straws, cut-up pipe cleaners, googly eyes, pony beads and gems to decorate their monsters with.

This week, we had two almost-2-year-olds, two 2-year-olds and a bonus 5-year-old who was out of school. All five kids loved it. It was neat to see how differently they played and responded to the materials. None of the little kids really wanted to "shape" the dough, but enjoyed poking it full of things!

Toast painting

We all agreed, this is our new go-to when we need to keep kids busy in the kitchen. It was ridiculous how much they all loved this activity. And when we were done, we toasted the bread up and made a snack!

We gave them each one slice of wheat bread and a paintbrush, and they shared six containers filled with milk and food coloring. 

They were especially excited to discover the "paint" was milk!

Watercolor letter plates

I taped off each kid's first initial in painter's tape on a basic (non-coated) paper plate. Then they got to watercolor over them. When they were done, the tape was peeled off to reveal their initial. 

We tried combining this with white crayon relief, but I think they couldn't get enough crayon on the plate, so it didn't really work. The painting part was fun though!

Caterpillar and butterfly week at tot time

It's caterpillar and butterfly week at tot time! Let's dive right in...

Contact paper butterflies
I found this on (wait for it...) Pinterest! It's a piece of black construction paper, folded in half, with a butterfly cut out, then the middle cut out. I used some of the extra paper to cut antennae. Then I put contact paper behind it and trimmed around the butterfly shape. The kids had tissue paper, ribbon and construction paper pieces to decorate their butterflies.

Caterpillar color matching
Each kid got a caterpillar and a strip of star stickers, plus the letters of their name. Ellie didn't want to do it during tot time, but she loved working on it later. I liked watching her match the colors, and then sometimes choose to put them on the "right" circle and sometimes not. Poor little red circle didn't get any stickers! This was also great fine motor practice for her.

Dyed water coffee filter butterflies
Who could have a butterfly week without coffee filter butterflies?

Very Hungry Caterpillar snack
While we read VHC, the kids got to eat along with the main character -- they each had one slice of apple, two slices of pear, three slices of plum, four strawberries, five pieces of orange, a slice of swiss cheese, a lollipop and a leaf of basil. They LOVED it and it was so much fun!

Tot time: texture painting

For our most recent tot time, we tried some painting with different textures. I gave each kiddo a piece of big paper and let them go to town -- in adorable little smocks from Ikea, of course. 

For toddlers, this was a crazy success. It kept three of them busy and entertained for nearly 45 minutes!

We used a mini paint roller, a loofah, a thin scrubbing sponge, two kinds of scrubbers with different handles, a few different paint brushes, a foam circle stamper, a Hot Wheels car and one of our dog's (clean!) rubber toys.

Beautiful artwork, little ones!

Tot time: ice, salt and food coloring; shaving cream; flour paint

I've started doing "tot time" with Ellie and two of her little friends (who are both second kids). This week, we had a fourth little one as well (and her mommy, which gave me the courage to tackle some serious messy activities!).

We did three activities with the toddlers, who are 15 months, 17 months, 18 months and 28 months.

Ice + salt + food coloring
This is really neat. I would love to do it with older kids who understand more of the science -- but this kept the kiddos busy and interested for nearly half an hour!

I froze a sheet of ice overnight on a baking pan. Each kid got a scoop and got to add salt to the ice and stir it around. I added random drops of food coloring and just let them go to town.

As the ice started to melt and crack, the food coloring went deeper into the ice and mixed differently. The kids LOVED it.

Oh, as you can tell from the pictures, they all had a little taste sample as well.

Shaving cream
Next, we sprayed a ton of shaving cream into two other pans. I dropped some more food coloring in and again, just let them experiment.

Wow. They clearly enjoyed this one. I think Ellie and William were having a subtle competition over who got to cover more skin in shaving cream.

Ellie was convinced she'd win.

Flour paint
The last one we did was flour paint. Ellie and William played with it for a few minutes, but this was nearly an hour into these activities and I think all the kids were getting tired. I'd try this again with brushes, sponges, etc., and different kinds of paper. I just made a quick mix, eyeballing the ratio. Thinner definitely worked better than thicker!