L is for Ladybug! It’s definitely a pretty common theme, but Alex is fascinated by ladybugs anyway! He finds ladybugs on our walls, in the garage, on the table at the library…pretty much everywhere!
We only did 2 days of Tot School this week instead of our typical 3 days. (It’s only 30 – 45 minutes each time…not full days, of course!) Max was sick with a cold – clingy & crabby - and nobody got much sleep…so neither Alex nor I felt like doing tot school on Wednesday.
Alex matched colored ladybugs from Confessions of a Homeschooler. I’m noticing the picture doesn’t show any colors actually matched up. This must be a before or an after picture? I promise that he did it! ;) 
He (somewhat grudgingly at first…) did this Ladybug Playdough Mat from Childcareland.
We read Ten Little Ladybugs and practiced counting. I took out our foam bathtub numbers, and we matched numbers 1 – 5 with the numbers in the book. (We also read The Grouchy Ladybug and The Very Lazy Ladybug.)
I printed these ABC leaves and ladybugs from Childcareland, added velcro dots, and Alex had to match the ladybugs to the leaves. We didn’t do the whole alphabet at once; that would have been overwhelming for him. He definitely liked it, and he could have easily (and gladly) handled more than 6 letters at a time.
Making Learning Fun suggested making a felt ladybug and felt spots to practice counting with this song:
(to the tune of Muffin Man)
Ladybug has 1 black spot
1 black spot, 1 black spot
Ladybug has one black spot
Pretty ladybug
(substitute numbers as you count)
We rolled a foam dice to pick a number, then we matched it to the foam bathtub number, and we counted out the spots for the ladybug. Alex doesn’t like one to one correspondence while counting, so he had to be encouraged to stick with this activity!
What Alex did like was putting the ladybug’s spots on his toy cars after we’d finished tot school for the day. Goofball! ;)
He had a ladybug snack – a circle of bread with strawberry fruit spread, raisins for spots, and a bunch of raisins for a head.
Random Activities
We baked yummy pudding cake, fingerpainted, played outside, went to the library, and spent a LOT of time playing with trucks & tractors. No pictures to share, though!
Melissa & Doug pattern block puzzles…he finally cares! Alex has ignored these puzzles for months!
He pulled the Guitar Praise guitar out of the closet and pretended to play.
Sorting poker chips by color
Our Tot School shelves
I’m sharing this in case any Tot Schoolers are still looking for a way to organize. I needed something that took up less space than the shelves Carisa recommends, as we do Tot School in our kitchen. We already have these four of these shelves (from Walmart’s website) in our playroom, so I repurposed one of them & borrowed 2 shelves from another unit to create 6 cubbies. It’s working out great! I can finally have a little organization! (Never mind that it looks a little out of place in our kitchen; it’s keeping me sane!)
Watching more construction across the street. Lucky boy!
A lesson for baby & big brother – Alex has been begging to feed the baby, so here was his first attempt when I finally gave in (with CLOSE supervision). Not bad! Max ate every bite…although he wore plenty of cereal that missed his mouth :)
Little Learner - Max finally (at 7 months old) decided that he would learn to roll over. Until this point, it’s been a very rare occurrence. Now he’s rolling every day. Before long, he’ll be rolling toward all sorts of mischief! ;)
Tot Schoolers - Did you see this on Homeschool Creations? Melissa & Doug toys are on sale at BN.com for 45% off with free shipping on orders over $25. Add to that, you can use coupon code K7P9P3X to get a 20% discount on your FIRST purchase with BN.com!!! How's that for a good deal on some new Tot School items?!
To see what other tots are doing this week, check out:
