Tot School - Nursery Rhyme - 5 Currant Buns

20 months

This was actually a fortnight ago but I was ill this week and hadn't quite finished this post.
We (or should I say I) wasn't on full brain this week so we had a theme but I forgot to look out any books linked to it.  We read so many everyday it never crossed my mind.

Activities
Lots of singing of 5 Currant Buns in a Baker Shop.  We also sang "Pat a Cake",  "How much is that doggie in the window" and "This little piggie", to go with our baking/shop.

I made some brown paper currant buns to use as props. We did some one-to-one correspondence trading a penny or a milk bottle top for a currant bun.


Luath loved putting pennies into a robin piggie bank and also into a coin sorter piggie bank.

I used items from the recycling to make Luath a shop. This was a huge hit. She loved playing an old fashioned style shopkeeper, who would go get what you asked for. We did some sorting by putting shop items into groups - cereals together, toiletries, fridge etc

I also cut out different shopping images from a shop leaflet that arrives in the post each week.  I have been doing this for a few weeks. 

We made some currant buns. I adapted a recipe I found and added some more cinnamon. They tasted lovely toasted.

 Other things this week

Daddy went back to full time working this week, we missed having him around, but great he is well enough to be back.

We harvested some salad leaves and radishes.  Luath had sowed and cared for these seeds.  She has helped me sow seeds before but she really knew what was happening this time round so it was a thrill for her to eat her very own vegetables.

 

Luath loves numbers and had lots of fun finding different numbers I asked for.  She doesn't know them all, just a few.  We discovered she could do this one morning when I handed her our number block on our calender and she got the date number right.

We had some new sightings on our daily wood walks - a woodpecker, spider's eggs, falling beech nuts. Luath enjoys separating rowan berries from a bunch and leaving them for the birds and animals in the woods.

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Tot School - Nursery Rhyme - My hat has three corners

19 months

Books
I know there are lots of great hat theme books but we don't have any and we were only at the mobile library this week so choice was limited.  I selected books that did have a sort of hat theme.

Dig, Dig, Digging - we pointed out the different hats the people were wearing
I want to be a cowgirl - great stetsons
Maisy Luch - about fancy dress
That's not my dolly - mentions her hat is too soft
Mr Wolf's week - different clothes and hats for different weather

Toys
A box of hats - dressing up, sun hats, winter hats, Luath's, mine and daddy's.  This box was a huge hit and lots of fun.  My cheese head hat (Go Packers!) fitted the three corners song brilliantly.  Luath used the cheese head as a tuffet and often through the week would choose to sit on it.
As well as trying on the hats we also played a few games like "what hat would I wear if it was sunny", "what hat would I wear if I was a fire fighter" "bunny rabbit would like to wear a red hat"

I made a simple game by drawing pairs of different hats.  We tried to use this a few ways but mostly it was just picking up and naming the hats.

A stacking cup game - I thought it looked a bit like hats.  We made a huge stack using this and a few other items (think I had more fun doing this!).  Luath can stack but prefers the knocking down part.

A puzzle - not hat related but I thought I would keep a puzzle in rotation.  This week she choose to the puzzle quite a few times and was putting pieces in and out at times.

Other

We went to a session at a visiting Bookbug/play bus

I read some parts of the Enormous Crocodile and Dirty Beasts but Roald Dahl to celebrate Roald Dahl's birthday on the 13th.  We talked like pirates on the 15th (we were 4 days early as I go the date wrong for talk like a pirate day) and enjoyed fajitas to celebrate Mexican Independence Day.

Luath had her first real no holds barred painting session and loved it.  She decided she also wanted to paint her face.  We also had a go with bath crayons (one of our summer bucket list we didn't get done).  They were also a hit.

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Tot School - Nursery Rhyme - Little Red Tractor

19 months

This week's theme was inspired by Luath, who started singing "bouncing up and down on my little tractor", after we had watched the farmer making hay bales.  We saw the farmer and his tractor a lot this week.

Books
The Runaway Tractor

Travis the tractor - a few stories from a Bob the Builder storybook

Toys
Two tractor puzzles - Luath isn't really that big on puzzles.  Sometimes she enjoys taking the pieces out and occasionally we will put the pieces back in together, but mostly she will just leave them.
A tractor and a trailer
A wooden and a foam tractor piece

Craft
We made a tractor out of items from our recycling.  It was a bit wonky but Luath enjoyed helping put it together.  She especially loved helping to hold the scissors while I cut out the wheels.

Learning Shapes
I made up a puzzle of a tractor using different shapes and Luath enjoyed watching the shapes turn into a tractor.  She has known most of the basic shapes for a while but still prefers to point our triangle and circle than any others.

Learning colours
This week's song was great for naming different colours.  Sometimes I held up different colours for our tractor, other times I just asked Luath to tell me what colour our tractor would be.  Mostly she likes to say pink, purple or orange.  It still makes me laugh that pink was the first colour she knew and her colour of choice, even though we try not to be an overly girlie pink house.

Food
I made a spur of the moment lunch in a tractor shape.  When Luath saw it she just said "ooh berries" - she adores all berries but especially blueberries. 


We got out our chalk again during a walk and drew on a few logs, including a tractor



Other things this week

We went to a 10 year celebration, Luath had a great time, we game down a huge inflatable slide together, shared some crisps and a chocolate biscuit, got a tattoo (hypoallergenic washable little star) and met Mickey, Minnie, Hello Kitty and Tigger

We had a teddy bear picnic to celebrate Teddy Bar Day.  We only had one teddy there in the end!


Luath wanted to clean her wellies one day - granddad's influence.

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Tot School – Nursery Rhyme – Miss Polly had a Dolly

19 months

 Miss Polly Had A Dolly
Miss Polly had a dolly who was sick, sick, sick.
So she phoned for the doctor to be quick, quick, quick.
The doctor came with his bag and hat,
And knocked at the door with a rat tat tat.
He looked at the dolly and shook his head,
And said "Miss Polly put her straight to bed."
He wrote a pad for a pill, pill, pill.
I’ll be back in the morning with my bill, bill, bill.

- it can also ended with “which will make her better, yes it will, will will”    

We have had a break from themed tot school. Luath has been doing a lot of life school over the summer.  Things are still a little low key but we have restarted our theme weeks.  

Theme I selected Miss Polly as doctors are something Luath has learnt about over the summer.  Daddy took ill while we were away for a few days break and he ended up in hospital for almost a week – he had a small stroke due to a neck artery tear.  Luath saw A&E and one of the wards (two of the other wards we kept her out of and daddy met us in the car for a few minutes).  Since daddy isn't yet allowed to drive we have been taking him to see the nurse once or twice the week.  Luath thinks this is brilliant and now associates the health centre with fun and toys.  

Book We only have one doctorish book, my mum found it and Luath loves it.   

 Toy A while ago I picked up a doctors case with various instruments from a charity shop and this was the first time Luath had seen it.  We had lots of fun over the week.  Every morning the first thing she wanted to do was check her patients. 

  All her patients ready for their consult

 

She loved giving injections, even if she got it the wrong way round and gave them in odd places.

 

Checking teddy's nose

 

We have also been working on taking each others temperature.  Luath had her first high temperature towards the start of the summer and we had great difficulty checking her temp.  Hopefully she now is much more relaxed about the thermometer either being near her ear or on her forehead.    

 Other things this week

 Luath and I are busy with day to day things but we still try and have as much fun and learning as we go. 

 We returned to swimming for a session in the big pool.  

We started going to an exploring music class – Luath loved it and spent a lot of the class dancing.  

 I am on our local show committee, we have an annual event for flowers, vegetables, baking, produce and a children’s section.  I went round with two of the judges in the morning and then Luath came with me in the afternoon to help sell some of the entries (we were on the vegetable section).  My marmalade came first and the sultana cake that Luath helped me make came third.  We didn't put anything else in this year.   We bought some of the local grown vegetables and made a huge pot of soup, which is very tasty.

 

We are on full dog walking duties as daddy isn’t allowed to walk the dog meantime.  Luath is very happy about the extra walk especially if she actually gets to walk (rather than me carry her which often happens for the second walk of the day).  She quite often likes to take Incy Wincy with her - he is trailing along behind her in the photo.

 

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(Luath is 19 months)

(tiny) tot school – A sailor went to sea (Nursery Rhyme) but mostly Pirates

17months

 I started this week with the plan to go do a variety of sea related characters – mermaid, pirate, sailors and activities to do with the sea.  We started with pirates and Luath was enjoying that so much that we only briefly did anything else.  We had a very enjoyable week.
Books

Toys
Some dressing up items – cutlass, hook, paper pirate hat and a scarf
I made a treasure chest using a shoe box.  It started the week with beads, then I added some milk bottle tops (jewels), then some gold (sweetie wrappers) and as Luath was pointing out numbers this week I added some numbers cut from items in the recycling bin.  She calls everything number 6 and it isn't about her learning the numbers, just recognising their shapes.  She saw some letters this week and called those numbers too.

Clothes
I found a fantastic pirate jumper this week in the 50p bin, it must have been waiting for a loving home with us.

It was a good opportunity to put Luath’s pirate AIO nappy on


Food
We worked our way through a big bag of oranges – yummy, no scurvy here!
I made a Pirate Lunch

Activities
Singing “A sailor went to sea”. but sometimes changing it to “A pirate went to sea”
Singing “what shall we do with a lazy baby”- sung to the tune of what shall we do with a drunken sailor, it is a song from our Bookbugs sessions
Singing “when I was one/a pirates life for me” – we learnt this song last summer and instantly we all loved it. 
Luath did lots and lots of play with her treasure chest, especially the beads.  She called them her treasures.  We also did some work on colours using the beads.
 
She did some walking the plank. 

We read the pirate books and acted out the stories a few times in different ways “Tim, Ted and the Pirates”
I turned the bathroom into a sea scene and Luath did some sensory and imaginative play.

We hunted for treasure in different places, including in the woods

Other things this week
As well as pointing out numbers to me, Luath started counting, at first it seemed more like rote learning, but one snack time she was moving her raisins and repeating the numbers.  She counts better in Gaelic than English, but perhaps because I often count with her in Gaelic.
Luath continues to climb on everything and anything.  She has actually mastered climbing onto the steering wheel of her ride on if she has something to lean against – yikes!
            
We went to our local high school fun day.  It was a wet day but we still enjoyed ourselves.  Luath especially loved scooping for rubber ducks and watching a police dog display.
We Skyped my parents one afternoon and it is the first time I would say that Luath has really interacted online.  We have Skyped quite a few times, the last time was with daddy a month ago.  In the past she knows what is going on, but today she was actually speaking with my parents, laughing with them, showing them things.  I know some people don’t like to introduce technology at a young age, but this for me is a huge positive use of technology.
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(tiny) tot school - Nursery Rhyme - Fitbug "the torch is on it's way"

17 months

This week's nursery rhyme (song) was a special one devised by The Scottish Book Trust for their Bookbug sessions.  This was Bookbug week celebrating the summer of song  and also the Olympic Torch relay, as has been happening in Scotland this week too.  Our Bookbug session was on Monday so it was a great way for Luath and I to learn the words.  It is to the tune of Camptown Races, and Luath loves the Doh Dah Doh Dah parts.

The words to the Torch is on it's way are here

This week's theme was being active, which covers music with movement, action rhymes, sport/exercise.  Luath is a very active toddler anyway but I tried to introduce her to some new experiences.

Learning Basket
Books
we have a lot of active themed books so we had lots to choose from,.  Many of these books are favourites already.

Toys
Different balls, a Velcro ball game, skittles, scarves, ribbons, jingle bells...

Activity File
Lot of action songs, playing with the sport toys, fun with the scarves and acting out books

Walking on a plank for balance.  Luath was a little wary initially but soon was having great fun walking along the plank.  I added a smaller plank at right angles to the initial plank so she would need to turn.  We also had her soft dog walking on it.  She played on this for almost an hour.

Playdough sensory bin with a sports theme I made up a big pot of jelly scented playdough, rolled it into balls, added it to a sensory bin, along with some sport based objects.  We had a lot of play from the bin this week.  Luath didn't once put the playdough in her mouth (amazing) but the dog ate some!

Flying a kite  We tried this a few weeks ago but there wasn't enough wind, so we retried and it worked brilliant.

We went on a story walk  We both recited The Gruffalo while going through the woods.  I drew the creatures using chalk onto tree stumps and trees.  We then pretended to be the different animals.  Luath's favourites were stomping like a Gruffalo (she is a stomper anyway) and flapping like Owl.

We used the scarves, a sarong, ribbons and jingle bells so dance, wave, hide under, dress up

Luath practised her climbing a lot.  She is so trusting that I am always going to catch her when she decides to lean forward a fall off the sofa/box etc.  She is smart enough to call me over and not attempt to fall off until I am in position (finally she is learning to look before she leaps!)

Craft
Luath made daddy a Fathers Day card using stickers.

Art
We had fun with chalk, crayons and pens.  Drawing and adding water to our art work.  Luath decided the most fun about pens is putting the tops on and off, which is a great fine motor control activity and also good for colour matching.

Music
I put on a variety of different music, with different beats and speeds. Luath's favourite was a song by Dido called White Flag and some tunes by a band called the Vatersay Boys (Scottish ceilidh music)


Other things this week
The local high school had a Mod, we went to the evening show to see the prizewinners as daddy had to go help.  Luath wasn't really much in the mood to sit still, so she spent most of the concert checking out the school's staff room, especially the cup cupboard but we could still hear the music and signing.

We attended a Gaelic Bookbugs which was brilliant.  It was a one off, but hopefully we can try to get one started.

We made banana bread together, with Luath working through the steps of the recipe too.


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