As we are now in the stage of being 3 years old (we'll post on the birthday another day), we have been looking for activities we can do together to be learning some fun new things. We aren't really looking for formal preschool, but just some activities that are more geared toward learning stuff to be ready for school. After some research on my part, and lots of help from those with more experience/ideas, we found some really cool things. My sister-in-law found a great book with ideas for doing activities to learn letters and other such fun things. My older sister had lots of ideas from things she'd done with her kids, and suggested looking on the web for some specific preschool activities. After trying lots of different things, some that worked and some that didn't, we found this website:
1+1+1=1...Tot Books & Tot Packs
There are things called tot books, which are similar to the lap books sometimes used in home schooling (although the lap books look to be more advanced and are more a unit summary of a specific topic like history or science). These incredible women have put together some really neat tools for doing preschool type activities at home. For instance, there is a Cinderella tot book that includes a coloring book, a shape booklet, a name accordion, and number cards. The pages are all free to download and print out. I printed them, cut them out, laminated them with my YOURSTORY machine (a truly wonderful thing if you don't have a store that laminates for you), and made our first couple tot books, which means putting the activities together in pockets inside a file folder. They have all different kinds of tot books, mostly with similar types of activities, like learning letters, shapes, colors, numbers, and putting things in order according to size, but are different characters or themes. We have put together the dinosaur one, which includes a 'Dinosaur Train' color matching game, and the 'Curious George' one. Elise LOVES her special books. Mostly I have laminated them so she can color on them over and over, and they just wipe off with a napkin. This is especially helpful with the name cards. We started with her putting the letters in order to spell her name, and are working on tracing the letters (which usually gets pretty interesting, but she's getting better!). She loves having some special time to sit down and work on her special books together, or even 'all by herself' if she's feeling independent. Some of the activities I left just how they suggested on the website, but some I tweaked to make it a matching game. I am working on putting together some more, and when she gets to the point where she's ready for a new activity or would be more willing to 'work' on her learning activities with a new book, we can pull one out. I have some other work book type books, but they are the kind you can only do once, and the tot books, being laminated, we can enjoy and practice doing again and again. There are so many great homeschooling websites with free downloadable/printable activities, and I am way impressed with the people who are coming up with these things. I just don't seem to have the background/experience/skills for teaching preschool stuff that can come from just me, so I'm way grateful for those who have done the work, and I can use their tools to have some fun and educational time with my kiddo. So, that said, here are some pictures of my attempts at tot books (I learned that permanent double sided sticky tape works WAY better than the temporary kind, and that the pockets for the cards should be just shorter than the cards so the kid can get them out), and of my girl enjoying them.
This is the Cinderella Tot Book:
And here is the Dinosaur Tot Book, which had puzzles too, and they are included in another book:
There are things called tot books, which are similar to the lap books sometimes used in home schooling (although the lap books look to be more advanced and are more a unit summary of a specific topic like history or science). These incredible women have put together some really neat tools for doing preschool type activities at home. For instance, there is a Cinderella tot book that includes a coloring book, a shape booklet, a name accordion, and number cards. The pages are all free to download and print out. I printed them, cut them out, laminated them with my YOURSTORY machine (a truly wonderful thing if you don't have a store that laminates for you), and made our first couple tot books, which means putting the activities together in pockets inside a file folder. They have all different kinds of tot books, mostly with similar types of activities, like learning letters, shapes, colors, numbers, and putting things in order according to size, but are different characters or themes. We have put together the dinosaur one, which includes a 'Dinosaur Train' color matching game, and the 'Curious George' one. Elise LOVES her special books. Mostly I have laminated them so she can color on them over and over, and they just wipe off with a napkin. This is especially helpful with the name cards. We started with her putting the letters in order to spell her name, and are working on tracing the letters (which usually gets pretty interesting, but she's getting better!). She loves having some special time to sit down and work on her special books together, or even 'all by herself' if she's feeling independent. Some of the activities I left just how they suggested on the website, but some I tweaked to make it a matching game. I am working on putting together some more, and when she gets to the point where she's ready for a new activity or would be more willing to 'work' on her learning activities with a new book, we can pull one out. I have some other work book type books, but they are the kind you can only do once, and the tot books, being laminated, we can enjoy and practice doing again and again. There are so many great homeschooling websites with free downloadable/printable activities, and I am way impressed with the people who are coming up with these things. I just don't seem to have the background/experience/skills for teaching preschool stuff that can come from just me, so I'm way grateful for those who have done the work, and I can use their tools to have some fun and educational time with my kiddo. So, that said, here are some pictures of my attempts at tot books (I learned that permanent double sided sticky tape works WAY better than the temporary kind, and that the pockets for the cards should be just shorter than the cards so the kid can get them out), and of my girl enjoying them.
This is the Cinderella Tot Book:
And here is the Dinosaur Tot Book, which had puzzles too, and they are included in another book:
1 comment:
Those are such great ideas! I know it will be a couple years before we're to that point, but I think we will have to keep these in mind for when the time comes. I always wonder how to start teaching children about letters and things before they get to school - these look great! Thanks for sharing!
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