Butterflies

Totschool planning got away from me last weekend, and so we had a bit of a thrown together week. Munchkin asked for lacing in her trays, so I provided a couple of lacing activities, and found several butterfly themed activities so that we at least had some kind of pattern running through things. Munchkin’s pre-school was on Spring Break last week, so I expected us to spend more time on her trays, but we actually spent more time out and about, and less time working on trays.

Tot Trays

 Butterfly and Foam Stickers

A simple fine motor tray. I picked up these butterfly shapes in Target last year, I think. Since I’m on a use up, get rid, and clean out the clutter kick in the rest of the house, it seemed a good idea to try and use these up. Munchkin is great at these stickers now, and can peel the backing off by herself. I also provide a little dish or receptacle for the trash, and so we are working on getting her to put her waste all in one spot.

Butterfly Craft Pack

I re-purposed Munchkin and her sisters’ Easter Baskets for totschool – they are so pretty and pastel coloured! She was thrilled to see them used this way! I picked up this craft pack in the dollar aisle the other week. She’s getting really good at following the picture on the front and sticking things down as indicated. I do prefer open ended art projects at this age, but learning to follow a pattern is important too.

Pooh’s Number Match Cards

It’s quite a while since I’ve included flash cards in our tot school time. I really like this Pooh Bear set – it covered the numbers one through ten, and for each number one card has the numeral, one has the written word, and one has that number of honey pots. I laid one set of three cards out at a time for Munchkin. To begin with, she’d look at the cards in order, but as the week went on, she realised that all three cards represented the same number, so she typically looked at the numeral rather than counting honeypots, and was able to tell me what each word said, although she wasn’t really reading it. On the other side, the three cards make up a little puzzle, so after we “read” each card, we turned the set over to put the picture together.

Lacing

As requested by Munchkin, her lacing tray. I was not allowed to participate in lacing this week, I just had to watch, and then unlace the cards when she was done!

Butterfly Playdough Invitation

I printed out a butterfly playdough mat, and provided a divided tray with buttons, flowers, googly eyes, glass rocks and plastic shapes. Munchkin really liked this – especially the eyes and flowers. We spent a couple of long sessions playing with playdough and decorating the butterfly.

Bug and Flower Sticker Scene

I made a simple page – blue sky, couple of rolling hills – and provided some cute stickers we have of caterpillars, butterflies, ladybirds, toadstools and ants, all with faces and personalities. I asked Munchkin to tell me a story as she chose stickers to use on the paper. We ended up talking about a caterpillar who was going for a walk out of his house. He met his other caterpillar friend and saw some big flowers. I believe we also had a flying flower in the picture, but I’m not sure why she was flying!

Large Straw and Pipe Cleaner Lacing

Another lacing activity, as lacing was requested this week. Munchkin likes taking the straw pieces and sticking them on the ends of her fingers though!

Tissue Paper Butterfly

We’ve done this activity before, but I think the act of scrunching up the tissue paper is so important – not that tots really seem to scrunch much. Munchkin mostly preferred to work with the glue, and got some really great glue coverage!