Living By Daily Grace: NEW!!!! Tot School

EDITED: 10/27/09 I returned to the TOT School website to check out other ideas. My Mr.Linky posting had been removed from yesterday. I am not sure why. I wasn't given an explanation if I did something wrong. I thought I had followed all the instructions and such. Oh well. I guess it just wasn't meant to be. Regardless, this is what we are doing from a preschool stand point. Enjoy!!!

Si-Bay 33 mos (w/ JB age 10)

Pinky Poo (12 mod in 2 weeks)

I am new to "Tot School". I hope I do this right. My name is Mrs. Underdog. I have been married to Underdog for 13 years now. We have 6 children and one on the way. I homeschool all my children in a Classical style but I am more relaxed in the tot, preschool, and early years. I wish "tot school" had been around when my older children were young. I was a new stay-at-home mom fresh out of a middle setting. I had NO CLUE how to work with tots or preschoolers. I have learned so much since then though. We have a blast with our tots and preschoolers and they feel like part of the family.

I thought I was going to be able to include my preschooler in this because I still do alot of these hands on with him. We transition slowly to academics in our home. But in all reality he is doing more pre-K type work right now despite still participating with our "tots". He will probably show up from time to time in my posts. It occurred to me, however, that I should simply start adding my youngest to this. She will be 12 mos in a few weeks. I also need to be working on things she can do for "tot school" as she won't be doing what I actually do for "tot school" with my boys.

I don't have specifics for this past week. I am actually on bedrest right now so school is a bit mixed up. Some days it gets done. Other days, the littles, as they are called in our home, go out with Dad to run errands for business. I have spent a good deal of my bedrest making activities, lapbooks, etc for my tots to play with and learn from. I am enjoying all the different ideas for tot school and have been making lists of things to try in the future.

All that said (as an introduction) I thought I would do a post that would give the general run down of "tot school" in our home on a weekly basis. Unfortunately, I do not have many pictures of Si-Bay to include yet (at least not so readily available in a short amount of time.) We do this weekly and our other activities through the day change.

Last spring I started something with my now Pre-K student that he LOVED. We started making an ABC notebook. He loved it so much that I photocopied everything I was doing with him to save for future 2-3 yod tots. Here are a few pictures I have taken before:

This is the front cover of our notebook. Each one has a notebook with their
name on it in the color they are assigned in our family. Pinky Poo will not start until she's 30 mod (give or take) and doesn't eat glue more than she usues it. LOL!!!!

This next picture the front cover of the first folder. Obviously this is "Aa".
We mix the concepts of lapbooks and notebooking to make these work. Each letter
receives it's own file folder. The letters and their pictures change week to each
as do the way we "decorate" them.

The inside of the notebooks contains more objects and pictures that go with "Aa".
I also teach the sounds as we go through this. Although I do not believe in
pushing a child to learn to read, they are perfectly capable of
retaining these sounds.

The red page is a Proverb printed out with a picture. I got these
from The Learning Parent and it's called
Proverbs for Preschoolers: Through the Proverbs from A to Z

This video is on that I took of Pee-Pooh when we first started doing these
notebooks. It is of him quoting the "A" Proverb that goes with the
above folders. I have one of Si-Bay but I haven't uploaded it yet.
Just an example of our daily routine.

We work on these every week with a different letter of the week. I am also working through a lapbook with both boys. I thought I had pictures for all this but I don't. I will be keeping my camera close by from now one so I can capture these moments. I love getting ideas from others about what they do with all areas of school. I think it might be fun really begin to chronicle what we do with our learning.

Now I will get to the current "tot school." This past week we got to go to the pumpkin patch. I had permission from my midwife as long as i sat most of the time. I did as much as possible. There was a chilly wind so we didn't end up staying as long as we normally do. We made some good memories. This is a family tradition which I wrote about in my personal blog so everyone was included in the "learning." These are few photos from our adventure (mostly of Pinky Poo and Si-Bay.)