The month of October presents itself with many opportunities to explore pumpkins. We opened a pumpkin and used our senses to feel, smell, and observe the pumpkin. The toddlers also did a 5 Little Pumpkins craft and acted out the fingerplay in front of the class! We decorated pumpkins using washi tape and plan to bathe them next week!
We have counted the sides of a triangle many times in the toddler room in October! We made triangles with popsicle sticks, created triangle owl art, played at the easel center with contact paper and triangles, and glued triangle collages. Stay tuned for the shape of the month in November!
The Toddler + Preschool Prep class has been hard at work this October! We have been using our Halloween theme as focus for some of our small group activities.
In one group, we fed different colored “Lego Monsters” that only eat Legos that match the color of their faces.
We also used a “spiderweb” to match shapes. They got to pick a shape and then stick it to the sticky spiderweb onto the shape it matched!
We are always trying to work in fine motor practice any chance we can get! Routine practice of using the thumb and finger grasp will help develop and refine their fine motor skills. Our students did a great job of stacking spider rings onto orange straws 🙂
We have been making our way through the alphabet in the toddler room. Each week we focus on a letter. We read a letter book, sing letter songs, watch letter videos, hold and count items that begin with the weekly letter, do a letter craft using fine motor skills, and even do a sensory activity focusing on the letter.
A is for Ant
B is for Button
C is for Cat
D is for Donut
E is for Eagle
We have jumped right in to our October literature with our reading of Eric Carle’s The Very Busy Spider last week! We had fun reading the story together, and making all of the different sounds of the animals that the Busy Spider met while spinning her web. The students all got a turn to touch the raised spiderweb on the pages of the book, which was a favorite part for most 🙂
Using puffy paint and a squeeze bottle, each student got to make their own raised “spiderwebs”!
The month of September has been a study in the shape CIRCLE! We have colored circles, matched circles, glued circles, played with circle toys, discussed our favorite circle shaped food, sang circle songs, read circle stories, eaten circle crackers and cookies…basically immersed ourselves in circles!
It has been a wonderful September, and the studio toddler class has been breaking in our brand new classroom wonderfully! Below you can find some of our students enjoying their free play time and see them exploring their new environment.
Art is a favorite activity for many of our students, and their curiosity and eagerness to try new things has been so amazing. We did a craft incorporating yellow, our color of the month, and circles. We use an abstract painting tool–a lemon! They got to smell the lemon, and taste a piece of it if they wanted, and then used it as a stamp on their paper.
We also had our first visit from Ms. Joanie. Ms. Joanie is the music teacher at Creative Tots, and she visits our class every other Tuesday! Our students already got to play her drum, and say hello to Elmo (Ms. Joanie does an awesome Elmo laugh FYI 🙂 )
Check back in to see a sneak peak of our art show we will begin working on, as well as some examples of the small group activities we do.
It has been a month since the start of the school year so our students have gotten a chance to familiarize themselves with their different choices for free play, and most already have favorites! Talk with your child about which center they enjoy playing at the most each day 🙂
We love learning through play, especially when doing art projects! We have been incorporating the color yellow into several art activities so far this month. Encouraging young children to use different types of tools for art is great for their creative thinking and sensory skills. We got to smell the lemon and taste it, before using it to paint–using multiple senses to reinforce our lesson!
Keep following along to learn about some of our small group activities, and for a sneak peak at alphabet books and color books!
We have spent the first few weeks getting to know each other. At around 18 months, there are changes in cognitive skills that help real friendships blossom. Toddlers become more consciously aware of themselves and others. Even when toddlers are playing side by side, without much interaction, they are still picking up play behaviors from one another. These shared experiences help toddlers gain the play vocabulary they will need when they begin to play with friends. We try to foster an environment that invites interaction, observation, as well as parallel play. As teachers, we play alongside the children giving them simple words and vocabulary to help facilitate communication. It has been so fun fun to watch the toddlers begin to bond. We look forward to a year full of friendships.
Our toddler orientation days were unBEElievable! We explored our classroom, met new friends, listened to bumble bee stories and songs, and played outside.
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Creative Tots has specialized in the private education of both toddlers and preschool age children for over 15 years. We began in the heart of Madeira and now also have a new Mason location. We are specifically designed to focus on early childhood development for children ages 18 months to 5 years.
Click below to learn more about our program offerings: