Over the last year, my daughter (almost 2.5 at the start of the school year) and I have been having so much fun with tot school activities. We love to learn and play and find having activities to do throughout the week makes for both a happier toddler and happier mommy. Call it the teacher in me, but the need for planning out the year never left me when I became a stay at home mom. I have been busy creating a fun thematic play based tot school curriculum for this upcoming year and I am excited to be able to show you what I have been up to.
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There are many categories to our curriculum, including a Biblical/character concept application, that we will be working through each week. The GREAT thing about this is you can pick and choose the categories and activities that work best for you and your child if you choose to follow along.
I believe in following your child's lead on whatever you do, so I have chosen to work in trimester chunks when it comes to planning. I have chosen themes that fit with the time of year, as well as things that my daughter is currently interested in. At 2.5 she has really started showing an interest in letters and numbers and can sing her ABCs and count to 10. While the sensitive period for learning letters and numbers is 3, I plan to begin introducing Little Miss to the concepts of letters and numbers through our Calendar time activities since she has shown interest.
HOW OFTEN & WHEN ARE YOU DOING TOT SCHOOL ACTIVITIES?
Our schedule is laid out for having activities 3 days a week and for now we will be following a Monday, Wednesday, Friday schedule as we already have other fun things lined up for Tuesdays and Thursdays this year. Make a plan for when you will complete your tot school activities each day. A time specific schedule often stresses me out, but a routine is something we thrive off of in this house. If I make tot school important and plan a general “time” for it each day we will better able to complete our activities. With children, you have to remember that things don’t always go as planned and that is ok. If you have to rearrange the day to better suit your schedule then that is what you have to do. Don’t stress over it if you can’t get to that day’s activities. Tot schooling is flexible and is meant to be fun for everyone. Currently, we do tot school activities shortly after breakfast because this is when everyone is the happiest and most likely to cooperate. The closer to lunch the “crankier” we all get. This is not to say that we don’t do activities at other times of the day, but the majority of the time we do it shortly after breakfast.
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WHAT ALL WILL YOU BE FOCUSING ON DURING TOT SCHOOL?
As I mentioned above, there are numerous “categories” of things we will be focusing on this year through our play based activities for each theme. All of our themes and focus board ideas have been carefully chosen to all coordinate together as best as they can.
We will have a circle time that will begin to introduce our toddler to the concepts of the calendar. While my original plan was to not start any of this type of thing until she was 3 and starting preschool, she has shown a huge interest in knowing the days of the week and talks all the time about the weather. I wanted to capitalize on her interests so we will be doing calendar time tailored to a 2.5 year old.
During calendar we will talk about the letter, number, shape, and color of the week and try to tie it all back to our weekly theme (ie circle tires, black tires, 4 tires all for the transportation theme), talk about the weather and temperature, discuss how to spell our toddlers name, mommy and daddy’s phone number and our address(it is never too early to introduce this to them) . We will read our book of the week, sing our Bible song and our rhyme/song of the week, as well as recite our memory verse. We will follow calendar time with our Bible story/character/concept of the week. We will be using the Jesus Storybook Bible and many other Bible story books during this time.
Our toddler curriculum also has a focus on positon/opposites, fine motor skills, and gross motor skills. We will be incorporating these activities through tot trays and our every day play.
I will have 4 tot tray activities set up that are easily accessible for Little Miss all week. Our tot trays will be where we use activities from our Thematic Tot Packs. One of our goals for tot school this year is for Little Miss to learn how to spell her name so we will be incorporating name activities throughout our year as well.
We will also be having a dramatic play center related to our theme each week. Most themes will have a dramatic play center pack that will be available for purchase if you wish to transform and set up a dramatic play center in your home.
if you choose to follow along with us, activities and supplies lists will be provided for each of these sections so you are able to pick and choose what works best for your child.
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WHEN WILL PLANS BE POSTED FOR EACH WEEK?
Plans, activities, and supplies for each week will be posted 1-2 weeks ahead of time. Some of our themes will be one week long while other themes will be 2 weeks.
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WHAT ALL WILL BE PROVIDED?
Our planning posts will contain all the information and resources for everything you will need to follow along with us. We will provide you with a pdf that includes our plans, activities, and ideas for the entire theme. These plans will also include free printables of each of the songs, rhymes, and Bible verse for the week. It will also include some fun ideas for your Tiny Tot (our tiny tot is currently 6 months old). We couldn’t let our Little Man out of all the fun. Links to our thematic Pinterest boards, educational toys, educational technology, and our supplies and resources will also be included in our weekly planning posts.
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WHERE CAN I FIND ALL THE THEMES AND POSTS FOR THE CURRICULUM?
Across the top of the page you will find miscellaneous tabs that you can click on to take you to different things. Everything related to our Tot School Curriculum can be found under the curriculum tab at the top. Each week we will be posting various posts and will link them all back to our Tot School Curriculum Overview page for easy access whenever you may need. The text will become a link whenever the post is ready, but until then it will remain text only. Each of the pages are a work in progress and as our curriculum is loaded to the site, the pages will fill up with clickable links and pictures to help guide you through our resources.
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WHAT SUPPLIES WILL I NEED TO COMPLETE THIS TOT SCHOOL CURRICULUM?
Each week there will be a planning post that lists all of the supplies you will need to complete that weeks activities, as well as some extra materials that you may find beneficial. Most can either be found around your house or are basic craft supplies you can find on Amazon or your local craft store. You can find a comprehensive list of miscellaneous craft supplies HERE.
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So there’s a look at our Tot School Curriculum for 2016-2017. We are so excited to get started. We will be starting the week of September 5th and would love for you all to join us. We will be posting on Instagram all throughout the week so you can see what we are up to. If you are doing our curriculum alongside us we would love for you to tag us @macntatersblog or use the hashtag #mnttotschool so that we are able to see all that you are doing.
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