Tot School-Body Parts

This week we focused on body parts.  I was really excited about this theme because I knew Mara had a good grasp of the concept already.  I felt like this really gave me the opportunity to have fun with the week.

On Monday we were getting back from traveling so we didn't have the opportunity to do any activities but we started in full force on Tuesday.  In the morning we did a full body outline.  Mara was so intrigued that I wanted to trace her body and laid perfectly still while I completed it.  Afterwards I let her color "herself" while we labeled the different body parts.  This was fun because we got to talk about body parts we don't usually name such as, arm pit, knee, shoulder, etc.

Tuesday was pretty dreary so I set up the couch pillows on the floor and encouraged her to run around on them.  We played body parts songs and just had a lot of fun.  It was a great way for her to burn off some of that energy while working on gross motor skills too.  You don't realize how much of a skill it is to walk on pillows till you try it and I certainly came close to falling a couple of times.

After nap we kept exploring movement by making cool whip.  I gave her a mason jar filled with whipping cream and a marble.  Then I let her shake it.  We shook the jar until we had cool whip!  She wasn't too interested in the final product but it was a fun way to again focus on gross motor skills.

Wednesday we started with a contact paper activity.  I cut out a face and all the face parts.  I then put contact paper on the back and adhered it to our window (I find she stays engaged in this better if it is at her height).  I let her then make her face.  While she was placing the parts we named everything and I asked her where her part was ie "Where's your nose, Mara?" Although her end result was sort of interpretative, I was pretty impressed.

Mara loves to brush her teeth so I thought our next activity would be up her alley.  I drew a tooth outline on a yellow piece of paper, gave her a toothbrush and white paint and let her go for it.  We talked about how your teeth turn yellow if you don't brush them.  She did ok.  She wasn't as interested in the activity as I thought and in the end tried brushing her own teeth with the paint.  :/

In the afternoon I was prepping the next day's activity when she spotted it.  We decided to just do it then and she loved it!  I printed out a worksheet of a little girl and some band aids.  I taped the picture to a cookie sheet and glued magnets to the band aids.  I then told her the little girl had "owwwies" in certain places.  She then placed the band aids where I told her.  We left this one up the rest of the week and she kept going back to it.

Thursday was slow again and we only got to an art activity.  As with past weeks I try to incorporate a bible verse into our lessons.  We did Ezekiel 37 this week and the dry bones.  I took black construction paper and painted Mara's hands to look like bones.  We called them our x-rays!  She really loved this and we ended up doing a whole other project with pink paint.

That night I had planned some bath paint for Mara using shaving cream and food coloring.  I thought she may like painting her body parts but boy was I wrong.  She didn't want anything to do with it!

Friday we did a little play dough.  I have been waiting to bring the play dough back out and thought she'd like a simple activity of making hand prints in the dough.  We started with her hands and then broke out the play dough tools to add more textures.

After nap we tried another gross motor skill activity and walked a taped on line.  I used masking tape on our rug and asked her to walk on it.  She did pretty good and enjoyed running along it for awhile.  In the end she got out her tools and went to work "fixing" it.

Next week we are on to all things Fall!  Again I am pretty excited about this theme as I love all things fall.  It's finally starting to feel like fall around here too so that just adds to it!