Since fall has just started and my son is going to be 3 in January I thought it would be a good time to start some “tot school” and home preschool activities with him. My goal with this is to not only give him a head start in academic areas but to also boost his independence, confidence, and life skills. Since his little brother will also be showing up in January we need to really crack down on his vocabulary and teach him some responsibly before he becomes a big brother!
For our first couple of weeks of “tot school” I wanted to start with a couple basic themes, so I decided to base our activities around “Apples” for the letter A and “Hygiene” because he is also potty training. Our activities include listening to theme based music on our Spotify (ex. Bath time radio, healthy habits station). Our book of the week is “Mickey’s Alphabet Soup” so I read that to him during story time and any other time he gravitates towards the books. I set up two activities for him that encourage sensory exploration, literacy, sorting, fine motor skills, colors, and counting.
Activity 1 – Pom Pom sorting
Excuse Braydon’s Tarzan ways! Potty training boys require little to no clothes, the beauty of raising boys! Anyway, this activity is taking him some getting use to since he isn’t very familiar with sorting activities. There are a lot of ways to set this activity up; you could use it to introduce colors, numbers and counting, and/or fine motor skills. Right now I just let him play around with it and see what he does (mostly sorting with his hands and examining the tongs), after a while I will encourage more structure with it but as of now he’s just becoming familiar with it and is having fun. This activity is super simple and cheap to put together, all you need is a marker, some pompoms (dollar tree sells them!), coffee filters, tongs or scooping utensil, and a tray if you want to keep the activity more contained.
Activity 2 – Salt Tray Tracing
Now this activity is one of his favorites! It holds his attention and is stimulating his senses with touch. All I did was spread some salt on a plate, place it next to a print out of the letter “A”, drew with my finger the letters in the salt, and let him explore! Of course he wasn’t drawing perfect letters, but he was repeating how to say the letter and doodling with his finger. The key in introducing new activities while trying to educate your kiddo’s is to not force the activity on them, let them have fun and ask questions! (And trust me they will!) they are learning whether it seems that way or not children are like sponges and they absorb so much just through play.
Later this week I will have a couple of our fall kids crafts posted as well as our trip to a local apple orchard! If you like this post or have comments, questions, or any other input please comment below! Don’t forget to subscribe for more fun home preschool/tot school updates!
The Bippity Boppity Business of Being Mom 