Toddler Preschool Beach Ocean Theme Ideas -4

Sock Whales.  This idea is really my friend C's.  She told me about a week or so ago and I needed to add it to our week.

I used polyfill, 1 sheet of sparkle felt, buttons, a sharpie, yarn, socks from the dollar store ... 3 pairs for 1 dollar, hot glue too.

 Have the kids stuff the socks.

 Like really really stuff them.  It takes about 7 minutes of laughing and stuffing.

It should look like this...

The the tail into a knot and then add eyes and cut felt into fin shapes and glue on the sides. Then add the smile with the sharpie.  After that have the kids tie knots, this was hard for them so they cut the yarn into desired lengths and I tied the knot.

Snip the top of the whale and then hot glue the yarn inside.  I added a felt layer to the top (not pictured) just to secure the blow hole water in place.

 Here they are.  We read a few books about whales and then played "slide the whale across the wood floor"
It was like Whale Hockey...2 activities in one! Haha

Toddler Preschool Beach Ocean Theme Ideas -3

Ocean Animal Snack!

I did Goldfish, Gummy Octopuses that I found at Sunflower Market, Nemo Fruit Snacks.

Everyone liked it...

The second thing we did ...on day 2

Starfish crackers, Fish crackers, Pretzel "fishing rods", Sprinkles "plankton", 

Peanut Butter Bait, M and M "clams"

This was a hit too!

Happ Snacking!

Schedule for Toddlers - 10

On Mondays I am going to have tips on what has worked for me with my many kids.  I have received emails about my daily schedule and so I am going to go in order every Monday.  Please comment with anything that you do or don't do or if this has helped you so we all can benefit from everyone's experiences.

7-8                Breakfast, practicing letters and morning review of the day.

8-9                Morning Task Sheet, get ready basically tidy up and morning chores.

9-10              Free Play w/Mom - No chore time slot...you will be amazed how much your kids will love this!

10-11            Quiet Activities

11-11:30        Clean Up

11:30-12        Lunch

12-12:30       TV/Show

12:30-3:00    Nap/Rest Time 

3-3:30           Snack

3:30-4:00      Read Books

4:00-5:00      Shake Sillies Out

5:00-5:30      Wash Up and Set the Table, quick pick up

5:30-6:15      Dinner

I usually have my kids wash their hands, help set up the table and do a quick sweep of the house before Daddy comes home.  For quick pick up time I usually set the timer for a random number like 9 minutes and then they have until then to pick up the house, whether its in the bathrooms or the stairs or the toy room they have 9 minutes or whatever the time we decide to clean up.  This helps me with finishing touches on dinner so I am not stressed out.  Sometimes my husband will walk in and join them in the cleaning fun. 

Dinner - I usually plan my menu a month in advance.  I only go grocery shopping 2x a month.  When I plan dinners I usually plan the fresh produce stuff on the week that I just shopped and the frozen canned stuff on the week I didn't go out.  Ex. Week 1 and 3 - is a shopping week so we eat salads or fresh fruits with dinner. On Week 2 and 4 we have frozen corn for dinner and stuff like yogurt for snacks or sides.

I use a lot of websites for inspiration and here are a few...

http://sisterscafe.blogspot.com/

http://www.melskitchencafe.com/

http://www.kraftrecipes.com/home.aspx

http://notboxed.blogspot.com/ - this one is stuff I have tried and liked...its my personal food blog.

http://picky-palate.com/

what websites do you use for inspiration?  Hope this helps!

Valerie

Toddler Preschool Beach Ocean Theme Ideas -2

Land vs. Sea - Sensory Project!

I took 10 graham crackers (cinnamon) and crushed them. This is the sand.

put it in a pie pan and in another pie pan add water.
Get some sea and land creatures and have the kids decide what goes where...

This was EVERYONEs favorite activity...

Back and forth back and forth. 

This was lots of great fun!

I ended up doing it both days because as you can see - it was a hit!

Toddler Preschool Beach Ocean Theme Ideas -1

It my turn in the rotation for Tot School so here are 6 ideas.

Day One!

Sand Dollar Discovery

I made lab sheets, for them to document what they saw.  If you want a copy email me or leave a comment with your email address.

I had a sand dollar from when we went to California last time and pulled out my kid sized Magnifying Glass.

We talked about what a Sand Dollar is:


The sand dollar is a marine invertebrate, a living animal, closely related to the starfish, sea lily, the sea cucumber and the sea urchin. Sand dollars come from the Echinoids class, which means "spiny skinned creature."
Sand Dollar, invertebrate having a flat, circular outer shell. The common sand dollar of the northeastern United States is found on sandy bottoms in comparatively shallow water.
The size of the adult shell is about 8 cm (or 3 inches) in diameter on the average and has many small perforations that form a symmetrical petal-like design. You can find larger ones, and tiny little baby ones as well as any size in between.
The entire shell is penetrated by many small, brown spines that give the shell a velvety appearance and enable the animal to move about.
By the time a sand dollar washes up on a beach, it is usually no longer living, and only its shell remains.
Sand dollars obtain food by using their spines and tube feet to engulf sand from which they extract minute plants and animals.
Sand dollars belong to a phylum (family) of marine animals known as echinoderms, which inhabit all the world's oceans and can live in both the shallow and deep-ocean floor.
Scientific classification: Sand dollars belong to the order Clypeasteroida of the class Echinoidea. The common sand dollar of the northeastern United States is classified as Echinarachnius parma.
I believe the Western Sand Dollar to differ from the "Keyhole Sand Dollar" found on the Eastern shores. It tends to not have the five "keyholes" in the shell, and is round, rathers than having those decorative little indentations around the edges.
Though each one has it's own beauty.
*

So it was time to DISCOVER!!!

The 2 year old was TOTALLY into this!

We talked about the texture and shape and color...

Everyone had different answers.

They thought it was neat that it used to be living.

They also compared the veins on the back to the lines on our hand.

This took up a lot of time.  They liked that we were doing "Science"

Schedule for Toddlers - 9

On Mondays I am going to have tips on what has worked for me with my many kids.  I have received emails about my daily schedule and so I am going to go in order every Monday.  Please comment with anything that you do or don't do or if this has helped you so we all can benefit from everyone's experiences.

7-8               Breakfast, practicing letters and morning review of the day.

8-9               Morning Task Sheet, get ready basically tidy up and morning chores.

9-10             Free Play w/Mom - No chore time slot...you will be amazed how much your kids will love this!

10-11           Quiet Activities

11-11:30       Clean Up

11:30-12       Lunch

12-12:30       TV/Show

12:30-3:00     Nap/Rest Time 

3-3:30           Snack

3:30-4:00       Read Books

4:00-5:00       Shake Sillies Out

This is our families favorite time of day. Even on days where my husband doesn't go into work - we still love this time of day!  I usually turn up the volume on our favorite CD or Mixed CD or even on the Music Channels.  WE dance like crazy and giggle and laugh.

While this is happening - I am making dinner, singing along (I'll admit it) dancing too! Haha.  I let them just go hog wild! We also love to go to the Library to pick out CDs just for this time of day!

We just recently purchased Just Dance I and II and kids for the Wii. There are several options for kids and Our family sometimes fight over who's turn it is.  But it is all in good fun.

This is perfect because my husband gets home between 5-5:15 and dinner is ready by 5:30.  I have plenty of time to prepare dinner and get it in the oven and my kids aren't hanging on me or begging for food (this used to be a problem for me)  They get to pick songs while I am chopping onions and occasionally I will run in and dance with them. :)  

Hope this Helps!

Schedule for Toddlers - 8

On Mondays I am going to have tips on what has worked for me with my many kids.  I have received emails about my daily schedule and so I am going to go in order every Monday.  Please comment with anything that you do or don't do or if this has helped you so we all can benefit from everyone's experiences.

7-8               Breakfast, practicing letters and morning review of the day.

8-9               Morning Task Sheet, get ready basically tidy up and morning chores.

9-10             Free Play w/Mom - No chore time slot...you will be amazed how much your kids will love this!

10-11           Quiet Activities

11-11:30       Clean Up

11:30-12       Lunch

12-12:30       TV/Show

12:30-3:00     Nap/Rest Time 

3-3:30           Snack

3:30-4:00      Reading/Books

Ignore me in these - the hubs insisted...remember my newborn is 12 days old and I don't normally look like that. ;)

My kids love to read.  I like to save it for after naps and snack because its a good focus activity for them.  My 4 year old son can read - and likes to read to his sisters.  So usually I will read to one kid and we switch, I then read a few more to them.  My favorite thing to do is let them each pick 2-3 books for themselves and then I will pick 5 or 6 that have to do with a specific theme.  I then have them guess what the theme is.  Usually its for the specific weeks like Pirate week or Farm week.  Its fun and gets them to pay attention.

At the end of the week we pick the best book and add it to our we want to buy it list.  

Hope this helps! :)