Letter of the Week: M

~ Peeper is 31 months old ~

A Note To My Regular Readers: I may be repeating some photos or stories that I've already published, but I want to put all our learning activities in the one post that's part of the Tot School link-up.

Tot Schoolers: Welcome! If you enjoy this post, please feel free to stay for a while, and have a look around. I'll give you a fair warning that much of my blog is PG-13, but my Tot School link-up posts will always be G-Rated.

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This weeks letter crafts: M is for Mouse and m is for monkeys!

Of course, she had some help with the mouse, but she put all the monkey stickers on herself. Perhaps I should have used a lighter-colored paper for those, though.

And our ABC Box: M magnet, m bath foamie, M&M man, M&M box, mitten, mask. monkey, milk truck, Milk Dud (that's the cow's name), Mm book, mirror, man, makeup, mail, Mardi Gras hat (this was her prize when she found the baby in the King Cake), Max the Monkey book and Mommy, Mama and Me book.

This was not any kind of a planned activity, she just helped herself to the box of craft foams, brought them in the kitchen and lined them up. Then they sat in the kitchen floor for a couple of days, getting stepped over and stepped on.

And occassionally rearranged. Notice how she groups the like colors together.

We're still a couple of letters ahead of the 1+1+1=1 Tot School Printables (although I suspect they'll catch up to us when we go to Texas and then probably take a while to get back in the swing of things when we get home) but I've started using some materials from Confessions of a Homeschooler, and she's enjoying those, too.

She's nowhere near ready to actually trace the letters, but she loves to color them.

She was kind of so-so about the matching up the shape cards. This is the kind of activity that she'd usually get into, so I think she was just distracted at the moment and not in the mood for it. These cards are from the L is for Ladybug set, but they are the kind of thing that I don't see the need to reprint for each and every different lettter / theme. She likes ladybugs, so she can match ladybug shapes for a while.

Also from the Ladybug set are these number cards. I didn't bother laminating them, mostly to save ten laminate pouches, but also I figure I can just print different ones every now and then when they get messed up.

Here, I was telling her what number to put Santa on. I thought it was interesting that, rather than putting him in the middle of the card (which is what I would do) she always put him right on the numeral in the top left corner. Well, of course. She doesn't know that those letters in the top right are also the number. I said "Put Santa on the 7, so he is on the 7."

Later we added a bear and then Peeper herself. "Put Santa on the 8, Bear on the 4 and Peeper on the 2."

That got a little tricky for her, but she managed it with a few hints.

She really seemed to enjoy it, and when I thought she was getting tired of it and asked "Do you want to do something else, or do another one?" she asked for another one.

This was totally on her own. These are the passengers from her wooden schoolbus, but when I walked into the room, she said, "Wook, Mama, wook! Wobot babies aw in a wohw!"