October 2019 / The Cuddle Blog

Week 13 - Feelings || 52 Weeks Of Theme-Based Toddler Homeschooling Activities

October 28, 2019

Hello People!

How are you doing? I hope you had a great weekend? This last weeks had really been packed full of activities and I am so glad at the growth and progress i've seen with our homeschooling and the opportunity to be part of your journey in a little way!

Welcome back to our 52 weeks theme-based toddler homeschooling series! Welcome back to our 52 weeks theme-based toddler homeschooling series! This week we are going to be exploring 5 senses.

What was our plan?

Monday:

- Feelings Craft (Happy, Sad, Crying, Angry, Surprised)

- Paper Plate emotions

- Mirror on the wall

Wednesday:

- Using the feelings cards to talk about the feelings

- Sort Feelings

- Play dough

Friday:

- Water Play - Fish for emotions

- Paper Plate Spinner

- Read Pout Pout Fish

- Writing tray

- Ballon Badminton

What Happened?

We started the day with circle time and I noticed that he's wasn't interested, so I did something different and we banged on the tin of cerelac and he had fun. Just realising that there is a tendency for him to get bored with the routine maybe and switching things up within the routine can help keep his attention and interest.

Managed to get a picture

Our first stop was making the craft that will set the tone for the rest of the week;

What you need.

- Old Carton you can cut into circles.
- a4 paper
- Scissors
- Marker
- Glue
- Craft Sticks (Coloured or Plain)

- Googly eyes
__

Direction:

* Cut carton into circles of the feelings you want to explore. We explored sad, happy, crying, surprise and angry.

* Cut out the A4 paper too
* Glue the A4 paper on the carton and glue the craft sticks to hold it up. I wrote numbers at the bottom of my sticks for identification and recognition by my toddler

* Glue the eyes and draw each feelings on the cards
* Talk about each of the feelings.

He could only help me with glue

Angry and Crying

How are you feeling today?

We went ahead to explore the great outdoors:

Remember senses from last week?

Giraffe can't dance: See the emotional journey of the rejected giraffe. Great book showing emotions too.

Feelings Sorting:

What you need:

- Paper Plate

- Glue

- Craft Sticks

- Cardboard paper

- Pen

Direction

* Cut the paper plate in half

* Glue craft sticks to the side

* Draw the mouth of the feelings to sort

* Cut up the cardboard into small squares and draw the 2 feelings to be sorted on the cardboard pieces.

* Mix them together on the table or floor and let them sort with the paper plate as the reference.

We sorted happy and sad.

He was able to recognise the emotions and put them on the right plate and another fun thing we did was, express the emotion while before he placed it on the plate.

Play dough!!

We played with play dough, used craft stick as a knief, a wodden hammer to flatten and out fingers to make rolls to form the emotion. I did most of the rolling though but he enjoyed the cutting!

Sad!

We also read another book;

Hands are not for hitting, what can you do when you are angry or frustrated? What are hands really for? This books gives different uses of the hands to remind your toddler that hands are not for hitting.

Grandma came over :)

Writing Tray.

I did a writing tray because he was showing interest and we were playing the "round around the garden" on out palms and he enjoyed it, so he did it on the tray.

Other activities we did that I didn't photograph was reading "pout pout fish" our all time favourite book and ballon badminton (Just throwing and hitting the ballon, lot of gross motor skills worked)

Loved that this was so handy, we took it in the car and everywhere we went all week

What I noticed after our week exploring feelings; My toddler started folding his arms to show he's anger, he can tell me what emotion is expressed and relate it to himself... "I'm happy" "I'm sad" etc. He is still hitting though 😑 but he can use his words when he's frustrated and when I say I'm sad he goes "awwwwn, sorry Mummy" that was major progress.

Will you try this with your child? What did you do in your homeschool today?

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Week 12 - 5 Senses || 52 Weeks Of Theme-Based Toddler Homeschooling Activities

October 10, 2019

Hello People!

Welcome back to our 52 weeks theme-based toddler homeschooling series! This week we are going to be exploring 5 senses.

What was our plan?

Monday: Counting the number of senses we have

- Read the 5 senses book

- Explore Feeling & Tasting with texture board, Cold & Hot water, taste board - Sweet, salty, sour bitter

- Jacob & Esau

Wednesday:

- Explore Sight & Smell

- "I see.." Sensory bag

- Smell tray - Thyme, flower, onions

- What do I see nature walk

Friday:

- Reading the 5 Senses book

- Exploring Hearing with Piano, Guitar, Shaker, Rattle

- Playground

- Book reading

What Happened?

We started the week with a nature walk.....

We saw a caterpillar on the playground.

Let the exploring begin

Feel Cards

How to make feel card:

What you need:

A piece of old carton box
loose items with texture (I used, Pom poms, beans, foam, feathers, plaster, cotton wool, popsicle sticks, stretchy side of straw)
Glue

Direction: Glue everything on the board and let it dry and let them feel.

We talked about his sense of feeling, the different textures, vocabulary building and understanding the concept of touching. He enjoyed this one but I was there as he was almost removing the items from the board.

Taste Board:
What you need;

4 small bowls
Items to taste (Salty, sweet, sour, bitter) Use any one you have at home
Let your child taste away and have fun with their reaction.

I used sugar and my son finished it, he distinguished between bitter and sour. This was a fun activity for me watching him

Day 2: Sight and Smell

Sight Sensory Bag

What you need;

Ziploc
A4 paper either with printed or drawn items they can identify. (I drew mine because I wanted to be sure my son could identify without all the colours
Rice.

Directions:

Put the A4 in the Ziploc and paste it inside with a tape.
Put rice inside to cover the A4 paper
Close Ziploc and seal to the ground, and let them discover the items.
Let them know they can see with their eyes!

We played "I see" in the house and on the nature walk. You can add a layer of "touch what you see"

Smell Tray

I used

Onions
Mint leaves
Thyme
Flower

Talked about our sense of smell and how we smell with out nose. After this I confused my son who knew how to blow is nose before, now he just breathes in. Lol.