School of Mommy

Yesterday as so many children headed back to school so did my toddler….the school of mommy J. I made it my business to spend a couple of months planning out activities and setting learning objectives that I wanted her to accomplish each month. When I was pregnant with her, I worked at a preschool as a 2’s teacher so I was already familiar with what she needed to master according to her age.

Since toddlers seem to have a really short attention span, we only spent about two hours focusing on learning. (To be honest, every moment is a learning opportunity, so it’s important to take every chance you get to teach J).

The first activity was days of the week. I made a sentence strip out of card stock paper which says: “Today is _______”. I used Velcro and made rectangles that had each of the days of the week on them. I went over the names and we talked about what the day was.

The second activity was weather. I also made a sentence strip for the weather in addition to creating a sun, cloud and rainy cloud. First we reviewed the types of weather then we looked outside and saw the sun, so she put the sun on our little weather strip.

The third activity was my name is. I spelled her name out in big letters so that she could clearly see each letter. We went over each of the letters in her name and practiced saying “my name is kayleigh”.

The fourth activity was ABC and letter recognition. We used simple alphabet squares as we recited ABC’s, I used the letters to show Kay the name of the letter and what the letter looks like.

The fifth activity was reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom by Bill Martin Jr. This is a wonderful children’s book that was one of my favorites when I was in kindergarten! I am sure your toddler would love it as well J.

The sixth activity was an arts and craft project related to Chicka Chicka Boom Boom. We made a coconut tree using letters of Kay’s name. She used glue to place the leaves on the tree as we recited the letters.

The seventh and last activity was naming body parts. I had these body part cards that show each of the body parts, the basic ones. We identified different body parts on the cards and I had her find where they were on her own body.

Needless to say, she was happy and excited about what we learned and even spoke about it. Today, I’ve prepared more activities to do with her and I will continue to work with here every day until she’s ready for school!!