We recently went and met Thomas the Tank Engine and thought it would be a good idea to take a week to explore trains!
Books Maisy's Train by Lucy Cousins Fast Train, Slow Train (Thomas & Friends) Trains by Colleen Carroll (How Artists See Jr.) The Little Train by Lois Lenski Freight Train by Donald Crews Inside Freight Train by Donald Crews There Berenstain Bears All Aboard! by Jan & Mike Berenstain The Little Engine That Could by Watty Piper Thomas the Tank Engine Big Lift-and-Look Book by Rev. W. Awdry
Activities
I created this foam shape train puzzle on the computer and cut the shapes out of craft foam. Little Cutie really enjoyed doing this puzzle. Above is a picture of where she placed everything. You can print a copy of the puzzle here.
(I got the pieces for this Tot Book from 1+1+1=1. We opted not to use the Thomas and Friends part.) This was the first time we used a Tot Book and I was interested to see how it would go since Little Cutie is not much of a sit down and do something kind of kiddo. She wasn't really interested in the "How Many?" pieces at all. She did enjoy coloring the trains...just a few scribbles on each page though (more interested in the crayons themselves than coloring). We took the shapes out and put them in our mini pocket chart ($1 at the One Spot in Target!) and talked about what each shape was; she liked moving them around to different places on the pocket chart.
(I got this printable from Royal Baloo.) This was our first time using a dot marker, and really, it was just a bingo marker from the dollar store. Little Cutie wanted to move the dot marker around like a regular marker.
We don't own any toy trains, so we headed to our local library. They have a play table covered with tracks and trains. Little Cutie always loves playing with the trains. We put together a simple circular track and she drove the trains around it.
Real Train Ride
Sorry, no picture, but we had the opportunity to ride on a real train. The engine looked like Thomas the Tank Engine. The conductor even came and punched our tickets (it reminded me of a scene from The Polar Express). Little Cutie seemed to enjoy herself.
Check out our week celebrating the arrival of fall! We focused mostly on leaves.
Books Fall Leaves by Liesbet Slegers Baby Loves Fall! by Karen Katz I Love Fall! by Alison Inches Mouse's First Fall by Lauren Thompson Let It Fall by Maryann Cocca-Leffler
Activities
I printed out a picture of a tree from 3 Dinosaurs and leaves from Carson Dellosa to glue onto the branches. This was our first time using a glue stick, so I didn't know how Little Cutie would do with it. I showed her what to do and she mostly understood. The biggest problem was that she didn't put enough glue on it so sometimes the leaves didn't stick, but we just went over it again. She really enjoyed this.
Little Cutie really enjoyed this activity. She didn't fully grasp the scooping concept though. She held the scoop in one hand and put the pom in the scoop with the other hand. Then she carried the scoop and poms all over the house and dumped the poms from one container into the other. She actually lasted about 3 days before she started putting the poms in her mouth. We are really looking forward to the end of that phase!
Once the leaves started falling, we headed outside to check them out. Little Cutie loved crunching around on them and picking them up.
After taking some time off to get used to life with two girls under two, we had a fantastic week learning about music! We chose the Baby Loves Jazz book series by Andy Blackman Hurwitz to structure our week. Each book came with a CD to go along with the book. Little Cutie absolutely loves dancing to music even if it is just from a commercial on TV, so I knew she would enjoy this theme.
Books Music Is by Lloyd Moss Music by Neil Ardley Baby Loves to Rock by Wednesday Kirwan
Activities
Philly Joe Giraffe's Jungle Jazz (Drums)
Philly Joe Giraffe plays the drums. The CD had mini drum lessons that we practiced with...mostly it was just different beats. We don't have a drum set (thankfully!), so we made our own drum using a plastic container and some pencils for drumsticks. A short and fat container would have worked better, as ours kept falling over, but Little Cutie was really getting into it!
Duck Ellington Swings Through the Zoo (Piano)
Duck Ellington plays the piano. In the book, he plays the piano for different animals in the zoo, so we were able to talk about animals too. We have a Little Tikes Tap-a-Tune piano that Little Cutie played along with the CD.
Miles the Crocodile Plays the Colors of Jazz (Trumpet)
Miles the Crocodile plays the trumpet (another instrument we do not own). In the book, he plays different songs based on different colors. The lighter colors seemed to be more upbeat songs and the darker colors were more mellow. This also gave us an opportunity to review color.
Ella Elephant Scats Like That (Vocals)
Ella Elephant scats. We talked about how our voices can be used as musical instruments through singing, or in the case, scatting.
There are three other characters in the series that we did not read:
- Charlie Bird Counts to the Beat (Saxophone)
- Louis Lion Sings Goodnight (Vocals)
- Mingus Mouse Plays Christmastime Jazz (Bass)
