Tot School Pet Week - Part I

Our son recently started a new speech therapy program where he attends a language lab for 3 hours a week that follows a set theme (doctors office, garden, farm) each week while working intensely with the kids on their language.

I fell in love with this technique the first time we tried it because it gives our son more real-world language and BONUS gives me a great starting spot to plan out more activities and learning at home.

This week, they will be focusing on pet stores/shop so I planned some activities over the weekend and set a super small budget for buying a few items. I already have a huge stash of felt to work with and am pretty savvy about whipping together any vocabulary/number/ABC cards that we could use. The calendar below shows a rough run-down of the activities we may (or may not) get to.

I'm pretty loose structure wise and feel that if we get a couple of things done throughout the day with our going out activities (speech, gymnastics, story time at library, park time, church meetings) and my husbands business calls (work from home bliss with a toddler) then we are doing pretty good.

My main goal when buying anything geared toward a specific "theme" is that the item has to be reusable for multiple activities throughout the week and multiple themes throughout the year.

What I bought:

Safari Ltd Pets Toob - Amazon Link but I purchased ours from Michaels (40% off coupon)

Cat in the Hat Learning Library (definitely will read these a lot in the coming years):

  

Oh, the Pets You Can Get!: All About Our Animal Friends
What Pet Should I Get?

What I Made:

Matching Activity

I try to follow a pseudo-Montessori learning style with our kiddo (pseudo because I can be super lazy at times). I'm good at planning but not so good at executing those plans! I did put together these Montessori cards to use with our new Pet Toobs for matching and identifying.

Tracing/Cutting Pages

I also whipped up some tracing/cutting sheets. You can find a ton of these on Pinterest but I needed something very simple for my son. He is just starting to get interested in tracing and attempts to use a pair of scissors so I didn't want any fancy square shapes or lots of turning.

For tracing I printed this on a regular sheet of paper and for cutting I printed it on a sheet of card-stock. I find card-stock to be easier to cut for beginners.

Numbered Cards

We're also getting interested in counting so I made some numbered cards while I was at it. I thought about doing the ABCs as well but it was too much for just a week of learning.

P is for Pets Play-dough Mat

We are finally at the age (2.5) where we don't try to eat play-dough! Woo-hoo! This means I can leave him alone for a few minutes with his play-dough mat and get some dishes/laundry done. I whipped up this play-dough mat that I will cover with a sheet of contact paper so the play-dough doesn't stick when he plays with it.

I'll be bringing a second part to this week of activities with pictures and updates on what we accomplished along the way. I hope you enjoy some of these freebies!