Weekly Review - Space

Raccoon is 34 months

Note: All my sources are listed on my Space Week activity chart. Sorry the pictures are dark, my husband needed the camera this week so I took most of these with my iPad (no flash).

We used this "math mat" to talk about big, medium, small, top shelf, bottom shelf, and counting.

Raccoon's favorite part was pulling the cotton balls apart and putting them on the glue.

Painting the Sun - For some reason, Raccoon was not that into art this week. I thought he would like the idea of paint under the plastic wrap, but he immediately wanted me to take it off. Then he didn't like it when his fingers got dirty.

Raccoon LOVED this! It was an idea I found mid-week from another Tot School mom here, so I added it in. We actually did it two days in a row and it was a great opportunity to talk about how we can let our light shine (p. 5 from Raising Rock Star Preschool "Ll"). We did the craft on our plastic tablecloth and I kept a glass of water right next to him. As an extra safety precaution I also soaked the paper with a sponge first. His favorite part was extinguishing the candle in the water, then I would re-light it with another candle I was holding. The water made the wick crackle like a sparkler.

Another extra activity we did this week was stamping play doh. I found some ocean stamps in a drawer and brought them out. Raccoon's favorite game was making animal "pancakes" and serving them to his stamp friends.

This is our Sun/Earth/Moon model. I used the plates from our Painting the Sun craft above, and just cut out the earth so it would be smaller than the sun. And yes, that is a turtle sitting on the moon. After I showed Raccoon how the earth goes around the sun and the moon around the earth, he decided that some of his cold-blooded animals needed to sit on the sun to warm up. The next day, he pulled out the model and was using the sun as a stove burner to cook turtle soup in a pot.

Raccoon liked this activity until his cards started coming apart after he matched them. This is him freaking out about Venus.

We tried several different solutions but by the time I ended up pinning them on his cork board, he'd pretty much lost interest due to his perfectionism. He just passed me the matching pairs and I put them together. He likes these types of activities, but gets frustrated with the pieces not staying together like in a real puzzle. Ideas?

I am really grateful for Tot School and all the moms who share their ideas. It's been very motivating for me and allowed Raccoon and I to share some great moments together. Thanks everyone!

Next Week - The Polar Lands

 Here's my plan for next week - Polar Land activity chart (with sources) - if you're curious.