Tot School~ Thanksgiving Part 1

Gator-Tot is 27 months
Freshman is 10 months

Theme: Thanksgiving Part 1
Letter Focus: H

This has been a great week! I can't believe how much we got accomplished and how much fun we had! Mommy learned several great lessons this week that I will always remember.

Something Special

This week for our "Something Special", we sang Turkey Songs, baked Turkey cookies and made some classic Turkey and Indian crafts.

Cookie Time!! One of the first things I learned this week was about cooking with my kids. I used to think that in order to say that "we made something together" that Senior had to help me with the entire process. Unfortunately, I think this mentality made the whole process just not fun for both of us :( I would constantly be correcting him and making him wash his hands. So, what I did this week was give them each their own dough and supplies to do what ever they wanted. This way I was able to make the rest of the cookies in peace. I know that most of you are saying, "Well DUH!!" but this really was an epiphany to me ;-)

They had a great time!!

After the cookies were baked, they even decorated their own "turkeys".

Amazingly, some of the frosting, sprinkles, and candy actually made it onto the cookie, ha ha! Do you think that Gator-Tot enjoyed it?!

Here are Gator-Tot's creations.

And here is what Mommy was able to make while the boys had a grand time. This had to be one of my best memories cooking with my kids- I'm sure Senior would agree!


This week we also made some classic Thanksgiving crafts. Of course, I HAD to make handprint turkeys! Can you tell that I love seeing my babies handprints together?

While I was going from boy to boy to make the handprints, they worked on an Indian Headdress. This is where my second lesson took place- I really only thought of doing the headdress to keep them busy. I thought it was too simple (every kindergarten class makes them and I could be more creative, right?). Well the reason they are so popular is because the kids LOVE them. Crafts don't have to be fancy to make a great memory.

I guess he wasn't finished coloring, ha ha!

My two Indian Chiefs.
Gator-Tot loves his and wants to wear it all the time. Here he is enjoying his dessert last night. Yes, we are working on table manners that include, "no feet on the dinner table" but I just had to snap a picture first, ha!

Tot Trays

Our tot-trays pretty much stayed the same this week (read: Mommy was lazy).

One thing that I did was to add was feathers, googly eyes, and a foam beak and gobbler to the playdough tray. I was inspired by Counting Coconuts. Here is the turkey that G-Tot helped Mommy make.

I had NO IDEA the creativity that it would spark in both boys. This is the longest they have played with playdough in a long time. They loved making all kinds of new creatures.

Here is Gator-Tot's friendly little creation with fluffy ears.

Themed Activities

Here is the list of resources I used this week:

* 1+1+1=1- Thanksgiving Preschool Pack
* 2 Teaching Mommies-Turkey, Pilgrims & Indians, Thanksgiving Tot Book
* Musings of Me- Thanksgiving Printables. Check out the entire blog- she has many more great Thanksgiving resources ;-)

We used the Turkey Number Match from 2 Teaching Mommies to work on counting, numbers, fine motor and colors. We also used it to sing Turkey Songs from 1+1+1=1.


I used a part of 1+1+1=1- Thanksgiving Preschool Pack to work with Gator-Tot on beginning writing. I thought he was too young for this but thought I would give it a try. Yep, he is not ready but still had a great time.

Here is Gator-Tot working on Turkey Beginning Sound Sort "H" and Senior is doing a Turkey Color by number.

Our letter for the week is "H" so we made this craft from 2 Teaching Mommies.

Non Themed Activity

We also made our "H is for house" from Totally Tots.

Tiny Tot School

Oh, my little Freshman is just growing so fast! He spends his day crawling all over the place and getting into all of the big boy toys.

Mommy's Favorite

Yesterday, our Co-op had it's annual Fall Fest. All of the boys had a wonderful time outside in the beautiful fall weather.

I love the view of the north Georgia mountains behind them in this one ;-)

Gator-Tot loved the Corn Toss. Look at that arm!!

He also had a great time in the Relay Race. In this picture he is taking the eggs from the chicken one by one.

As always, stop by 1+1+1=1 to see what other tot's did this week.

Next week, more Thanksgiving! To see what all of my holiday school plans are check my holiday planning post.