Once Upon A Book ~ Mortimer’s Christmas Manger

Mortimer’s Christmas Manger by Karma Wilson

Summary: This is one of the cutest Christmas stories I think I’ve read! It’s a bout a sweet little mouse named Mortimer, who is looking for a place to live. He finds a wonderful home (the manger) and starts kicking people out! After hearing the Christmas story he realizes that he’s been kicking Jesus out of his home, so he carefully puts all the people back into the home and heads out. He soon finds that Jesus has blessed him with another house that is perfect for him!

Bible Verse: Then the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid, for behold, I bring you good tidings of great joy which will be to all people. ¹¹ For there is born to you this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord.” Luke 2:10-11

 

Writing the letter J for Jesus:  I laminated these, and then used them with a dry-erase marker. They’re great for practicing pre-writing skills.

Fine motor skill lacing card: I laminated these for durability. Use a shoe lace or string to practice lacing through the holes.

Letter match game:  Even though toddler’s can’t really spell, this is still great for letter matching. Direct your toddler to match up the letter “J”, then “E” and so on. You may have to help guide them as you go.

Lining blocks up on a large letter J: I encouraged her to make patterns with the blocks here, but she was having none of that. So she just lined her letter J with blocks and called it good.

6 piece preschool puzzle: These are great for toddlers since they’re fairly easy and the younger ones won’t get frustrated. Puzzles are great for logical thinking!

Cutting Practice: Help your toddler with proper scissor hold, then if necessary help them hold the paper as they learn to cut along the lines.

Letter poking page: This is a favorite in our house. Using an oversized thumb tack, you can have your toddler poke holes along the lines of your letter. Hold it up to the window to reveal the light shining through their J for Jesus letter!

 

Click here to see all of my  J is for Jesus  activities!

Want to see what's coming next (and books we've done in the past)? Click here to see our Once Upon a Book webpage!

Once Upon A Book ~ Curious George at the Circus

 

 Curious George’s First Words at the Circus By H.A. Rey

Book Summary: This is a cute little book about Curious George and all of the animals and things he encounters on his trip to the circus!

Bible Verse: “For everything God created is good, and nothing is to be rejected if it is received with thanksgiving” 1 Timothy 4:4

Pre-Math Skills:

Silhouette Match Up: This game is easy and fun! Simply cut out the colorful clowns and then let your toddler match them to the “shadows”.

Clown Counting:  For the Clown Counting activity, I only gave her numbers 1-5 to add on to the board. She counted the clowns and then I would point to the correct number for her. Until she took away my pointer that is…

Elephant Ball Game: The idea of this game is to match the correct colored ball to the elephant based on his ruffled scarf. The Teeny Tot did great and was able to complete this game sans mom.

Number Order Puzzle: Since the whole number recognition isn’t there quite yet for most toddlers, I helped her with this game. I actually had the pieces in order for her, then she grabbed each one and we counted and she placed it. She was very proud of herself for completing the puzzle!

Pattern Activity: You may have to help your toddler with the pattern activity as it’s a more difficult skill. I talked her through each line and she grabbed the correct piece as I was talking.

 

Letter Recognition

Magnet Activity: The Teeny Tot loves the magnet activity! She does a great job at matching up one magnet per circle, and has started to count her magnets as she places each one.

Popcorn Letter Match: For this game, I cut out the matching popcorn pieces then told her which letter to grab. I instructed the Teeny Tot to match it to the same letter on the game board. She knew the letter O and P, the rest I had to tell her what they were but she was able to match them to the appropriate one on the game board.

 

Fine Motor Skills

Pre-Writing Skills: The Teeny Tot loves anything having to do dry-erase markers, so this one is a favorite. She rotates between tracing the item, I can tell she’s trying to stay on the line, and actually trying to ‘color’ in the line.

 

Do-A-Dot Color Page: Her next absolute favorite things are the Do-A-Dot markers! She loves those things. I do try to be careful with them though because if she gets too excited and really stamps hard the ink will kind of ‘squirt’ out all over my nice white table. And we can’t have that now can we… ;o)

Lacing Activity: For this activity, simply rough cut around the whole image, then hole punch about every 1”. Use a long string, or shoelace to lace through the holes.

Scissor Skills: Scissor skills are a great skill to work on. They work dexterity, but also hand-eye coordination at the same time! Just keep practicing with this one, making sure that your toddler is holding their scissors correctly and eventually they’ll get it!

Letter C Do-A-Dot: And just for fun, we brought out the Letter C Do-A-Dot page for her. Like I said she loves these markers, so was totally fine using them again.

Here’s a peek at the pack so you can see all of the activities included:

--> Click here to download the full Circus Tot Pack <--

Want to see what's coming next (and books we've done in the past)? Click here to see our Once Upon a Book webpage!

Once Upon A Book ~ Biscuit Visits the Pumpkin Patch

 

Biscuit Visits the Pumpkin Patch by Alyssa Capucilli

Summary: This is a cute little story about Biscuit the puppy, who ventures to a pumpkin patch! Of course he gets into a little mischief and finds some fun surprises along the way! The Biscuit books are a series of stories written by Alyssa Satin Capucilli, I encourage you to check out her others in the series! They’re great for toddlers ages 0-4.

Bible Verse: Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is plentiful but the workers are few. ³⁸ Ask the Lord of the harvest, therefore, to send out workers into his harvest field.” Matthew 9:37-38

Math Skills:

Everyday we count our calendar, and just for fun I purchased themed calendar day numbers. Of course we were excited to pull out our pumpkins with fall here!

Size Sorting: The Teeny Tot is working on learning Large, Medium, and Small in relation. At first she was just putting all of the sizes onto the game board, but as we worked together she started to get the hang of which went where. When we were all done, I asked her to point to the smallest pumpkin, then the largest, then the medium one.

One-To-One Correspondence: This is my pumpkin magnet page. It’s wonderful for working on one-to-one correspondence skills along with dexterity. Of course the object is to place one magnet in each white dot. You can also use this activity with Do-A-Dot Markers, see-through plastic disks, cheerios, or whatever you have on hand!

Pumpkin Counting: I used some large pumpkin cards I found at Lakeshore Learning for this activity. On each pumpkin I added some dots, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 dots etc. I instructed her to count the dots, then put that amount of mini-clothes pins on the pumpkin. She did a great job counting these, and adding the mini-clothes pins as well! (Mini-clothes pins can be found at most hobby stores!)

Pumpkin Puzzle Skills: Puzzles are great for logical thinking skills! This one was a little difficult for her since I’d cut it into 12 pieces instead of 6, so she needed a little help.

Color Matching: I cut these cute little pumpkins in half and had her match them back together. I also instructed her a little bit by saying “Let’s do the blue one next, how about the pink one, etc”. It’s great for logical thinking (having to match the shapes together to form the whole pumpkin shape) and for color recognition as well.

Fine-Motor-Skills & Dexterity

Pumpkin Lacing: This is by far one of her favorite ideas. She loves to “sew”! She skipped a few holes here and there, but she did a great job over all! The lacing is great for eye-hand coordination practice as well as dexterity.

Cutting Practice: What toddler doesn’t love to cut! I’m amazed at how much better the Teeny Tot is getting with this activity. She was previously holding her scissors upside down with her fingers up instead of her thumb. She’s now holding the paper successfully with her left hand and using proper cutting technique with her right. She doesn’t always stay on the lines, but with repetition she will make improvements.

Do-A-Dot Page: Here we are working on P for Pumpkin do-a-dot page. She absolutely LOVES these Do-A-Dot Markers, it is by far one of her favorite activities. And it’s not just fun! You can direct your child to use a certain color, also show them to do 1 dot in each circle which works on one-to-one correspondence as well as fine-motor-skills!

Good ole’ fashioned Coloring! Everyone loves to color, and the Teeny Tot is no different! She actually does quite well at this, she’s very meticulous and careful when coloring. And I can definitely say she’s getting better at staying in the lines and controlling her hand movements so she’s not “scribbling” anymore, but instead coloring purposefully.

Art Project:

I didn’t get a chance to do this myself, but wanted to share it with you because I thought it was such a great idea! Click below for instructions on this painted pumpkin seed craft from the  Craft-Making website!

If you’re interested in the pumpkin activities, click here for links to download the Pumpkin Preschool Printables!

Want to see what's coming next (and books we've done in the past)? Click here to see our Once Upon a Book webpage!

Once Upon A Book ~ Wet Pet, Dry Pet, Your Pet, My Pet!

Wet Pet, Dry Pet, Your Pet, My Pet! By Dr. Seuss

Summary: This is a great touch and feel book for younger tots! It has fur, feathers, flaps, slide tabs, and cardboard rings for the antlered Gack. It covers lots of fun imaginative pets along with the wonderful rhyming so well known to Dr. Seuss books.

Bible Verse: “And God said, “Let the land produce living creatures according to their kinds: the livestock, the creatures that move along the ground, and the wild animals, each according to its kind.” Genesis 1:24

Since my Teeny Tot loves Puppies, we went with that for our Pet theme this month. She is currently 2.5 years old, so we’re keeping it light. She is excited about school this year, and is eager to have her own work to do!

Prewriting Skills: It’s always good to practice basic handwriting skills just to get your fine-motor skills tuned. It takes time to be able to trace lines and so have patience!

Pre-writing practice worksheets: We use dry-erase markers on these, you can either laminate the pages, or use page protectors so the worksheets remain re-usable.

Large letter tracing:

Math Concepts: These activities are all centered around practicing basic math principles such as one-to-one correspondence, counting, sorting, and logical thinking skill building.

Magnet Page: One to One correspondence activity. We use these power magnets from Amazon.

Number Counting Cards: We had some cute little dog bones that she used. We counted together and put the correct amount of bones on each card based on the number on it.

Smallest to largest size sorting activity. I was impressed with the Teeny Tot’s skills here, she did these all on her own and we talked about which was the smallest and largest.

Puppy Matching: I printed 2 copies of this page and cut one apart, and left one whole. We then matched up the puppy cards to the one on the game board. You can also cut both copies then flip them over and use them as a memory matching game.

Counting and Logical Thinking: This is one of my new number order puzzles. If you put the pieces in number order you’ll have a completed puzzle.

Pattern Activity: This is a little beyond what my Teeny Tot can understand right now, so I helped her out with it. I think after repeating these types of activities though she’ll get it soon enough!

Motor-Skills Practice: These activities are all geared towards getting those little muscles working. They work on muscle coordination, fine-motor skills and eye-hand coordination.

Lacing activity. This was a little crazy, she didn’t quite get the concept to go around the puppy, but instead just went in and out of random holes in the card, but that’s okay, she’s just getting started‘

Cutting Skills: We’re still working on proper scissor hold and it just takes some time to get it down pat so don’t get frustrated, just give your children ample opportunity! With rounded child scissors of course!

Coloring Page. Right now we’re using Crayola washable, erasable colored pencils. I’m a big fan of all things “washable” these days!

One of our favorite activities…not washable might I add…are the do-a-dot marker pages! You can find Do-a-dot markers on Amazon and at most craft stores! The goal is to place one dot inside each circle.

Letter Poke Page: I took a leap with this activity, but the Teeny Tot did remarkably well with it. We used an OVERSIZED push pin, she was instructed to poke a hole along the letter outlines. She actually did do that then proceeded to poke holes all over the paper. I think she just liked it, but I was impressed with her focus on this activity. I would suggest parental supervision if using a pokey object ;o)

Click here to download the Preschool Puppy Pack!

Want to see what's coming next (and books we've done in the past)?

Click here to see our Once Upon a Book webpage!