Tot School - Ireland

living in a homogenous society is a little hard sometimes.

and it's getting harder to blend cultures as samil gets bigger. obviously there are things that are givens - but the little things, the little gems of both worlds are going to need some work and dedication to make sure the kids get it.

we want samil and amely to know that they are not just dominican and not just american. and that their ancestors came from other places, too! last month we spent a lot of time working on the dominican side of things since it was independence month here. this month we're celebrating IRELAND!

we made shamrock suncatchers for our sliding glass doors. it was samil's first time working with contact paper and he like it. but he kept piling up all of the tissue paper on top of itself like he does with his stickers!

i saw this idea on several olympic tot school posts, where they printed the logo and and cut it apart. here, we traced our hands and then i made a template for samil to glue everything down. he liked this activity and next week we have a more elaborate claddagh planned that involves glitter and paint handprints.

we practiced counting with our shamrocks. samil's not really too into counting yet, but he did this activity twice this week on his own.

i cut out some "gold coins" and clipped them with a paperclip. then i hid them all over the house and gave samil a magnetic wand - he had to fill the "pot of gold" at the end of the rainbow, but decided his bike was a better place for them. he l.o.v.e.d. this activity and we did it over and over... and i'm sure we'll be doing it again next week.


we spent time in the park looking for four-leaf-clovers.
we also made some yellow, glittery playdough and made gold coins. it was for a treasure hunt, but samil decided the coins would be better if he poured water on them and they fell apart.

non-theme activities.
we did puzzles and colored in our "notebook". we practiced the letter A, but we never did get around to the A craft. Maybe next week.

I also saw this great idea on someone elses page and have wanted to get some nuts and bolts for awhile. i can't remember where i saw it, but if it's yours, let me know and i'll link back to you!

we went to the local hardware store and i picked out 5 nuts and bolts. samil put them in a bag and paid for them all by himself. i got the box at the supermarket and stuck some stickers on it. less that 3 US dollars! woo hoo!

great for small motor development!

check out carisa's blog for more tot school posts!