Krash loves to sing, and he loves our box of instruments and finger puppets that we use with our songs. The only problem is…I don’t remember all of our songs off the top of my head and sometimes I even forget to sing at all! Lately he has been begging me to sing our version of Row, Row, Row Your Boat and this has inspired me to create a song notebook for him so he can browse through himself and choose the songs for our song time! I hope this notebook will grow and become a integral part of our Tot School time as we have so much fun when we remember to sing together!

I typed up some of our favorite songs and put them in PDF form for you to download if you’d like to use them too. I will also be adding to the list as I find time! I printed his out on colored paper and put them in sheet protectors and into a 3-ring binder.

I snapped some photos of a few of them, showing you our finished products along with the instruments we have to go with them. What a neat gift it would be to make a song notebook for a tot you know and then provide some of the instruments or puppets to go with it! Some of our songs/poems are not familiar to everyone, and I don’t know where I got them all! I am videotaping us singing them to help anyone out who doesn’t know tunes. So far I have Hello and Row Your Boat (which also ahs a lovely brotherly fight at the end of it!) up on our Phanfare site, I will add more as I get them taped.

If you don’t own any instruments, be creative and make your own! You can make sock puppets too! But if you’re looking to buy some, here’s a few I really like online…
6-pc. Rhythm Kit Set
Friends From Literature Finger Puppets (Set of 10)

I was inspired to make these from the ideas I saw on Four Little Penguins, I also saw an adorable adaptation of that idea on Cheeky Monkey, where she used little wooden sticks and velcro for her son instead of the clothespins.

I decided to create Learning Wheels, and began with color matching…

and shape matching…For the colors I started K today with different colored bottle tops to just place on the colors, I also plan to let him use colored pom poms, wooden sticks, and of course clothespins. BUT, before you go thinking K always uses his tools in the proper way, this is what he thought of my idea today…the purple bead (I didn’t have a purple top) was used as a hammer to pound on the other tops and he wouldn’t match them up on my lovely learning wheel . That’s OK though, we still yelled out the colors as he pounded!

He did well with the shapes and seemed to enjoy the challenge of this one. I used little foam shapes I had from this set…

• The Learning Wheels, you can make your own or download mine here as a pdf file (click on the image on the site page)
• colored objects to match up (wooden sticks, clothespins, pom poms, bottle tops, even pieces of construction paper…be creative!)
• shapes to match up (I made sure the colors DID not match in order to get him to focus on the shape) Pull shapes from any other tool you have or make your own out of construction paper or cardstock
• cardstock (to print on)
• laminator (if you have one, or can get one-it’s SOOO worth the $40, I use it all the time!)

I am working on more Learning Wheels too, I know this tool will grow with him as I add different leveled wheels. It is certainly a tool that can be used for tots and way beyond! I am also making gift sets of these, most likely including the clothespins for them. For older kids I make them for I may make a clothespin set with color/shape words on them too.

Would you like to share a Tool for Tots? Write up a post about a tool you made, be sure to include what is needed and also a photo(s). It doesn’t have to be a tool you thought of on your own, if you got the idea from another website/blog, link to give them credit! Some of the best Tools for Tots are simple ideas that have been around for many years! Just be sure to post photos of the one you actually made!

Copy the link to your EXACT post (not your homepage) and leave your link below. If you’d like to add the graphic to your blog, copy and paste the html code for the graphic over on the right sidebar! Be sure to link back here somehow so we can share all of our ideas together!

Thanks for sharing your great ideas! I have made the new page on my site, where I have links for all of the tools shared! I will post a Mr Linky underneath each time I post a new tool, for now I am not going to set a day. If you have a tool, just link up to the most current post!

I made 2 versions of this tool, the simple hand made version… and the bit more complex computer version…