Tot School

- Adam is 38 months old -

I struggled this week with Tot School.  We were reading “The Runaway Bunny” and did a few activities but then I lost interest.  It seems like I go in cycles.  I’m either excited about it and have a great week, or I’m burnt out and wind up not doing anything.  I guess that’s the beauty of this age…..I don’t have to do anything if I don’t want to.  However, if I don’t do anything all I hear all day is, “Is it Top School time?  Let’s do Top School!”.  Not to mention he gets bored of his regular toys.

Here is what we did do!

Bear Puzzle from Melissa and Doug
And yes, he is Buzz Lightyear, as he was several days this week!

In true Adam style, he grew bored of doing the puzzle and decided it was an airplane and the bears were inside going on a trip.

Cutting paper using these scissors.
Stefanie from Life With My Giggly Girls suggested them to me and they are great!  Adam has struggled with several other kinds of scissors and these are so much easier for him to use.

Shape Matching Wheel with Clothespins
aka "Open and Close Pins” which actually makes perfect sense!

Counting Bears
I have had my eye on these Counting Bears for a while now.  I should’ve bought them sooner because they are a huge hit with both kids!

Adam played with them for like 45 minutes the first night!

Sissy getting in on the action

And finally, Adam watched Speekee a few times. 
Speekee is a subscription-based Spanish program that was made in the UK.  It’s a total immersion program so it’s entirely in Spanish, but you can turn on subtitles.  It got really good reviews on The Old Schoolhouse Homeschool Crew so I signed up for the free 2 week trial.  I’m still unsure how I feel about it.  It’s not great quality, it’s cheesy, and Speekee is kind of creepy, but it’s a great way to expose Adam to Spanish.  And from what research says, exposing kids to a second language (including ASL which we’re already doing) can help them learn the language easier, and with a better accent, later on.  I also have several CDs with Spanish rhymes and songs that I bought when Adam was a baby and only used a few times.  I decided I may as well play them during lunch and play time a few times a week instead of the regular kids music/Mommy music I normally play.

The subscription is $7.50 a month but I would want Adam watching an episode (around 15 minutes each) 2-3 times a week to make it worth it.  So, maybe when I become more structured with preschool, we’ll give it a try again.

That was our Tot School week.  Let’s hope I can get my act together for this week.  Adam is more entertained and productive when I do it.  How do you non-Tot Schoolers keep them busy during the day?  He (and let’s face it….I ) get so bored of the same toys!  I can’t wait until Spring when we can go outside!!!

Having Fun with Webdings

I have been slaving over Abby’s “first year” photo book and today Adam was watching me add in some dots to one of my pages in Picasa.  He asked if he could do it, so he chose a picture, a background, and then got to work with webdings and wingdings!

He thought it was hilarious to push a letter and get something else up on the screen.  I ended up letting him fill up a word document and now he’s carrying it around like a prized piece of art.

Eating and Eating and Eating

Abby has become quite fond of table food and is eating A LOT these days!  I give her what I think she’ll eat and she wants at least one or two more helpings!

Swedish Meatballs and Noodles…yum!

I thought Adam was a slow poke at eating, but this girl is always the last one chowing down.

Last One at the Table

One week from today and she’ll be 1!  Her party supplies came in the mail the other day and now Adam asks multiple times a day if it’s her birthday party now.  I think he’s just excited to “help” open her presents and blow out her candle!

Tot School–”The Snowy Day” and Snow/Winter Theme

- Adam is 38 months old -

This week for Tot School we focused on the book “The Snowy Day” by Ezra Jack Keats and used Before Five in a Row, Homeschool Share, and a few wonderful websites to have lots of snowy fun!

This is one of my favorite books that we’ve read from the Before Five in a Row manual.  The illustrations are colorful and the story is all about a little boy’s adventures in the snow.  I had planned this unit several weeks ago when we had a lot of snow, but it quickly warmed up and melted away.  I’ve been waiting and waiting for snow and when we woke up to 2 inches on Tuesday, I pulled out everything and we got started!

We also read a few books from the library:
“Snowy, Blowy Winter” by Bob Rackza
“Millions of Snowflakes” by Mary McKenna Siddals
“The Mitten” by Jim Aylesworth

And sang, “Once There Was a Snowman” which is a favorite children’s primary song in our church.
I meant to remind him of the ASL sign for ‘snow’ but completely forgot!

I downloaded the following activities from Homeschool Share.

“S is for Snow” Letter Search
Adam marked all the letter s’s.

He glued pieces of paper to make a snowman and if you look closely, you can see little twig arms and buttons.

After reading “The Snowy Day” 5 or 6 times, we practiced remembering the story by putting these cards into order.  He didn’t understand what I was asking him to do at first, but once we got started he could choose between two cards and remember which one came next and which one was later in the story.

I used Carisa’s Winter Fun Tot Pack for the following:

Snowflake Halves
The colored version was a cinch, but he had to really focus and look carefully to match the black and white snowflakes halves together.

Snowman ABC’s
He matched alphabet magnets to the letter on the snowman

Snowflake Matching

These next activities I got from a website called Musings of Me written by a mom named Michelle.  She put together a huge winter themed preschool pack and posted it all for free!  Having other people do all the leg work sure makes my job a little faster and easier.  Thanks Michelle!

“W is for Winter”
Adam used pom-pom magnets on top of a cookie sheet to fill in all the dots. (I made these by simply gluing pom-poms onto round craft magnets)

Snowman Counting
Adam counted the stars on the snowman’s belly and then placed the corresponding numbered hat onto his head.

He counted and matched correctly up to number 7 and then needed my help keeping track of the stars while he counted the 8-10 cards.  I was pleasantly surprised that he identified all 10 numbers correctly on the hats (only needing help distinguishing 6 from 9).  When I “tested” him a few weeks ago, he only knew 1-5 and 7.

Using a snowman hat to sing, “Once There Was a Snowman”…his idea!

Snowflake Sizes
Adam sorted snowflakes into large, medium, and small piles
While sorting he said, “Large Diet Coke!” as he put a large snowflake into the pile.  I guess I run through McDonald’s for their $1 drinks too often while running errands!  After that, he just wanted to pretend that the snowflakes were food and put them into lunch boxes.

Using our snowflakes to sing a song I made up based on a children’s Primary song called “It’s Autumn Time”.  The song is about snow falling so we lightly drifted threw the snowflakes around.
“The Colors of Winter”
He lost interest after only 3 pictures.  Coloring is not his idea of fun most of the time.

Instead we hopped around holding one of the pictures.  Don’t ask me why.

“Winter Things Counting”

We did two fun art projects this week that I saw on Confessions of a Homeschooler under her Arts & Crafts/Christmas drop-down link.

Cotton Ball Snowman

Popsicle Stick Snowflakes

  Messy!

Fun in the Snow! VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

On the one day when the snow was still on the ground, Adam got to stay up past his naptime and play in the snow!  We made tracks, snow angels, and hit the snow off a tree just like Peter did in the story.  He LOVED being outside!

Snow Ice Cream VIEW SLIDE SHOW DOWNLOAD ALL

There was a recipe in the back of “Snowy, Blowy Winter” for Snow Ice Cream.  Adam loved it but my husband and I thought it tasted like snow….not very appealing.  It was fun though!

We had a great week and my Mom even got in on a little Tot School one day.  Here she is reading “The Snowy Day” to Adam.  Oh how he loves his Nana!

Whew…what a long post!  I do these posts as a way to remember what Adam was like in this moment in time so pardon the length and picture overload! 

Go to 1+1+1=1 for more Tot School ideas.

Pure Joy

It’s amazing what you come across when you go through every single picture on your computer!  I saw this picture of Adam taken last March and just smiled!  I love how his feet are pointed upward and back trying to stay balanced while spinning around on the merry-go-round at the park. 
I love this boy.

Teeny Tot School–Trial Run?

- Abby is 11 months old -

Abby is 11 1/2 months old but seems to be maturing physically sooner (she started walking at 10 1/2 months!) than my son Adam did so for the past couple of weeks I’ve been noticing how she’s playing and how deliberate she is about how she puts things together, in, out, etc.  I’ve been thinking she would enjoy early Tot School type activities…..I just haven’t wanted to start yet!

I feel bad that she doesn’t get as much one-on-one attention from me as her brother did when he was her age.  He is just SO demanding of my time and attention that she (now that she’s completely mobile) gets a little left behind.

One day this week, Adam and I had finished our Tot School time so he asked to watch something.  Abby was awake so I sat down with some toys and just played with her and it was great!

She is very deliberate and tries to get things 'just so’ even though her motor skills haven’t caught up with her thinking skills yet.

We played with a ring stacker and she tried and tried to get the rings off and put them back on.

I would get them started and she would pull them the rest of the way off.

I held the stacker (that rocks) steady and helped her place the rings back on.  We did this several times.

Peek-a-boo!

We also played with these Discovery Toys blocks that she got for Christmas.  She loved trying to stack them.

And discovering all the things hiding inside the blocks like this mirror.

Adam was using these large colored shape buttons and she spent a long time, (when he wasn’t pulling the bowl away from her), throwing buttons in and taking them back out.  She has always been very forceful when she plays.  No daintily placing things, she throws them!

And of course, everything still ends up in her mouth.

I didn’t start Tot School with Adam until he was older so I have a lot of planning and acquiring to do before I officially start with her but this fun day with her has got my wheels turning and I’m excited!  It’ll take me a bit to get ready so I’m planning on starting weekly Teeny Tot School posts after she turns 1 in a couple weeks.  She is leaving her babyhood behind way too quickly but I love watching her develop and grow and I’m excited to plan one-on-one time with her (gotta figure out what to do with Adam though)!