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I personally love the one-sided 4x8 photo card. There are so many different cards to choose from, so everyone should be able to find something they love! My favorite for this year is the Brightly Wrapped Presents 4x8 photo card. They also have a great selection of folded cards, which gives you extra space to showcase each family member or special events that happened throughout the year.
I also enjoy making personalized thank-you cards that I can use for birthdays and other events throughout the year.
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Sunday, October 31, 2010
Tot School
30 months
We had a busy week over here! We had MOPS (Mothers of Preschoolers) on Monday, Thursday my DD was gone during our tot school time and Friday the grandparents were here. So, we didn’t get a whole lot done this week. I don’t know what I will do when we start “real” homeschooling b/c we won’t be able to miss all these random days ;)
We did a pumpkin size sorting page from COAH. She is still getting a good handle on this so we only used large and small, but she definitely knows the difference. Maybe next time we will introduce medium.
Another page from COAH. We did how many pumpkins in the pumpkin patch. I would put a number in the square and she had to count out that many pumpkins and put them on the page. But, when she saw me putting the number on the square she thought all the pumpkins should go there, too!
We did pumpkin painting with an apple. If anyone has any tips on how to easily hold the apple let me know. Even I had the hardest time trying to pick it up off the paper ;)
I got some Halloween coloring books from Walgreens a couple weeks ago so we did some coloring in them, which basically turned into looking at all the pages.
I bought her a little pumpkin and let her paint it. She started out using single colors with the paint brush. Then she asked to use her finger and finally she went with the whole hand approach ;)
And you can’t celebrate Halloween without carving a pumpkin. As much as she loved getting her hands dirty with finger paint, she did not like touching the inside of the pumpkin. She said it was yucky ;)
So, there was our fun week. For more great ideas check out 1+1+1=1!
Friday, October 22, 2010
Tot School
30 months
Well, I ended up skipping out on posting last week. It was just crazy around here with my mom being in town and then I got this crazy urge to paint all the doors and baseboards in almost the whole house. I’m weird, I know. But, I am almost finished. Just have to finish up the kiddos’ rooms (which is difficult considering I can’t paint when they are around, but not when they nap either!). We got to do some fun things this week. We are doing “P” is for pumpkins, which is a lot of fun. Hopefully on Saturday we can make it to a pumpkin patch with daddy (he has been working every Saturday this month). Anyway, on to our week of fun!
I believe this is the “P is for pumpkin” page from COAH. And we used these cool marker/paint things that, for the life of me, I can’t remember what they actually are ;)
This page is also from COAH. It is actually supposed to be a puzzle, where you only have 1 apple of each color and cut it into 2 pieces and match them. But, Moo-Bear does not like those (she is kind of particular about the pieces staying together). So, I just printed 2 copies and glued one to make a file folder game. She actually did this like 3-4 times, which is a record for her to do much of anything!
Here is our calendar. She really just had un playing with all the pieces, putting them all over the place ;)
I got this idea for a Halloween sensory bin from Counting Coconuts. It has black beans, orange pom-poms, orange pipe cleaners, plastic spiders/bugs, Halloween erasers, plastic skeletons, pumpkins, and of course tools for scooping and pouring. She loves it and we probably played with it every day!
I believe I got this pumpkin number page from 2 Teaching Mommies. She didn’t really get the whole maze idea, but she had fun coloring. I let her use markers and taught her how to turn it upside down and push hard to get the lid to snap on ;)
I got this lacing pumpkin from COAH. She put the pipe cleaner through one hole, one time and then said she was all done. She is not a big fan of lacing;)
I hid some foam pumpkin stickers in a bowl of pasta. She has more fun eating the pasta than finding the pumpkins ;)
I think I got this idea from My Giggly Girls or over at 1+1+1=1 (maybe both, I just don’t remember). Anyway, she loves this (of course she has to sneak a noodle or 2). She wanted to do this every day and one day she had a little friend over and showed him how to do it ;)
We practiced gluing today! I got the memory verse from Totally Tots (In my heart) and cut it out for her. I showed her how we glue on the side that doesn’t have writing and then flip it over onto the paper. When daddy got home she kept asking him if she could glue some more!
We got out the playdough and the Halloween cookie cutters. She didn’t do a whole lot with this. For some reason she isn’t really into playdough. We get it out and like 2 seconds later she is all done. I try showing her some things to do, but maybe I should just be thankful I don’t have to clean up the mess :)
And this day she probably did 10-13 puzzles in a row. She would finish one, put it away and pull out another one! She is getting so good at doing the puzzles where each piece has an obvious spot. So, I pulled out one that the pieces connect and she didn’t like that one. We will keep trying!
So, there was most of our week. She is just so much fun and it is amazing to watch her learn new things! Today I overheard her counting to 5 in Spanish. My sister asked me if I taught her that or Dora…ummm, it was Dora ;)
Check out 1+1+1=1 for more great ideas!!
Saturday, October 9, 2010
Tot School
29 months
Well, this was a slow week again! On Monday, I drove to the airport to pick up my mom. She is staying with us for almost 2 weeks. So, since I was sick for a few days (flu, maybe?) and she is here we didn’t do any “formal” Tot School. It was more just play and have fun with grandma while mommy rests :)
I just got this walk-to-ride lion toy back out and of course Moo-Bear loves it. Budski likes to watch her play!
Moo-Bear is teaching Budski how to play the xylophone. It was so cute. Today she was playing it and singing Frosty the Snowman. I couldn’t quite get to my video camera fast enough!
Moo-Bear was stacking our boom cups (called that b/c when Papa plays with her he says “Boom” in a very deep voice when she knocks them over) and letting Budski knock them over. As you can tell, she LOVED it!!!
At a park near our house they had a set-up where you could make your own scarecrow. Silly me thought maybe they would be like paper bag scarecrows, but they were full-sized. Moo-Bear was a little young for this, but had a blast stuffing hay into the clothes. Mommy did the rest. Oh, and she “drew” the face on it ;)
A good friend of mine had a birthday party for her son (he will be 2). She lives out in the country so there was a hay ride and they let the kids sit on one of the horses! We all had a great time!
Grandma got out the box of dress-up clothes for Moo-Bear to play with. She would change hats and then get up on the chair to get her picture taken, which is not normal. Usually when I pull the camera out she tells me no pictures. She had a blast. Budski also got in on the dress-up after his nap, but all those pictures are on my mom’s phone. He got to wear a fireman’s hat and jacket ;)
And a couple funny stories. First, this is her new smile face. Don’t know where she came up with this, but when we tell her to smile for the camera this is what we get. And, this morning I was changing her diaper (she sleeps with one, but is otherwise potty-trained) Budski was right by her head and she said, “Don’t wook at me. I’m grumpy"!”. Well, ok then ;)
Hope everyone had a wonderful week. We are going to have some more fun with my mom this next week. So, no “formal” tot schooling going on, but we will be learning a lot and having fun! check out 1+1+1=1 for more great ideas!!
Saturday, October 2, 2010
Tot School
29 months
We had a great week at our house. Moo-Bear was lots of fun and really enjoyed most of what we did. I always try to do “theme” things, but her favorite is still just playing with the “games” like puzzles, shape sorter, etc.
She had a great time doing the fish puzzle this week. I think we played with this every day! She is really getting into the “I can’t” already and I just have to tell her to keep trying and she will get it. Because she says she can’t but she also does not want my help. lol
I got this page from COAH. It is supposed to be a cutting practice page, but she isn’t ready for that so I laminated it and had her trace the lines with a vis-a-vis marker. She isn’t ready for that either, but at least I didn’t have tiny scraps of paper to pick up ;)
We also got these pages from COAH. It is the letter H tracing page and the coloring one. I laminated the tracing one and we put stickers on it and she had fun coloring the other one.
We glued together a hippo! We got it from COAH!
We played with our pattern blocks. I got the blocks and a bunch of laminated pages from a garage sale a long time ago. She didn’t really care for this. The yellow wheel was the only thing she put on and then she said, “Ok, na-na (another) game mommy”!
We worked on spooning objects into an ice cube tray. She had fun with this. She tried counting, but at about 4 she just did whatever!
I had some beads from Wally World and put them in a tub with some spoons, measuring cups, tp tubes, etc. and we had fun pouring and transferring them.
She really is getting the hang of her shape sorter. She knows all the shapes and says the name when she is looking for where they go. She is now able to turn the cube around and find where each shape goes. She has also learned that a stop sign is an octagon and she says it whenever we see one! She is at the age where she knows colors and traffic lights, but doesn’t quite know what they mean so she is always telling me to go when I stop ;)
I got these matching cards from the dollar spot at Target. They are Winnie the Pooh, which is a huge hit at our house. I was planning on matching the colors, but she was much more interested in checking out the Pooh characters on the other side of the card.
This week we learned “Hickory Dickory Dock”. We got this matching file folder game from, actually I don’t remember. I think I googled it or something. It was matching the mice based on their shirt color. Very cute!
I am really trying to work with her on numbers. She is doing great with her letters and she can count, but she doesn’t really know what the numbers mean. So, we used hippos and candy corn pumpkins, which she calls candy popcorn ;) I had to help her A LOT, but we will keep working! Oh, and we got the hippos from COAH!
We got a blue basket and went looking for things that were blue. She didn’t really understand this game at first. But, later in the week she got a green, red, and blue basket and went through her toys sorting them! And, yes I know the kitten isn’t blue, but it’s a cute pic ;)
We made a hippo craft for our ABC book. I cut everything and she colored. Then I had to help glue it together. I got this idea from The Blessed County Mom. Very cute :)
We did q-tip “sorting”. We just counted as we put them in the slots. She actually did this a few times!
Just a funny picture. I was in the kitchen and I heard music and didn’t know what it was. When I went to investigate, this is what I found. She was in her brother’s jumperoo having a great time. She is so fun!
So, that was our week. A few notes. I know it looks like we do everything on one day, but we do some every day. I generally do better with taking pics. the first day and after that I only take pics. of the new things we do. I try to do 2-3 “theme” things each day. I also have 12 “tubs” with “games” in them and we generally do at least 7 each day. She goes through them pretty quickly. And it tends to be the same ones every day. So, that is why we do so much and why in most of the pictures she has the same clothes on ;)
The next couple of weeks we probably won’t get much done because my mom is coming for a visit. She just finished her old job (she got laid off b/c they are closing all the WFF offices) and wants to come hang out before she has to look for a new job. So, I am not planning any “theme” things while she is here. We will do our other stuff when we have time, but I may not get many pics. We’ll just have fun with grandma and I may take the opportunity to get some projects done :)
Hope everyone had a great week and stop by 1+1+1=1 for more great ideas!!
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