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!

View Full Album

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 ;)

View Full Album

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!

View Full Album

Here is our calendar. She really just had un playing with all the pieces, putting them all over the place ;)

View Full Album

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!

View Full Album

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 ;)

View Full Album

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;)

View Full Album

I hid some foam pumpkin stickers in a bowl of pasta. She has more fun eating the pasta than finding the pumpkins ;)

View Full Album

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 ;)

View Full Album

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!

View Full Album

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 :)

View Full Album

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!!

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!

View Full Album

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 ;)

View Full Album

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!

View Full Album

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!!

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.

View Full Album

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

View Full Album

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 ;)

View Full Album

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”!

View Full Album

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!

View Full Album

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.

View Full Album

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 ;)

View Full Album

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.

View Full Album

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!

View Full Album

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!

View Full Album

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 ;)

View Full Album

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 :)

View Full Album

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!!

Tot School

29 months

We didn’t get a whole lot down this week. I wasn’t feeling well most of the week so I was pretty lazy about it. Moo-Bear still loves her “games” though so I can usually keep her occupied by letting her pick out a couple “trays” to play with. We continued with the letter “A” this week. I think she knows it now!!

She loved using our new markers to color the apple page from COAH.

View Full Album

I got the idea to use the hammer to work on the puzzle from Giggly Girls and I think she got it from Carisa!

View Full Album

I love this game we got a while ago. this is the first time she actually got 1 shape out at a time and put it in the correct place. Usually she just pulls the lever over and over until all the pieces are everywhere. Then we put them back in and do it over again ;)

View Full Album

I don’t even remember where I got this idea from. Possibly Totally Tots. We put the pegs into the boards and then balanced the little pieces on top. She wasn’t overly thrilled with this game!

View Full Album

Again, I don’t remember where I got this idea from. Possibly Totally Tots again. I made copies of the number 1 and a square (the number and shape we worked on) and instead of tracing them she was putting stickers on the lines. Well, she just ended up putting them all over ;)

We did a few other things, I just can’t remember right now and I didn’t get pictures of them.

Hope everyone had a great week and head on over to 1+1+1=1 for more great ideas!

Tot School

29 months

I am a little late in getting my post up this week. We had a busy weekend with grandparents in town and Sunday/Monday I was completely exhausted for some reason. We did get to do Tot School last week and had a great time!!

View Full Album

Moo-Bear really enjoyed doing her shape puzzle this week. I think we got it at Target!

View Full Album

Buddy is starting to get in on the action a little bit. He mainly just hangs out while we play. Moo-Bear was so proud of herself for stacking the blocks so high. I am noticing a huge difference in what she can do just since last May!!

View Full Album

We are doing the Letter A for the next 2 weeks. She really enjoyed the dot marker page from COAH!

I love how intently she is looking at this puzzle piece. I got this apple shape matching game from COAH and she did a great job. These tot school activities are not her favorite right now. She would much rather be playing with the “games”, but I only pick 1-2 a day and then we get to do the other stuff. So far she is doing well with that!

Stringing beads onto a pipe cleaner. She had a hard time with this at first, but is starting to get the hang of it. She has a tough time moving her hands around to pull the bead and not having the bead fall off. But, we haven’t done this in a while and she did so much better!

View Full Album

I got these foam shapes from the dollar section at Target. Moo-Bear is a very active girl so I thought she would enjoy setting up the colored buckets around the room and then dumping the squares in the middle. She had to pick up the squares and get them in the right bucket. And she loved it! I found her playing with this many times throughout the week!

View Full Album

More apple activities from COAH! We did apple color matching (2 different activities) and she also got to paint an apple, which she loved!

View Full Album

Some more fun “games” we played. We got out the shape/color sorter, which she loved. She cracks me up b/c she will put the wrong one on and hen take it off and say, “No, that’s not right” and then move if to the correct peg! We also did a letter puzzle activity. We mostly just played with it b/c she doesn’t know all her letters and especially can’t match upper and lowercase, but it is good exposure to the letters. I stored the puzzle in a wipes container and when she opened it she said in her funny little voice, “What are you doing in their!” We also played with the pegs and pegboard a little bit.

View Full Album

Apparently I have a lot of “games” for color sorting. She loves it. And of course, we have to see how many rings we can get on our fingers!

View Full Album

And out most exciting activity of the week…the clips!! She has never been able to do these, but I wanted to try again. So, at first she just kept saying, “I can’t”. I would tell her yes, you can and shoe her how to do it. Well, she finally figured it out and she was so excited. I can’t even tell you how many times we played with it this week. She was so proud of herself for figuring it out. And I was a proud momma, too :)

For more great ideas check out 1+1+1=1.

Tot School

28 months

We got home Tuesday from our travels so most of our week was spent recovering, cleaning, getting groceries, etc. I also spent time planning our tot school for the year/week. We are really looking forward to getting back into our "school" time. Well, I know I am for sure and I really think Moo-Bear will enjoy it once we get started. She just doesn't know yet :)




The one activity she did this week was to take these blocks and sort them into the baskets. I had a red, yellow and blue basket and placed them around the room. She dumped the blocks in the middle and then ran around putting them in the right baskets.


Then of course she decided to dump them on her head!

I got the idea for this "calendar" from 1+1+1=1. I wanted to do something very simple with Moo-Bear since she is still pretty young, but at the same time give us a little structure for our Tot School time. So, I made this board to have in our school room. I have our verse of the week from Totally Tots, the weather from 1+1+1=1, the day of the week and other songs from 1+1+1=1, a nursery rhyme, and our shape/color/number/letter of the week. For now I plan on changing things out every week and as she gets older I will let her help!

My plan is to do the letter of the week from Erica at COAH. We may spend 2 weeks on most of the letters and we will not do all the activities she has b/c I don't think Moo-Bear is ready for them. We will also use a few things from Brightly Beaming Resources. This site has a curriculum to use before you begin a letter of the week. It is a lot more basic and simple. From there I plan to use the letter/shape/number of the week as well as doing a nursery rhyme of the week. So, between these 2 sites I will have my basic plan for the year. And of course I will incorporate some open ended tot school toys every day as well. I am really looking forward to doing this with Moo-Bear and hope you'll check back every week to see what we've been up to! For more great ideas check out 1+1+1=1!!