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.

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

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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 ;)

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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!

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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!!

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

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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!!

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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!

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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!

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

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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.

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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!

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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!!

Fixing things

Ok, I started messing with my blog and I don't have time to finish right now. So, please don't mind how awful it looks. I will get to work on it as soon as I can :)

Indiana Trip

I know, very exciting title, but that's what this post is all about! So, we have been at my parent's for almost 3 weeks and we are headed out in the morning. It has been a lot of fun hanging out here. We got to spend a lot of time with my 8 year old nieces and Moo-bear absolutely LOVED this! They had so much fun together.

We went swimming

to the spray ground

to the zoo

to Michigan





and just hanging out!






Tomorrow morning we are headed to Ohio for a weekend with my college girls! That will be so much fun! More about that later :)

Fun Projects

Well, I have been super busy the past couple of weeks. I had some projects I wanted to get done around the house before we left for our 3 week trip to Indiana. Between all my projects, normal daily stuff, and having my MIL in town I haven't had much time to do anything else. But, these projects all turned out great! So, here are a few pics. I am a goober and didn't get many before pics.


This is a cabinet in our bathroom. It has this plastic type stuff on the doors and just looks awful. I wanted to make it look better, but couldn't come up with any ideas.

Here is the after. We took a board thing from Hobby Lobby and covered it with quilter's cotton and then the fabric. Then we decided to make it like a memory board with the ribbon on it. So, now I can hang pictures or whatever on it. I think it looks a ton better! It makes me think of "Design on a Dime" from HGTV!

And here is a faraway shot of both doors. Next I want to replace the handles and then it will look tons better! I love it!

We have 2 large walls in our bedroom and one is above our bed. We have a large painting on that wall so I didn't want another large painting. I saw this idea where you can hang 4 frames together to look like a larger picture. We are just missing 1 frame b/c I didn't buy it yet. For future reference...it is really difficult to hang pictures like this and keep them all straight. So, I probably won't do it again.

I had this cute thing from when I did my student teaching in the Dominican Republic and I really wanted it hung in my room. But, the background was this awful green color and totally didn't match. But, the rest of it did so my MIL mixed up some paint to tone it down a bit and now it looks great!

I took the kiddos to J.C.Penney's to get pictures done and have been waiting to buy more frames and get them hung. So, now they are up in our living room.


And finally, my biggest project! I bought 2 of these shelves from a garage sale. They were finished in a really light stain that wasn't my favorite. So, I decided to redo them. It took quite a bit of work, but I love them. They turned out great!!

So, there you have it! Now I am just enjoying our time with my family in Indiana. We have been spending most of our days with my nieces. We will go back home on the 31st and then a vacation with Matt's parents. After Labor Day we will start back up with "real" Tot School. I can't wait!!!