Tot School - January 23-27

1+1+1=1

I am now linked up to the Tot School blog!  Check it out!

I took a little blogging break and a tot school theme break (we still did some tot school, they were just really random and last minute).  We were back at it this week though and Bug had a lot of fun with her "Tah-coo."

Tot Trays

Counting conversation hearts.


Checking things out.

I know this is way beyond her, but I just wanted her to see the idea played out.  She watched me count them out, then she put a couple in each circle, then she did not get near it again for the rest of the week.

Transferring crystals into ice cube tray.

She really liked this one, but couldn't figure out the tongs.  I know they are a little out of her reach right now, but I like to challenge her, and she did try to use them.

Putting heart erasers into container.

Sorry this is so dark, she was faster than my flash, lol.  Each time we tried this she would only put one in, but then try and shove more in, get frustrated and then move on to something else.  Patience is not something she has much of...

Beading a necklace.

This was her favorite part and once I let her do it once, she was not about to use that string again.

Valentine's day stickers.

Gross Motor

Pulling a string for the cat (this will keep her busy for a while)

Lots of dancing!

Hide and seek

Art Projects

Puffy paint on a heart cutout

 Heart stencil painting

Red toy bath time 

Red bath painting

Sensory Bin

Fun with red

Books

Tot School - January 2-6

This week our theme was snowflakes.  We are beginning to get into more of a routine, but with the house still a little out of sorts makes it tricky.  Plus I have been feeling a little icky and unmotivated lately.

Tot Trays

Beading.  She did not spend much time on this at all.  I'm not sure if she was able to do it because she didn't really even try. 

She helped me make the playdough and had a lot of fun playing with it.  She is really big into transfering things right now, so I had to get out a second tray out just for her to move things back and forth.  

This morning I spilled eggs on my original plans and I am not even sure what the other two trays were supposed to be.  I know that one is the snowman Ss page from last week.  The other one I am pretty sure was the sticky window idea from last week which bug ripped down pretty early while I was busy in the kitchen.  No pictures of that, but the basic idea was to have a big white circle behind the contact paper and then I cut out "rocks" and a "carrot" to make up a face for the snowman. 

Gross Motor

Snowflake Hunt

She liked this, only she lost interest in it because while she was looking for more she would see something she wanted to play with and then forget about the snowflake.  She did well after she got the hang of it, and it was a really good way to test her comprehension of living furniture and objects. 

Speaking of living room furniture, I set up some shelves to house Bug's living room toys.  I love the way they look (and they are secured to the wall)!  I will be getting different baskets for it as I stole those from Bug's room since I haven't really gotten in there to organize yet.  Slowly but surely this place will get to the way I want.

*A toddler in my state just died after a dresser fell on him.  It happens often, and is so preventable. Please strap down furniture!!*

Art Projects

"Snowman" circle pictures

She liked the word circle more than the actual painting of it, lol!

Snowflake masking tape painting

Snowflake cheese quesadilla

Bug is teething and not eating very much (not that she ate much to begin with), so needless to say she wanted nothing to do with this.

I didn't focus on any books this week, we just had the books from last week out. 

Linked up with Sunday Showcase

Tot School December 26-30

We didn't do that great with tot school this week. I had a really hard time just getting into the swing of things this week. Our theme this week was going to be snowmen. I will share the plans I had made and what we actually go to, so that if anyone gets more motivation than myself they will be able to do them.

Sensory Bin
Tinsel was not as big of a hit as I thought it would be. I'm not sure she really liked the way it felt, and she hated that it stuck to her. She took it all out of her temporary sensory bin and touched it for like a minute and then wasy done.

Tot Trays
*Snowman Letter S worsheet We didn't get to this, so we may do it next week.
*Family matching game. I printed pictures of Mommy, Daddy, and Bug and she had to match them up. This was too easy for her, so I need to make it a little harder next time. She did love it though!
*White playdough - Never got to this either.
*Contact paper build your own snowman:

She LOVED this and went back to it many times throughout the week (I left it out all of the time for her). I will try to do something like this each week since it seemed to be such a hit with her.

Creative Expression
*Fingerpainting - No pictures, She LOVES this. She prefers a brush though.
*Toilet paper roll circle painting - did not get to, would like to do next week
* Gluing cotton balls. She did not like getting the cottons ball fuzz stuck to her hands from the glue, and doesn't quite "get it" yet, but we will keep trying.

We had snowman pancakes this week too. I make a big batch and then freeze them, so I didn't have any perfectly round ones to use. They are orange tinted because I add sweet potato to them so Bug can get some extra veggies into her. If Bug wasn't screaming for them as it was, I would have added some powdered sugar to them before added the raisins and cheese it crumb nose. I couldn't think of anything for a hat, and couldn't really be bothered to do the scarf or arms though I am sure pretzel sticks would have worked perfectly for arms.

Books
Frosty The Snowman
Snowmen at Night

Songs
Frosty the snowman

Gross Motor
We played outside in the snow (even brought some of it in when it was too windy to go out and play).

Merry Christmas!

Hoping your holiday is as blessed as ours!

Planning

As I get more organized I will have these more filled out, but this is what I am doing so far for planning. I get a lot of my ideas from pinterest (what did I do before Pinterest?).
I have no idea how to upload this as a file that you can use, but if anyone wants it, I can email it to you. It is fairly easy, so I can imagine it's easy to duplicate, or personalize.

The bottom two sections are for "songs" and "gross motor." Not sure why they don't really show up in the image, but hey at least it is up there. I haven't really had much for sensory bins so far because we just aren't set up to accomodate it yet, and Bug's sensory table is still in the storage unit. I have been trying to do bathtub sensory fun lately to make up for it (shaving cream, bubbles, I am going to make some bath paint I saw on pinterest, and pudding paint to come).

Tot School - December 20-23

Somehow Monday slipped by us without doing anything with Tot School!
Tot Trays:

Sorting Red and green bows.

This was to focus on opening and closing the jar. She has been carrying the package of small beads around for a while noew, so I thought it would be enough to motivate her. We are working on becoming more independent. While we were in between houses (ended up being for 2 months!!!!) we stayed with my parents. She learned quickly that if she whined she could get whatever she wanted from someone there. Since moving into our house (we have been here a couple of weeks now), the whining/grunting has decreases significantly! I didn't know how much more I could take of the whining!

* shaking boxes (no pic)

* snowman matching (no pic, but got from here)

So far this week we have done two art projects. If I think of it I will try to post pictures of the others that we will do this week.

We cut our own Christmas tree this year, and I saved some branches so that we could paint with them. She only mildly liked this, so I ended up giving her paintbrushes to use as well.

Hard at work decorating her gingerbread men. I was really surprised by how much she enjoyed this. We probably worked on this for a half hour or so. I got the foam pieces from the Target dollar section a while ago, and I put out puffy paint (ended up putting on a plate with brushes), glue, buttons and google eyes. She watched me as I showed her squeeze the glue and put my buttons in, and I helped her to squeeze her glue. She knew to put her buttons or eyes into the glue blobs. We will have to work on squeezing so that we can do more gluing activities.

They turned out so cute! I made one too, but I can't remember which one ;)
Art projects we have planned for the rest of this week:
*Paper plate wreath
*Applesauce/cinnamon ornament
*footprint tree
*handprint ornament (we did one for her last year too)

We made Christmas cookies too. I don't have any internet worthy pictures for that, sorry (I don't really want Bug's face all over the WWW).