C what we've been up to!

We had a busy day today! We had Gymboree and grocery shopping this morning and P had a blast, as usual. I am thinking of trying a free class at Little Gym sometime soon though to see if they offer anything that Gymboree does not.

After lunch and a nap P and I made some bread. I got a new recipe book yesterday that is full of bread recipes so we're giving the wholewheat flax seed loaf a shot. P helped me by pouring the flour, salt and vital wheat gluten in. We seized the opportunity to do a bit of counting as we put the cups of flour in. The point of this book is that you can make bread in 5 minutes with a little preparation and planning - the dough can be stored in the fridge for up to 10 days and you just cut a chunk off to make a fresh loaf of bread that day! P will help me kneed it tomorrow morning and we'll have sandwiches for lunch :)

We finally got around to finishing our C Caterpillar today. We used corks from wine bottles (no, we're not lushes, we had a house warming party recently. I swear) to stamp circles of paint and glue on the C and then added some glitter (P LOVES glitter. I don't. It gets EVERYWHERE. There was some in our dinner tonight!) A pipe cleaner makes a great pair of feelers. When I ask him what the C is he says CAT! He does listen when I talk!

P was pretty proud of his Caterpillar!

 

Remember the pasta we dyed weeks ago? We finally got to use it today! P only tried to eat it a few times... (excuse the dirty face, he had just finished some dried blueberries)

That handsome pasta man sits up, and even dances, much to P's amusement! Threading the pasta onto the pipe cleaners was good fine motor skill practice and we were able to talk about colors for a bit. P has finally decided that there are indeed, more colors in the world than blue and will now call blue, orange, black and purple things by their proper color, instead of calling them all BLUE! It's a start ;)

Enjoying the Great Outdoors!

The weather has been wonderful the last few days so we have been enjoying some time outside and haven't done much 'formal' 'Tot School'. Yesterday we rode trikes, drew with sidewalk chalk and threw balls around in the yard. We should start working on our 'C' work tomorrow or this afternoon depending on how the day goes, P is getting his 2 year old molars and is not in the best of moods...

B is for...

We finished up our work with the letter 'B' today. We finished coloring our 'B's and glued them into P's scrapbook, made a felt B to join the A on the felt board and flipped through a couple magazines looking for things that start with B. This was more about helping P identify things, not about him knowing what words start with B. SO when I'd find an appropriate picture I'd ask him what it was and he'd answer 'baby', 'ball', 'brush!', 'bean', 'brocli', 'book', 'bloon' and so on. Then we'd cut it out.

We tried something a bit different with glue today. In the past we have used a gluestick and P has 'helped' me but not really had much input. Today we had a little bowl with some craft glue and P used a q-tip to apply glue to the picture and helped me stick it on the page. He was very proud of himself and told his dad all about the 'blue' when he got home! ;)

We'll definitely be using that 'bluing' method in our future projects.

B is for Blue

P is 25 months old

We did a fun art project today! I found this green plastic (lidded) box at the store yesterday for $3.50 and P has been carrying a golf ball we found one day around for months. A bit of paint and a quick lesson on how to roll the ball around on the paper and voila!

We also played in P's play kitchen his Dad made for him. He made me a cup of tea. He knows the way to my heart!

While dinner was cooking P helped me dye some pasta for future activities. It's super easy, all you need is 1/4c rubbing alcohol, 10 or so drops of food coloring, some ziploc bags and uncooked pasta. You put the 1/4c of alcohol and the food coloring in the ziploc and add a couple handfuls of pasta. Shake it around a bit and let it sit for a few hours. Lay it all out on a cookie sheet lined with wax paper or similar and let it dry and you're good to go!

No idea what we're going to do with it all yet but we'll come up with something!

Bubbly Wednesday

We had storytime this morning at the local library. We haven't been in months and P has changed so much since the last time we went; he used to have no interest in sitting still and listening... today he sat on his carpet square and listened to all three of the stories AND enjoyed (aka. participated in) the coloring activity. After story time we took advantage of the warm(er) weather and walked around the little lake besides the library - we both enjoyed the fresh air. We've been stuck inside for too long!

After nap we played with bubbles, I would blow them and he'd pop them with his hands and feet, I also showed him how to blow the bubbles himself - we love the blower and bubble mix from Gymboree - did some coloring with his new Cars Color Wonder book that was $4 on clearance at the store today and played with blocks and trains some more... can you tell what his favorite toys are!?! ;)

Let the week B-gin!

We starting working on the letter B today. I printed out a bus for Parker to color since he loves anything with wheels - he took much more of an interest in the bus than he did in the 'B' he was also given to color. That's OK. Besides the usual cars, trains, blocks, ball play today we played Bean Bag Hide & Seek. I made P a bunch of bean bags a year ago for his first birthday and we found a new purpose for them today!

I hid them around the living room while he was off doing something else and then told him about the game when he came wondering in. He was quick to find a few of them but needed a bit of help with others. I would ask him questions like 'did you look on your RED chair?', 'look UNDER the coffee table', 'what about UNDER the bridge on your train table?' and so on. And he found them all! I think we ended up playing 3 or 4 rounds before he got distracted by something he came along while searching. Too funny.

I hid them under his blankets on the recliner and under the coffee table...

I think this game will be added to our list of go-too activities, he loved searching around the house for the bean bags!

A Quiet Monday

I hate Mondays. I just can't get moving... so, today was a bit of a slow day. We listened to our Laurie Berkner CD and played with blocks and trains this morning before P's nap. We ran errands in the afternoon. We did get  a box full of new books today from Barefoot Books though! The illustrations are beautiful and the stories are a great mix of new and old. Tonight J read 'A Dragon on the Doorstep' (which just so happens to be on super sale) with P and they both really enjoyed it! P even learned a new word 'Dragon!' He amazes me every day with the progress he is making talking wise. I think he has learned 10 or so new words in just the last week. Such a nice change from refusing to even try!

We'll be back into it tomorrow!

Poker Chip Fun

We were playing with blocks and trains this afternoon after lunch (which explains the dirty face!) and P was losing interest. I remembered that I had an empty yogurt container stashed away in the pantry that I reorganized last night and I KNOW that he LOVES these poker chips (I don't usually let him have them because they end up EVERYWHERE). I cut a small rectangle in the top of the lid and gave the container and the chips to him and let him figure it out. I asked him what we should do with them and he came up with a fun game; he'd put the chips through the slot as fast as possible, take the lid off (while saying 'open', which he has never said before) and pour them out, then repeat. The chips also lended themselves to sorting and talking about colors and circles. We had a blast with it! The container later became a drum while we were listening to a Laurie Berkner CD.

Tomorrow we are going to pick up some shelving I found on Craigslist that I hope to have built and organized to hold some of our Tot School stuff.

Stuck Inside

P is 24 months old

It's pretty cold out (for Texas) today and will be tomorrow too so we are stuck inside because P doesn't keep his shoes on! : )

So, I've got lots of activities planned. This morning I pulled out one of P's favorite art supplies - he loves these fluffy, colorful pom poms and throws tantrums to play with them. I set him up with a bowl full of pom poms, a spoon, measuring cup and a few containers and let him do what he wanted (I would try to get involved and talk about colors etc and he would tell me off for touching his pom poms! HA!). He had a blast for a half hour or so even though he had to fight off the cat who was trying to steal them all!

I have some 'A' coloring activities planned for the afternoon and maybe some marble play too!

Apples!

P is 24 months old
We had a busy day today! We had Gymboree this morning; we just moved up a level and were happy to find that a lot of P's friends had too. The theme today was Big Bear, Little Bear - mama was big bear and P was little bear. We pretended to catch fish, collect berries (playballs) and climbed over mountains. He did well, the older class is definitely better for him, all the other kids are his size so he can't beat them all up!

After nap we started work on the letter A. We talked about apples, colored an apple, made some apples for our felt tree and baked a yummy apple dessert.

Before bed last night we played with the lacing beads P got for his birthday. I got them through a coop from a great family run business - Maple Landmark Woodcraft - he really seems to like them, I give him the beads that are easier for him to thread to minimize frustration and tantrums and I use the others. It's definitely good fine motor skill practice!

Introducing: the felt board

P is 24 months old
I introduced P to his felt board today and it was a hit!

We talked about shapes and colors and P lined them all up. I asked him what the blue circle was and he said 'circle' for the first time so it's already educational! ;) He learned how to pat the shapes down so they stay on too.

I brought out the Yo Gabba Gabba stick-ons I made and he was very impressed! I printed pictures off the Nick Jr. website, glued them to cardstock, laminated and put a small square of velcro on the back.

We played with our YGG friends for a while and then we moved on to matching animals. We matched up a few, lined up some more and talked about the noise a rooster and duck makes. I got the images from the Farm themed Tot Book here

I think he likes it!?!?

Making a felt board

This took me 20 minutes total, seriously!

- I started with a piece of thick cardboard, about 19x21 but you can use any size you like. I used this piece because it's nice and sturdy and I had it laying around the house from a photo order so it was free















- I took a can of spray adhesive and stuck a square of blue felt to the cardboard. I had the adhesive from another project so that was also free but you can get it at Hobby Lobby - check their website for a 40% off coupon!

- I wanted to make a country side type theme for this board so I then cut out what kind of looks like hills and glued them to the blue felt. It would stick by itself but I plan to add more things on top and I think it would fall apart with a toddler messing with it

- I cut out a couple pieces of felt to make a tree. I also plan to make a road, sun, animals, cars, clouds etc etc to play with, they will all just stick to the felt on their own so they can be removed; alternatively, velcro works well too if you want to use laminated images (which I will be doing)

Total price: $4.62 inc. tax (I used a 10% off coupon at Joann's, the felt was 4.99yd) for all the felt shown here, everything else I already had! Not bad




















ETA: I just finished up some more shapes and such. They will all be kept in little containers by theme; animals, shapes etc so we can pull each out when we want to learn about a certain topic.





















More as I add to the project!

And so it begins

Yes, it's true, I already have a million different blogs that I haven't posted to in MONTHS (if not years) but this one will be different... promise.

I have been waiting for 2010 to start for months. I, for some reason felt like I couldn't get started on any of this until a new year started, maybe so it could be more easily tracked? Or maybe it's because P turned 2 and is taking more of an interest in learning and talking? I don't know... I realize I have some odd complex... oh well.

So, here we go, the beginning of 2010 marks the beginning of my dive into homeschooling... or more accurately Life Learning or 'Tot School' since P is, after all only 2. We plan on learning while we play and explore the world together. I can't wait to get started!

I already have two projects planned; tomorrow I am going to the fabric store to get some felt to make a felt board and I am having J (my wonderful husband who puts up with all my crazy crunchiness) laminate a bunch of peices of paper for a 'Tot Book' - more on that later!