Tot School: Nov. 16-20

E is 22 months

Ahh, finally another Tot School post. We were traveling all week last week, and didn't do much in the way of anything. So these activities are what we did the week before Thanksgiving.

Field Trip:
We started the week off with a field trip to a local children's museum. E had an absolute blast. She was mad when we had to leave!

We read dinosaur stories in a dinosaur cave,
Dressed up like pirates,
Tap danced to some music,
Milked a "cow,"
And colored on a chalk wheel. Just to name a few!

Tot Trays/Learning Toys:
Later in the week we worked with our tot trays.

E always loves it when the pasta comes out. She worked with the smaller pasta this week.
I finally got one of these shape sorters with the rods. E thought it was pretty cool. I gave her one shape to start, and then mixed up two different shapes for her to sort out. We worked on colors, shapes, and big and small. These toys are great!
I pulled the stacking cups out of the bath again for E to work with, she's getting much better figuring out which one goes where.
E made a sticker picture with Sesame Street characters at the beach. I guess it was wishful thinking with the snow we got that week.
She also worked with her cookie jar shape sorter. This one frustrates her from time to time. I think it's harder because the shapes are on the side instead of on top like some of her other shape sorters.
Opening lids. This was a new activity for E and she got very frustrated when I wouldn't help her. I showed her how and gave it back. Eventually, she figured it out. She was especially frustrated when she couldn't get the Cheerios out!

Open Ended Art:
The theme for the week was corn. I didn't have any corn, so we did bubble wrap painting and I cut it out to look like corn. You can see my post about it here.

Photo of the Week:

"shopping" for toys

Open-Ended Art: Corn

This week, we did a semi-open-ended art project. The theme was corn, and I didn't really have much on hand to work with. I also didn't feel like running out to the store for supplies, so we worked with what we had.

I have been waiting to pull out my bubble wrap and try using that for painting. I saw on Pink and Green Mama's blog that they did bubble wrap Indian corn, and I thought that would be perfect for this week!

First, we did a dry run of what I wanted E to do, without the paint.
Then we used red, yellow, and mixed up some orange paint for our bubble wrap. She painted the bubbly side, and then we pressed it down on the paper.
E still wasn't done painting, so she painted another picture while we waited for the bubble wrap print to dry.
Once it was dry, I cut it out in corn shapes, and E helped me glue some "husks" onto the corn.

This was a fun project, and I'll definitely be using bubble wrap again. In fact, I washed it off and saved it for next time!

Happy Thanksgiving!

We are leaving tomorrow for a relaxing week's vacation for Thanksgiving. I thought I would leave you with a list of things I am thankful for.

I am thankful for . . . . .

My little munchkin, who is truly the light of my life.


Target - 'nuf said.


My mother and grandmothers, strong women who give me someone to look up to.


Quiet time to sit and read or knit or sew.


Good friends who make doing "kid stuff" even more enjoyable.


My faith, my God, and my Church community.


All the wonderful blogs I read and follow - I get such great ideas for activities to try from you all.


My family, near and far.


A job I enjoy.


Good health to appreciate all these things.



See you all next week! Watch out, Kansas, here we come!

Wordless Wednesday

An Afternoon Snowman

Tot School: Nov. 9-13

E is 22 months

I am a little late in getting this post up and running, oh, well. Last week was much better for Tot School than the previous week. E was willing to try and work on some things, and mommy seemed to have more patience. (Thank you, Lord!) So, here is what we did last week!

Learning Toys/Trays:

I found a set of lacing beads in the dollar section at Target, and had to pick them up. We haven't done this since our farm theme. I'm so glad I got them out. These were a little bit harder since they didn't have a good "needle." I will be remedying that as soon as I find my duct tape!

Sorting pom-poms by color. E went through this so fast with two colors, that I pulled out another bowl and added a third. Her favorite part was pouring them back into the big bowl, and squishing them before she put them in the sorting bowls.

Puzzles, of course. A different one this week, though. I need new puzzles!
We also worked with our toolbox shape sorter. She did really well with this. I find it interesting that she does so well with the shape sorters, but gets so frustrated with puzzles. They are pretty much the same thing!
And E requested the rainbow rice this week, so I pulled it out on Friday for some fun with pouring. Mostly in the box.

Alphabet/Reading Basket:

We learned about the letter T this week! We made a letter T for triangles to hang on our fridge. My post about it is here.
We also had some friends over for our letter playdate. We read the story Twas The Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey and made hand and footprint turkeys. So cute! You can see that post here.
Our reading basket stayed the same with our counting books from last week.

Arts and Crafts:

We did our open-ended art project for the week, the theme was feathers. I just posted about that here.
We also did a lot of coloring this week. A LOT. I pulled out our big book coloring pages and left one out on her table for us to color on throughout the week.

Mommy's Favorite:

My little accessory queen

Open-Ended Art: Feathers

Last week's open ended art theme was feathers. We had so much fun with this one! E chose blue and yellow paint, which I also mixed to give her green as well. We chose some feathers and used them as paintbrushes!

First one feather brush:


Then two:

We decided to leave our "paintbrushes" with the painting for extra prettiness.
To see more open ended art, visit Mommies Wise Little Bookworms.

Letter T is for Turkeys!

We hosted our stories and crafts playgroup today and the project was a turkey for letter T. I saw this project around somewhere, I'm sure it's been done a million times, but it's sooooo cute!

First, I traced E's foot on a piece of brown paper - this will be the turkey's body.Then, I traced E's hand on another sheet of construction paper. I stacked up several colors and cut them all out - these will be the feathers.E colored her foot while I cut out the hands. Then she colored her hands while I cut out the foot. I love her look of concentration - she wanted to only color the fingers on some of them, and only red.I put down some glue on the turkey's back and E helped me glue on the hands.Then we turned him over and glued on a beak and wattle and of course, google eyes.

We read Twas The Night Before Thanksgiving by Dav Pilkey, and enjoyed some letter T snacks, like cheese toast triangles, tater tots, turkey and tomato crackers, and chai tea for the moms. The kiddos played so well together, we had a great time!

Letter T is for Triangles!

We've been a little remiss with our letter of the week activities the past few weeks! But we are back today with letter T. E already knew this letter when I showed it to her. I swear, Leap Frog Letter Factory is AWESOME! I was trying to think of something fun for our fridge letter all week, and I finally came up with triangles.

I drew a capital letter T on a piece of construction paper and let E color it. She was not interested in coloring very much - she was excited to get gluing!
Then I cut out the letter T. I had a bunch of foam triangles cut out. I put some glue on the letter T,
and let her start gluing her triangles down. She ran out of room and wanted to stack some, so I just put a little extra glue down to help her out.
The finished project!
Stay tuned, tomorrow we are hosting our craft and story playdate for letter T - we're making turkeys!