Tot School

Kayleigh is 29 months

Life was a tad different for Kayleigh this week. She got to experience life as an only child. Big Sis was away at church camp for the week. It was freaky quiet without any unison screeching.


It was also our trial week for a more purposeful Tot School. Next week Mackenzie starts back up with school, (sniff, sniff my baby will be in fourth grade) so I really want to get Kayleigh in more of a routine with regards to her 1:1 time. Like all tots, she's more apt to play nicely by herself for a spell if you "love tank" is filled up.

Her "spirited" personality has really had an effect on our homeschooling. Since Kayleigh's arrival we've been just scraping by with the basics. This year I want to add our extras back in.


I plan to start Tot School first thing after breakfast, before Mackenzie starts her work, and hope that it will alleviate some of our issues with Kayleigh's behavior. Then she's going to start playtime in her room. Then she'll join us again and play with a sensory bin or playdough while we continue our work. Then maybe an educational dvd. Although I don't want to use the tv everyday. We're still going to be winging it somewhat. LOL

At any rate, we had a full week of "schooling." I even joted down a list of things I hoped to accomplish. We actually did a few of them. Everything else was changed as our whims guided us. Clearly, that's how Tot School seems to work best for us.

My plan is to focus on one letter per week, to work on recognition. We did 'A' this week. It was nothing exciting. A couple of crafts and some puzzles or games will be the extent of our "literacy" activities. Oh and we're making an alphabet book.

I'm also starting a morning routine with her. Stuff like singing a good morning song, talking about the weather, practice our colors, and the days of the week. Mackenzie is going to be my helper with this. And we're going to focus on one nursery rhyme/week during this time. One day, when I figure out exactly how I want it to go, I'll make a more detail post about how this is going to work.

We started with our morning routine each day. I gave her a little pointer to keep her hands occupied. Our nursery rhyme for the week was Jack Be Nimble. She's pretty good at reciting it now. And we acted it out by jumping over a glue stick. We're going to be putting our nursery rhyme printables into a book too.

Next we read. I gave each day of the week a "focus skill" like numbers, letters, shapes, colors, etc. All that means is on Wednesday we read books about numbers and, maybe, had a number activity or craft. Sorry no pictures of the reading because I had a munchkin on my lap. I'll list what we read this week at the end.

Then we did some sort of muscial or gross motor activity. One day we played with our LeapFrog Guitar and danced to our Baby Einstein Sing & Play CD. Kayleigh likes to use her LeapFrog Guitar as a violin. She does this everytime she plays with it. It cracks me up.



We read a couple of versions of the story of Noah's Ark this week, because A is for Ark, afterall. Then we did this Noah's ark craft I created. Twice.

I originally made it because Kayleigh likes to use glue and I thought she could just glue some animals from a magazine. Except, I went a little crazy with our school room makeover and tossed our magazines. So no animals. I just made some from clip art when I did the ark. While I was doing it I thought about how cute it would be if I made the windows/doors in the lift the flaps and glued the animals behind them.

That was great until I set out to do it. She's two for the love of pete. She can't glue around the edges so they'll fit behind the flaps. She just wants to load on as much glue as she can and then slap it down. So I didn't cut out the flaps. She colored them and glued them whever she wanted. On the front. But if you have an older child they might like making the ark with flaps.

We did it again because she wanted to. This time I just gave her the ark and some animal stickers I had.

We also made the first page in our alphabet book. This week's page was A is for Ants, from Totally Tots. We made thumb print ants all over an A. The she drew "legs." Yes, I know that nothing about those ants is anatomically correct. I do know how many body parts and how many legs they have. It's just that Kayleigh didn't care. And a shout out to Wendy who gave me TONS of free scrapbook paper, including the picnic checks used in this craft.

We had lots of fun pounding pasta. I've been meaning to try this idea, from Carisa, for about a year now. We finally did it. She loved it.

Our tot trays included:

A small spaces activity, drink stirrers in a sugar shaker.

A is for Ants magnet page

A shape matching activity made to look like the rainbow lollipops that Kayleigh loves. She's never eaten one though. LOL She did really good with this. She was able to name almost every shape.

Our Geometric Stacker , which we have not mastered yet.

Kayleigh is OBSESSED with Monster's Inc. at the moment so I made her a Monster's Inc. number sorting game

Lastly, spooning "treasures" into a themed icecube tray with a long spoon. In case you're wondering, she's sitting on a new box of diapers. I don't know why. She insisted though. LOL

Our sensory bin for the week was her old baby bathtub filled with water in the backyard. Recycling...LOL

And finally, some random learning toys. MEGA Bloks , LeapFrog Tag Junior Book Pal, and watching LeapFrog - Letter Factory.

And my two favorite shots of the week. All I can say is....Well, I have no words.

Get more ideas for your tot over at 1+1+1=1.

Tot School

Kayleigh is 29 months old

Hello fellow Tot Schoolers! I hope all is well with you.

We had an interesting week. By interesting I mean that Kayleigh was not that interested in doing anything that I suggested and therefore we didn't do much. I hope this doesn't mean that she's back to her old "normal." Ack!

It was hot, hot, hot this week so we spent some time in the pool. My husband and I finally got her to release her death grip on us and she was kicking around on her own with the help of her Speedo Swim Vest. I took a little video with my phone, as she was so cute. Hopefully it will upload properly so you can enjoy it.

We used our Teddy Bear Counters counters and mats. This time we were sorting by size. You were supposed to put the daddies on the slide, mommies on the swings, and the babies on the merry-go-round. Kayleigh had other ideas this week. Apparently everybody wanted to swing and nobody was interested in the slide. There was one baby who did enjoy the merry-go-round. LOL

Then I thought we'd practice our shapes in a fun way. A way that was suited for Kayleigh's temperament. I got out our shape poster and a our fancy fly swatter, both from the Dollar Tree. I was going to call out a shape and she was going to whack it with the swatter. I mean she does like whacking her sister and Swiper "that neaky box" in her Dora book, after all. She did it once. Then she has other ideas.

Apparently her Bitty Baby, "Randa" (named after our friend Miranda) wanted to sit on the shapes. And only the shapes that I didn't call out.

Then we played a Magnifying Lens Picture Matching Game using our cool Melissa & Doug Mombo Snake Magnifying Glass . This didn't go well. She did it once but that was it. She wasn't interested in using the magnifying glass on the little pictures and she certainly wasn't interested in matching the little pictures to the enlarged ones. These shots were the beginning and end of this activity.







We also did a Fruit Loop Sorting activity. This activity went slightly better because I told her that she could only eat the ones that she sorted correctly. I had to add that last bit in because you know she started off putting them on the wrong colors. Then I'd take them off the mat and put them back. Eventually, she decided eating the Fruit Loops was more important to her than messing with mommy.







Lastly she wanted to read Zoo (Little Scholastic) ,which is also a puzzle. The pieces are pretty thin so she got frusterated, as usual. But do not try to help her. She won't react well. LOL

And that was about it. Mostly she played with her sissy and they had lots of fun and got really annoyed with each other. Typical.

Be sure to check out what the other tots are up to over at 1+1+1=1.

Tot School

Kayleigh is 29 months old

Hello fellow Tot Schoolers. I hope you had a great week, or two. We missed last week. Too busy with life to get my post up. =o) So today's post might be a little longer because we have two weeks to cover.


We did some fun activities to celebrate the Fourth of July. First we made "fire works." You can read about it HERE.


Then we made a yummy Fourth of July treat. Edible Sparklers.


All you need is pretzel rods, marshmallow fluff (or vanilla frosting), and red and blue sprinkles.


First you dip one end of the pretzel in the fluff.



Then you roll the "fluffed" end in a plate of red and blue sprinkles.

That's it. You're done! Now you eat it. How easy is that?

We went to visit my dad, in Small Town, NC, and watched fireworks. It was Kayleigh's first time seeing them. She was at home in bed for the previous two holidays. She is still talking about them.

We attended the all important Croakerfest parade and fair. A big deal in Small Town, NC.

Now on to things of a more "Tot Schooly" variety.

We practiced spooning jewels with a long spoon.

We tried a new fine motor activity that Kayleigh LOVED. I gave her a sponge, a dog dish, a bit of water and let her have at it. She must have done this a hundred times that week. Thank you Shannon, for this great idea!!!

We practiced numbers with a printable from COAH review set. I gave her some tongs and pom poms to complete the activity. This one didn't last very long. She got frustrated trying to get the pom poms into the right spot using the tongs. Maybe the tongs weren't such a great idea. LOL Note to self: No tongs when precision is required. =o) Next time we'll use our fingers.

We practiced with out scissors. She's still a long way from mastering this skill. Even with our Fiskars Pre-School Spring Action Scissors. Maybe because she doesn't want my advice? LOL She likes to keep trying though.

We had fun dancing to our Brainy Baby Sing-Along Songs CD with our Play Scarves.





We found another neat activity from Shannon's Tot School called "Does it Fit?" Kayleigh had a lot of fun testing objects to see if they'd fit in the paper towel tube.

We also did a fun shape recognition activity that you can check out HERE.

Lastly we played with our Brainy Baby Snap Cards. I just pulled out a few colors so she wouldn't be overwhelmed. She was underwhelmed. She did two puzzles and then took off. LOL

And I have to give a thank you to Carisa for hooking me up with Tumblr. It's been so great with helping organize fun activities that I find on blogs. It's made it so much easier for me to give credit to those creative moms who come up with a lot of the great ideas that Kayleigh loves. I'm happier when I'm being polite. =o)

Be sure to check out what the other tot's have been up to over at Carisa's