Tot School

We had a great tot school week this week, lots of fun & educational play, plus we had about two feet of snow (rather normal for the western NY snow belt), so we got to play outside and learn how to make snowballs this week as well. And Z will tell you the story of how he lost his boot in the snow if you ask him (the poor thing had no socks on, so his bare foot was in the snow while his 39-week pregnant mom took her sweet time waddling over to rescue him).

Anyhow, to begin with this week, I promised I would share some of Z's (and my) favorite birthday presents!

The first one is LeapFrog's Fridge Phonics, I didn't get a great picture of the toy itself, but click on the link & you can see it up close & personal. Here is Z enjoying it - you put the letter in the sun & it sings the song I shared last week (to the tune of Farmer in the Dell) about the sound or sounds the letter makes. It also sings the alphabet song. Ad nauseum, if your child continues to push the button. :)

Here's Z, gleefully pushing the button. Hearing him sing along to the alphabet song is hilarious, his version always goes something like, "Z, K, T, L, B...next time, sing with me" :)

Another great toy that I was planning to buy for him, so I was thrilled when he received one, is a classic shape sorter. He loves 'playing shapes', and is getting pretty good at all of them, except pentagon & hexagon give him a run for his money. :)

Also, hearing him say 'pentagon' and 'hexagon' is pretty much totally adorable. :)

We made salt dough Christmas ornaments this week. I got the recipe for the dough here, and it was pretty easy to work with. I would definitely use it again. Here is Zachary cutting out some ornaments - he LOVES using cookie cutters, so he had a great time with this part. :)

I didn't get any pictures of them before or after they were baking, not sure why, but some of them turned out kind of puffy and weird. I may have rolled them too thick. Also, I completely forgot to punch holes in them, I mean, they ARE ornaments and all...so I ended up having to hot glue some ribbons on them for hangers, a little extra effort, but it worked out just fine.

Anyway, the next step was painting the ornaments. Z loves painting, but for some reason, he wasn't overly interested in it this day.

He was more interested in painting on his tray, so we did a few together (mostly me), and then gave up. :)

Here are the ornaments we painted:

And though Z was reluctant to paint them, he LOVED hanging them on the tree. He loves seeing the projects we've done hanging around the house, it really thrills him. :) He was pretty excited to show them to Daddy when he got home, too.


We made cake balls this week, together, which was a lot of fun. You can get to the recipe by clicking the link. Here's Z crumbling up the cake with me. :)

And here is the finished product:

We also made candy canes this week, courtesy of No Time for Flashcards. She started with painting a candy cane on brown paper, but I just started with a red paper candy cane.

I let Z use some glue...

and stick on some cotton balls for the stripes.

This project was absolutely perfect for his attention span and craft level. He often gets bored with longer crafts & I end up finishing them myself, so I was excited to find something that was just right for him. :)

So, we had lots of fun with tot school activities this week, but we were also able to take time to relax as a family (always important)! Z should be meeting his little sister some time in the next week (I HOPE!), so we will have some fun pictures to post of that soon!!!

For more Tot School ideas, head over to 1+1+1=1!