Tot School - Last Two Weeks

Sorry I didn't post tot school last week - we have had a lot going on lately, so I just decided to wait and lump two weeks together! We have been doing a lot of playing outside lately, as the weather has been gorgeous and warm! But we've still managed to get some fun indoor activities done as well. :)

This week, we went swimming in the pond for the first time, and while we were there, we saw a transitional frog/tadpole guy swimming in the water. This prompted me to search for videos of the frog life cycle on YouTube, and Z and I watched several together - it was such a neat way to learn - there were videos that involved real frogs, cartoon frogs, and my favorite was this cute claymation - watching a variety of videos really added to the learning, I thought. There are lots of video projects on all kinds of subjects that kids have done for school and then put up on YouTube, so it's a great learning tool, and we will definitely be using it in the future!

Z always asks about these colored dots on the side of plastic containers. One day I was looking at a yogurt container and realized that these colored dots are all the colors on the packaging. So we used this yogurt container to have a color scavenger hunt, and find all the colors of the dots in the strawberry banana picture and in the words. :)


We also made paper plate sunflowers this week - I got the idea from Mama Jenn. First I cut the edges of two paper plates into petal-like shapes.

Then we painted the petals with yellow tempera paint.

Then we used a foam round brush and black tempera paint to stamp circles in black in the middle of the sunflower.

Then it was too black, so we stamped with brown tempera paint circles in the middle.

We let it dry, added green construction paper stems and leaves, and now we have a sunflower garden on our wall!


Z was using his cheese curls to 'make letters' one day - an L and a V, he says! :)

He didn't do his craft or his paper in children's church last week, so we did it together at home. It is so neat to hear him say his little verse - this month has been 'Believe on the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved. - Acts 16:31'. :) He says, "Believe on the Lowd Jesus Chwist, and YOU will BE. SAVED!" :) The craft was a puppy paper bag puppet - say that ten times fast! :) And the paper was about kindness - how we could be kind to each person on the paper.

We tried to work on patterns this week - is he too young for patterns? Does anyone have any tips on teaching patterns? I tried to use food (Cheerios & raisins), but he got distracted by trying to eat the food. So this week, I made a sheet with colors, and we tried again, and he just didn't get it really at all. Here is the sheet I made:

And here is the result: most answers are right, because I told him what to write. Any tips would be appreciated. :)

We also worked on some puzzles in our jigsaw puzzle book:

Here is a completed puzzle. He still needs lots of help with jigsaws.

We went to the Buffalo Museum of Science last Monday, and visited the Sesame Street Body Exhibit, along with the dinosaurs and one ecology room where they had stuffed animals from the Buffalo area. Z enjoyed it a lot, especially the Sesame Street exhibit - here he is with Ernie:

And here he is playing the Count's Organ Organ - it tells you about your organs when you play the different keys. :)

Here he is playing with our camp dog, Sammy, at the pond - this night we didn't intend to go swimming, but we ended up splashing each other and getting soaked. :)

And he has been getting SO brave on the playground equipment - here he is going down the middle slide on his stomach! Last year he would only go on the smallest slide, and only facing forward. :) It is amazing how much he is growing up!

We found this baby bird at the camp playground, but we're waiting to see if it's mommy finds it, and if not, we may take care of him. He was so cute, and followed us around, peep-peeping pathetically the whole evening - he reminded me of the book 'Are You My Mother?'. :)

My Two Tots

It is so fun to see my two little ones interacting together! Z is typically so sweet and kind to Natalie, and is learning a lot about being gentle and caring for others through being her big brother.

My Tiny Tot

Natalie is not so tiny anymore...she is learning and growing SO MUCH every day!!! She is rolling over both ways now, and she likes to scoot with her heels when she's on her back, so she can scoot around in a circle or headfirst. :) She also got her first TWO teeth this week - both on Sunday! She was a little grouchy Sunday afternoon, but other than that, it hasn't seemed to bother her too much, and she has been sleeping through the night regularly, so that is really nice, too. :)



To find out what other people are doing for Tot School this week, visit 1+1+1=1!