Tot School - Letter F

We were able to squeeze in the letter F last week, even in the midst of all the work we've been doing up at our new house! I didn't take a lot of pictures, I've been trying to just enjoy the time one-on-one with Z, especially when the rest of life is so busy, but I did take a few just to show what we did (and so that I could remember....) :)

No picture of our morning board this week - sorry! But our verse was Matthew 4:19 - 'Follow me', Jesus said, 'and I will make you fishers of men.' And our song was Fishers of Men. (click on the title for lyrics). Z did a good job with his verse this week, and learned the song well, and he got a few new sight words on the wall! He is doing an awesome job starting to read his sight words in books, so that is really fun!

We introduced the letter F this week with our consonant cards. We started with F, and then Z matched up each object with the letter it started with - he did a great job! :)

He's proud of himself! :)

We did a farm maze (his first maze), and he did a great job of getting the bunny to his food! :)

Natalie had to come check out what we were working on!

We used our heart shape viewer this week, which he always enjoys.

Is Natalie's head a heart? Not really.

She did not appreciate this very much.

We did find some hearts in Mommy's bedroom!

We did a crayon relief painting - here is the drawing I drew on a piece of paper with a white crayon:

And we painted over it with orange tempera paint to find the message underneath - this didn't work too well - should I use a different kind of paper? I tried to write really hard with the white crayon - any tips???

Our letter collage this week was fingerprints. We used a couple of Mommy's ink pads to stamp our fingerprints on our F.


Zachary played with his Aqua Doodle mat.

We used wipe-off markers to trace on our playdough mat.

We made a farm animal 'parade' - he had to match up the animal halves to see what animal came next, then we taped it together. He's really enjoyed playing with this since we made it! This is from a little workbook I got at the thrift store (same book the maze above was in).

We had our first 'snow' last week- just a fourth of an inch, but snow nonetheless! :) Z & I went outside to check it out at 7 am! :)

Z has been 'helping' some as we've been working on our new house - here he is covering his ears from the sound of the loud saw cutting out part of our kitchen wall - good thing Daddy's there to hold him! :)
He also 'helped' with painting later that day when Mommy and Daddy weren't paying close enough attention...good thing this was the right paint for this wall, and the flooring's all being torn out!!! :) I did have him help me paint some Kilz primer on another wall, too, he thought that was really fun. :)

My Tiny Tot

Natalie is standing up with less and less assistance, here she is trying to work the microwave! She can stand up with just one hand barely holding on now, but she doesn't really try to walk much yet!
She likes to get our LeapFrog Fridge Phonics off the fridge & press the buttons so it sings the ABC song. :)

Natalie turned ten months this week, and is really curious & into everything, so we started some early Tot School activities!

We played with our Melissa & Doug musical instruments sound puzzle, and she liked hearing all the little songs it plays when you put the instruments in. :)


We also played with our stacking cups (from IKEA), she liked when I would stack a couple of them up, and then she would knock them down. :)


Tot School is so fun - I'm so thankful for the opportunity to play with my kids at home! :) The most awesome thing that happened this week, was that I got to share the gospel with Zachary! I am always talking about how Jesus died on the cross for us, and thanking Him for it in my prayers, etc. I hadn't introduced the topic of hell until it came up in a Bible story we were reading, so then we talked about it. Then one evening at supper, he said, "Can we go to Heaven, and not to Hell?" and I said, "Yes! We can, when we trust Jesus to be our Savior!" He doesn't fully understand, of course, and repentance is not his strong suit, but it is always exciting whenever I get to chat with him about spiritual things! :)

Well, we'll be taking a 2-week break from official tot school - but of course we'll all still be learning! :) My parents are here this week to help us work on the house (and my mom has been watching the kids so that I can paint & stuff, too, so that's really helpful!). My mom loves to read, and Z loves to sit and read with her and my dad, so that's a ton of learning going on right there - and a ton of fun! :) Then, next week, we'll be attending the NARBC Camp Conference at Skyview Ranch in Ohio, so we're excited about that, too! I'm looking forward to seeing friends from the other camps in our conference! :)

I hope to be back with Tot School for the letter G in early November, but we'll see how things go! To find out what everyone else is doing for Tot School this week, and for some great resources on doing tot school with your kids, pop over to 1+1+1=1!