Sickly tot school..

Noah is 14 months old.

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We've had a house full of sickies this week:( Noah started coughing Tuesday, and ended up running a low-grade fever (not over 100) over the next two nights. On Thursday night when his fever got up to 101.5, the appointment was made for Friday morning. So after I held my breath for fifteen minutes while they tested him for the flu, it was decided that Noah just has a virus of some kind.

The only problem is he isn't really improving. He has cough medicine and eye drops (because his eyes got all red and goopy), and while he definitely isn't worse, I don't feel like he's any better either. So we may be making another call to the doctor tomorrow...we'll see how today goes.

Despite being sick, though, Noah has generally remained his silly, happy little self:) Much to my brother and his family's delight! Noah didn't do much actual planned tot school this week, but he had a BLAST with his cousin Peyton, Uncle Shannan, and Aunt Katie!

There was lots of belly "struddles".....at least that's what we call blowing on your belly in our family:)

Noah is absolutely fascinated with bellies and belly buttons. He did lots of searching for cousin Peyton's belly button:)

The boys also had fun exploring outside at their Granny's house looking for clovers..

Peeking through the trees (this picture is going on our Christmas card this year!)...

Crawling through the grass...

And peeling off some birch bark...

We were all sad to see their crew head out Saturday morning, but we're definitely looking forward to Christmas!

Otherwise in Tot School this week, more Life School activities were done....including learning to clean up our toys.

Noah helped up mop this week...he had SO much fun doing this:)

He also practiced more using a spoon. You can tell in this picture that he is sick though..

We didn't do any crafts this week...I had some Christmas ones planned, but he just didn't feel well enough. I also brought out his Christmas books, and he's been enjoying those, but I'll share some of those next time.

Sorry we've had a slow week around here. Hopefully Noah (and I since he's given me the throat junk) will start feeling better soon and will be able to get back on track with everything, including Tot School!

See what others are up to at Tot School...hosted by Carisa at 1+1+1=1!

thankful..

thank you, father god, for your many, many blessings..

wordless wednesday

what a big shot! hehe:)

say a prayer for him...he woke up with a nasty cough this morning:(

tot school - thanksgiving time:)

Noah is 14 months old.

Finally I feel like we had a good week of Tot School! We focused on Thanksgiving and the color brown along with some other general activities. I think we will probably go ahead and move into Christmas things now too. I've already got all of our Christmas decorations up, plus I did most of our Thanksgiving activities this week because my brother & his family from Michigan are coming for next week. Our actual Thanksgiving week will probably be short on structured school time, but I know Noah will have LOTS of fun with his cousin Peyton (age 7) and his other cousins he sees all the time:)

Now..on to this week!

Color Theme: Brown

I wasn't very excited about using brown for our special color, but once I started looking for things to put in Noah's color box, I realized there was actually a lot to use!

He had lots of fun exploring all the things we found over the week, but he especially liked the pine cone:)

Some things we included in the color box (besides the pine cone) included a small teddy bear, some ribbons, several Little People animals, a brown cow puzzle piece, train tracks (from his Thomas collection), MegaBlok pieces (like a fence from his farm set), and color cards from Homeschool Creations.

Finally, Noah enjoyed reading Brown Bear Brown Bear by Bill Martin Jr./Eric Carle to go along with his color theme. This is his absolute FAVORITE book, so this was a hit:) Brown was also an easy color to tie into our Thanksgiving themed crafts & books!

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Seasonal Theme: Thanksgiving

I had several crafts planned for Thanksgiving. First, Noah made fingerprint indian corn.

I got this idea from Susana at My Family My Forever...the post is here. We started without the paci, but I quickly learned that paint looks tasty, so the paci went in. Thank you, Crayola, for making nontoxic paint! Noah had fun making the prints on the corn, but had more fun mixing the paints together in the plate:)

Noah also made a picture using Thanksgiving themed foam stickers.

Here are the finished projects, proudly displayed on the fridge:)

The other craft Noah did I am proud to say I came up with all on my own! Not that its all that exciting or creative, but I think it turned out rather cute! And if you've seen something else like it out there, I promise I didn't steal it from anyone:)

I took a half-sphere of floral foam and painted it brown. Then I let Noah stick feathers in it. He had lots of fun exploring with the feathers...this was the first time I have used any with him.

He did a really good job getting the feathers in the foam, but wanted to keep pulling them out again. That made some yucky places in the foam (since it was painted), but I just filled those places in with extra feathers.

Add in some wiggly eyes and a paper beak and viola! A little turkey made by my little turkey:)

Ignore those spots too...Noah got a little aggressive with the foam and I didn't feel like touching up the paint:)

Noah also read some Thanksgiving/fall themed books this week. Actually, he only read one Thanksgiving book because that is all I could find....ANYWHERE. There are plenty of Christmas books to go around, but I literally only found ONE Thanksgiving book in all the stores in my area. So, what he did read included:

My Thanksgiving Prayer by Crystal Bowman

and some fall themed books we've read before...

Welcome Fall by Jill Ackerman

The Scarecrow and the Spider by Todd Aaron Smith

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General Tot School

We spent the first half of the week staying at my parent's house while my mom was out of town. My dad is disabled and needs someone with him all the time, so we were happy to stay over and help out:) Noah always enjoyed time at Granny and Poppa's house, so this was great:)

He had lots of fun playing in Granny's kitchen while I cooked dinner at night. I made spaghetti one evening, and let him play with some of the extra pieces.

He LOVED sticking the pasta in an empty pepper container. He did extremely well with this too...I never helped him at all!

He also started breaking the pasta off inside the container and made a little maraca:) I love it when he can occupy himself!

Noah also played with lots of other things this week, but probably his favorite thing was his alphabet puzzle book. He doesn't put the pieces back in, but he loves taking them out:) It is also great for learning new vocabulary. He can identify most of the pieces by name when asked.

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Life School

One other fun thing we did this week was visit Build A Bear. We did some Christmas shopping at a mall in a nearby big city, and we just couldn't resist letting Noah make a special Christmas moose:)

Silly me, though, didn't have my camera! But, Jimmy and I were SO proud of Noah! He had to wait in line, and he was so very patient. When it was his turn, he was polite and let the person have his moose to stuff without any issues (he sometimes throws a tantrum when you take things from him). Actually, he was very good the whole day! Don't you just love it when your child acts as sweetly in public as you know they can at home:)

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That's it for our week! See what others are up to at Tot School...hosted by Carisa at1+1+1=1!

tot school & learning through love - more with yellow & things that go

Noah is 14 months old...as of Monday:)

Being so swamped with things for nursing school, I feel like my "learning" time with Noah is taking a backseat for now:( Which isn't ideal, but I know I don't have to fit in every little activity under the sun to do this "right." I've just always been a major overachiever, so I feel like I have to cram stuff in to be doing a good job. But no worries...I'm working on not feeling like that:)

This week we continued working with things that go (trucks, trains, & tractors) and the color yellow. We also did some non-themed activities.

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Basically, Noah continued doing the same activities as last week with the color yellow and with "things that go." Here, he played with some bristle blocks, working on taking the wheels on/off the axel.

We did a few art projects to go along with the "things that go" theme too. Noah helped me decorate a train made using a toilet paper roll. I saw this craft a long time ago, and thought it would be a perfect time to pull it out of the to-do file:) It was also a good opportunity to use our special color (yellow).

Poor train, though...it never stood a chance with Noah around! Noah did part of the decorating by himself, some we did together, and the words/numbers/face I did for him. I snapped this shot after he had played with it for literally 2 minutes..

He really enjoyed playing with it, but he definitely needs more, umm, sturdy toys:)

Noah also made a picture of different vehicles' tracks. I sat out about 5 or 6 different little cars & trucks and helped him paint their wheels. Then I let him drive them around on the paper (yellow again) however he wanted. He was a little reluctant at first, but after I showed him how it was done, he really enjoyed this activity too!

As you can imagine, though, it was quite messy:) So no pictures in progress...just the finished product!

I had intended on taking a little field trip with Noah this week too. My family owns a concrete company in our area, and I had hoped to take Noah by to see the big trucks, loaders, and such. But we didn't make it:( It's probably just as well, because it can get really messy around there with all the dust and mud flying about.

But in lieu of the concrete plant visit, we did visit a car lot with Daddy last weekend:) He recently bought a new truck, and was getting it detailed, so Noah and I tagged along. The dealership was fairly quiet, so we all wandered around the lot while the truck was being worked on. Noah had a blast seeing all the different cars and trucks. He LOVES looking at the wheels especially...I think he likes their shininess:)

Some other activities Noah did with "things that go" included:

playing with his MegaBloks tractor and dump truck

playing with his beloved Thomas trains:)

doing vehicle/car puzzles

reading the vehicle-themed books we have (see our Shelfari for titles)

Some other activities Noah did with the color yellow included:

playing in his color box (see last weeks post for pictures)

yellow color & fruit/veggie cards from Homeschool Creations

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We also did some non-themed activities this week.

Our yard has been in desperate need for raking, so we made it a family affair:) Noah had a ball crashing, often face first, in the many piles around our yard..

I wanted some pictures without the paci, but we quickly learned that leaves apparently taste pretty yummy to Noah! So the paci stayed in..

We spent almost two hours one afternoon working the yard, and only are about half finished! Which at least is good for Noah, because he'll have more fun to look forward to:)

Noah enjoyed some other old standby activities for him as well. Any time I bring out pompoms he is a happy guy:) So he worked with pompoms in a formula container, ice cube tray, pouring in bowls, etc. I've shown pictures of these before, so nothing new there...Noah just always likes these.

And Noah always loves books, so some of his other favorites from the week included:

Dizzy Dragon by Roger Priddy

John Deere Farm 123 by Parachute Press

Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Bill Martin Jr./Eric Carle (his all time favorite!)

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See what others are up to at Tot School...hosted by Carisa at1+1+1=1!

And see how others are Learning Through Love...hosted by Susana at My Family My Forever!

tot school & learning through love - the color yellow & trucks, trains, and tractors

Noah is 13 months old.

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We've had yet another busy busy week around here. I don't really feel like Noah did very much, but I'll still share what I've got. I know quantity isn't important...the quality is what really counts:)

Color Theme: Yellow

Noah has moved on to yellow in his color box. I actually changed it out late last week because he was bored with the last one, so I think I'll be changing these every two weeks now. Anyway, here is what we found on our yellow color hunt!

From the box in no particular order...foam numbers, mega blok pieces, piece of ribbon, pompoms, puzzle piece, fridge magnet puzzle pieces, mini book, Luigi (from cars) bath toy, three Thomas trains (spotlight lorry, cherry picker, and Duncan), railroad crossing sign, fake lemon, giraffe (from little people), plastic ball

Noah really seems to enjoy this activity:) He has especially been playing with the box this time around, exploring it independently throughout the day.

Other than the new color box, though, the color activities haven't been happening this week. He did color with/take the cap off and on a yellow highlighter several times:) But not much else...

Theme: Trucks, Trains, and Tractors

I feel like there aren't very many Thanksgiving activities/crafts for the youngest ones out there to easily do, so I'm waiting a couple of weeks to begin those. So in lieu of a seasonal theme, we'll be focusing on trucks, trains, and tractors (things that go) for the next while.

Again, this week we kept things simple....he enjoyed some of his books.

The ones from this week included (also on my Shelfari):

Go Go Trucks! by Simon Hart

Usborne Touchy Feely Trucks by Fiona Watt & Rachel Well

Bright Baby Trucks by Roger Priddy

Engines All Day by Rev. W. Awdry

Thomas and Friends- Baby Fingers Book by Random House

Touch and Feel Tractor by Parachute Books

Noah played with his MegaBlok dump truck and tractor, with the added activity of shoveling the blocks into the trucks rather than just placing them in. He has been very into shoveling/spooning/stirring lately.

Noah also played with his Fridge Bubble Wash magnet set. He plays with this all the time, but I really focused on him recognizing the different types of vehicles..especially the trucks!

Other activities we did with this theme that I didn't get pictures of included:

--lots of play with his Thomas trains, buildings, and table

--lots of play with his other cars & trucks

--"zooming" on his ride-on Mater truck

--building vehicles (with LOTS of help) out of bristle blocks

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So, my apologies on a skimpy week! This past week was just really hectic all around, and though I had some great plans, I didn't get to everything. But, I do have several new activities to do this upcoming week for both our color theme and our trucks, trains, and tractors theme, including some new art projects and a field trip!

See what others are up to at Tot School...hosted by Carisa at1+1+1=1!

And see how others are Learning Through Love...hosted by Susana atMy Family My Forever!

tot school & learning through love - finishing up with halloween:)

Noah is 13 months old.

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Phew! I am one tired mama today! Sorry to be posting this later than usual...I am absolutely swamped with things for school, but I needed a mental break and decided to post about what we did last week:)

Color Theme: Orange

Noah was pretty much tired of orange by last week. He wasn't very interested in the color box anymore, and he only played a couple of times with the other activities I've been using, like the pompoms in macaroni noodles..

I actually changed his color box halfway through the week, but I'll share about our new color next week.

Seasonal Theme: Halloween

Even though we're all pretty much pumpkin-ed out around here, I tried to make this week before Halloween fun:) We read through our Halloween books for the last few times this week (see those on my Shelfari on the sidebar!).

Noah made a spooky picture with Mickey Mouse scrapbooking stickers..

Again, I am SUPER proud of how well he is doing with stickers now! The only thing I put on this picture was one of the graves to show him that even though these were 3D, they worked just like regular stickers. Here is his finished product:)

Noah also made a picture to go along with the Five Little Pumpkins book. I drew the gate, and then (with assistance, of course!) Noah added his fingerprints to make the pumpkins. Then he helped me color in the moon and the sky and grass. He LOVED used the paint on his fingers!

Finally, we made footprint ghosts. I forget where I first saw these as I have since seen them several places, but I thought it was a super cute art project. Noah, however, did not:) Paint on the feet? NOT his thing! That's why both ghosts are from the same foot.

It still turned out cute though:)

Noah has really enjoyed playing with the Halloween erasers I introduced to him last week! I tried to use them in different ways, though, so he wouldn't get bored with them. Here, Noah had to push the erasers through the small opening of this little beaker (from a Chickfila kids meal!)..

I also tried to introduce tongs this week, but he isn't really ready for them. He tried several times to use them correctly, but mostly just liked to explore these separate from the eraser activity.

Miscellaneous

Noah has shown a very renewed interest in his trains this week. He particularly likes to play with this firehouse. The door opens/closes by turning a knob on the side. It also shoots out a train if one is inside the house. This has been a great cause-and-effect tool!

Noah has also been very into playing with the pots and pans at my mom's house again! I worked with him on matching the pots to the lids several times..

And also let him have free "music" time with them. He LOVES playing these like drums:)

Finally, Noah has begun bringing me books to read to him...that makes me a happy mama:) He definitely has favorites, though....a few of them include:

Brown Bear, Brown Bear by Eric Carle

Bennie's Garden and Daisy's Farm by Genny Haines (couldn't find these on amazon..they're pull-the-tab books)

Charlie Monkey by Roger Priddy

My First Read and Learn Bible

Halloween Pictures

I thought I'd finish up by sharing a few Halloween pictures:) We didn't actually go anywhere on Halloween, not even to our church's trunk-or-treat. It was rainy and yucky and cold all day, so we opted to stay in.

Noah did go to a little Halloween party Sunday before at my brother's girlfriend's house, but I forgot my camera:( He had fun though! A little shy around all of the kids, but he warmed up eventually. Plus, he got to wear his costume then too!

This year, in honor of Noah's love of Thomas and all things trains, he was out Little Conductor:)

He still showed off his costume on Halloween at my mom's house. These pictures were taken there..

No candy for the little man just yet though! He did enjoy chewing on some malt balls through the wrapper though:)

I hope you all had a fun Halloween!

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See what others are up to at Tot School...hosted by Carisa at 1+1+1=1!

And see how others are Learning Through Love...hosted by Susana at My Family My Forever!