tot school - letter I (better late than never!)

Noah is 19 months old.

Geeze...sorry this is so late. We are just not with it around here lately...I'm in my last two weeks of the semester for my nursing classes (2 clinical days, 3 tests, and a research paper this week alone!) and Noah just hasn't been himself lately. I think it must be all the pollen and such, but he isn't sleeping well, isn't eating as well, and just isn't his happy self all the time. Thankfully there are only 16 more days until we head to Disney, so that's my saving grace at this point:) I think a vacation will do us all a lot of good!

Anyway..onto our pitiful excuse for tot school this week. Ha! I tried...I really did. Noah just wasn't into things this week. But that's okay. It happens, so we'll just keep on keepin' on until next time:)

Letter Ii

Ii is for ice cream!

I was excited for this week because let's be honest..who doesn't love ice cream?! Apparently Noah! We tried ice cream field trips twice and even tried a little at home one night, but he just doesn't like the temperature. Silly boy:) Maybe that's why he wasn't too into these activities?

Noah did actually seem to enjoy making his letter page. He helped with all of the gluing and did the pink and red paint...I painted the cone. I'm really proud of how far his gluing has come!

I saw this ice cream I on The Poe Family a while back and thought it was too cute:) I painted the cone part again, but he did the purple (with some help/coaxing), red, blue, and brown paint, and even put the cherry on top:)

I made a sorting game using this coloring sheet (found through Google). Noah has suddenly developed a love of coloring with crayons, so he enjoyed helping color the ice cream. He did really well with the sorting too (when he would actually participate)...

I printed these out from here. We did color identification with just the papers, and using playdough. I didn't get a picture, but we played ice cream shop...

I would "order" using the papers and he would match my order with the playdough. He liked this game early on, but not later in the week...

Noah also color sorted his pompoms using the ice cream papers from above using this tray. He was NOT into this though...he just wanted to throw them around the room..

I also thought we could get creative with ice this week for the letter Ii. Noah has enjoyed "painting" with ice in the past, so I had the brilliant idea to add food coloring to the ice cube tray. Well duh...of course the ice totally stained our hands for three days. Not my shining moment in planning...I guess that's what I get for trying to plan stuff while totally stressed out. Noah did make a pretty picture that day though...it is shown below.

Because I was a slacker in planning, I didn't have anything ready for Earth Day either. Ugh...so I pulled out some coffee filters and water and Noah made coffee filter earths at the last minute that day. I actually got a picture of him!

He actually had fun with this one...he LOVES the rare times we use markers, and he thoroughly enjoyed dumping the water bowl on the table even though the dropper was right there:) He also wanted to keep going after the coffee filters were gone, so we used construction paper too.

On the left is the colored ice picture. Then, all the marker/water pictures & earths. I think they turned out quite pretty:)

So yeah...my apologies for a less-than-stellar week here. I'm really going to try and get it together for the rest of this week, but no promises:) If I'm not here next week, look for me the week after to be back to normal. If I don't end up on a psych ward by the end of my week of tests and papers that is! Say a prayer for me please:)

See what others are up to in tot school and share your own ideas at 1+1+1=1!

tot school - no school

We decided to take the week off from any organized tot school activities this week. I spent most of the week catching up on nursing assignments for my own school, so we didn't do anything really planned. Mostly Noah played with some of his learning toys (puzzles, blocks, nesting toys, etc) and we reviewed the letters we've learned so far, but nothing else special.

We'll be back next week with our regular stuff! Enjoy your week...lucky me, I get to be home with Noah all day 5 out of the 7 days this next week:)

tot school - letter k

Noah is 18 months old.

Letter Kk

Kk is for kite!

Well...Noah has been sick AGAIN, so this was a short (but fun!) week. He seems to have inherited both my terrible seasonal allergies, and affinity towards croup. Ugh! Thankfully, he's much better now after another round of meds. But anyway, these activities were definitely done in spurts when Noah was feeling up to it. Still, we had a great week of learning fun:)

Noah really, really enjoyed making his Kk is for Kite picture for his alphabet book. He marked on the kite with a black marker while running around the room for about 30 minutes before I could coax him into gluing the pieces down. He loved that too:) So this was an all around hit!

Noah also made a tissue paper kite using some leftover tissue paper from Easter. Gluing the tissue paper was a new challenge for him since it is so thin and sticks to your fingers, but he still enjoyed it!

Not sure why this came out sideways, but anyway...he also helped to lace the "string" for the kite's tail.

Another lacing activity...I homemade this one:) We worked on numbers, lacing the correct number of bows on to the kite tails. Noah LOVED this one! He has gotten very good at lacing after this week too.

Kite patterns from here. Noah did really great with this set..even the three colors one! I was very proud:)

Big/little Kk matching from here. Noah did great with this one too...

Finally from here, color matching kites. Noah really did great with all of the printables I had for him this week, which was a rare and happy treat:)

We also did a few kitchen-type activities for the letter K, including playing in the pots and pans, making yummy "treats" in his play kitchen, and washing dishes in his outdoor sink.

This was a great opportunity for pouring practice...

And practice drinking from a regular cup. He did great for a while, until he got silly and poured water everywhere!

Some other random activities we did this week included an alphabet review tray. I separated all of the parts of his alphabet eggs I made last week (and added Kk) and he had to match everything up.

This was WAY hard for him, but he did well with help. I'll probably continue to use it too as review for all of the letters we've learned.

Noah LOVED this spring window clings from the Target dollar section. He played with these forever!

Noah also did the flower shape sorting activity I shared last week for more spring activities. I didn't do any of the other things I had planned because he wasn't feeling well, but I'm hoping to use them later.

Finally, Noah got some new, harder puzzles from Target as well ($3 for a 3-pack!). He amazed me with these! His favorite by far is the body parts puzzle, but the weather one is a close second:)

That's all for our week....sorry I was a bit late on getting it up. With all of the sickness (I had a sinus infection over the weekend too), we've been dragging our behinds around here!

See what others are doing for Tot School and share your own ideas at 1+1+1=1!

tot school - letter e

**I went back and added the specific link to the flower shape printable since I was being asked for it...just know that it originally came from Childcare Land.

Noah is 18 months old.

Noah was pretty sickly the first half of the week, apparently from some virus. He had a 101+ fever for two days and just wasn't himself. Even after that passed, he was still on the mend for most of the week. But we still managed to have a fun Easter week!

Ee is for Easter!

Our activities for this week had to do with all things Easter & spring! Since Noah wasn't quite himself, I'm going to continue some of the activities (especially the spring things) on into this next week.

Our books for the week were:

Here Comes Easter! by Caroline Jayne Church

BIscuit's Pet & Play Easter by Alyssa Satin Capucilli

The Story of Easter by Patricia Pingry

I love how Noah's letter page turned out this week! I painted Noah's palm and two fingers (index & ring) white, then he painted the noses and ears pink:)

Noah liked making the handprint bunnies so much, we made an Easter card for my brother, sister-in-law, and nephew that live in Michigan with handprint bunnies too. I didn't get a picture of it, but it was cute:)

In other Easter arts and crafts, Noah made bunny ears:) He got to use white glue, which is always a hit!

But good luck getting the ears on his head! I got the idea from No Time for Flashcards, but Noah was NOT going to wear those ears for me, so no picture of the finished product.

Noah also made a footprint chick (I cannot find where I got this idea from...please let me know if it was you!). He LOVED this craft! He did every bit on his own (with a little help on making the feet), but he was very proud of his picture. And he made it into an Easter card for his Granny, who loved it too:)

Of course Noah played with eggs ALL WEEK LONG and had so much fun with them. We did several egg hunts all week long in our yard, but unfortunately I didn't get pictures of them. He would get SO excited when he found an egg, and would shout "yay!!!" and throw it in his basket...it was priceless:)

Otherwise, he loved scooping and transferring his eggs with this shovel..we also worked on matching and naming these sports eggs.

Noah got a water table this week, and he was a big help putting it together (with LOTS of supervision!) :)

I thought he would enjoy all of his eggs being in the table, and I was right! It was great coordination work to have him scoop the eggs into the little cups.

Noah did SUPER with these egg printouts from the 1+1+1=1 Easter Tot Pack. He loved sorting them, and also did very well with simple patterns.

I found this egg matching activity here (scroll down the list)...Noah didn't play with it much (I'm going to reuse it again this week), but he did well with it when he did.

I saw these alphabet eggs all over the place last week, so I knew we had to made some. I got some jumbo eggs at Walmart, wrote the letters we've done so far on the outside, and filled them with the pieces from Noah's M&D magnetic alphabet puzzle book. Noah LOVED these, so I think I'll keep them out all the time and add to them as we do more letters. They're great for reviewing!

Spring

(We'll be continuing the spring activities next week too)

Our only book for spring this week was:

Welcome Spring by Jill Ackerman

This is an activity we'll be reusing next week as we continue doing spring themed activities. Noah has finally started showing some interest in shapes, so I printed this shape matching activity from here(THIS IS THE SPECIFIC LINK NOW!). Noah did great with it and really seemed to enjoy it!

Noah made a spring tree, painted using a q-tip. Even though we had pink paint, I knew he would love the mix the paint himself. And he did:)

He had lots of fun with this picture, and I thought it turned out great!

Last, Noah made a paint & sticker collage. First, he painted using a cotton ball clipped on a clothespin. I wish a had a picture...it was great fine motor work for him to clip the cotton ball, then dip it in the paint and make dots. I got the idea for that here, and it really was fun for him. He also loved these stickers...they were from Target a few weeks ago, and they have little wiggle eyes:)

Bible Lesson

After reading The Story of Easter and out of his board book Bibles, we made this cross picture by painting over painter's tape. We made this picture on Easter, and since Noah was sleepy and kind of cranky, his cousins Abby & Ian (age 6 & 5) helped us finish it:)

I decided to keep the real Easter activities minimal this year just because I didn't think Noah would really get it. I know any teaching I do for him is important, but it can be hard to come up with activities that he'll understand. At this point, we mostly read a story, make a picture/craft, and pray. I'm excited next year to get some resurrection eggs and do more with him on the real meaning of Easter!

That's it for our week! See what others are doing for Tot School and share your own ideas at 1+1+1=1!

easter pictures

At lunchtime today, we headed over to my Mimi's house to take some Easter pictures. My Mimi has always had the most beautiful yard...growing up, she won "Yard of the Week" from our local paper countless times. Even though she lives in a different house now, her yard is still gorgeous, so I knew I wanted to take some Easter pictures of Noah with all the lovely flowers:)

Noah looks so much like my Pawpaw in his little caddy hat:) Oh how I wish Pawpaw could see him...

Noah has been sick this week (apparently a virus?), but I think these pictures turned out so great!

Mimi loved the flower Noah picked for her:)

And since Noah is going to be our future rock star, I thought some pictures with his guitar (matching no less!) was definitely in order...here is my favorite:

Here's wishing you all a wonderfully blessed Easter tomorrow!

"He is not here; he is risen!"

Matthew 28:6