TOT-School Jan-4-8

This week we spent some time just getting organized and back in the groove. We did not do a lot of exciting activites but we still had fun.

B is 21 months old


Popcorn and a movie. B enjoyed having popcorn and watching Space Buddies with his brother.



B sorted the cars by color. He liked this and is starting to get the hang of sorting.



Yet another train track that he got for Christmas. It is a Thomas one and he loves it but it comes apart very easily so I am constantly having to put it back together. I just wish he could withstand them playing with it a little better.




B is sooooo into trains right now. He plays trains a majority of the day and if he is not playing with them he is carring them around. He has train fever for sure!!



B got some new play dough and accessories for Christmas and he has loved playing with it all. He is just now starting to learn how to roll a snake and now he likes to take the scissors and cut it.



Painting Thomas the Train pictures with watercolors.

Now that we are back in the groove next week we will do more activities. Next week we will be working on winter/snow, the letter S, and the color white.

Preschool Week 19 Jan.4-8

C is 45 months old.

Well we have spent the week trying to ease back into our routein. We did a lot of fun things this week. We started our new daily devotions book and we have been working on the Bible Verse--A happy heart makes a face look cheerful. Proverbs 15:13




We picked a Missionary family to learn about and pray for this month. They are the Williams Family and they live in Spain. We talked a lot about their job and where they live. We created a flag of Spain and put some reminders of things to pray for and a picture of them on the back of the flag. C. is really beginning to love our Bible time and he loves hearing the Bible stories over and over.






C spent some time playing with playdough this week. He started making his name by rolling the dough and then making the letters. He enjoyed this so much that he asked to do this several times during the week.



Both boys got a lot of train stuff for Christmas so they spent a good part of the week playing trains and reading many, many, Thomas Books. We do not have a train table so their track seems to take up the whole bedroom. They love it but it makes it hard to clean and move around in there. When we ever do get a train table they are going to be limited on their designs.


Yet another Thomas the train track toy that they boys got for Christmas.



C spent some time working on Thank You cards for his presents to mail out this week.



C is Cars the movie crazy. He loves it and all the stuff that goes with it. He got a Geo Trax set for Christmas that has some of the cars from the movie and a remote control Lightning McQueen car (which by the way will not work. He also got a Mater remote control and it does work so he spent a lot of time playing cars and boy can I really see what an imagination he has. He can pretend and make up some of the best stories. I hope to get him to dictate some of these stories for me in the next few weeks.



We have played the Uno Moo game several times. Both boys love it and even though c knows all his colors it is a great game he can play with his brother and learn all about taking turns and being patient. He is very good at it. He has beat me many times this week.


It is hard to tell in the picture but c is practicing writing his letters with his new Lightning McQueen body paint.



C spent some time working on the computer this week and he printed out a couple of Thomas and Friends coloring pages. He chose to do watercolor on them. They looked quite nice when he had finished.


We had a great week and sort of eased our way back into our daily grind. Charlie knows most letters and sounds now so I think we will start doing some work with sight words while reviewing the letters and sounds and contine to work on fine motor skills and a lot more math skills. Our theme next week will be snow and snowmen.

For some more great preschool ideas go here http://homeschoolcreations.blogspot.com/search/label/Preschool%20Corner/

December Tot-School and Preschool

Where did December go?? Boy what a fun month we had!! TOT-School and Preschool were sort of non-organized and spur of the moment a lot of the time but the boys had fun and still did a lot of learning.



Most of our planned activites this month came from our Advent Calendar. I made this calendar from an idea at Chasing Cheerios. I took wedding favor tins and cut scrapbook paper to go in the tops and then added magnetic tape to the back of each one. I then took and old cookie sheet and drilled two holes in the top to put my ribbon up at the top so I could hang it on the wall. Then I used a sharpie to write the numbers 1-24 on the tins. Then I just arranged them in a Christmas tree shape on the the cookie sheet. I added a little strip of paper to each one telling the boys what we would do that day. We did a lot of fun things and we did somethings to help others like baking cookies for the neighbors and going to visit a local nursing home and sing Christmas Carols. The boys loved it and every morning C would say "what number are we today and lets open it."



One of our Advent activities was making fudge. The boys loved making it and they even had fun sampling it by licking the bowl. They worked together so well on this project they even shared a chair to stand in while doing their cooking.

The boys had a lot of fun finger painting. These green paintings eventually turned into Christmas trees that they gave away as presents. They were very cute. We used pom-poms, glitter and sequins to decorate them and of course we put a shiny star on top.




We made Santa. The boys liked using the glue and B was totally fascinated with the cotton and how the cotton would stick to his fingers that had glue on them. He did not want me to wash it off. He just loved picking at the cotton stuck to him.




Another fun activity that we did was make a gingerbread train. B is very much into trains this year so this wsa perfect for him. C loved the icing that we used to stick it all together. He had more green icing on his face at times than he had on the train.






We had lots of fun making cookies for Santa. The boys loved that we had left over cookies so they could have some too. On Christmas morning Charlie was just amazed that Santa ate almost all of the cookies that we left for him and that only one carrot was left on the plate. He said, "the reindeers loved they carrots and they got full so they could not eat them all." He was also very concerned about why Santa did not drink all of his milk.









The boys older cousins have a Wii so they had lots of fun playing their new Rock Band Game. Stars in the making!!

What a fun time we had this month. This is just a sampling of all that December held for us. We just had a great time being a family and remembering the true reason for the Season. Hope you have a wonderful 2010!