Tot School: Cc and Candy

This week in Tot School, we've been reviewing the letter "C". We have the same baskets from last week, minus the lacing beads which were replaced with paper and {a heaping pile of} letter stickers {which were just purged from my scrapbooking stash = simplify!}. Tomorrow or Thursday we'll be making a caterpillar craft and I'm SO excited about it!

And, in the spirit of getting rid of unneeded stuff, I emptied out our candy bowl and realized that we had some ring pops left over from Easter.

Noah thoroughly enjoyed himself.

Tattle Tale

While I was cleaning up after dinner tonight, Noah came to the gate and said,

"Mommy, Ellie spankn'. Ellie computer!"

I look around the corner, and sure enough, there was the Littlest One, caught with her hand in the cookie jar on the keyboard.

Let the tattle tales begin.

Wait, what's that Sister?

Ah... I see him too.

Thanks.

Adios Amigos {See you soon, Friends}

After church, we all ate lunch at Taste of Asia. Noah was totally fascinated by the chopsticks and spent some time trying to eat some of Ellie's puffs with them.

It. was. awesome.

Lunch ran into nap time... so Ellie slept for a good portion of it in Ben's arms. I'm not sure he minded.

It's so hard sometimes to say bye. David and Stephanie are, thankfully living closer now, so hopefully we'll get to see them more often. However, Jordan and April are moving too since April got a kindergarten teaching position in Denton. We're {very} sad to see them go.

Thanks for spending the weekend with us, Friends!


You all {especially you girls!!} are some of my favorite people!

A Full House

We had a full house for most of the day today. The guys went to play disc golf this morning, leaving Steph, the kids and I at the house to play and attempt to get a little crafting time in {I actually did get a little project started, but since it's a baby gift, I can't show it off yet! Thanks for the help Steph!!}. The rest of the gals and the guys trickled their way in through the morning and afternoon, and before we knew it, we had a full house.

There was lots of Wii to be played {with working and non-working remotes}.

There was lots of kisses and hugs to be handed out.

There was way too much pizza and other goodies to be devoured.

There was plenty of poker chips to be won.

And plenty of Gleeks to be indulged and Babies to be watched.

A Full House = A Happy Day ♥

It's All in the Cards

Our Dear Friends, David and Stephanie, came into town today to spend the weekend with us {and the rest of the Life Group}. We haven't seen them in just over a year. Last time they saw us in person, Noah was slightly smaller {and much less talkative} one year old and I was as big as a house with an Ellie-Belly. Needless to say, we had lots of catching up to do. And amazingly enough, the only time I broke out the camera was while we were playing Euchre.

Sometimes that happens when you are too busy talking, playing with Little Ones, and eating some yummy dinner rolls.

Tot School: Bb

Noah seems to be feeling better... only one "incident" today, but I didn't grab the camera until after the kids were in bed for the night. So, I thought I'd share what we've done this week in Tot School - despite the fact that I haven't taken a single photo of Noah during Tot School time this week. For what it's worth and for those who are curious, here's what our baskets look like:

I got them at Dollar Tree for, you guessed it, a buck each. They are actually really great... mostly because they fold flat when not in use. Our current "old favorite" books go in the black magazine holder and our lesson plans and paper supplies are in the orange folder. Other items, like our foam letter and number puzzles and future manipulatives are in the plastic storage drawers just out of the photo on the left.

This week, we were working on the letter B and the number 2. During Table Time, we did a lot of the things you can find here {and here too} on Confessions of a Homeschooler. We did the do-a-dot "Bb", the Aa and Bb sorting games, the Apple pre-writing ringlet {Noah LOVED this, which is no surprise since he loves the dry erase board}, and we worked on the number two by counting the do-a-dot dots we put onto a piece of construction paper which had been folded into six boxes. Not to mention we read several books and are working to learn some new Bible verses.

Here's a shot of our baskets for Floor Time this week:

Originally, I wasn't going to add the pattern pages for the shape pieces {since they were new and he'd never played with them before}, but Noah caught me trying them out and wanted to do them too... so I added them to the basket. Once he got all the pieces on the pattern pages, he sorted the rest of the pieces by color. For the counting and sorting bears, I made little flash card-like cards with the number word, number and bear shapes. I've prepped them for numbers 1-5, but for now, he only has numbers 1 and 2 in the baskets. He did pretty well with these also, and by the end of school time today would count as he put each bear on the cards.

Hope this helps those of you who are working with your Little Ones at home too! ♥

Help Sonic Help.... Mommies.

It's been a long day. Long, as in, I've thrown out a pair of big boy underwear, scrubbed and steam cleaned the carpet, and cuddled with a little boy while he downed some pedialyte. Need I say more?

My saving grace today came in liquid form:

Sonic.

Helping Mommies.

But also, helping teachers too.

Make Me Smile

After a long day....

this can always make me smile.

Overheard Today

Overheard today:

"Come 'on Ell-eee! Less' go!"

♥

Heading Back Home

After we got back from church this morning, we attempted a family photo....

neither of my {cranky} kids wanted to look at the camera Bryan.

{{big, heavy sigh}}

But throw this one in the air and he'll do just about anything for you.

And this one? Well, she's just plain unhappy today.

Darn those teeth.

Jessie, Bryan, we had a blast with you!

I'm pretty certain the kiddos had a good time... in spite of their tears and crabbiness just before you left.

Love you, Little Seester!

See you soon! ♥

Mario, Shirts, and "No!"

We had a busy, yet slightly uneventful day today. The boys did a lot of this:

"Mario Time, Daddy!"

Aunt Jessie and Noah kept us entertained with their reenactments of Morgan reenacting Noah's {somewhat} famous and {very} dramatic answer of "no".

During afternoon nap time, Jessie and I finished cutting and painting the shirts she wanted to make for friends and family for Christmas.

Since I can't show off the ones she made {that would spoil some Christmas present surprises}, I'll show off the start of the shirts that I'm making for four of my most favorite kiddos in the world, who all happen to be going to see Curious George Live together next month.

You'll find that I often put back Christmas and birthday presents that the kids receive to pull out later on in the year when we "need" new toys. Since the kids were a little too young for the golf game at Christmas, we just now pulled it out for Noah. He and Daddy had a good time with it, once Noah finally watched Daddy to see how to play it.

He also had a good time being chased by Aunt Jessie.

But nothing is better than his blankie and a car.

Tot School Review and Visitors

Tot School has been a huge success this week. Noah simply loves stool. He has woken up every morning asking for stool {though, one morning, he also asked for a game, meaning Wii with Daddy}... so since I didn't have anything planned for today, I decided to just let him have some free play with the baskets and the dry erase easel. He chose to write on the easel for the entire time we were in the craft room {which, since he was otherwise occupied, I took advantage of and finished sorting through some scrapbooking magazines... for an hour}.

He was continually asking me to help him with the caps on the dry erase markers. "Help Mommy... mark-errs!" I couldn't help but giggle when I watched him do this to his face while pulling the cap off of a black one:

I thought since I've had a couple of questions about how I started it with Noah that I'd share how I set our Tot School up.



First, here's a quick run down of our school time: "Table Time" starts with an "old favorite" {meaning, one that we already knew} song, finger play, or poem. One day a week we learn a new one after the old favorite {eventually, he'll get to choose the old favorite that we do}. Then we read an "old favorite" story, and one day a week we read a new book after the old one {eventually, we'll get it up to a new one every day, for now, we're just learning the routines}. Those two activities take only about 5ish minutes. We do some letter work, and then whatever other concept we are working on - this week was the letter A and the number 1. Depending on how long he wants to work on the projects I have, this could take anywhere from 2 - 10+ minutes. After "Table Time", we have "Floor Time". Floor Time is very similar to centers. And because we've already been working with Noah on picking up his toys that he's no longer playing with before getting out another set of toys, we had no issues this week with knowing that getting into a different basket meant putting the one that he was already working on up. He doesn't always do it with his toys in his room, but he's definitely got the concept down with stool. In order to get him to be finished with school time {seriously, the boy would stay in there all day!}, I offer him a snack and sometimes a VeggieTales video or Word World.



I will say the best advice that I can give is set up the routines first before trying to introduce new concepts and "teach" your Little One. By day three {Thursday}, Noah had the routines down pat. It's the same way that you would start a new school year in the younger grades - don't introduce new concepts until the routines have been set up. Also, if you are going to be using new toys or manipulatives, give the tot some time to just play with them before using them as a learning tool. Perfect example: the counting and sorting bears. Next week when we start using them for counting and one-to-one correspondence, he'll have already been able to play with them his way so he'll be more likely to use them in the way I want him to.


In other news, Aunt Jessie and Bryan arrived this afternoon for a weekend visit.

The Little {and Big} Ones were undoubtedly excited to see them, to build forts and tracks with them, to watch Rack, Shack, and Benny with them, and to read bedtime stories with them!

Bathing Beauty

The Littlest One seems to be right on the cusp of walking and loves to cruise on anything she can pull herself up on...

including the toilet and the bathtub.

Wordless Wednesday

Tot School and Pebbles

Today, two things that I've been looking forward to for a while {finally} happened.

First, Noah and I started "Tot School" today. Back when I taught other people's kids, I use to wonder why anyone would want to homeschool. I mean, I was a public school teacher and thought I did a pretty darn good job. Plus, it seemed that many of the homeschooled people that I knew were just, well, odd.

Then I had kids.

And remembered that not every teacher in every public school will teach the way that I prefer or will hold the same values that we as a family hold dear. At the current moment, we're still planning to put our kids in public schools. But we're also well aware that some of the places we might move to may not have a very good public school option, so the homeschool option is still on the table, as needed.

In the mean time, we're doing what we can to get Noah ready for pre-kindergarten/kindergarten {whether it's me teaching him or someone else}. And while I haven't been formally teaching him, we've unofficially worked on several "academic" things - he knows all of the letters of the alphabet, can say the sounds that most of them make, knows the basic {plus a few not-so-basic} colors, knows most of the basic shapes, knows numbers 0-10{and higher, on a good day} and can count {though, not on demand} to 5 {to 10 on a good day}.

So today we officially started Tot School. We're doing a letter a week until we make it through the entire alphabet {I've even found a site that provides an easy-to-learn verse to go with each letter}. After that, we'll start the scope and sequence that I used while I was teaching other people's kids. Truthfully, I think on some levels he could handle beginning the pre-school curriculum now, but I don't think he's totally ready for it yet. And there's a few other skills I'd rather focus on first {like scissors, sharing, pencil grip, pooping in the potty, etc.}. So, for now, we'll just review and it'll give me some more time to plan {and get Ben's help in dragging more things out of the attic}.

This week we're reviewing the letter A and the number 1. We're starting stool {♥ it when he says "school"!} with a little bit of "Table Time" in which we review the letter of the week and whatever other concept we're working on. We did several things today, but his favorite was using the Do-a-Dot markers to "dot" a capital A.

During "Floor Time", he has four different baskets of activities {think: centers} that he can choose from. These activities have no finite end to them, so I let him play with them for as long as he likes. I'll change them out every week or so, depending on how many times he's worked on that basket and whether or not I feel like he's successful with the concept we're learning from it.

The clear favorite today was the beees {beads and pipe cleaners: fine motor skills, colors, patterns, etc.}:

A very close second was the counting and sorting bears.

I'm sure every day won't be nearly as fun or exciting {he wanted to do stool ALL day, so he got to play with the beees again when Daddy got home from work}, but the nice thing is, when it's not, we don't have to do it. I'm hoping to finalize my goals for this year soon. And for those who are wondering, we had stool while Ellie was taking her morning nap. Once she drops her morning nap, we'll probably let her in on the fun with just some of the more simple-style Tot Trays.

Speaking of Ellie, here's the second thing that happened today that I've been looking forward to for a while:

She can finally sport the Pebbles look!


And the resulting Mohawk look! ♥