Tot School

Lucas is 35 months. Gwendolyn is 12 months.
This week I had planned to do a 'g' theme. But we spent most of the week outside playing instead. We want to enjoy the last bit of nice warm weather :) We ended up doing a few of the 'g' activities that I had planned, but mostly it was random outdoor play.

::Gears The kids played with gears on their little table. Lucas enjoyed trying to fit them together the 'right' way to make them all spin at once. And he pretended they were helicopters and flew them around the room :) Gwendolyn mostly enjoyed plucking the 'helicopters' off the table and made little whirring noises as she walked off with them.



::Glass Lucas transferred glass pebbles from a tray to a little metal pitcher using a spoon. It made an amazing amount of noise. He loved it.

::Getting dressed Gwendolyn practiced putting Lucas's shoes on all week. She was delighted when she actually put one on herself! She doesn't actually wear shoes yet, but she has such a fascination with them :) We have tried letting her wear her own shoes, but she starts screaming and tries to pull them off. I guess they're only fun when they're someone elses!

::'G' activities not pictured We went to the grocery store and talked about how groceries get there. (i.e. Tim works at a distribution center and Lucas has gotten to visit it several times. So he has a pretty good handle on loading up trucks and sending them to the grocery stores. Lucas has also spent a considerable amount of time on farms, so he has a good idea of how we grow things like corn - from planting through to harvest. He has also visited a small dairy farm many times, so knows all about caring for and milking cows to get the milk we drink. I think it's important to teach the kids the whole process behind how their food gets to them. I hope that it will teach them an appreciation for it rather than just taking things for granted.)

::Art time We participated in open ended art. The week was yellow crayons. Lucas made rubbings with yellow crayons.


This was the result of some fun random drawing time.
This was supposed to be a stamp activity. I got a few barn/farm stamps for Lucas to use, but he had a really hard time making a good clear print with them. He didn't seem to notice, though. And was happy to color over the faint images.

This was the open ended art project from last week. I was a little late posting about it :) The theme was yellow mixed medium. Lucas used a yellow colored pencil (along with several other light colored writing implements) and glue with geodes to create a night sky picture.
::Workbooks Lucas has been wanting to do workbooks lately. He loves playing matching games and following the simple directions of the activities. It's great handwriting practice. Sometimes he makes up his own little activities using the workbook pages and I think those are the most fun of all.


::Block building Both kids have really enjoyed building with blocks of all sorts lately. Gwendolyn is now able to stack a few blocks together. She is always so proud when she is able to fit the megablocks together :)

Lucas has been making fences for just about everything these days. I occasionally find Gwendolyn in a fence.
::Puzzles Lucas is doing a new puzzle at Grandma and Grandpa's house. There are several different choices for outfits and shoes. You get to mix and match to dress the little girl. Both kids have really enjoyed this one! Thanks Grandma and Grandpa!
I wanted to get Lucas a nice set of wooden children's tanagram puzzles. But I haven't been able to find any. So I did the next best thing and made him some :) We have an abstract geometric shape puzzle. I took a few pieces and traced on a sheet of paper in a matching color. I made them really simple because I wasn't sure if Lucas would get it. He did. But I made them a bit too simple, he would only do each one once or twice despite being pretty interested. I am planning to make some more complex one soon :)

This is a Melissa and Doug puzzle that makes noise. When you pull the pieces out, it makes an appropriate vehicle sound. Gwendolyn likes taking the pieces out just to hear to the sounds. Lucas really likes taking the pieces out and using them for pretend play. We have spent a few mornings flying the helicopter and plane pieces around the house making lots of pretend stops.
::Fun with recyclables Because what else would you do with a big jar??


The kids had tons of fun with this egg carton. Lucas pretended to wrap his toy trucks up in it and brought them to us and told us they were presents. So sweet!
They sorted erasers into it.
And put little clips on it.
::Bean bag toss
::Chalkboard Lucas and I used magnetic letters and pictures along with chalk to create scenes on his chalkboard. He loved telling stories about what we drew. He used a paint brush, small jar of water and kitchen towel to clean and dry the chalkboard between uses.


::Tot trays


This was the first tot tray that I set out specifically for Gwendolyn. There are wooden napkin rings and a leather string on the tray. She liked picking up the rings and rolling them across the floor, under the couch. But she wasn't interested in stringing them. Lucas liked stringing them, tho. Fortunately, he also liked retrieving the rings from under the couch :)
::Taking picture Lucas was watching birds out the window and asked for his camera to take pictures of the birds. Love that!!

::Reading Lucas and Gwendolyn read a zoo magazine. I was so happy that he sat down to read it and didn't rip it up!!
::Nesting bag I got the idea to make a nesting bag from a recent trip to the zoo. You take a mesh bag from produce and fill it with scraps of fabric, dryer lint, small sticks, ribbons - pretty much anything a bird could use to make a nest. Then tie it to a tree outside. The kids loved making it and hanging it outside! Lucas and I talked about how the birds would use these materials to build warm nests for the winter. And how it's nice to take of wildlife.

::Feelings I made these feelings strips (out of cardstock and clear tape for 'lamination') for Lucas to help him name different emotions. He tends to get a little wild when he isn't happy. I'm hoping that being able to tell me what he is feeling will help him to be calm and not act up as much. We'll be doing a lot more work with this is the near future. We have also been doing some breathing exercises to help Lucas calm down when he's starting to act up. It seems to help him calm down and refocus on what he should be doing rather than running around wildly.
::Outdoor activities Lucas helped me pick these flowers from our flower patch (that he planted). He stuck them in all of the little holes on his tractors. It was manly flower arranging :)
Both kids spent tons of time playing with the sand/water table. We recently moved it up onto the deck from the yard. And it gets a lot more use. Which is great! I still haven't figured out how to keep the sand fresh. It I leave the cover off, it gets rained in and is a mucky mess. But if I cover it, it molds quickly. Ack. Maybe I just need to be willing to replace the sand often? Until we make it to the store to buy another bag of sand, it's just filled with water. And the kids love it! They practice pouring water from one container to another. Transferring water between the two sides of the table. Cleaning their outdoor toys. Driving little cars around under water. There's no end to the creativity that this table inspires :)

I drew shapes on the deck for the kids to identify. Lucas loved jumping back and forth between them. Then I wrote our names and circled them. He loved walking on the names and telling me he 'standin' on Daddy!!' It's great practice for identifying words on sight. And he loves seeing his name written out. Gwendolyn colored with the chalk quite a bit on the deck. She gets so excited to see the marks she makes.
::Music We listened to this week's Classics for Kids. The song was A Midsummer Night's Dream. Gwendolyn LOVED it!! She happily lounged in my lap listening to the song over and over. I played it for them throughout the week whenever I thought of it. Both kids seem so much happier when I play classical music in the background when they're quietly playing.