Tot School 2/22 - 2/26

Letter of the week - M

M is for Marshmallows!

Practicing writing the uppercase M and lowercase m.

Using M&M's for markers

More practice writing


We glued a Monkey Magnet together


Marble painting

Pouring marbles into cups

She LOVED this and went back to it many times during the week!

And she was very responsible in cleaning up her 'messes'. Although then she grew quite frustrated because it's really, really hard to sweep up marbles (I tried!)

We made oatmeal carrot Muffins

And had a Muffin tin lunch

Trip to the zoo

It was pretty chilly and rainy out so we spent a lot of time indoors playing in the Zoomazium exhibit.

Megan School 2/15 - 2/19

Happy Chinese New Year! My wonderful neighbor sent down some fun craft projects to do and the kids loved these. The Chinese dragons are just the coolest!

I didn't do many lap trays last week because well, I just didn't have time to pull them together. Meg has been pretty interested in writing so I printed off these cool pre-writing worksheets from Confessions of a Homeschooler. You have GOT to check this woman out, I print off some of the best stuff from her website and I don't know how she manages to pull all this together while homeschooling her 4 little ones. Amazing.

Then we did some worksheets that I had here.

And some practice cutting with scissors. Megan has an obsession with cutting things. Luckily it hasn't been hair or clothes but she's always wanting to cut with scissors.

Strung heart beads onto pipe cleaners.

Colored this cute vase of heart flowers and then she glued on conversation hearts. She matched them to the colors mostly and initiated that by herself!

Letter of the Week -
V is for Valentines!

Practicing writing V's.

We took a trip to the zoo last Monday (apparently with everyone else...grrr.) being that Riley had the day off from school. We went to see the Night Exhibit as they are closing it on March 1st due to budget cuts. There was such a long line to get into it that I made us skip it. After 2 hours of massive crowds and not being able to get up close to the animals, we left and went to play at a park. I'm glad we have a membership for days like this that I would've wasted $40. I still hope to take them back this week so we can get in to see the nocturnal house.

Check out Carisa's blog at 1+1+1=1 to see what others did for Tot School.

Megan School 2/8 - 2/12

Valentines Week!!!
Here are just SOME of the books we read this week:

My kid's love Arthur and this book was read over & over & over more than any other one. I like Arthur books too because they are funny!

Tot Trays:

Conversation hearts - sorting by color (while reading what each one said), then counting how many of each color, and then some sampling. This was Megan's favorite tot tray this week and by the end of the week there weren't many hearts left. :)

Sorting fuzzy pom poms by color, size and texture. Then we counted them.

Matching Valentine bugs. This went over pretty well as she came back to it again and again throughout the week...until she started crying because the dog ate one of the bugs. I printed this out from Carisa's blog 1+1+1=1. She's got some great stuff!

Making Valentines with stamps.

Sizing from big to small felt hearts.

Stringing beads. We did this a few times but different ways each time. We did patterns of colors, all the same color, same shapes next to each other. So many different ways!

Art Projects:

Painting a snowman with a Q-tip. She had kind of a hard time with this one as she wanted to rub it and the Q-tip wouldn't hold much paint so she's get frustrated that it wasn't working the way she wanted. I showed her how to just dot it to make snow though and she liked that!

Megan painted a GIANT heart made out of newspaper. I staple the bottom 1/2 together and then we stuffed it with crumpled newspaper and I stapled the top shut. She enjoyed painting it but it was awkward for her to hold and paint at the same time. I ended up just holding it up for her and she painted.

Life Skills

Cutting up her own apples.

Outings and Fun Stuff!

This was the last week of swimming lessons and I finally remembered to bring my camera! This is the first class that she's been going in the water by herself (without her momma!) and she has adjusted amazingly well. Her favorite part is just jumping in from the wall.

She's a little fish just like her momma and sister. :)

After jumping in the teacher would have her push off from her thighs and swim back to the wall. She only would swim about 18 inches but nonetheless - she did it!!! I am amazed at how fast she's picked this up and just how confident she is in the water. I signed both girls up for the next round of lessons starting next week. The YMCA offers great classes for members - 7 weeks (1/2hr. lesson a week) for $26! You just can't beat that.

We had a couple nice days where we were able to get outside and play. I hadn't been able to find our sidewalk chalk for months so I broke out a new pack. They love that stuff!

They were making their own houses and were telling me that when they grow up they are going to be neighbors. How I wish that comes true for them!

Megan School 2/1 - 2/5

We started this week with Itty Bitty Bookworm. We read The Snowy Day by Jack Keats which is a super cute story that I had never read before. It would've been really awesome had we actually had snow on the ground like the east coast. But we tried to make due with cotton balls {totally NOT the same!}

Tot Trays:

Practiced counting out our fake snowballs.

Colored this book that went along with The Snowy Day book.

Make your own snowy scene with stickers.

Snowflake matching carisa>

Letter of the week
Q is for Queen

Playtime:
We did lots of pretend play with the kitchen & cookies.

Then we made Valentine rice krispie treats.

Art Projects:

The girls made Valentine mailboxes. I told them they could write love notes to each other and that we might write some for them also. I've been putting little treats (candy, puzzles, socks, stickers, etc.) in when there are no notes. Also when the girls get real mail I've been putting it in their special mailboxes. They *love* checking their boxes every day!!