Megan School 1/18 - 1/22

This week for Itty Bitty Bookworms we read WHEN IT STARTS TO SNOW. It's a darling story about where animals go and what they do when it snows. Sadly since it hasn't snowed here all year, we didn't have any snow here to play with. :(

Meg did an art project showing what the deer did in the snow. Can't you tell it's eating grass and moss? Yeah, me too. Haha! She was sad because she didn't want me to take her picture with it.

We played hide & seek and pretended we were hiding in snow.

Muffin Tin Monday lunch with our festive snowflake muffin pan.

Since it had been so nice outside all week the kids actually got a chance to play in the backyard. I came inside to start dinner and came back out to find them raking leaves to jump in.

Tot Trays:
I've seen this idea before here at 1+1+1=1 and at Christmas I finally recieved my new trays. I have nowhere to put them out so I decided to put a tray at each place setting in our dining room table during the day. Then around 4pm I gather them up and put them away for the next day. She's able to go around to each tray and do the activity that she chooses.

Here she's working on making Valentines.

This was matching the numbers to the hat's & scarves.

Snowflake puzzle. They only went together a certain way (whites on blues and blues on whites, no blue/blue or white/white). It was a good challenge for her.

Silly Meg moment of the week:
She had an 'akident' in the bathroom and then requested a bath in the sink. It just looks odd to see a 3yr old in the kitchen sink. :)

Megan School 1/4 - 1/15

We had a very unexpected last 2 weeks so 'Megan School' was pretty much null and void. I spent the week at the hospital with my parents and family as my dad needed a triple bypass. It was very stressful and I'm so thankful for my father-in-law for coming and spending 4 days with us to care for our kids/house/dogs (we had my parents 2 dogs too!). Anyways, all is calm and all is bright now. We are attempting to get back to school this week with a new book however I do want to retouch on some things I didn't feel we finished up.

During the last 2 weeks we began our Itty Bitty Bookworm Curriculum and I loved it!! We started with CORDUROY:

Each day we made a page that ultimately made up a book of all the toys from Corduroy. This was the giraffe.

The letter of the week was 'O'. She first colored it and then she smeared glue all over and sprinkled oatmeal on. After it dried I cut the 'O' out and glued it to a piece of colored paper. I put together a notebook that once we complete all of the ABC's she can go back and look through them.

Staying with the bear theme this week she sorted gummy bears.

Then we counted how many color of each one we had.

We made cinnamon/sugar paw print rolls for snack.

Outside of the Itty Bitty Bookworm we did a few other activities...

We made a 'pantry snowman' (with all stuff I found in the pantry!)

She sorted buttons by color all by herself while I was emptying the dishwasher!

She gave her baby doll a bath.

My mom and I took the girls downtown Seattle and she got to ride the Westlake Center Carousel. That ride never gets old! This particular one went around and around REALLY fast. I was surprised!!

Dave and I also took the kids ice skating. We did this last year on New Years day and Riley loved it! Megan was still pretty young last year and didn't get out on the ice but this year she really thought it was fun. It was so cute to see how happy they were. I love ice skating and Dave plays ice hockey every weekend so hopefully it will be something the girls keep on enjoying...of course we should make more of an effort to take them more than once a year. ;)

See this face?! Yeah, this is the attitude that we've been seeing a lot lately. Spitting, yelling NO!, and stomping off. I realize it's just her testing her boundaries but man does it get old!

Here to hoping for a better week!

Taking an unexpected break

We completed our 1st week last week from the Itty Bitty Bookworm. However, my computer was down so I couldn't download pictures. Then my dad had a heart attack and this week he had open heart surgery....such a frazzled start to the New Year.

I'm happy to say that not only is my dad recovering very well and all went as planned but our computer is also working again. I'm still trying to help my mom out and I think my dad will be home by the end of the week. Lots to do and help out with around here so we are putting 'Megan School' on hold for awhile. At least through the end of this week.

Good-bye Christmas, Hello January!

I absolutely LOVE December and all that it brings . . . cooking, shopping, baking, wrapping, etc., etc. We had a blast during the month doing advent calendar activities and little art projects here and there. We watched so many movies and there were so many days that we never even changed out of our P.J.'s. I love December and Christmas time!!

That being said I am so very happy to be getting back to a normal routine today. Riley's back in school (I almost actually shed a tear as she got on the bus thinking she won't be with us today). I made it back to the gym and Megan got to play with all her little friends at the gym. Then we made it home in time to start our new preschool curriculum. I will be posting more on that towards the end of the week but if you want a sneak peek check THIS out.

All is good and I feel like life is once again moving in the right direction!! Now if only we could get some *snow* around here, life would be perfect. :)

Lazy Tot School . . . . must be December! :)

December has been a REALLY busy month. There is always so much stuff to do so we decided to just wing it on the 'school' part of December. I can't actually wait for January to get back into it because although it's been nice, there's no structure to our days at home. Lately when I bring an activity out for Megan she snubs her nose at it and doesn't want to do it! :( So not sure what that's about...

So far here's what we've done this month -

Art Projects

Gingerbread Man


We tried 'snow painting'. You basically use a squirt of shaving cream and some elmer's glue, mix it up and have at it! I don't think I got the consistancy right because it didn't dry very 'snow' like.

I drew a snowman on Meg's so she'd have a guide. She pretty much just painted the whole thing anyways. Man did my kitchen smell good and clean after this craft!


This was supposed to be a popsicle stick Christmas tree however she insisted on coloring it red. Just look at her fingers. :)

Beaded wreath ornament

Cookie cutter wrapping paper

Painting with a tree branch. We started this on the art easel and it didn't work too well as she had to basically fling the branch onto the paper. Yikes! So we moved to the table and it worked much better.

Jingle bell painting on a candy cane

We painted pinecones green to make them into 'tree's' and then she glued on sequin ornaments. On another tree she sprinkled pink (of course!) glitter on but I missed taking a picture of that one.

Candy cane beaded ornaments

Rubber stamps - one of her favorite activities!

In The Kitchen

We've done A LOT of baking here. I love cooking and Megan is always right there eager to help - and lick the beaters or sample a fresh cookie!

White chocolate covered pretzels (with LOTS of sprinkles!) for the neighbors.

We also cooked up some new peppermint playdoh. It smells SO good!!

Strung some popcorn/cranberry garland.

Got to bake cookies with our neighbors and Megs buddy, Isaiah. They were crushing candy canes to sprinkle on cookies.


Making Cherry Tassies with Daddy.


Science

This FX snow is the coolest stuff! Since we have not gotten any snow yet here this year, this is the next best thing. It feels like the real thing and it's so fun to stick your hands in. It's even cold like real snow. You just had a little water and watch it grow.

We added some cups, curling ribbon and jingle bells to make it a full sensory tub.

Tried out our new water droppers.

Learning

Like I said, we kind of 'lacked' in the learning area this month. When I did bring this shapes gingerbread house out, she did NOT want to do it. So I sat down with it on the floor and did it by myself and eventually she came over to see.

I swiped some paint sample cards from the hardware store (2 of each color strip). Then cut one set up and glued it to clothes pins. Megs has to try and clip on to the correct color. This had been hard as some of the lighter colors are very similar. Sticking to just 1 color strip at a time though helps.

Worked on stringing foam beads.

File Folder game - making the cookies to the cookie sheet outline. She really liked this and went back to it again and again throughout the day. That is until the dog ATE the moon cookie. Oops.

Megan got to go to Riley's class and be her 'show and tell' last week. Riley told the class that her sister is annoying and likes to shake her booty! Oh lord. Her teacher was cracking up and so was I. :)

Life

We've been struggling with naps lately. Some days we just aren't home in time for her to lay down. On other days when we are home, she fights it saying she's not tired. When she does take a nap, going to bed at night takes her a little while longer. On this night she was messing around in her room and she always takes her PJ's off because she's hot. I thought it was cute that she tucked in her animals and fell asleep like that.