My Little Artist

The weather is dreary today, the baby is sick and fussy and our 3 year old is bored out of her mind. I decided she needed a project. I pulled a canvas out of my art supply closet along with some paint and brushes. I dug through my husbands tool chest for some tape and I made a big letter A on the canvas with the tape. I then set my daughter up with some paint on the back porch. She had a blast painting the canvas and mixing all the colors. When the paint is all dry we will remove the blue tape to reveal the letter A for her name Addison. It was a fun project and killed about an hour of our time today. Now I don't feel like such a failure of a mom today because in my little girls mind she just got to create a masterpiece!

Back to School

After a long Holiday break we have started back to Tot School today. I decided we needed to get back into the swing of things before baby brother arrives. That's right in one month from tomorrow I will be delivering our baby boy via c-section. I'm very excited and ready for him to be here already. My wonderful mother will be arriving February 1st to help me with our little Addison and the new baby for a few weeks. This past weekend I printed out all of Addison's school schedules and worksheets for the next 8 weeks. I figured I better get organized before the baby arrives. She had a blast today getting back into a routine. We focused on the letter C today. She colored a C for Cat worksheet, made a cat out of her hand print with construction paper and glue and decorated a cutout C with sticker gems. That was her her favorite project of the day. She spent about 30 minutes sticking all the gems onto the letter C. We hung all of her projects of the refrigerator for daddy to see when he gets home. We also watched some Animal Planet Cat 101 videos on the Ipad.

Tot School Week 2

Here was our lesson plan for week 2. I decided it would be easier for me to just post about the whole week instead of individual days. Less work for me I should say.

Our focus this week was the letter B, the sound of B, Big B little b, B is for Bear, the color blue, the shape square and the number 2. We took Addison to the local sporting goods store to see the big stuffed Kodiak Bear she loves so much. We watched videos on all different bears. Our Bear craft this week was coloring and gluing a bear face to create a large magnet for the refrigerator. She really enjoys hanging her projects on the refrigerator so she can show daddy when he comes home from work. She loved the videos of polar bears climbing out of their dens with their cubs. I also incorporated a fun craft with glue and cereal into our week even though it wasn't on the lesson plan. I drew a big B and a little b on a piece of paper and she glued cereal around the letter. She loves when I put the glue dots and she attaches the cereal. We also learned about bananas this week. I didn't end up baking with bananas though because this pregnant momma had a craving for chocolate. We made some cracker candy instead. I know it had nothing to do with our lesson plan this week but we had fun making and eating it. Here are a few pictures from our week...

Tot School - Week 1, Day 2

Today A is for Apples so we learned all about apples and since our shape of the week is circles we also focused on circles. Today is our second day of Tot School. Since we are only doing 4 days a week we took yesterday off to play with friends. We had a very busy day yesterday. This morning we went swimming at the indoor pool on the Coast Guard base so we did our Tot School in the afternoon.

Since our focus today was apples, circles, the color red and the letter A we did some apple and circle painting with the color red, looked at pictures of apples on the Internet and had a lesson on how apples grow. We also worked on the sound A makes. If anyone is interested in teaching their tots phonics I highly recommend purchasing the Leap Frog Letter Factory DVD. It's amazing! They have a song to teach the kids the sounds each letter makes. My daughter has been watching it for a while now so she already knows most of the sounds and she is only 2 1/5.

Here are some pictures of our lessons today...

Tot School - Week 1, Day 1

I decided I wanted to start teaching my daughter early preschool at home. She is 2 1/2 and very smart. I am a stay at home mom with another baby on the way, due in early February. I decided I needed to get organized and come up with scheduled lesson plans. I have been teaching her already but it wasn't consistent and I felt she needed more structure. I have planned out the next 8 weeks so far. I have lesson plans for 4 days a week and each week we are focusing on a letter, number, shape and color. Mixed into those lesson plans are different animals and foods that go along with the letter of the week. We are only spending about an hour a day on school which is perfect for her age, any longer and I loose her attention.

Today was the first day! I was excited to start with her and she seemed just as excited to learn! Here is my lesson plan for this week...

Today we focused on the letter A and A is for Alligator! She was very excited. I found some Alphabet Animal coloring sheets online and blew the letters up to one per page. Here is a link to the site where I found the coloring sheets... http://alphabetimals.com/

After she colored her Alphabet Animal we watched two videos online about alligators. I found ones where the alligators were being fed at a zoo. I didn't want anything scary. We talked about what the alligators were eating and where they lived and the differences between alligators and crocodiles, since she seemed to think they were the same. Daddy helped explain their differences.

Next, we did an alligator craft I found on Pinterest (one of my favorite sites). We made little alligators out of clothes pins. She painted them green and we glued scales to their backs, eyes and a magnet to them. Once we were done my little student decided it would be extra fun to glue a bunch of eyes to a paper plate. She had a blast doing that! After everything was all dry we hung her projects on the refrigerator.

I think today was a success for our first day! I hope she continues to enjoy each day.

When we were all done she got to put a sticker on her reward chart for doing such a great job!

Fall Leaves Craft for Decoration

This is a fun and easy craft that the kids can help with. It creates a cute fall decoration for your house as well. Give your child a bucket (I used a pumpkin Halloween bucket for my daughter) and take them on a scavenger hunt in your neighborhood for fall leaves. Let them pick up all the pretty leaves and talk about the different colors as they collect them. Once you get home go through the bucket and pick out the best leaves. Find an old book and place the leaves in between the pages. You can use wax paper if you are afraid the leaves will hurts the pages of the book. I used a large, heavy craft book but if you don't have a heavy book you can place a heavy object on top of the book to apply pressure. Once you have your leaves in the book set it aside for a few days (I did 6 days, only because I forgot about it). Then find an old picture frame or buy a new one (I used an 8x10 frame) and lay the leaves out on a white piece of paper. You can use a little tape rolled for the back of the leaves to stick them in place. Once you have the leaves the way you want insert the page into the frame and hang or set in your house. Let your child pick which leaves should be dried and they can also help arrange them on the paper for the frame. Your child will be excited when you hang up their leaf art.

Teaching My Toddler Numbers

My 2 year old (26 months) is truly a little sponge. She is learning at an alarming rate and every day she surprises me with new words and things she knows. She can recognize and say every letter of the alphabet and she knows some of her colors. She can also recognize and name more animals than I knew she even knew. It's actually amazing to realize and see how much she knows. I have been excited about her growing intelligence and it has inspired me to teach her even more. A few months ago I ordered some blank board books with the hopes of making her some fun new books. However, I couldn't think of anything to make so they got lost in closet. Well today I decided to use one and make her a learning numbers book. She knows a couple numbers but not many and has no idea their meaning. I wanted to make it very simple so she can learn and count in a very simple way. I can't wait to show her and see how fast she learns her numbers.