Tot School (Stirring and Sorting, Life Fun)

**J is 28 months old**

Recently, I made a couple photo albums for J. I put together one about 6 months ago and realized he loved looking through it a lot, so this time I made two just for him. He has fun going through the pictures pointing to himself and talking about what he is doing.

I steam-cleaned our carpets this week after having my birthday party. I was putting the ABC floor mat back and lots of the letters were missing. I would hold out a letter and then ask J to say what it was and put it back in its place. He did pretty well! He has a handful now of letters that he can recognize by sight.

J did a little bit of playing with his puzzles this week. He didn't work on this for very long though.
















This little guy is Mr. Spud. He was a joint gift that L and I got from a mutual friend. J took it over! He loved playing with it and kept saying, "I want to bring Mr. Spud" whenever we went somewhere.

This week, I used the sensory bin a little differently. I actually got this idea from J! Our friends had left a mixing bowl with spoons after our party and J was picking up the spoons and saying "stirring, stirring" which is something we do at PalZone play group where we make (imaginary) Halloween soup. So I got the sensory bin out and let him make "soup". He wanted to make "chocolate" which he did using the black stones. I got a glass bowl for myself and mixed acorns, pumpkins and cranberries and then used the stacking cup as a bowl to "eat" it.






























I can't remember which mommy's blog I got this from, but we loved this Animal Tracks activity. I am always looking for tracks when we're out hiking and I see areas of mud or in the winter after it snows. J had more fun collecting them up once I would place them all on the ground for him to sort and pick out. When I guided him, he would make guesses for which tracks matched the animal. I tried to get the idea across that these were puzzle pieces and to look for the piece that matches, but he just liked doing his own thing like naming the animal or picking them all up and then mixing them all up on the floor again.































J saw these colored craft sticks in my cabinet and wanted to play with them. I got six coffee cups and asked him to sort them by color. He was really into this! He followed my directions and sorted them until they were all done. I want to find something that would be more challenging for him next time.

Books
These are some of our favorite books from the week:
Halloween; Is It for Real?
Elmer Takes Off
Elmer Again
Pooh's Heffalump Movie (paperback book)
Mouse's First Halloween
Kidogo
A Little Prairie House
One More River; A Noah's Ark Counting Song
Time to Say Please



Videos
It's a Meaningful Life, Veggie Tales
Sesame Street; 1-2-3 Count with Me
A Mama for Owen (book on video)
The Berenstain Bears Get Organized
Richard Scarry's Best Busy People Video Ever


Music
Veggie Tales Worship Songs
Wee Sing Dinosaurs
Ratatouille soundtrack
A Child's Celebration of Rock 'n' Roll
Francis Cabrel; Des Roses and Des Ortis (This was a gift from our friends who are from France. I played this in the car and J loved it. I told him it was French and so he would say, "Mom, I want French" whenever he wanted to listen to it. Which was a lot!



Life Fun

It's hard for me to believe, but I turned 40 last weekend! We had a day party for family (my 3 sisters, their husbands, 2 nephews and 2 nieces) and then a friends party (with kids) at night. J had a lot of fun. He didn't know what to do with so many friends to play with. The most fun was probably when we played "Rock Band" the video game. It consists of a guitar, microphone and drums that you connect to your TV. J liked the drums the best.

We had some fall fun at Eugster's Farm and petting zoo. It was a beautiful summerish day and I'm so glad we got out and enjoyed it. J spent the most time playing in the sandbox with all the diggers, dump trucks and shovels with pails. He enjoyed milking Daisy Mae the plastic cow and also feeding bottles to the baby goats.






























J was doing head stands one day and actually asked me to take a picture. Usually, he doesn't like it when I take pictures so this was cute. He was saying "I'm upside down mommy!"













































We were blessed with a beautiful weekend so Saturday we headed up to one of our favorite places, Devil's Lake in Baraboo, WI. We went with L's sister who teaches 1st and 2nd grade. We went on a long hike around the lake that takes a couple hours and got to use our new backpack for J. I was so glad that he loved it! He called it a piggy back ride and was singing and humming. L's sister knew all these different kids songs so we had a great time singing all these songs as we hiked. Every time we finished a song, J would say "another song?" and we'd keep going. What a nice, uplifting day.

Click below to visit other blogs at the Weekly Wrap Up, another place I link up.

For more fun with Tot School ideas, visit 1+1+1=1

Tot School (Fall Sensory Bin Fun)

**J is 28 months old**

Most of our Tot School this week centered around our fall sensory bin. This was the first time I put a bin together (inspired by others) and both of us really enjoyed it. J played with it several times throughout the week. We did a few other activities, but not a ton of variety. J also spent a lot of time coloring which is still one of his favorite things to do.












































We did our first sensory bin this week. I got the idea from the Tot School blog. We had a lot of the same items at our dollar store that she had in her bin too! I loved picking the stuff out. (Acorns, pumpkins, cranberries, colored stones, wooden beads, fall leaves. J loved it. The first thing he did was dig out the leaves and held his hands up high to drop them. He did this over and over again. Then I started showing him the other things in the bin and he had fun throwing some of them. I started sorting them and eventually got J to play with me. I would ask him like, "Where does the acorn go?" and he'd point to the pile. I sorted most everything and found out J's favorite were the colored stone crescent moons. I had fun burying the moon and having him find it. This made him laugh. Then I was putting things back in the bin tossing them in and when I was done J had fun dumping it. This time he helped me put them back, though.















Fish Block Toy
J doesn't get this out much at all, so I was surprised when he was asking my help in getting something. At first, I didn't know what he was asking for but then I realized he wanted the big fish block toy. He didn't remember how to work it so he was ready to leave it fast. Then I put in a few blocks which he enjoyed for a moment or two then was off to something else.






























It was a bit cool one afternoon we went to play outside. J was excited about getting his sunglasses on. He asked me for his "Toy Story" glasses and I didn't know what he meant until I looked closely at the glasses. Sure enough, they have a tiny little Toy Story sticker on the lens which I don't remember noticing! He also wanted his Pooh jacket on. He got out his bubble lawn mower and had some fun pushing that around the driveway.






























J wanted to play some more with the sensory bin. This time he wanted to find all the marbles in the bin and put them into a pile. I was showing him some wooden beads in the bin and he asked me if we could lace the beads. I put one of the beads on the lace and was swinging it back and forth. He started pretending it was a swing for his marbles. He would hold his marbles on the string as I was swinging it and said, "We're all friends and we're swinging".


























































J was helping me again to feed the birds. He likes to help pour the bird seed into the feeding bucket. This time, he liked picking out the peanuts and putting them into the pouring cup. He calls the peanuts "twonuts" (I have no idea how he came up with that!) So he had a lot of fun putting the "twonuts" into a cup, pouring them out and then putting them back in the cup again.































More fun with the sensory bin and this time we sorted the items into his stacking cups. He didn't do much with it at first until I found his little shovel. Then he had a really fun time scooping up the items and putting them into the cups.

Fun with Nature











































Our caterpillar emerged from his cocoon as a butterfly this week! These are a few of my favorite pictures. We were at a play group that morning and when we came back he was a butterfly. We had plenty of time with him too since his wings were still drying. We hung out with him in the back yard and Butterfly would let us hold him! He just wanted to hang upside down from anything you'd put in front of him. J even got to hold him. I'm working on a blog post with all the beautiful pics.

Books
Elmer Takes Off
Halloween; Is It for Real?
Kidogo
The Story of the Three Little Pigs and Other Tales
Time to Say Please


Videos
Boz: Thank you God for friends and helpers
Leapfrog: Let's Go to School




Life Fun












































This is J enjoying himself while we were out to dinner at the Tuscany Grill. We had a gift certificate so we went out for a belated birthday dinner for L. The food ended up being wonderful, but unfortunately the service left a lot to be desired. We had to wait a long time for our food so J used the time to color. After dinner, he had fun playing with his jungle animals. We had a nice time out.































After church, our friends Eileen and Chris invited us over to their house for vegetarian chilli (yum!). Our sons enjoy playing together. Jackson and J were dancing and got the parents to join in. Jackson was into spinning and would come up to you and say "Spin?" J liked spinning around with him. Later J found Jackson's pumpkin "hat" (which is how Jackson refers to it) and it was so cute when he put it on and walked around.

















My car was in the shop this week so my husband dropped us off at our Titus mom's group. My friend Eileen wasn't able to be at the mom's group, but she offered to pick us up afterward. J enjoyed sitting in his car seat while we waited.

















This week, the weather was so beautiful! Several days of warm, 70-80 degree weather and just about every day was sunny with no clouds. The nights were cool and perfect for a little camp fire. J was bummed we couldn't start the fire during the day, but really enjoyed being outside when it was dark and cool, but toasty warm by the fire. We were having so much fun that daddy brought out his guitar to join us. (All the pictures I took came out blurry.)

Come visit some other blogs where I link up at the Weeky Wrap Up.

For more fun with Tot School ideas, visit 1+1+1=1