Tot School - Freestyle

Jim had this past week off! He had been working insane hours for the last three weeks while he wrapped up things at his old job. It was wonderful to have this time off before he starts his new job tomorrow. We were all pretty wore out from the previous three weeks of insanity, so this past week was pretty quiet. There was lots of napping, resting, getting caught up around the house, and just playing on the floor with the kids. I believe that playing with your kids on the floor is where real, authentic, learning occurs. We did very few planned activities, and lots of imaginary play and exploration. Not that planned activities aren't wonderful, I love them! However the key in my mind is a healthy balance between free play and planned activities.

 Our "ahem" PE this week consisted of large amounts of "wild time", as Jim and Naomi so fondly call it! Wild time is Naomi's favorite thing to do with Daddy. :)

This activity was supposed to be done with clothespins or large paperclips. I still need to buy some clothespins, and Naomi was getting frustrated manipulating the large paperclips. To keep her excited about this activity, I put the cards on a cookie sheet, and got out her magnetic pom-poms that we made. She marked the number that matched the items with the pom-poms and had a lot of fun. It was a quick save on my part! ;) This printable was from COAH.

This was a upper and lower case matching game from File Folder Fun. Naomi really enjoyed it.

This was one of the things we didn't get to the previous week. Naomi added a fun twist to it! Instead of covering all the blank spots with our pom-pom magnets, she wanted to match the jumbo buttons to the M&Ms. She said they covered them better, and she was right! This also was from COAH. It bothered her that we didn't have any brown or white buttons. lol

Naomi enjoyed using these containers to sort buttons so much last week, that I got out our jumbo jewels for her to sort this week!

Part of my Valentine's Day present from Jim was that I got to place a large Amazon order. I told him I didn't want jewelry, but more stuff for Tot School. Being a wonderful husband, he complied! ;) A deluxe set of Wedgits was one of the things I got. It was a big hit this week! This was a frog that Naomi and I built together.

Another thing to arrive was our much anticipated Do-A-Dot paint set. We were not disappointed!! Here Naomi was just finishing up making the letter M with her dot paints. I got the M printable from here.

The next item to arrive from Santa Amazon was a set of Lauri Tall Stacker Pegs. Both Naomi and Nathan had a blast with these! Naomi made this tower by herself. Note how she uses one color at a time. She is very precise. She became slightly irritated when she didn't have enough yellow pegs to fill the whole bottom. It took a little convincing, but finally she believed me that we could build things by just putting pegs in a few of the holes.

Here was the tower we built together. She was very pleased because it looked like the picture on the box.

I built this for Nathan and put some of their zoo animals in it. He was very impressed by my skills! ;)

The week wouldn't be complete without some pictures of Nathan! He is trying to pull himself up on everything. He loves playing in Naomi's kitchen, and was so excited when I helped him stand and play with the top part. I opened up a whole new kitchen world to him!

I got out the farm magnet set for Nathan this week. He was enthralled! He loved pulling them off, but actually tried putting them back on the dishwasher, and into the barn too!

This was too cute not to share! Nathan is getting old enough to do pretty well in the big tub as long as I watch him like a hawk. He and Naomi have been loving having baths together. I made this extra large so that if you look closely, you can see Nathan's new, top, tooth!

Since we had a pretty relaxed week, it gave me time to do a good bit of planning for the next few weeks. Tomorrow we start our two weeks study on Creation. I've got a ton of fun things planned and am VERY excited about it! Be sure to check in next week and see what we've been up to! Also, see what other mommies and tots are up to at 1+1+1=1.

Have a good week!

Karla