I Heart Silhouettes!

This week over at www.iheartfaces.blogspot.com the theme is silhouettes. I have never tried to shoot a silhouette before so if was fun trying! Here is my best one from this week. I would love to hear what you think and how I could improve!


Be sure to head on over to http://iheartfaces.blogspot.com/2009/05/week-20-photo-challenge-silhouettes.html and check out all the other amazing photos!

**click on the button at the top if you don't want to copy and past the links...don't know why they aren't working.

Big Bold B tot school

-Shelby Lynn 22 months-

This week in totschool we learned about the letter B. We are only spending one week on this letter because she already knows it, but with all the activities out there to do we could have probably spent a whole year, lol!
For our morning music we listened to Bananaphone by Raffi.
While Shelby Lynn ate breakfast I would read a book that went along with that day's activity. Books we read this week included:
I am a Bunny by Ole Risom and Illustrated by my favorite Richard Scarry
Big Red Barn and The Runaway Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown
Spot goes to the Beach by Eric Hill
Bearobics by Vic Parker
A Babysitter for Billy Bear by Miriam Moss

Activities for the week:
Fine Motor Skill: Beadwork




This activity was a huge hit. I got these beads from Michael's in the dollar section. She spent 30 minutes playing with them. While working with them she not only named the shapes all on her own but also named the colors! Shelby Lynn now recognizes circle, square, star, heart and triangle and knows red, blue, yellow, purple and green. She was not able to put them on the string as the holes were really small, but she did stack them on top of each other which accomplish the goal of practicing fine motor skills.

Art: Paint with water, Mickey Mouse in a Hot Air Balloon

She is saying, "Seeeee!"

Felt Board: Brown, Brown Bear what do you see?

Shelby Lynn did really well listening to the story.

I thought she would do well taking the animals off the board when I called out the color, but she wasn't interested in that, instead she would pick up one and walk around with it saying the name of it. So I guess that was good!

Writing: Making the letter B. For the first time Shelby Lynn allowed me to hold her hand while we made several B's with a pencil. Normally she is little miss independent and doesn't want any help, but this time she let me help! Unfornately I couldn't take a picture.

Snacks: Blueberries, Bananas, Bug graham crackers, and Berry English muffins. For dinner one night we had Cheddar Brats. She is definitely a daddy's girl and gobbled them up!


She also played with these "B" toys this week:
Ball
Barnyard
Bed Bugs
Babydoll

It is really working well having the cart with specific toys on it. She plays with what is on it more then the ones in her toyroom and it is great because they are rotated with each letter! So her toys are getting more use. And as always she slept with her Bunnies! What a great B week we had!
The least sucessful activity of the week was the one I was most excited about. I got this cute puzzle from Target that was a bear that you could pick a different face, dress and shoes for. She enjoyed looking at all the pieces, but had a hard time fitting the pieces in so she gave up pretty quickly and never went back to it this week.

Hmmm, how does this work?

She did well taking the pieces out.

This was the extent of the activity.

Here is my favorite pic from the week:

This is what happens when the beads won't go on the string!
Be sure to click on the Totschool logo at the top of the post to see what others are doing!

Blurb book photo contest

For weeks now out in blogland I have been reading about a photoblog where you can enter photos in weekly theme contests. I thought this would be a great way for me to get some feedback and learn how to use my new canon rebel camera. Well did I pick a doozy of a week to enter. This week they are having a contest where if chosen your photo could wind up in a book with other fabulous face photos! But there are a couple of rules, first you could only enter one picture and you are suppose to pick you best face photo. Well did I ever have a hard time choosing. I kept going back and forth. I am entering in the amateur category...obviously since I don't know anything about taking pictures and shutter speeds and iso numbers, lol! So here is my pick............

I just love this picture because it really shows her dark eyelashes and her little curl on her face. To me this picture really shows off some of my favorite features of my daughter. Please leave me some constructive criticism and be sure visit iHeartFaces to learn more!

(you can click on this button to go to iHeartFaces blog to get all the information on how to enter the contest and see other entries!)

I am submitting this photo into the www.iheartfaces.com Blurb book photo contest. If chosen, I grant I ♥ Faces permission to use my photo in a printed version of a book for commercial use and possibly advertising of a photo book on both the Blurb and I ♥ Faces web sites.

Bloggy Break

My mom has been in town visiting us for the past week and half, so we took a blog and tot school break. I am going to start back with tot school on Friday and spend the weekend and next we on the letter B. I feel that this is okay that we don't do a full two weeks on this letter since she already knows it, but I would like her to associate it with some pictures of items that start with B. Hopefully this weekend I will be able to post pics of our new patio that we are working on!

All About A

(Shelby Lynn - 22 Months)

So this week for totschool I decided to try learning by the alphabet. I took notes from HERE . I love this mom's alphabet approach and she has done a lot of hard work and has resource links. Thanks so much! I also used the Totally Tots website for info as well. I have a button on the side of my blog you can click on to see that site! I thought I was just going to spend one week on each letter, but there is so much we can do that I think I will spend two weeks. Also I think this gives her time to really absorb what we are learning!
Well I am really excited because now I have an official school area. We moved the tv out of the kitchen and that whole corner is now for school. I have a rocking chair for "circle time" with a felt board and magnetic chalk board on the wall. I also bought a rolling cart so that I can put that weeks activities on it. On the bottom shelf I place toys that emphasized "A" learning. The baskets have puzzles, books, and flashcard games and the top shelf has the activities Shelby Lynn does with mommy. I love this!
Our Learning Cart:

Circle Time Area:

Some books from the library and activites to go with them:

Every morning while we ate breakfast I had American Folk music playing ( I felt like the Darlings from Andy Griffith had invaded our house) and we read a book. After breakfast we did one activity together. The first activity we did was a sensory tub. I filled the container with rice and hid amphibians (frogs I got from the dollar section at Target) in it and provide some scoops and another plate. Shelby Lynn really liked this activity. We she finally found an amphibian for "A" (big word I know) she played with it for a long time! I had to keep telling her that there were more in the container.



I was really excited when she got the Little People animal set out and started playing with it. She has had this since last year and never really shown any interest in it. I think by placing it in a new place away from her toys worked! She played with this over and over all week.


Another activities we did was to work with rubber stamps. I place whole bunch of "A" stamps and stamps that started with "A" in a box and let her use the ink pad to stamp on small papers that I am going together as a book for her. She liked this activity until mommy tried to stamp her finger into the ink for the "Ants on my A" project from the totally tots website. She got really upset about having ink on her fingers and we had to stop the activity, because I want totschool to be a fun experience for her.
Stamping:

She kept saying, "oooohhh, paypee(paper)" and hugging it! She does have stuffed animals to love on in case you were wondering!

Not happy with mommy!

Another activity we did was a new abc foam puzzle that I got from Michaels for a $1. We work also on sorting the different colored letters. She did really well with that and by the end of the week she could work the puzzle. Mommy was so proud that Shelby Lynn kept getting it out by herself to play with it!

Other "A" activites we did this we was to count our apples on our felt board tree, sing animal songs, look at abc flash cards (from the $1 section at Michaels) and play a match game that I made with my cricut machine. I was really surprised that she was able to do this. This week we hope to build an ant farm, write a letter to our Auntie Anne, use our scent shakers filled with allspice and work on our Noah's ark totbook from 1+1+1 website.
Here is my favorite pic of the week. This was her expression after she spill a bunch of the rice ( I think I will use pasta next time!)


As always be sure to check out what others are doing in totschool here:

http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/2009/05/tot-school-finally-back.html

Great Video

Check this out! Love it!

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