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!

Widget

Tot School and Earth Day

Shelby Lynn - 22 Months-

We did not have specific "lessons" this week for tot school. Shelby Lynn did have a special earth day outfit to wear and she helped carry cans outside to the recycle bin. She still is a little young for that type of lesson, but I did draw the earth for her and she knew that it was a circle!

We also watched Barney and Friends, Our Earth, Our Home:

Watching Barney:

Because daddy left to go out of town this weekend, he had Thursday off and we went to the park. Shelby Lynn rode on the merry go round. All of sudden I saw this funny look on her face and the next thing we knew she kinda slumped down. We stopped it really quick and go her off. Bless her heart, she was sooooo dizzy and her little legs were shaking and she kept saying whoa!

Shaky Legs:


So we decided that the slide was a safer plan and she really liked it!


Much Better:


She also tried the monkey bars but didn't understand that she was supposed to hold on.


Shelby Lynn and her friend Ellie had a great day!

Swinging:



Then on Friday, her Poppy and TyTy sent her a belated Easter present. Her very own Hot Wheels track!! As soon as I set it up, Shelby Lynn knew right what to do. She had a blast!

Ready, Set, Go! (she has been saying this all week, so it was perfect that she got a racetrack!)

WHEEEEE:


They also sent her two books:

"Wee Little Lamb" written by Lauren Thompson and illustrated by John Butler

"Quiet Bunny" by Lisa McCue
The illustrations in the two books are fabulous!
And here is my Favorite picture of the week:

Be sure to check out what everyone else did at totschool this week:
http://1plus1plus1equals1.blogspot.com/2009/04/tot-school-almost-back-to-normal.html

Return to Tot School!

Shelby Lynn (21 months)

We have been doing tot school, but I have not been taking pictures. This week I broke out the camera and got some great pics of what we did!

I made a felt board and cut out an apple tree and basket and the numbers 1-5 and we worked on taking off the apples off the tree and put in the basket. Shelby Lynn loves the felt board. Here is a great place to buy felt: http://www.discountschoolsupply.com/Product/ProductList.aspx?&keyword=felt and here is a good site to download templates for you felt board: http://www.childcareland.com/feltboard.html


Since we were studying apples we continued the theme at snack time. She enjoyed eating the whole apple so much that I had to stop her before she ate the core (I have since bought a corer!)


We also worked on sorting shapes this week. She was able to put the correct shapes in for the first time, but a couple of times got frustrated and just opened the top and threw them in!
She now recognizes and can name: square, circle, star and heart. I think triangle is just too much of a mouth full.


We also planted flowers and this week and Shelby Lynn learned about watering them.


She did good, but sometimes the water didn't quite make it to the flowers. She also enjoyed digging in the dirt.





While we were outside we colored with sidewalk chalk. She likes to take the pieces out of the bucket and put them back in more than actually coloring with them. She loves carrying around the little bucket as well.
She also found a way to incorporate our shape lessons...she found some blocks of wood in the garage and came carrying them out saying, "squares, squares!" She was very excited, she also kept calling them toys!







And I am not sure which totschool mom does this (if I can find out I will link to your blog) but I am going to include my favorite picture of the week and this week there was two!


While we were planting flowers the ice cream truck came by (I am so mad I didn't get a pic of the truck) and Shelby Lynn really enjoyed her dreamcicle!


When she saw the camera she started screaming, "CHEESE"! I am not sure where she learned this, because I had never told her to do it. Must be that disney channel, lol (shhhh don't tell but yes I let her watch a little t.v.) I think it reenforces some of the lessons we are learning such as shapes and numbers....speaking of which she counted to ten all by herself this week! I was shocked!

Be sure to go

HERE to see what others are learning in tot school!

A couple of cards

I have not posted any projects in awhile because we have been busy just having fun with Shelby Lynn, but I did get a couple of cards made. The first is a birthday/easter card I made for our friend Ellie and the second is a simple card that I made several of to have on hand!

Happy Easter!

Hope everyone had a great day...we did!





Eating cake and ice cream!

weight loss and sewing project

So I am kinda of off right now! But I forgot to post last week about my weight loss. I am doing the challenge for summer over at sisterhood of shrinking jeans ( be sure to click on the button on the right to check it out) and they do weigh ins every Wednesday. I have been kinda out of it lately and didn't weigh in until Friday and I lost 2.2lbs, yea me! I have been a bad blogger lately. I get so caught up in reading everyone else's blogs that I don't have time to update mine, lol!
I have been meaning to post about this project for a long time:
http://sewliberated.typepad.com/sew_liberated/2007/11/recycled-bath-m.html
This bath mat was so easy and fun to do and it was the first time I really used my sewing machine that I have had for over a year! Please be sure to visit her blog: sewliberated.typepad.com
it is a great one! Here is my attmept:

Pigtails for the first time!

I have been wanting to put Shelby Lynn's hair up in pigtails for a long time and it was finally successful the other. It took both Jay and I! He distracted her while I pulled the up; it definitely was a two person job!