Tot School

~Our little Lovebug is currently 20 months old~

We worked with lots of different learning toys this week, mainly focusing on fine motor skills and sensory experiences...

Our little lovebug worked with these connectors (I have no idea what they are called)...

She worked on a puzzle...

She worked with this fun wooden building toy that her brother loves :)

She build towers with our wooden blocks...

Megablocks were a big hit again this week as well...

I made an insect sensory box for the kids and both of them loved it...

We colored quite a bit this week...

We cut play dough...

And we spent lots and lots of time outside.

She still loves flowers and enjoys picking them :)

Preschool

Ladybug Theme

We continued our ladybug theme this week. We had started last week with a ladybug craft, which you can see more of HERE.

This week we talked a lot about ladybugs and I made some more pages for the science binder. I will share the pdf file here soon.

I also made a ladybug sensory box for the kids. I added our ladybug stones, aphids (from our ladybug game), petals (from Ikea, several years ago), and some foam shapes. The kids loved it. They are always big fans of sensory boxes :)

Fine Motor Activities...
We have been focusing a lot on fine motor activies lately. I made an additional sensory box for them, with many small beads. Smiley did lots and lots of pouring...

We strung cheerios on pipe cleaners (and then ate them)...

We put little magnets on cookie cutters...

We cut play dough...

We used scissors to cut the playdough. Cutting is still a bit difficult for Smiley, so we're working on building his grip strength :)

We drove our cars through the play dough...

Other Learning Activities...

We did quite a bit of arts and crafts this week. Here we made an underwater scene with lots of gluing...

We worked on puzzles...

Smiley is newly in love with his workbench. He's been working a lot with it lately....

Building towers...

Practical Life...
Smiley helped me make granola...

He cut strawberries and bananas for his breakfast...

He helped clean (we use vinegar mixed with water to clean)...

Outside FUN...
We typically spend at least an hour outside in the morning and another 1-2 hours in the afternoon. I thought I would share some pictures this week ;)

Smiley loves to ride his strider bike. He's doing such a great job with it. He is very fast and does a great job balancing...

muffin tin monday

We had a snacky-type of lunch today. Now that the weather is getting nicer and we're spending even more time outside, we often come home right around lunch time, starving. It has to go quick, and a lunch that can be put together in a hurry is just right :)

Small mozzarella balls, organic cherry tomatoes, seeweed (from trader joes),

beet salad, organic multigrain crackers, and organic hummus.

Can't wait to see what others had for lunch today :)

TOT School

~Our little lovebug is currently 20 months old~

Fine Motor/Visuo-spatial Skills:

We spent most of our week focusing on fine-motor skills, as well as visuo-spatial skills. An area I am working on with Smiley right now, but our lovebug was able to participate and benefit as well :)

She is a HUGE fan of megablocks right now and they were played with almost every day this past week. They are not only great for motor and visuo-spatial skills, but also for working on colors and counting. Our little lovebug is solid on blue, and pretty good with red, green and yellow. We're still working on pink, purple and orange :) A few weeks ago, she blew me away with her counting abilities. She is able to rote count to 11. She must have just picked it up from Smiley or one of us counting at times. It's not something we've focused on with her yet... Anyways, I am taking her current interest in counting and incorporate it in the actual counting of objects, such as the megablocks in one of her towers :)

We did a lot of sensory play this week. Both kids really enjoy doing this and it is so good for them :)

One of our fine motor activities this week included stringing cheerios on pipe cleaners. The kids thought this was a blast. They would string a few cheerios on the cleaners and then eat them ;) Play and snack in one!

I got our magnets and cookie cutters out this week and the kids had fun decorating the cookie cutters with the magnets. Most of our cookie cutters are Christmas themed, so I will have to remember to bring them back out in December for this activity. (not that the kids cared at all that it was completely the wrong time of year...).

To continue with our insect theme, we painted ladybug stones. Our little lovebug just loved this activity. We painted dry stones with red tempera paint (don't add water). 

Once the paint had dried, I let the kids go at it with a sharpie (no, I am not THAT brave. I used a plastic plate after I shot a couple of pictures and reminded myself that the sharpie in fact is permanent!).